Some of the cornerstones of life at Boston College can be easy to overlook. But when one of them is pulled from under your feet, it is hard to imagine what could replace it.
Linda Reams, senior receptionist in the office of undergraduate admissions, was one of these cornerstones. For almost five decades, her welcoming smile put generations of prospective students at ease, and her retirement over the past summer has meant a long, bittersweet goodbye.
“I had the best job on campus because I got to meet all these terrific people, and for the kids that became BC students, I get to be a part of their life and watch them grow up,” Reams said. “And that’s something that jobs usually don’t give you.”
Reams had been working at an advertising agency before coming to BC, and initially planned to stay only three years before falling in love with the job and the people at it.
“I love my staff because they are the hardest working people you’ll ever want to meet in your life,” Reams said. “I mean, these people travel. They get back, they read applications and everything’s handwritten. People think like, you know, they go through and they just say, ‘Oops, okay, we’ll take this one,’ but they hand read everything that comes in an application.”
With a dedicated staff, it was hard not for Reams to love the people around her. In return, they’ve cared for her during difficult times in her life, extending the same concern she has shown for every visitor to BC as she dealt with a painful loss.
“When my younger brother passed, I wasn’t going to come back to BC,” Reams said. “I took a little bit of time off, and it was the kids at BC that had me come back, because my younger brother was the same age as BC kids. He was my baby. I wasn’t sure I could work with kids again, or work with students that were my brother’s age.”
But Reams had developed a strong connection with the Student Admissions Program members through their close proximity, and it was their care that helped her to return after the death of her brother.
“They just brought me back, and they became my kids, all the kids in the Student Admissions Program. They’re my babies,” Reams said. You know, my bosses laugh at that. I had one supervisor years ago that said you can’t call them your babies. And I said, ‘you tell them that.’”
Grant Gosselin, dean of undergraduate admissions and financial aid, was once a part of SAP himself, and became head coordinator in his senior year. He worked with Reams throughout his undergraduate career, and noted her presence as a source of support for many students working in admissions.
“There would be times when a guest might have asked a challenging question that I wasn’t quite sure how to answer, and Linda was always there as a kind of safeguard to turn to,” Gosselin said. “Just listening to how she would approach a difficult question allowed me to become stronger as I was learning how to talk about Boston College in my early years.”
Adults too, like Chris O’Brien, an associate director of admissions, found Reams capable of putting their nerves at ease. O’Brien described walking in for his job interview and meeting Reams at the front desk.
“The person interviewing me, who was the director of admissions here for years and years, was a legend,” O’Brien said. “I was really nervous, but she had the Boston accent, and a huge smile on her face. She totally calmed me down. She asked where I was from. Next thing I knew, I was talking to someone from my neighborhood, and got the interview, crushed it, and ended up working with her.”
Through her decades of work for the admissions office, Reams witnessed the many changes that occurred on campus, but changes occurred in her personal life as well.
She converted to Islam several decades ago, and she wasn’t sure how the change would be perceived by others in the office. The change was integral to who she was, though, and couldn’t be ignored.
“I was willing to put my job on the line for it,” Reams said. “I was a little hesitant, but, you know, I approached [Father Leahy] and just said, ‘Look, this is what I’m doing. This is who I am. It’s taken me eight years.’”
Despite occasionally experiencing difficult exchanges with visitors, Reams was embraced by the University and her fellow staff.
“I’m not saying that I haven’t had days when people have said, you know, ‘What are you?” Reams said. “I had somebody who was very affluent come to me and say, ‘Well, how’d that happen?”
But these moments weren’t even the most difficult for Reams. The hardest part of her job, she said, was navigating the emotions of rejected students and their parents.
“I’m biased—our kids are the best of the best,” Reams said. “And I don’t just mean grade wise. Our staff is very selective about the kids that they bring in, and we can’t accept everybody. They’re looking for students that exemplify the Jesuit men and women for others, and you see that from the kids that are in Messina, in MCAS, all over campus.”
Reams noted the disappointment felt not just by students, but by their highly dedicated parents, sometimes bringing challenging conversations into the Admissions lobby.
“I think being a parent myself, people don’t like to hear no, your child isn’t accepted. Because we all love our kids. We all want the best for our kids,” Reams said. “And you know, BC is no cheap date, it’s a lot of money, and when parents are willing to do that, and their kids still get it denied, they take it personal.”
Along the way, Reams has learned that every kid’s future looks different, and sometimes helping applicants to understand their own needs alleviates the disappointment of rejection. While many enter with questions of their worthiness, Reams’ understanding of the big picture helps her change their mindset.
“She sort of took that anxiety on its side and said, ‘You have many things to offer,’” O’Brien said. “‘Is this the right place for you to be?’ She never let people feel like an imposter just because of what they read about our statistics, how hard it was to get in, or how expensive it was.”
When it came time for Reams to leave, her wide-reaching impact was transformed into a physical network of her contacts across campus, creating a web of everyone whose lives were touched by her friendship.
“We spent a lot of time in her last year cataloging her network, so that her successor, Eliza, would have that resource to be able to kind of know who to reach out to when we needed. But you know, Linda had that instinctual nature about her. She knew the custodian, she knew the grounds crew. She knew people in faculty offices,” Gosselin said. “She really was just a relationship building person in her work.”
So far, retirement has meant enjoying time at home with her husband and outside in nature. But Reams still thinks fondly of her BC family.
“But yeah, I miss my staff too,” Reams said. “I miss not seeing the people that I work with because they’re like my family. I think five or six of our staff used to be our student admissions people, and I’ve seen them all grow up. So how’s that? Sounds like I’m a proud mummy.”
For Reams, the job was always about the people, and those relationships will follow her into her retirement.
“I don’t remember last names a lot, but I remember faces,” Reams said. “And they come in and all of a sudden they’re married and they have a child applying to BC, and they look a little whiter and a little bit more gray, but I still think, ‘Oh my God, that’s one of my babies.’ I’ve had a lot of tearful moments at that front desk.”