JOHN HARVARD’S JOURNAL

Twenty-eighth, and First onored historian, seasoned scholar steeped in uni- related to sitting here in the first few rows”), she focused on the versities’ distinctive role, adept academic administra- most institutional of purposes. In the presence of nine of her for- Htor— forcefully took possession of mer teachers, from elementary through graduate school, and more her Harvard presidency during inaugural celebrations and a for- than 200 representatives of higher education from around the mal installation ceremony on October 11 and 12. She did so in world, she defined the essence of the university as being “uniquely striking language and imagery, telling the crowd in Tercentenary accountable to the past and to the future—not simply, or even pri- Theatre—their spirits unchilled by blustery rain showers— marily, to the present. A university is not about results in the next “Like a congregation at a wedding, you signify by your presence quarter; it is not even about who a student has become by gradua- a pledge of support for this marriage of a new president to a ven- tion.” Rather, she said, “A university looks both backwards and erable institution.” forwards in ways that must—and even ought to—conflict with a Although this was also a personal occasion (Faust said she was public’s immediate concerns and demands.” As “stewards of living “a little stunned to see almost every person in the world that I am tradition,” she said, universities “make commitments to the time-

54 November - December 2007 Photographs by Jim Harrison, unless otherwise noted DREW GILPIN FAUST Friday October 12, 2007

less,” endeavors pursued “because they define what has, over cen- The Pan-African Dance and Music Ensemble turies, made us human, not because they can enhance our global gives Drew Gilpin Faust, attired in Harvard’s presidential gown, a raucous welcome. President emeritus and James R. competitiveness.” As agents of uncomfortable change, accountable Houghton, Senior Fellow of the Harvard Corporation, follow to the future, “universities nurture a culture of restlessness and her in the procession into Tercentenary Theatre. even unruliness.…transforming individuals as they learn, trans- forming the world as our inquiries alter our understanding of it, “For the first time in 371 years, Harvard has chosen as its presi- transforming societies as we see our knowledge translated into dent…a Southerner,” she said, with perfect timing, to laughter policies” and new therapies. And she arranged three times—in her and cheers, “and a woman”—a development in which “Cotton own address (see page 60), and twice in readings by relatives—to Mather, Harvard class of 1678, would surely see Satan’s hand.” invoke the most deeply rooted American beliefs in community and Faust subsequently acknowledged the obvious (“My presence in progress, to enlist engaged, energetic, and accountable member- here today—and indeed that of many others on this platform— ship in the Harvard community. would have been unimaginable even a few short years ago”), but For the most part, it was others who pointed out how extraor- promptly used her individual status to punctuate her point dinary the installation of the University’s twenty-eighth presi- about the institution (“Those who charge that universities are dent was. Amy Gutmann ’71, Ph.D. ’76, now president of the Uni- unable to change should take note of this transformation, of how versity of Pennsylvania, extended greetings from academia to di≠erent we are from universities even of the mid twentieth cen- Faust, who earned her master’s and doctoral degrees from Penn. tury”). Although Faust chose to focus on academia generally,

The decorative border comes from the Harvard Charter of 1650; the charter motif illustrated invitations to the 2007 installation Harvard Magazine 55 ceremonies. An image of the document and transcription of the text are available at http://hul.harvard.edu/huarc/charter.html. Photograph courtesy of the Archives INSTALLATION

Gutmann limned Harvard’s distinctive role and al- Lest any doubt linger about the aims of this community, as op- luded to Al Gore Jr. ’69, LL.D. ’94, who hours earlier posed to Winthrop’s, Faust’s stepdaughter, Leah Rosenberg, read had been named co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. the final paragraph of Abraham Lincoln’s Address before the Wis- Speaking for the faculty, Sidney Verba, Pforzheimer consin State Agricultural Society, on September 30, 1859—then, University Professor and director of the Harvard University as now, at the harvest time of year. It ends: “Let us hope…that by Library emeritus, pointed to the practical challenge of running the the best cultivation of place, given that “somehow the disparate and independent parts the physical world, be- of the University must be made to constitute a whole.” Perhaps al- neath us and around luding to the turbulent presidency of Lawrence H. Summers, us; and the intellectual which had ended 16 months before, Verba said Harvard’s leader and moral world with- must be able “to work with, listen to, appreciate, and understand in us, we shall secure the many voices that are raised [here]. To persuade, rather than to an individual, social, command….”Among University constituencies, he said, the faculty and political prosperity is “the most varied in its views.… But I doubt that I have ever seen and happiness, whose the faculty as united as it is in welcoming President Faust.” course shall be onward For her part, in service of and upward, and which, today and the future, Faust while the earth endures, mined deeper history. Among shall not pass away.” the readings she chose for the Service of Thanksgiving Like any ritual, of for a New President, con- course, an inaugura- ducted Friday morning in tion is not all spinach. Memorial Church, was the Alongside the rhetoric conclusion of “A New Mod- there is rigmarole. Sub- ell of Christian Charity,” stance is addressed head on, Governor ’s but also symbolized. 1630 instruction to Before Faust heard Verba’s the settlers of the sober advice, she had help of Massachusetts Bay a di≠erent sort. During the Colony, composed Musical Prelude to an Inau- aboard the Arbella. guration, held on Thursday The paragraphs, read evening in Sanders Theatre, by her cousin Jack John Lithgow ’67, Ar.D. ’05,

Gilpin ’73, famously JON CHASE/HARVARD NEWS OFFICE introduced “a primer on the proclaim the new set- Clockwise from top: Meter maid finer points of leadership”— tlement “as a city up- Gertrude (Karen MacDonald) issues from Hollywood. Je≠rey Mel- an inaugural ticket; Tyson (left) and on a hill.” Crucially, Lili Gilpin dispense leadership voin ’75 confected a pastiche then as now, Win- advice from Dr. Seuss to their of film clips, billed as an Ille- throp defined this en- “brainy” aunt; Drew Faust thanks gitimi Non Carborundum Kuumba Singers after the Thursday terprise as “work we “musical prelude”; Alison Brown in Production, o≠ering sugges- have undertaken,” the her post-Hist and Lit career. tions from the likes of Grou- success of which re- cho Marx (on sustaining col- quired its members, voluntarily associated, to “entertain each lege athletics) and on topics such as supporting the arts other in brotherly a≠ection. We must be willing to abridge our- (soothing Frankenstein’s primal rage with violin music). The selves of our superfluities, for the supply of others’ necessities. next morning, sixth- and second-graders Lili and Tyson Gilpin We must uphold a familiar commerce together in all meekness, (the president’s nieces) charmed the Memorial Church audience; gentleness, patience, and liberality. We must delight in each the girls, supported by their father, Lawrence Gilpin, and Jessica other; make others’ conditions our own…always having before our Rosenberg ’04 (the daughter of President Faust and her husband, eyes our commission and community in the work, as members of Charles Rosenberg, Monrad professor of the social sciences), de- the same body. So shall we keep the claimed from Oh, the Places You’ll Go! The unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.” Installation Extras Dr. Seuss classic warns, “You’ll get mixed In an abbreviated way, Faust summoned Audio recordings of the morning Service up, of course,/as you already know./ that spirit in her own address, twice of Thanksgiving, held in the Memorial You’ll get mixed up/with many strange quoting from the same passage Win- Church, and of the afternoon installation birds as you go” and wisely counsels, throp’s call to the settlers to be “knitt to- exercises, in Tercentenary Theatre, are “Just never forget to be dexterous and gether, in this work, as one….” available at www.harvardmagazine.com, deft./And never mix up your right foot with additional photographs. 56 November - December 2007 DREW GILPIN FAUST Friday October 12, 2007

with your left.” Earlier in the week, opening an archival exhibi- The design of the installation invitations featured the Charter of tion on Harvard presidents, University Library director Robert 1650, befitting an historian president, but they were printed on Darnton quoted ’s 1769 deathbed comment, “If “100% post-consumer waste paper with soy inks.” Visitors to the any man wishes to be humbled and mortified, let him become exhibition of Kara Walker’s Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War president of Harvard College”—and assured Faust, “These re- (Annotated) at the Fogg Art Museum (Faust will give a gallery talk marks do not apply to women.” on November 2) are invited to comment at a Facebook.com group. Self-deprecating Harvard humor was in vogue. During the con- Complementing the webcast of the installation exercises, the pro- cert, Alison Brown ’84 recalled that she was a Hist and Lit concen- ceedings were available, reported the News O∞ce, by downlink trator and noted, “You can imagine how excited my parents were from Satellite Galaxy 17, transpon- when I told them I wanted to be a professional banjo player.” Talk- der 6, using frequency 11820.0000 ing about herself and Pink Martini founder and fellow member and “vertical polarization.” Thomas M. Lauderdale ’92, singer China Forbes ’92 said if she As for symbols, Faust made a seemed nervous, it was because “the last time I was in this room, I major statement about the Univer- was failing Ec 10.” (The sity by inviting each of her living next afternoon, Faust predecessors—Derek Bok (1971- characterized inau- 1991, 2006-2007), Neil L. Ruden- gural speeches as “pro- stine (1991-2001), and Summers nouncements by indi- (2001-2006)—to be seated at cen- viduals who don’t yet ter stage, and set a precedent by know what they are having them confer some of the talking about,” or “ex- symbols of o∞ce. In a “We Three pressions of hope un- Kings” moment, Bok handed forth chastened by the rod two silver keys, Rudenstine the of experience.”) earliest College record book, Sum- Further tweaking ROSE LINCOLN/HARVARD NEWS OFFICE mers the Harvard the pomp in these circum- seals. Then Frances stances, Karen MacDon- D. Fergusson, pres- ald, lecturer on dramatic ident of the Board arts, of the American Rep- of Overseers, and ertory Theatre, burst into Senior Fellow of the Sanders proceedings the Harvard Cor- in the role of Gertrude, an poration James R. implacable Cambridge Houghton formally meter maid outraged by invested her in the an illegally parked car. In- o∞ce, Houghton formed that it was the presenting the final president’s, she loudly Clockwise from top: A Red symbol, a replica of queried about the missing Sox fan shows her fervor for the Charter of 1650. (president) Drew, No. 28, “1636” license plate (recent- with a nod to another The Overseers and ly reassigned to a Harvard Southerner, right fielder J.D. Corporation mem- van; the black presidential Drew (No. 7); the Pan-African Dance bers, minus Robert E. Rubin, looked on from the stage. and Music Ensemble’s stage-front moves; Lincoln is no longer seen) stylish color coordination; with skies Faust set a further precedent by inviting a University sta≠ and expressed astonish- gray and leaves as yet unturned, member to present one of the formal greetings. (As chair of a ment that the incumbent visiting academic leaders’ and faculty Committee on University Life at Penn in the 1980s, she had criti- was now a woman—be- members’ rainbow robes provide most cized the “incivility” of students and faculty toward sta≠ mem- of the day’s colors. fore wading into the au- bers.) Beverly Blake Sullivan, associate director of the Harvard dience to honor Faust with her first parking ticket in her august Alumni Association Board of Directors, with 38 years of Univer- new o∞ce. sity service, spoke of the nearly 13,000 sta≠ members as an “ex- There were sly references to the new president’s preferred ceptionally talented group of people” who “seek knowledge and manner of dress. Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, Litt.D. ’89, who look for solutions. We are proactive, and daily we strive to main- gave a reading from a work “very, very, very much in progress” on tain the highest standards to help Harvard realize its transfor- Thursday afternoon, remembered when women could not wear mative potential.” pants to work; “This seems like a triumph,” she said. An early And at the end of the day’s work, a color guard of Harvard clip in Melvoin’s video featured a rebellious Southern girl at the ROTC cadets led the recessional. breakfast table, protesting at having to wear a “darn old dress.” But unmistakably the farthest-reaching symbolism sprang Other signs that this was the twenty-first century abounded. from Faust’s own experience growing up in the segregated South,

Harvard Magazine 57 INSTALLATION

as a participant in the civil-rights movement, and as a scholar of ber 12, she found such lists “too constraining.” Nonetheless, in the disfiguring wounds of racial division in America. Beyond Toni the events surrounding the installation exercises, and by her ac- Morrison’s reading—about a slave girl enmeshed in the mounting tions since assuming o∞ce on July 1, she has in fact given many witch terrors of 1690—and Kara Walker’s unsettling prints, the signs of her substantive agenda. Sanders Theatre concert began with the rousing Kuumba Singers In five faculty symposia on Friday morning, Harvard scholars and ended with saxophonist Joshua Redman ’91 (and three Har- wrestled with issues of intellectual moment and of focused inter- vard sidemen) filling the hall with jazz of sonic-boom intensity. est to the president and the wider institution. At “The Arts of Carla Ann Harris ’84, M.B.A. ’87, of Interpretation: Whose Meaning Is It Anyway?” Homi K. Bhabha, Morgan Stanley and Harlem’s St. Rothenberg professor of the humanities, moderated a discussion Charles Gospelites choir, sang “Pre- on the ways we extract meaning from texts, maps, music, and art cious Lord, Take My Hand” in works—and the ambiguities that doing so entails. Using ob- Memorial Church Friday morning. jects ranging from a 1540s Mexican codex to a contemporary For the afternoon exercises, the ex- photograph, the panelists explored the problems of teasing uberant Harvard College Pan- apart myth and his- African Dance and Music Ensemble tory in an old paint- escorted Faust and her presidential ing, works’ political party into Tercentenary Theatre. subtexts, and the var- The penultimate song, before the ied ways in which a throng gave voice to “Fair Harvard,” perceiver “completes” was a rendition of “Amazing Grace” an art work. by Simon Estes. In “Decisions, Deci- The first individual Faust identi- sions: Health, Wealth, fied in her speech was John Hope Happiness, and Neu- Franklin, Ph.D. ’41, LL.D. ’81, the pio- robiology,” scholars neering historian of race in America. in business, econom- In his autobiography, ics, medicine, psychol- Mirror to America (2005), ogy, and public health exam- Franklin wrote about ined rationality, emotion, and Arthur M. Schlesinger the cognitive components of and Paul H. Buck, the making complex decisions— faculty members who and the implications for championed his stud- training doctors, investing for ies at Harvard—but retirement, or waging war. also of the segregated “Innovation and Impact: Sci- housing available to ence and Engineering Today him, the waiters who and Tomorrow” brought to- refused dinner service, gether experts in life scien- the teaching assign- ces, physics, and infectious ments that never came, Clockwise from top right: diseases. Among their com- Former Faculty of Arts and the crude anti- and Sciences dean Jeremy mon concerns, articulated by Semitism visited on R. Knowles, who has Cabot professor of the nat- fellow-student Oscar been ill, and Jane Knowles ural sciences Douglas Melton, Handlin. In his own re- rise for the occasion, was the need for Harvard to in song; Beverly Blake Sullivan marks, Franklin said, “One cannot read Drew Faust’s Mothers of In- speaks for Harvard's “exceptionally become as good in teaching vention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War without talented” staff; a presidential science to undergraduates as appreciating not merely her talents as a first-rate historian, but her embrace for John Hope Franklin; it is in conducting scientific enormous gifts as a close student of the human condition and her “living statue” Joe Pari memorial- research. izes John Harvard, in the 400th deep commitment to its radical improvement. One cannot read her year of his birth, at the luncheon During the discussion on similar biography of James Henry Hammond, the pro-slavery fire- in Annenberg Hall. “Inequality and Justice in the brand, without gaining a fresh view of the fickleness, fragility, and Twenty-First Century,” led hopelessness of the slave society itself, and beyond that, the impos- by Gottlieb professor of law Elizabeth Warren, associate profes- sibility even of attempting to build a strong society out of the false sor of education and economics Bridget Terry Long said universi- and phony relationships that characterized it.” ties, as society’s gatekeepers, have to “acknowledge our own role in creating inequality.” Prescriptions ranged from fostering di- “Often inaugural addresses contain lists—of a new presi- rect service, such as in healthcare, to crafting policies through dent’s specific goals or programs,” Faust observed, but on Octo- which society “can have less [inequality] than there is now,” ac-

58 November - December 2007 DREW GILPIN FAUST Friday October 12, 2007

cording to Christopher Jencks, Wiener professor of social policy. cial scientists, much like the new Harvard University In the panel on “War and Truth”—of great moment, and the Science and Engineering Committee; and to establish subject of Faust’s forthcoming book on death in the Civil War— the University’s relationships with its local communi- MacArthur Fellow Jonathan Shay ’63, a psychiatrist who treats ties on a new footing. Those initiatives must meld with combat veterans with severe psychological trauma, said tortur- academic planning, Allston physical and construction plan- ers are produced by training in which they are themselves tor- ning, visions for use of the University’s financial resources, and tured. Though some participants proposed that news trans- ambitions that require future fundraising. mitted by the Internet would How all those ventures un- counter the prevalence of fold depends, in part, on the atrocity, Tisch professor of Harvard community’s determi- history Niall Ferguson cau- nation to “knitt together” with tioned that humans seem to each other and with the new have an innate capacity for vi- president. In an unexpected olence—and that young men ending to her installation ad- in many parts of the world dress, Faust reached into his- were avid consumers of “war- tory a final time, to suggest the ography.” way to the academic future. Such urgent and interdis- “Last week,” she said, “I was ciplinary conversations are given a brown manila envelope the very stu≠ that had been entrusted to of the freewheel- the University Archives in ing, creative work 1951 by James B. Conant, that has come Harvard’s twenty-third to characterize president. He left instruc- the Radcli≠e In- tions that it should be stitute for Ad- opened by the Harvard vanced Study, of president at the outset of which Faust was the next century ‘and not founding dean before.’” Within she found prior to being “a remarkable letter from chosen as presi- my predecessor. It was ad- dent. In a letter dressed to ‘My dear Sir.’ sent to the Uni- Conant wrote with a sense versity community at the of imminent danger. He beginning of the academic feared an impending World year, she wrote of “oppor- War III that would make, tunities not just to ad- as he put it, ‘the destruc- vance our e≠orts in dis- tion of our cities including crete fields, but to work Cambridge quite possi- to become a university Clockwise from top: Past presidents ble.’…But as he imagined known more for bridges Derek Bok, Neil L. Rudenstine, and Harvard’s future, Conant Lawrence H. Summers, with Harvard’s and less for walls,” and ceremonial silver; Penn president shifted from foreboding to described her decanal ap- Amy Gutmann hails her new Ivy faith. If the ‘prophets of pointees as “all shar[ing] League peer, cheering “Brava, Fair doom’ proved wrong, if Harvard! Bravissima to Drew Gilpin a commitment…not only to the success of their own faculties and Faust!” Sandra M. Cameron ’09 there was a Harvard presi- schools, but to the future of Harvard as a whole.” John Winthrop plays part of J.S. Bach’s Partita no. 3, dent alive to read his let- would approve. On September 20, at the launch of the School of as University Marshal Jackie O’Neill, ter, Conant was confident Engineering and Applied Sciences, Faust spoke of engineers as who planned and ran the ceremonies, about what the University listens. President of the Overseers builders of bridges; she envisioned bridges between basic and Frances D. Fergusson and Faust. would be. He wrote, ‘You applied science, among technology and ethics and public policy, will receive this note and and among Harvard’s schools and industry and the larger world. be in charge of a more prosperous and significant institution than In his remarks welcoming Faust to her presidency, Massachu- the one over which I have the honor to preside.…That…[Harvard] setts governor Deval L. Patrick ’78, J.D. ’82, urged her to “lean for- will maintain the traditions of academic freedom, of tolerance ward.” That she will certainly do, soon, enlisting faculty members for heresy, I feel sure,’” Faust read. “We must dedicate ourselves and others in e≠orts to think broadly about Harvard’s opportuni- to making certain he continues to be right; we must share and ties in the arts and performance; to build connections among so- sustain his faith.”

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