Exclusive: Mayor Marty Walsh makes secret guest appearance on campus

‘Listen, if you see a BC ID, let them go’

In the last 90 days Mayor Marty Walsh has met with the U.S. Attorney General, the President of the United States, and the Pope.

Last night he rounded out his world tour by meeting BC students at Professor Preskenis’s Marketing Principles Class.

Mayor Marty was in gregarious form returning to his alma mater, where he graduated from Woods College of Advancing Studies 2009.

Addressing a room of undergrads in Fulton Hall, Marty reminisced about his college experience, discussed university culture in Boston, and his battle plan for the upcoming winter.

Mayor Walsh earned his degree in Political Science here at BC, and when he first walked into the Fulton classroom he said: “Walking through the door I actually missed school, thinking ‘Oh my God, I was dying to graduate because I was older.'”

Mayor Marty showing off his alma mater

Making light of his extended education, he joked that whereas it takes us four years to graduate, “it took me about 24 years.” He dropped out of Suffolk long before coming to BC.

The mayor shared one of his fondest memories at BC: a Statistics class with Professor Hogan, where he sat next to – and frequently compared homework notes with – a 71-year-old woman.

The woman had very bad hearing so Marty would constantly have to whisper anything important that she missed or recap the professor’s lecture for her, and the two were frequently being yelled at for talking in class.

Aside from his unique stats class study buddy, the Mayor said the two most rewarding courses he took while at BC were his Creative Writing class with Professor Murphy and, surprisingly enough, his French Literature class.

He talked about his attempts to market the many strengths of the city to the rest of the global world. The Mayor described Boston as a unique, thriving, and youthful city because it is home to over 100 colleges and universities, which means “we’re the youngest per capita city.”

One of his goals is to bring more opportunities for jobs in Boston, in order to attract younger students to stay in the city after graduation. He mentioned how Mark Zuckerberg originally started Facebook in Boston, but moved the headquarters away from the East Coast. Marty said: “I don’t want that story to repeat itself.”

The mayor said the city’s transportation network was the only thing stopping it from putting forward a strong Olympic bid. He said having a “a very efficient, clean and new MBTA system” would have been needed for a bid to be successful.

Yet, the Olympic bid process was “a great opportunity [for Boston] to be seen on a global scale.”

The Mayor said when he asked some committee members why Boston had won the US bidding process, they said “because you came in here and sold Boston as a growing city, an old city, but a growing one.”

Mayor Walsh in Fulton Hall with Professor Preskenis

The mayor has been in post for almost two years, having assumed office in January 2014. On his first day in office he tried to pass legislation that would keep Boston bars open until 3 am.

Walsh said he is working closely with Father Leahy to come up with a building plan for new dorms to accommodate more students on-campus.

The mayor has a strict four-person per unit rule in off-campus houses, which is often ignored by landlords to college students. To combat this, he says he is trying to reduce the number of students living off-campus both to increase safety, as well as the amount of affordable housing for low-income families.

Walsh promises Boston will function this winter regardless of how much snow we get. The city has purchased two snow boats, like the ones Montreal uses, that remove all snow from the streets instead of piling it up like snow plows do.

Despite Uber’s strong presence in Boston – the company recently claimed to have signed up more than a fifth of the city’s 6,400 licensed cabbies – the mayor says he has never taken a ride with one of the company’s cars in his city. He told students he has only taken one Uber in his life – from NYC’s Penn Station, when the yellow taxi cab line was too long.

The mayor left his student audience with some life advice, including to always listen, to give people their time and attention, and not to judge too quickly. He encouraged the class to remember that their opinions might change over time.

When the mayor asked students where Boston can improve, one student raised the strict enforcement of the drinking age around college campuses, especially at BC. The mayor laughed and pointed out that he can’t just tell an officer: “Listen, if you see a BC ID, let them go.”

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