ST. MARY'S HALL AT BC TO BECOME A JESUIT STUDIES CENTER

The Jesuit community at Boston College will turn St. Mary's Hall, the religious order's residence that commands the Heights at Chestnut Hill, into a Jesuit Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies.

The Jesuits, who founded the nation's largest Catholic university in 1863 and turned it over to lay trustees in 1968, also will donate $1.5 million toward a $3 million endowment for the institute, BC officials said last week.

The project originated in the university's own self-study, beginning in the early 1970s, but it also responds to Vatican demands on American Catholic…