Engineering the Atmosphere?

Home , David Esterly, Don Rickles, Harvard Design Magazine, Inner Child (Fringe), Jim Harrison (cricketer), Lionel de Jersey Harvard

Master Woodcarver • Commencement • The Euro Crisis

July-August 2013 • $4.95

Engineering the Atmosphere? Responding to climate change 130719_MorganStanley.indd 1 29310075_Anthem_16.25x10.5_Rev.2_1.indd Cyan MagentaCyan Yellow Black AnA And we’re And ready workto for you. There is a pursuit we all share. A better life for your for life better A share. all we pursuit a is ThereTh a ad rss w hv nvr tpe hlig our helping stopped never have we crisis, and war waw legacy to leave the world. For over 75 years, through through years, 75 over For world. the leave to legacy better business,a your for opportunity better family,a lo lega fa long as we stay true to these principles, the promise of promiseprinciples, the these to true stay we as long to o rn isgt oeey netet itliec to intelligence investment, every to insight bring to let succeed clients ca ev cl capitalism will always prosper. We are Morgan Stanley.prosper. Morgan always Weare will capitalism as Because plan. every to integrity and trade every n iei ng mi pi er d er b r ntn ta cy ri as as y we ly,a e an s ngn li t tr is a is sm su d ’r we o ad ins e re be cc d cr le w s e p tter ee av is ta ur ig ad il an is, d y e l ht su y o al d - tr th t to we pp it waw ue in and succeed the right way. Striving Striving way. right the succeed and a e o p w w oro nd te h to ysy wo ev e oro gr tu o p av suc er al rl th k ro ni it e d. y l fo es y tyt sp morganstanley.com/wealthmorg sh ce nen inve r F e to for er yo or ar ed pr ve eve d . an o e. u. st We in r y t st he ve me A ou ci sts an ry a r pl op b le r r nt re 75 ete ig es p y.y bu ped , M la u coc ht te y , in sis th n. m/ r w ea h or ne te a e li he we rsr B ga ay llig fe ss, pr e ece al lp , . n p om th th f St au a in ence or m St ro be ri g isi an se i y vi ug e tt ou our our a to to le g ngn er of of h y.y s r

5/30/13 1:56PM © 2013 Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC. Member SIPC. CRC660528 06/13 70792 130719_MorganStanley.indd 1 29310075_Anthem_16.25x10.5_Rev.2_1.indd Cyan MagentaCyan Yellow Black AnA And we’re And ready workto for you. There is a pursuit we all share. A better life for your for life better A share. all we pursuit a is ThereTh a ad rss w hv nvr tpe hlig our helping stopped never have we crisis, and war waw legacy to leave the world. For over 75 years, through through years, 75 over For world. the leave to legacy better business,a your for opportunity better family,a lo lega fa long as we stay true to these principles, the promise of promiseprinciples, the these to true stay we as long to o rn isgt oeey netet itliec to intelligence investment, every to insight bring to let succeed clients ca ev cl capitalism will always prosper. We are Morgan Stanley.prosper. Morgan always Weare will capitalism as Because plan. every to integrity and trade every n iei ng mi pi er d er b r ntn ta cy ri as as y we ly,a e an s ngn li t tr is a is sm su d ’r we o ad ins e re be cc d cr le w s e p tter ee av is ta ur ig ad il an is, d y e l ht su y o al d - tr th t to we pp it waw ue in and succeed the right way. Striving Striving way. right the succeed and a e o p w w oro nd te h to ysy wo ev e oro gr tu o p av suc er al rl th k ro ni it e d. y l fo es y tyt sp morganstanley.com/wealthmorg sh ce nen inve r F e to for er yo or ar ed pr ve eve d . an o e. u. st We in r y t st he ve me A ou ci sts an ry a r pl op b le r r nt re 75 ete ig es p y.y bu ped , M la u coc ht te y , in sis th n. m/ r w ea h or ne te a e li he we rsr B ga ay llig fe ss, pr e ece al lp , . n p om th th f St au a in ence or m St ro be ri g isi an se i y vi ug e tt ou our our a to to le g ngn er of of h y.y s r

motivatedmotivated to tackle to tacklebig challenges big challenges facing facing communities around thecommunities world around the world

with witha successful a successful track track record record of 20-25 of 20-25 years years of accomplishmentsof accomplishments in their in primary their primary career career

recognizingrecognizing the the value value of of engaging re-engaging with with Harvard Harvard to prepareto prepare for their for their next next phase phase of life’s of life’s work work

The AdvancedThe Advanced Leadership Leadership Initiative Initiative is a year is aof year education, of education, reflection, reflection, and student mentoringand student led mentoringby a unique led collaboration by a unique collaborationof award-winning of award-winning Harvard faculty Harvard from acrossfaculty professional from across schools. professional The program schools. is Thededicated program to iseducating dedicated and to deployingeducating a new forceand of deploying experienced, a new innovative force of experienced, leaders who innovative want to address leaders challenging who want to global address challengingand national global problems. and national Inquire problems. now for Inquire 2013. now for 2014.

VisitVisit the the website website toto be inspired by the possibilities: advancedleadership.harvard.eduadvancedleadership.harvard.edu oror email email the the program fellowship manager: director: [email protected] [email protected]

harvard university advanced leadership initiative

1301_AdvancedLeadership_Harvard.indd 1 11/26/12 9:45 AM

Untitled-1 1 11/30/11 2:27 PM july-august 2013 Volume 115, number 6

features 24 Forum: Anatomy of the Euro Crisis osner

tu R The political and economic origins of the continent’s gridlock—and S page 40 continuing problems by Peter A. Hall departments 28 Vita: Albert Bigelow 4 7 Ware Street Brief life of an ardent pacifst: 1906-1993 6 The View from Mass Hall by Steven Slosberg 7 Cambridge 02138 Communications from our readers 30 The Art of Subtraction 9 Right Now Master woodcarver David Esterly Mapping neural circuits, how memory predicts social behavior, innovative finance revives a nearly lost art for social solutions by Craig Lambert 12A New England Regional Section Summer seasonal events, historic house Buffering the Sun museums, and post-Puritan cuisine 36 David Keith explores ways to counteract courtesy of esterly david 13 Montage page 30 global warming, while taking scientifc A literary garden, Harvard Square in expat fiction, on critical reading, natural and policy concerns into account landscaping in urban China, learn- by Erin O’Donnell ing to navigate without a smartphone, screenwriting how-to, Jewish humor analyzed, and more 40 John Harvard’s Journal 63 The Alumni Sober sentiments and a celebrity hug-fest at the Oceans advocate, fiftieth-reunion time 362nd Commencement. Plus the Law School’s capsule, Harvard Medalists, distinguished Ph.D.s, oldest grads, and more upper-level oasis, conferring about learning, from 68 The College Pump Russian studies to union ranks, online education A Theory of Justice: the musical- in overdrive, faculty questions about governance, comedy version—and the class of ’44 e-mail inquiries, Teddy Roosevelt: the archives, 76 Treasure reengineering drug discovery, M.B.A. “girls,” Time, by the beach interim Education School dean, the Undergradu- 69 Crimson Classiﬁeds ate’s Harvard mix tape, phasing out the primate On the cover: Photograph by Jim Harrison center, and the crimson Cricket Club C orbis © popicinio/ D emotix/

page 24 www.harvardmagazine.com

7 Ware Street

editor: John S. Rosenberg publisher: Irina Kuksin

senior editor: Jean Martin director of circulation and Bench fundraising Felecia Carter managing editor: Jonathan S. Shaw : donor relations and stewardship deputy editor: Craig Lambert manager: Allison Kern associate editor: Peter Vigneron Strength director of advertising: assistant editor-online: Laura Levis Robert D. Fitta assistant editor: Nell Porter Brown new england advertising manager: hree deanships concluded this art director: Jennifer Carling Abby Shepard academic year: Kathleen McCart- classified advertising manager: ney departs the Graduate School berta greenwald ledecky Gretchen Bostrom undergraduate fellows of Education to become president designer and integrated marketing T Cherone Duggan, Kathryn C. Reed of Smith College; Michael Shinagel retires manager: Jennifer Beaumont as dean of continuing education and Uni- versity extension; and Harvard College dean editorial intern: Kristen Strezo production and new media Evelynn M. Hammonds announced on May manager: Mark Felton 28 that she would step down. Each opening contributing editors associate web developer: precipitated a long search for a successor; John T. Bethell, John de Cuevas, Jeffrey Hudecek two (the education school and the College) Adam Goodheart, Jim Harrison, gift processor and office manager: saw the appointment of an interim dean. Courtney Humphries, Christopher S. Robert Bonotto There are opportunities to plan for these Johnson, Adam Kirsch, Colleen Lannon, transitions by training faculty candidates Christopher Reed, Stu Rosner, ivy league magazine network for future promotion. As interim president Deborah Smullyan, Mark Steele director, sales and marketing: in the 2006-2007 academic year (service that Ross Garnick, www.ivymags.com could not have been planned for), Derek Bok harvard magazine inc. recalled that he paid special attention to this editorial and business office president: Henry Rosovsky, JF ’57, 7 Ware Street problem (see “Developing Deans, Calendar Ph.D. ’59, LL.D. ’98. directors: Suzanne Cambridge, Mass. 02138-4037 Consensus,” July-August 2007, page 60). Hav- Blier, Jonathan L.S. Byrnes, D.B.A. ’80, Tel. 617-495-5746; fax: 617-495-0324 ing characterized academic leadership as “a Robert Giles, NF ’66, Alex S. Jones, NF Website: www.harvardmagazine.com strange and baffling phenomenon,” he noted ’82, Thomas F. Kelly, Ph.D. ’73, E-mail: [email protected] that scholars are not selected for manage- Randolph C. Lindel ’66, Lars Peter ment skills. Their institutions do little suc- @harvardmagazine Knoth Madsen, Tamara Elliott Rogers ’74 cession planning. Those appointed to such facebook.com/harvardmagazine positions are often thrown into the job with no preparation or support—as he was (Bok Board of Incorporators Harvard Magazine (ISSN 0095-2427) is published bi- monthly by Harvard Magazine Inc., a nonprofit cor- became Harvard Law School dean at age This magazine, at first called the Harvard Bulletin, was poration, 7 Ware Street, Cambridge, Mass. 02138-4037, 37). To buttress “bench strength,” interim founded in 1898. Its Board of Incorporators was char- phone 617-495-5746; fax 617-495-0324. The magazine is tered in 1924 and remains active in the magazine’s supported by reader contributions and subscriptions, president Bok asked McCartney, the Rad- governance. The membership is as follows: Stephen advertising revenue, and a subvention from Harvard cliffe Institute’s then-dean Drew Faust, and J. Bailey, AMP ’94; Jeffrey S. Behrens ’89, William I. University. Its editorial content is the responsibility of Bennett ’62, M.D. ’69; John T. Bethell ’54; Peter K. Bol; the editors. Periodicals postage paid at Boston, Mass., Harvard Business School dean Jay O. Light to Fox Butterfield ’61, A.M. ’64; Sewell Chan ’98; Jona- and additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send ad- explore ways of “developing some potential than S. Cohn ’91; Philip M. Cronin ’53, J.D. ’56; John dress changes to Circulation Department, Harvard successors” and of providing future deans de Cuevas ’52; Casimir de Rham ’46, J.D. ’49; James F. Magazine, 7 Ware Street, Cambridge, Mass. 02138-4037. Dwinell III ’62; Anne Fadiman ’74; Benjamin M. Fried- Subscription rate $30 a year in U.S. and possessions, $55 with orientation materials, briefings, and man ’66, Ph.D. ’71; Robert H. Giles, NF ’66; Richard Canada and Mexico, $75 other foreign. (Allow up to even continuing advisory services. H. Gilman, M.B.A. ’83; Owen Gingerich, Ph.D. ’62; 10 weeks for first delivery.) Subscription orders and Adam K. Goodheart ’92; Philip C. Haughey ’57; Brian customer service inquiries should be sent to the Cir- HBS’s senior associate deans are a model R. Hecht ’92; Sarah Blaffer Hrdy ’68, Ph.D. ’75; Ellen culation Department, Harvard Magazine, 7 Ware Street, of this kind of depth, providing continu- Hume ’68; Alex S. Jones, NF ’82; Bill Kovach, NF ’89; Cambridge, Mass. 02138-4037, or call 617-495-5746 or Florence Ladd, BI ’72; Jennifer 8 Lee ’99; Scott Malkin 800-648-4499, or e-mail [email protected]. ity and expertise in governance. The Fac- ’80, J.D.-M.B.A. ’83; Margaret H. Marshall, Ed.M. ’69, Single copies $4.95, plus $2.50 for postage and han- ulty of Arts and Science’s divisional deans Ed ’77, L ’78; Lisa L. Martin, Ph.D. ’90; David McClint- dling. Manuscript submissions are welcome, but we ick ’62; Winthrop L. McCormack ’67; M. Lee Pelton, cannot assume responsibility for safekeeping. Include may evolve this way. Not every faculty is Ph.D. ’84; John P. Reardon Jr. ’60; Christopher Reed; stamped, self-addressed envelope for manuscript re- as large as HBS or FAS, nor has equal re- Harriet Ritvo ’68, Ph.D. ’75; Henry Rosovsky, JF ’57, turn. Persons wishing to reprint any portion of Harvard sources. But at any scale, the payoff seems Ph.D. ’59, LL.D. ’98; Barbara Rudolph ’77; Robert N. Magazine’s contents are required to write in advance for Shapiro ’72, J.D. ’78; Theda Skocpol, Ph.D. ’75; Peter A. permission. Address inquiries to Irina Kuk- worth the effort. Spiers ’76; Scott H. Stossel ’91; Sherry Turkle ’69, Ph.D. sin, publisher, at the address given above. vJohn S. Rosenberg, Editor ’76; Robert H. Weiss ’54; Jan Ziolkowski. Copyright © 2013 Harvard Magazine Inc.

4 July - August 2013 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 130501_LuxBondGreen.indd 1 2/26/13 11:41 AM The View from Mass Hall

Science at Harvard: Collaborations and Transformations

n May, I had the pleasure of announcing that Hansjörg Wyss had followed his pathbreaking 2008 gift establishing the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering with a second gift of $125 million to launch the next phase of its growth. In Inot quite five years, the Wyss Institute has developed into an engine of creativity and innovation, involving hundreds of faculty and staff from across Harvard and the region in developing life-changing medicines and technologies—exploring how to prevent infant apnea with responsive mattresses, advancing sepsis therapy with biospleens, or revolutionizing drug development with organs on a chip. Work at the Wyss has already yielded more than 400 patents. The energy we see at the Wyss is just one part of ongoing growth and transformation in engineering and science at Harvard. It is clearly visible in Harvard College, where teaching in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields has been overhauled with new integrative introductory courses. Forty percent of undergraduates are now STEM concentrators. Since the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) became a school in 2007, the numbers of engineering concentrators has climbed—doubling in just the past three years. Getting students involved in research early on is key to their engagement and sustained interest in sci- collaboration, the four-year-old Ragon Institute, where research entific careers, and we have focused on making such opportunities on HIV vaccines and on immunology more generally is being sig- more central and available for our students. nificantly advanced. The Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology (SCRB) From designing new imaging techniques to revealing connections was created in 2007 as Harvard’s first cross-School department, among neurons in the brain to identifying relationships between part of both Harvard Medical School and the Faculty of Arts and neuroscience and the foundations of human behavior to developing Sciences, and has attracted considerable student interest in its con- new methods of finding planets outside our solar system, Harvard centration, established just four years ago and now triple its original faculty and students are pursuing scientific discoveries across the size. SCRB and the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, involving collabo- broad range of scientific fields. From beginning undergraduates rators across the University and the hospitals, hailed two highly encountering the revolutionized instruction in Life Sciences 1A significant discoveries by its faculty this spring: the identification to the Nobel Prize winner now deeply engaged in our University- of a hormone that has promise to become the basis of a more effec- wide initiative on the Origins of Life, we see excitement about the tive treatment for diabetes and the identification of a protein that novel approaches, tools, techniques—advances in computation, reverses age-related heart failure in mice. imaging, data management, and analysis, to name a few—that make Collaborations and partnerships are important aspects of the the promise and pace of scientific learning and discovery unprec- changing landscape of science at Harvard. This year, we mark the edented. At Harvard we are greeting the possibilities inherent in tenth anniversary of the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT. Build- the twenty-first century’s scientific revolution by creating new col- ing on the insights of the Human Genome Project, the Broad seeks laborations, new connections, new programs, new courses—and, to assemble a complete picture of the molecular components of life of course, new scientists educated to build our future. and uncover the molecular bases of major inherited and infectious diseases. Broad faculty and affiliates have recently announced the Sincerely, discovery of genetic mutations occurring in more than 70 percent of melanomas, new insight into the role of recessive genes in au- tism, and new understanding of subtypes of endometrial cancer. In March I joined with my counterparts at MIT and Mass General to open the new home for another noteworthy cross-institutional

6 July - August 2013 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 letters

is no causal relationship between parents’ sexual orientation and children’s emotional, psychosocial, and behavioral development. Many studies attest to the normal Cambridge  development of children of same-gender couples when the child is wanted, the par- On-line gender equity, e-mail investigations, Dean John Monro ents have a commitment to shared parent- ing, and the parents have strong social and economic supports.” Joblessness and immigration cuss in our essay—some global and others They then go on to fully support same- It is noteworthy that in “The Urban closer to home—bear much more responsi- sex marriage, writing that “if a child has Jobs Crisis,” by James M. Quane, William bility for undermining the economic prog- two and capable parents who choose to Julius Wilson, and Jackelyn Hwang (May- ress of middle- and low-income workers. create a permanent bond by way of civil June, page 42), there is no mention of the marriage, it is in the best interests of their impact of the many millions of legal and Same-sex marriage child(ren) that legal and social institutions illegal immigrants who have come to the A recent letter (May-June, page 8) in re- allow and support them to do so.” United States in recent decades. For many sponse to Michael J. Klarman’s article on the The American Psychological Associa- years, most of our legal and illegal immi- increasing acceptance of same-sex marriage tion, the American Psychiatric Associa- grants have not been well educated, and (“How Same-Sex Marriage Came to Be,” tion, the American Medical Association, they typically end up competing for low- March-April, page 30) states that “strong and the American Sociological Association level jobs with our less-educated citizens evidence indicates that” children “stand to have also reached similar conclusions on and earlier immigrants. Consequently, our be harmed” by same-sex marriage. This is a the effects of same-sex marriage on chil- immigration has directly contributed to complete falsehood. dren and have issued similar policy state- higher unemployment and downward pres- In March 2013, the American Academy ments in favor of same-sex marriage. sure on wages for the urban poor. Thus it of Pediatrics, an organization greatly con- Opposition to same-sex marriage largely would be logical to include restricting the cerned with the welfare of children, issued comes from religious beliefs or a basic dis- immigration of the poor and little-educated a policy statement on same-sex marriage, like of gay and lesbian people. Because in the list of ways to help the urban poor al- including an examination of the evidence these reasons don’t work well in the pub- ready here, but I fear that it is not politically on the effects of same-sex marriage on lic-policy debate on this issue, opponents correct to make such a proposal in today’s children. The authors write: “There is ex- cite concerns for children—but there is no academic community. tensive research documenting that there evidence to support harm to children. As Peter A. Schulkin, Ph.D. ’70 Cambria, Calif. Explore More The authors respond: In our essay, we consider pathways out of poverty for low-in- Visit harvardmagazine.com/extras to find these and other come blacks and Latinos. In this regard, we Web Extras from the July-August 2013 issue. do mention the rise in immigration, particularly among low-skilled Latinos, between Literary Garden } The Carver’s Art 1990 and 2000 and their concentration in page 13 | Tour the grounds of page 30 | Watch master wood- farming occupations and the expanding a Williams College English worker David Esterly at work, service sector. It is likely that immigrant professor who has cultivated demonstrating how he creates a landscape embedded with some of the most intricate groups in labor markets in certain parts } f tony kahn of the country do compete with U.S. citi- references to poetry, fiction, wood sculptures since the zens, especially those with a high-school and drama. eighteenth century. education or less, for jobs at the lower end of the wage distribution. However, the Harvard Square The Class of ’66 Remembers established research does not resolve the page 14 | Hear writer } online | Listen to classmates share question about whether these jobs would André Aciman read aloud their Harvard memories and be filled if immigrant workers were barred a section from his new reflections, as compiled and from seeking them. Indeed, focusing on novel about an Egyptian edited by Tony Kahn ’66, a former whether these jobs should go to immigrants graduate student navigat- producer for National or natives whose skills preclude them ing his way through Harvard } Public Radio. See: http:// from seeking employment in more stable, and the United States. www.harvardmag.com/ better-paying sectors of the economy ob- alumni. fuscates deeper structural issues that keep the working poor from achieving economic From top: craig lambert; steve potter; stu rosner; courtesy o visit harvardmagazine.com/extras self-sufficiency. Other forces that we dis-

Harvard Magazine 7 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 letters a physician, I try to base my treatment of mission statement says that one of its goals The gender imbal- patients on facts and studies. The same ap- is “to deliver these teachings from a faculty ance in MOOC instruc- Visit harvardmagazine. proach should be applied to public policy. who reflect the diversity of its audience.” tion is also a looming com/extras to read Stephen Sussman, M.D. ’88 Leaving aside the questionable grammar issue for the Harvard additional letters to Haiku, Hawaii of that statement, the facts refute it. Of the faculty, as well as fac- the editor. 25 courses that EdX currently lists on its ulty at universities more generally. Teach- edX and Gender Equity website, none are taught solely by female ing MOOCs brings prestige and other re- The very informative “HarvardX at faculty: 17 are taught solely by male faculty, wards. To the extent that these privileges One” (May-June, page 48) does an excel- and eight by mixed-gender groups. In Har- are overwhelmingly limited to male faculty, lent job of noting the primary opportuni- vardX courses, the disparity is even more Harvard’s efforts in recent years to address ties and challenges involved with the race to glaring: of the 11 instructors listed, only one a range of diversity issues are undermined. offer MOOCs, and provides welcome infor- is female. With a faculty that is more than Lisa Martin, Ph.D. ’90 mation on funding structures. But it misses 25 percent female, one would think that Department of Political Science one issue that is a serious challenge for edX more than one woman would have an inter- University of Wisconsin, Madison and the other major providers of MOOCs: est in participating. the involvement of female instructors. edX’s With this gender imbalance, edX, like Editor’s note: Lisa Martin, formerly of Har- other MOOC providers, is missing a tre- vard’s government faculty, served as senior speak up, please mendous opportunity to export models adviser to the dean of the Faculty of Arts Harvard Magazine welcomes letters of gender equality. Much of their audience and Sciences on faculty diversity. on its contents. Please write to “Let- is in developing countries, such as China, ters,” Harvard Magazine, 7 Ware Street, India, and Brazil, where the education of Mouse models Cambridge 02138, send comments by e- girls and women is a crucial element of eco- I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry mail to yourturn@harvard.edu, use our nomic and social development. Featuring about “Mice Aren’t Men” (May-June, page website, www.harvardmagazine.com, confident, accomplished female instructors 13). The author comments that the idea that or fax us at 617-495-0324. Letters may in MOOCs could export role models, some- mice and men are different is so controver- be edited to fit the available space. times in situations where powerful female sial that a paper discussing that was “de- role models are in short supply. clined by Science (please turn to page 74) © lizlinder.com PHOTO:

WEDDING CELEBRATIONS • CORPORATE EVENTS • SOCIAL GATHERINGS

Harvard Square . Cambridge, MA . 800.882.1818 . www.charleshotel.com

8 July - August 2013 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Right Now The expanding Harvard universe

smarts chart Mapping the Way to a Brain Survey

n scale and scope, this is an effort of every neuron in a large interconnected brain’s medulla, with 15,000 neurons, and that may eventually surpass even the group of cells. They suggested the research work up to part of the mammalian brain, Human Genome Project. Since Presi- might start by examining the fruit-fly with several million. (Although research- I dent Obama’s April ers have already recorded announcement of a new and studied the activity of federal initiative to accel- smaller groups of neurons, erate research on map- many brain processes are ping brain activity, an thought to require much advisory group of scien- larger regions of brain tists has been deciding cells working in concert.) how best to deploy this In launching the ini- boon for neuroscience tiative, National Insti- research. tutes of Health (NIH) The Brain Research director Francis Collins through Advancing In- announced a working novative Neurotechnol- group—a “dream team” of ogies (BRAIN) Initia- 15 scientists—who would tive, a multiyear project be charged with deciding launched with $110 mil- the details of its goals and lion of federal funding funding. Among them is in its first year, grew Tarr professor of molecular out of a proposal by six and cellular biology Joshua scientists, including Sanes, who says the com- George Church, Win- mittee is meeting through throp professor of ge- the summer to create an netics at Harvard Medi- interim plan for this year, cal School. In a paper to be followed by a long- published in the scien- term plan next year. At tific journalNeuron last present, federal support June, they advocated for the initiative is to be an international public shared by three govern- effort—much like the ment agencies: the NIH Human Genome Proj- ($40 million), the Defense ect—to create a Brain Advanced Research Proj- Activity Map by recon- ects Agency ($50 million), structing the activity and the National Science

Illustration by Pete Ryan Harvard Magazine 9 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Right Now

Foundation ($20 million). Additional fund- expert input on how best to focus the effort. human brain seems unworkable. But Sanes ing totaling more than $122 million annually So far, the announcement has generated points out that “even achieving the first has been pledged by private foundations: a mix of excitement, skepticism, and confu- steps was unimaginable a few years ago.” the Allen Institute for Brain Science, the sion among scientists, in part because the New technologies have made it possible Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Kav details, such as how funds will be distribut- to record ever-increasing numbers of cells, li Foundation, and the Salk Institute for Bio- ed, what the specific goals will be, and how and a leap in computing power allows logical Studies. they’ll be accomplished, are still unclear. A scientists to collect and analyze the huge Sanes says that, like the Human Ge- major question concerns the scope of the ef- amounts of data such recordings generate. nome Project, which boosted existing effort. “My own hope is that we try to make Sanes believes that this is a good time to forts to decipher the entire sequence of a big impact in a limited area that we think build on those advances. How the actions DNA in human chromosomes, the BRAIN is very important,” Sanes says. One open of brain cells generate the mental activities Initiative will “coordinate, focus, and en- question, for instance, is whether to focus of the brain remains a mystery—and “as a hance efforts toward goals neuroscien- on mapping “functional” connections—re- purely scientific challenge,” he says, “I be- tists already agree are very valuable”—the cording the activity of many brain cells as lieve, and many people believe, this is the building of tools that will enable more they fire in order to understand how their biggest challenge of the century.” detailed studies of brain activity. The actions interrelate—versus visualizing the vcourtney humphries original Brain Activity Map proposed by structural connections among neurons, of- Church and his colleagues will be consid- ten called the “connectome.” joshua sanes website: ered, but Sanes reports that the committee The ultimate goal of recording the activ- http://dms.hms.harvard.edu/neurosci- is keeping an open mind and will solicit ity of the tens of billions of neurons in the ence/fac/sanes.php

past is prologue The Social Life of Memory

eading a healthy social life depends psychology Daniel Schacter and several than the simple recall of facts or the sen- on the ability to predict the behav- coauthors, published in the March issue sation of reliving events from the past. ior of others accurately. Most people of the journal Cerebral Cortex, suggests that “Memory is not just a readout,” he ex- L expect a loud, aggressive bully to be the brain, when making behavioral predic- plains. “It is a tool that’s used by the brain cruel, and a passive, quiet loner to shy away tions, uses the part devoted to memory. to bring past experience to bear when from confrontation. More often than not, During the past decade, Schacter says, thinking about future situations.” that’s correct. Yet exactly how the brain pre- a revolution has occurred in the field of In fact, Schacter continues, memory and dicts such behavior has long been unclear. memory science: researchers have shown imagination involve virtually identical men- Now research by Kenan professor of that memory is responsible for much more tal processes; both rely on a specific system known as the “default network,” previously thought to be activated only when recalling the past. This discovery led to a rich vein of research, he reports. For instance, the link between memory and imagination could explain why those with memory problems, such as amnesiacs or the elderly, often struggle to envision the future. Schacter and his fellow researchers have applied this new way of thinking about memory to the realm of social behavior. If people use memory to imagine their own futures, why wouldn’t they use it to imagine others’ futures as well? To test this proposition, the researchers presented 19 volunteers with four dif- Daniel ferent protagonists, each with a distinct Schacter personality constructed from two vari- ables: extroversion and agreeableness. After the subjects completed a series of exercises designed to familiarize them

10 July - August 2013 Photograph by Jim Harrison Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Right Now

with the protagonists’ personalities, they searchers also noticed activity in the medi- brain regions responsible for forming were placed in a functional magnetic reso- al prefrontal cortex and the cingulate, ar- “personality models” and assigning them nance imaging scanner and asked to con- eas associated with social processing and identities are intrinsically linked to the sider how each protagonist would react the creation of “personality models.” This memory/imagination systems that simu- to various social situations—for instance, activity was so acute that Schacter and late the past and future. These results add encountering a homeless veteran begging his colleagues, simply by analyzing each yet another function—making social pre- for change. As the subjects gave their pre- subject’s brain activity, could tell whether dictions—to the ever-growing list of use- dictions, the researchers analyzed their the person envisioned was the agreeable or ful things that memory does. brain function to ascertain which mental disagreeable extrovert, or the agreeable or vpeter saalfield systems were in use. disagreeable introvert. When considering scenarios about oth- The researchers concluded that mem- david schacter e-mail address: er people, the subjects’ “default network” ory and social cognition therefore work [email protected] went to work, just as it did in making in concert when individuals hypothesize david schacter website: predictions about themselves. But the re- about the future behavior of others. The www.wjh.harvard.edu/~dsweb/lab.html

pay for progress burden in a lasting way. And there are many similar problems, from chronic unemployment to juvenile delinquency, that impose ongoing costs on governments and taxpay- Social Impact Bonds ers. But a new funding mechanism—social impact bonds (SIBs)—may offer an innovative means of harnessing private capi- omelessness is a complex so- the underlying causes, and governments too tal to achieve measurable gains on some cial problem that societies often often lack the resources and long-term com- of the most persistent social ills. Weiner treat, but rarely fix. Existing so- mitment to invest in preventive approaches professor of public policy Jeffrey Liebman H cial services do little to remedy that could improve lives and reduce society’s is spearheading an effort at Harvard Ken-

Your magazine. The way you want it. Wherever you want it. Coming soon…

Harvard Magazine 11 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Right Now nedy School to accelerate their adoption. liance to find stable housing for several SIBs—also known as “social innova- hundred people. The other will address tion financing” or “pay for suc- youth recidivism, providing a range of cess”—offer governments a interventions and supports to the more risk-free way of pursuing cre- than 750 young people who “age out” of ative social programs that may the juvenile justice system each year. Gil- take years to yield results. lette notes that the SIB financing struc- Usually, governments decide ture allows governments to identify sav- what problems they want ings across agencies, which encourages to address and then enter a interagency cooperation toward a com- contractual agreement with mon goal. “The savings we project for the an intermediary (or bond- recidivism project, for instance, are due issuing organization) that is not only to reduced incarcerations and responsible for raising capital other adjudication expenses,” he explains, from independent investors “but also to improved employment and including banks, foundations, educational outcomes.” and individuals, and for hiring Although initial results from the first and managing nonprofit ser- SIB projects are a few years away, gov- vice providers. If the project ernment interest is growing: when achieves its stated objectives, Liebman received additional the government repays the Rockefeller funds to expand investors with returns based the SIB Lab’s work into four on the savings the govern- more states, 28 state and city ment accrues as a result of the governments applied. (The program’s success. (Taxpay- winners should be announced ers also receive a portion of in early summer.) The investor the budget gains in the form market remains harder to pre- of freed-up public resources, dict. George Overholser ’82, the though the investors may need founder and CEO of Third Sec- to be fully paid first.) A neu- tor Capital Partners (the inter- tral evaluator, agreed on by mediary on the Massachusetts both parties, is hired to mea- recidivism project), notes that sure the outcomes and resolve banks have responded more any disputes that arise. quickly to the opportunity than Liebman became intrigued foundations or individuals. “So- by the SIB model after learn- cial innovation financing is not ing about a British project a heartstring puller, but the up- that is testing it in an effort to side is powerful,” he says. “With reduce re-imprisonment rates traditional philanthropy, you among adult males in the English pay for the program and then city of Peterborough. He spent six months think-tank for helping governments foster the money is gone; this way the studying the issue and in 2011, with the innovation and improve the results of their money comes back and can be recycled Center for American Progress, published a social-service spending. The Rockefeller into the program to help more people.” report on his findings. The paper lays out grant supports current students and re- It is too soon to say if social impact SIBs’ potential to overcome institutional cent graduates of the school’s master’s in bonds will fundamentally change how so- barriers to social innovation, but Liebman public policy program who provide pro cial services are funded and implemented was convinced that American state and lo- bono assistance in government offices on in the United States. But Liebman sees cal governments lack the necessary staff, all aspects of a SIB start-up phase. hope in the way the projects bring public time, and expertise to get such projects off Massachusetts was the first state to and private actors together on a long-term the ground. “I realized that if I didn’t find welcome SIB Lab support. (New York basis to tackle some of society’s toughest a way to solve the government-capacity quickly followed.) Ryan Gillette, M.P.P. problems. “The key,” he says, “is that all problem,” he explains, “this promising ap- ’12—one of Liebman’s “government inno- the partners are on the hook for develop- proach to contracting for social services vation fellows”—has worked full time in ing better outcomes.” vashley pettus wouldn’t get tested.” the Commonwealth’s budget office since He therefore established the Harvard June 2012, helping put together two inau- jeffrey liebman e-mail address: Social Impact Bond Technical Assistance gural SIB deals. One will address home- [email protected] Lab (SIB Lab). Funded by the Rockefeller lessness by contracting with the nonprofit sib lab website: Foundation, the lab serves as a hands-on Massachusetts Housing and Shelter Al- hks-siblab.org

12 July - August 2013 Illustration by Dan Stiles Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 New England Regional Section

Guinea Portraits and Diaries. These stun- ning series of photographs and observations Extracurriculars offer a close look at the westernization of a traditional society. Seasonal spective of the British master’s works, in- Throughout the year, the museum holds The Farmers’ Market at Harvard cluding nine fully restored silent films. “family drop-in” educational events. This ice; www.dining.harvard.edu/flp/ag_market. • July 12-August 12 summer’s programs are: ff s o

html Burt Lancaster highlights the career of the • July 20, noon to 4 p.m. ew In Cambridge: Hollywood icon who starred in more than Mural Madness. Create wall murals and Tuesdays, noon-6 p.m. (rain or shine) 60 films as diverse asElmer Gantry, The Bird- other art projects based on artifacts. Science Center plaza man of Alcatraz, and Atlantic City. • August 17, noon to 4 p.m. Chocolate Treasures. incoln/harvard N In Allston: Learn about cacao’s e L s Fridays, 3-7 p.m. exhibitions & events role in Aztec and Mayan cultures. o 168 Western Avenue Harvard Museums of Harvard Museum of Natural History Science and Culture

Organized by Harvard University Din- www.hmnh.harvard.edu; 617-495-3045 thnology; R ing Services, this outdoor market runs http://hmsc.harvard.edu/ • Continuing: The Language of Color. through October and emphasizes lo- 617-495-2779 Visitors learn how and why color variation cal goods—fresh produce, breads, baked Science Center 251, 1 Oxford Street has evolved over thousands of years in a va- sweets, herbs, seafood, pasta, jams, choco- • Continuing: Time and Time Again: How riety of animals, including poison dart frogs. lates, and cheeses. Science and Culture Shape the Past, Pres- • Continuing: Mollusks: Shelled Masters f archaeology and E eum o

ent, and Future. The exhibit explores how of the Marine Realm includes glass mod- s film humans find, keep, make, measure, carve els of an octopus, paper nautilus, and other The Harvard Film Archive out, waste, and kill time—and the instru- creatures made by the nineteenth-century eabody mu http://hcl.harvard.edu/hfa ments used to do all the above (culled from artists Leopold and Rudolph Blaschka, who 617-495-4700 the University’s Collection of Historical also produced the renowned glass flowers. Preliminary dates for the summer film festi- Instruments). See Treasure, page 76, for a Harvard Art Museums

vals are listed below. Check the website for sampling. www.harvardartmuseums.org rchive updates and details on screenings, lectures, Peabody Museum of Archaeology 617-495-9400 and special events. and Ethnology Sackler Museum, 485 Broadway t to right: Stehpent to right: dupont/ P f • July 5-September 9 www.peabody.harvard.edu; 617-496-1027 • August 15, 8 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. • From le The Complete Alfred Hitchcock is a retro- Continuing: Stephen Dupont: Papua New Day Trip: Modernism in Maine features and harvard Film A Left to right: from Stephen Dupont: Papua New Guinea Portraits and Diaries, at the Peabody Museum; fresh strawberries at the Harvard Farmers’ Market; a still from The Swimmer (1968), part of a retrospective on Burt Lancaster, at the Harvard Film Archive

Harvard Magazine 12A Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 New England Regional Section

visits to the Colby College Museum of Art (and its new Alfond-Lunder Family Pavil- ion) and the Portland Museum of Art, which offers works from the William S. Paley Col- lection at the Museum of Modern Art, such as Gauguin’s The Seed of Areoi. Registration is required. For details, visit www.harvardartmuseums.org/calendar/day-trip-modern- Be ism-maine, or call 617-495-4544. music Harvard Summer Pops Band • July 25 at 4 p.m. in Harvard Yard • July 28 at 3 p.m. at the Hatch Shell on the at North hill Charles River Esplanade in Boston Sanders Theatre WithAmazed four NEW dining venues, a NEW Fitness Center, NEW Elements www.boxoffice.harvard.edu; 617-496-2222 Day Spa and Salon and more than 25 brand NEW amenities, we invite Admission is free, but tickets are required. • August 2 at 8 p.m. you to come see all of the spaces the True North Initiative continues to The Harvard Summer School Chorus per- create. Learn about our plans to for enhanced health care services which forms Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass and Handel’s are delivered in a studied, elegant and highly personalized manner. See Laudate Pueri Dominum. • August 3 at 8 p.m. why North Hill was awarded the MOST INNOVATIVE community in The Harvard Summer School Orchestra the nation for its PurposeFULL Living philosophy!* plays pieces by Edvard Grieg and Aaron Copland, among others.

GRAND REOPENING Nature and science SAvE thE DAtE - September 9th & 10th The Arnold Arboretum www.arboretum.harvard.edu; 617-384-5209 www.trueNorthEvolution.org/harvard Check the website for classes, lectures, CAll tODAy 888-699-9577 and events. • July and August A link in Boston’s Emerald Necklace, the arboretum is a treasure trove of native plants, old-growth trees, flowers, rare specimens, and walking trails. Visitors can take guid- *Awarded by the National ed tours, offered on the weekends, or roam Association of Home Builders. freely throughout the grounds.

Theater American Repertory Theater www.americanrepertorytheater.org Minot DeBlois Advisors LLC 617-547-8300 (box office) • August 29 at 8 p.m. thoughtful and disciplined investment advisory services Throwing Shade Live: Comedy + Tragedy – Class. Erin Gibson and Bryan Safi appear at the ART’s Oberon theater for a live version of their award-winning LGBT podcast (www.throwingshade.com). 2 Arrow Street. Dedicated Investment Management • Consistent Strategy • Accessible and Transparent Please contact Catherine Smith ’83 or Robert G. Bannish ’85 for information. Events listings also appear in the University 50 Congress Street, Boston • www.minotdeblois.com • 617-557-7407 Gazette, accessible via this magazine’s web- Individual Accounts and IRAs • Trusts • Endowments • Foundations site, www.harvardmagazine.com.

12B July - August 2013 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Vice President 1730 Massachusetts Ave Cambridge, MA 02138 617 245-4044

CAMBRIDGE, MAMA CAMBRIDGE, MA $925,000 $2,375,000 $3,000,000

CAMBRIDGE, MA CAMBRIDGE, MA $1,725,000 $2,150,000

• Recognized as one of America’s “Top 50 Real Estate Agents” by The Wall Street Journal • Building community one home at a time • Highly endorsed by clients and colleagues for exceptional integrity, commitment & performance • Supporting: US Fund for UNICEF, The Mt. Auburn Hospital, The Huntington Theatre, and The Guidance Center

130708_Coldwell_GailRoberts.indd 1 5/21/13 12:30 PM Explorations Behind Closed Doors Regional house museums of prominent alumni • by Nell Porter Brown nc./ ell porter brown e; N e; s ou s H f the american revolution, I hillip P s o aughter onnecticut D table; david carmack/table; david Edward Gorey House rink, C worth s Yarmouth Port, Massachusetts s ad

508-362-3909; www.edwardgoreyhouse.org anden B e and W rian V The artist and writer Edward Gorey From top left, counterclockwise: the s ’50 lived and worked in an 11-room cottage, Robert Frost Farm; interior of the ou

Jonathan Fisher House; the Governor rown; B surrounded by cats and books, for the last Jonathan Trumbull House; the kitchen at

ore than 100 houses in New 14 years of his life (see Vita, March-April, the Phillips House; and a scene at the orter B England, from the colonial era page 38). The museum, opened in 2002, dis- Edward Gorey House. Opposite: Gorey’s

facsimile on the front porch of the museum nell P t:

through the twentieth century, plays many of his personal items—boyhood f M have been turned into public drawings and diaries, typewriter, signature known rhyming alphabet book depicting museums. Inherently different from art in- raccoon coat, and the divan in the back room the demise of precisely 26 children: “A is for governor jonathan trumbull H rom top le e f

stitutions, these places reveal not only the that was ravaged by his clawing cats (he Amy who fell down the stairs”; “B is for Basil s work of their former inhabitants but the typically had six)—as well as rotating ex- assaulted by bears”; and so on, to “Y is for habits, predilections, and even failings that hibits of his work. Yorick whose head was knocked in”; and comprised their daily lives. Following is a On display through December 29 are the “Z is for Zillah who drank too much gin.” ounterclockwi selection of such museums with Harvard af- original pen and ink drawings, preliminary Printed reproductions fail to convey the del- C filiations. (Most are open only seasonally.) sketches, and texts for The Vinegar Works: icacy, depth, and richness of his meticulous Their caretakers are often highly devoted Three Volumes of Moral Instruction, published creativity. “Edward drew every illustration to, and scholars of, their subjects: they can 50 years ago. Deemed “whimsically maca- to scale, using these tiny lines,” notes Rick talk for hours, educating visitors as well as bre” by the museum, the trilogy contains The Jones, the director and curator, as he exam- eagerly enlivening the past. Gashlycrumb Tinies: or, After the Outing, a well- ines the intricate shadows around “Xerxes

12D July - August 2013 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 New England Regional Section devoured by mice” as he huddles in a corner. studio—with one view of an elegant South- collecting those things, along with African, Note also the peeling wallpaper and wood- ern magnolia tree—drawing multiple layers Tibetan, and Indian rings and amulets and grained floor of a once-grand room from the of lines the width of a hair, cross-hatching Coptic crosses (which he also wore). The series’s The West Wing, a mystery told through sections to create contrasting images that artist amassed hundreds of such objects that interior room scenes that feature a possible ultimately offer a three-dimensional quality. inspired him: he would arrange them into dead man in a suit in one and three shoes Gorey was a fan of routine. He often ate patterns and relationships while he worked. left on the floor of another. Gorey favored breakfast and lunch at Jack’s Outback. He Only once did Gorey leave the United Higgins India ink and a Gillott Tit Quill pen, saved ticket stubs from events through- States—in 1975 to see some remote islands and could sit for hours in his small upstairs out his life (including every performance off the coast of Scotland. “An interviewer through 27 sea- asked him at some point, ‘What’s your fa- sons of The New vorite journey?’” Jones reports, “and Edward York City Ballet answered, ‘Looking out the window.’” under George Balanchine). On Governor Jonathan the weekends, Trumbull House he regularly Lebanon, Connecticut shopped at yard 860-642-7558 sales. “He loved www.govtrumbullhousedar.org blue glass, beach Jonathan Trumbull, A.B. 1727, was a stones, door- trained minister and successful business- knobs, antique man who became the governor of the Con- potato mashers, necticut colony in 1769—and was the only and cheese grat- colonial governor to fully support the cause ers,” says Jones, of independence.

Answers for addiction For individuals in crisis, Fernside helps break the cycle of relapse by treating addiction and co-occurring illnesses that often accompany it. Instilled with compassion and guided by research, this Harvard Medical School affiliated program is like no other in the world.

Boston, Mass. www.mcleanhospital.org/fernivy 800.906.9531

U.S. News & World Report ranked McLean Hospital first among all freestanding psychiatric hospitals. McLean Hospital is the largest psychiatric affiliate of Harvard Medical School and a member of Partners HealthCare.

Harvard Magazine 12E Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 New England Regional Section

The “keeping room” at the Governor Jonathan Trumbull Chronologically, the Derry farm came House and a portrait of first: Frost lived there with his wife, Eli- Trumbull nor, and young children from 1900 to 1911. the cause of lib- Surrounded by pastoral scenes, he decid- erty, made him ed to devote himself to poetry, while also the perfect per- teaching English at the Pinkerton Academy son for the Revo- and working the 30-acre property and egg lution.” Three of farm, according to Bill Gleed, manager of the Trumbull’s sons, state-owned National Historic Site. “He was

who also played not a good farmer,” Gleed adds. “The other arm t f s

roles in the war farmers would hurry past his house because ro effort, went to they didn’t want to be asked any questions, Harvard, too: or for help.” Frost did attend to the details of Joseph, A.B. 1756; the natural world, however, becoming one he robert f

John, A.B. 1773, who was born at of the country’s most articulate and lyrical elow: T the house and later became the translators of the rhythms and metaphors famous patriot artist; and Jona- of rural life (and of his origins as a city boy table; B Known for his integrity, Trumbull wrote than Jr., A.B. 1759, LL.D. 1809. A statesman in nearby Lawrence, Massachusetts). Frost’s worth s s

a letter to British general Thomas Gage in his own right, he also served as governor first three collections—A Boy’s Will, North of ad shortly after the battles of Lexington and of Connecticut from 1797 to 1809. Boston, and Mountain Interval—“were all pret- e and W Concord, calling the events “the most un- Visitors to the house will learn more of ty much inspired by the farm,” according s provoked attack upon the lives and property New England’s colonial history—and mar- to Gleed. “Mending Wall,” for example, is ou of his Majesty’s subjects…as would disgrace vel over antiques, Colonial dish ware, and about his neighbor’s annual repairing of the even barbarians.” He preached restraint, textiles. Of note are rare handcrafted bed stone wall that bounded their respective “tempered wisdom,” and continued efforts rugs made by Sally Kate Clap, the niece of properties, in the belief that “good fences to “prevent this unhappy dispute from com- Nathan Hale, as well as an embroidered de- make good neighbors.” ing to extremities.” Yet he also made clear piction on silk, by Trumbull’s wife, Faith, of The 1880s farmstead was home to the that “as they apprehend themselves justi- their daughter Mary’s engagement to the “Frosty Acres” junkyard before the state fied by the principles of self-defense,” the boy next door, William Williams, a signer bought it in 1964 and largely funded the nc./governor jonathan trumbull H colonists “are most firmly resolved to defend of the Declaration of Independence. restoration, guided by Frost’s oldest daugh- their rights and privileges.” ter, Lesley Frost Ballantine. The wide plank Within days, Trumbull held what would The Robert Frost Farm floors downstairs, Gleed notes, “are painted be the first of more than a thousand meet- Derry, New Hampshire red because Rob liked the way they looked ings to organize support for the patriot 603-432-3091; www.robertfrostfarm.org with the Christmas tree.” cause, especially by delivering provisions. The Shaftsbury, Vermont, house is near f the american revolution, I s o He was instrumental in acquiring herds The Robert Frost Stone the poet’s gravesite in Bennington. There

of cattle that were driven down to the he composed many of the poems that ap- aughter troops at Valley Forge, says Cece Messier, House Museum peared in his Pulitzer Prize-winning New a member of the Connecticut Daughters Shaftsbury, Vermont Hampshire, Thompson says, and planted more of the American Revolution, which owns 802-447-6200; www.frostfriends.org than 1,000 red pine seedlings on the grounds. onnecticut D the museum. After the food arrived, “‘you New England has four properties with The site offers biographical notes, photos, could have made a knife out of every bone ties to the poet Robert Frost, class of 1901, discussion groups, and lectures, along with left on the field,’” Messier says, quoting his- Litt.D. ’37, that are open to the public. “All exhibits. This summer’s “Robert Frost: The T op right C (2) toric reports. of the Frost sites are important After the war, Trumbull was the only colo- because they offer different as- nial governor to then govern a newly formed pects of his life and work,” says state, a post he held until retiring in 1784. He Carole Thompson, director of had actually wanted to follow his passion The Robert Frost Stone House for ministry, says Messier, but abandoned Museum, where he lived from that career in the early 1730s because his fa- 1920 to 1929. “If you know the po- ther called him into the family’s mercantile ems, and you walk around any of trade. “He did the business to the best of the places, you feel like you are his ability because that was what God put walking in the poems.” before him to do,” she asserts. “That, and The kitchen at the Robert Frost his Harvard education and his dedication to Farm in Derry, New Hampshire

12F July - August 2013 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 New England Regional Section

The Robert Frost Stone House Museum in presidents and did not play a huge role in Shaftsbury, Vermont American history,” says site manager Julie literary friends during the last 24 years his Arrison, “they represent a lifestyle of the life. The property is owned by Middlebury mid-twentieth century.” Four generations College, where Frost was an integral mem- of the Phillips family, as well as other rela- ber of the Bread Loaf School of English and tives, attended Harvard: the family also es- a founder of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Con- tablished the The Stephen Phillips Memo- ference. “He is very much a poet of place,” rial Scholarship at Harvard in 1971 for New Thompson says, and recites from a 1936 England students who demonstrate “strong Bread Loaf class lecture Frost gave: “Liter- citizenship and character,” as well as aca- ature begins with geography, with love of demic excellence. The house makes a perfect home and parents. Out of the ground comes College scavenger hunt site: Who can spot poetry, out of poetry, philosophy, and out of the teddy bear with the crimson and white eum s Poetry of Trees” explores his extensive use philosophy, all that we are.” sweater? Find the Class of 1929 watch box, e mu s of tree imagery. and the Veritas wall plaque—and the col- Frost aficionados can also visitThe Phillips House lection of “President’s Reports of Harvard tone hou Frost Place, in Franconia, New Hampshire Salem, Massachusetts College.” The Phillipses were affluent, well- t s s (http://frostplace.org), primarily a nonprof- 978-744-0440; www.historicnewengland.org traveled—and clearly cared about educa- ro it educational center for writers and poets, Visitors to this art- and antique-packed, tion. Stephen Willard Phillips owned more obert f or walk the grounds at The Robert Frost Federal-style manse will learn about the life than 10,000 books, most of which he had he R

T Farm (also called the Homer Noble Farm), and times of trust-fund manager Stephen read, and seriously studied and collected in Ripton, Vermont (www.frostfriends.org/ Willard Phillips, A.B. 1895, LL.B. 1898, his Polynesian and Hawaiian art. Pieces are on ripton.html), and see the cabin where dur- wife, Anna, and their son, Stephen “Ste- display—note the hand-carved Fijian war ing the warmer months he wrote and hosted vie” Phillips ’29. Although “they were not club—along with Chinese and Japanese

Harvard THE JOSEPH B. MARTIN Conference Center Medical School AT HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL

Research the possibilities...

Host your next event in the contemporary New Research Building at Harvard Medical School.

• Distinctive conference center in a unique location • Elegant Rotunda Room with views of the Boston skyline • State of the art ampitheater with seating for up to 480 • Catering provided by

77 Avenue Louis Pasteur, Boston, MA 02115 | 617-432-8992 | theconfcenter.hms.harvard.edu

Harvard Magazine 12G Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Document1Document1 11/20/03 11/20/03 11:51 11:51 AM AM Page Page 1 1

New England Regional Section ASSISTEDASSISTEDLIVINGLIVINGRETIREMENTRETIREMENTCOMMUNITYCOMMUNITY Independent and Assisted Living Here’sSpecializedHere’s what what Memory people people Care are are Whatsayingsaying do Harvard about about us. alumni us. have in common? Cadbury Commons An Uncommon Senior Residence

Name:Name:MiltonMilton R. R. Occupation:Occupation:PostalPostal Supervisor, Supervisor, Retired Retired Hobbies:Hobbies:Reading,Reading, Walking, Walking, Exercising Exercising Lifestyle:Lifestyle:Independent,Independent, Active Active ChoiceChoice of Senior/Assisted of Senior/Assisted Living: Living: CadburyCadbury Commons Commons The Harvard alumni who chose “There“There is a is stable a stable and and gentle gentle atmosphere atmosphere of Cadbury helpof help and and Commons empathy empathy throughout throughoutmay have the the e community.retiredcommunity. from I feel Iwork, feelassured assured but that not thatI am fromI partam part oflife. of s others’others’ lives, lives, as they as they are ofare mine. of mine. For Formyself, myself, s hou I feelIMuseum feel that that Cadbury CadburyVisits Commons • CommonsPlay Reading provides provides a a wellSymphonywell trained trained and andcaring Selections caring group group of •people ofLecture people who who are interestedare interested in my in welfare.”my welfare.” her/phillip Series • Yoga • Organic Gardening s CallCall (617) (617) 868-0575 868-0575 to arrange to arrange a personal a personal

tour, or visit www.cadburycommons.com ron u tour,Call (617) or visit 868-0575 www.cadburycommons.com to arrange a personal tour, A WhereWhereor visitThe www.cadburycommons.comThe Emphasis Emphasis Is On Is OnLiving Living jade, ceramic, and wooden ob- Phillips House exterior and a 66 Sherman6666 Sherman Sherman Street, Street, Street, Cambridge, Cambridge, Cambridge, former owner, Stephen EQUAL EQUAL jects from other trips. “He was MA MA02140 02140 ◆ (617) ◆ (617) 868-0575 868-0575 HOUSING HOUSING MA 02140 • (617)868-0575 OPPTY OPPTY Willard Phillips actually born in Hawaii because his father, Stephen Hen- feur who likely drove the 1924

ry Phillips, A.B. 1842 [whose e Pierce Arrow Touring Car or s

own father was Stephen Clar- hou the 1936 Pierce Arrow Limou- s endon Phillips, A.B. 1819], was sine stored in the rear carriage

the first attorney general to phillip house. Historic New England the kingdom,” says Arrison, who works for emphasizes the “upstairs/downstairs” rela- Historic New England (founded by yet an- tionships, along with personal stories of the other alumnus, William Sumner Appleton, Irish immigrant experience. Harmony gen- A.B. 1892), which owns the house museum, erally prevailed, Arrison reports, although as well as 35 other properties well worth boundaries were clear. Anna Phillips rarely, Ballet classes: visiting. literally, stepped into the kitchen, and the In 1911, when the family moved in, Anna domestic staff lived on the simply furnished age 3 through teen, Phillips renovated the house, eliminating third floor and were on call 24-7. “The family adult and pointe. the dark Victorian interiors and enlarging was very particular and never called them the windows. She also added modern bath- ‘servants,’” she explains. The live-in “girls” Enroll now rooms, a gas stove, and the latest in kitch- stayed on even after Stephen Willard Phil- Summer classes start 7/8 en gadgetry: look for the aluminum manual lips died in 1955. Although “Stevie” grew up, Fall classes start 9/4 bread maker and a “green bean Frencher” married, and moved next door, he request- that sliced the pod just so. (Arrison often ed his childhood home, and its collection Nina Alonso, Director, FPB runs special tours on culinary history and of five generations’ worth of belongings, be 1798a Mass Ave technology, her specialty.) A custom-made preserved and opened to the public after Cambridge, MA 02140 monogrammed set of rose medallion china he died. The museum opened in 1973. “Be- was for company, she notes, while the family cause they cared about their traditions and 617.491.5865 ate its nightly five- or seven-course meals on their house and objects, they saved every- www.freshpondballet.com the “everyday” Limoges and Canton ware. thing,” says Arrison, down to years’ worth of A sample menu offers “orange fairy fluff” handwritten receipts for meat and produce. for dessert. “We’re lucky to have such a complete record Five staffers helped the three-person that can tell the historic story of how this family: a cook, first-floor maid, nursemaid, family and many others lived as America was a coachman/groundsman, and a chauf- moving into the modern age.”

12H July - August 2013 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 New England Regional Section

Jonathan Fisher House Blue Hill, Maine 207-374-2459; www.jonathanfisherhouse.org Even by the standards of his day, Jona- than Fisher’s multiple talents and lifelong productivity were highly unusual. He was e and s reared in a Massachusetts Puritan community, graduated from Harvard in 1795, then eller, 2011.1. f

eum purcha moved to Maine to become the first settled s ocke Congregational minister in the coastal vil- iv R lage of Blue Hill. There, he designed and built his house, which has been altered by eum, partial mu s

u additions and deletions in ensuing years. en Shure and L Jonathan Fisher’s wood engraving “The rt M

f K He was also a farmer, scientist, mathema-

t o Great Owl,” from his book Scripture f tician, surveyor (creating his own tools), Animals, and his home in Blue Hill, Maine worth A s furniture-maker, writer—and taught him- partial gi Farn

self art. “His passion in life was more art woodcuts and printing the illustrations, brink vanden brian and architecture and math than it was re- paintings. He just created a huge number on his own press, for two books: The Youth’s ligion, although he was a good minister for of beautiful things.” Primer (1817) and Scripture Animals (1834). 50 years, and it fed his family,” says Amey The house displays some of his self-por- The latter, considered an important early Dodge, president of the Jonathan Fisher traits, and still-life depictions of flowers, American work, is a 350-page compendium Memorial, which owns and operates the vegetables, and animals. There’s also a wa- of creatures and text from the Bible and is museum. “People come from all over the tercolor of Harvard’s Hollis Hall. For more the subject of the current exhibit, A Won- country to see his furniture, folk art, and than 15 years he worked on carving the drous Journey—Jonathan Fisher and the Making of

WEST CAMBRIDGE FEELP OF A P PRESTIGIOUS SINGLE IN A DUPLEX CONDO WEST NEWTON HILL ©Je Rogers Dodge rey ©Je

Beautifully renovated. Over 2,000 square feet TREMONT STREET on 2 floors. Designer kitchen and baths. Large deck. 3 bedrooms and 2 ½ baths. Large cook’s Cheery 1920 mid-Cambridge two bedroom, A collector’s paradise. Amazing Georgian kitchen with maple cabinets. Master bedroom two bath duplex near MIT and Harvard. This Colonial completely renovated and expanded with skylights and fireplace. Huron Village second ﬂ oor unit features an open-plan in 2002. A fully restored barn that currently area convenient to the T, shops, restaurants and kitchen and dining area and a living room houses a book collection is also on this Harvard Square. Exclusively offered $895,000 with a bay window. Dreamy master bedroom property. Lush gardens, porches and patios and spa-like bath en suite. Fabulous details complete this very special home. BARBARA CURRIER include Carolina pine and oak ﬂ oors, dentil Exclusively offered at $3,795,000 THE CURRIER TEAM | FINE PROPERTIES crown moldings and marble tiled baths. Margaret Szerlip Phone: 617-593-7070CAMBRIDGE Price upon request Email: [email protected] Web: www.BarbaraCurrier.com CAROL KELLY & MYRA VON TURKOVICH 171 Huron Avenue Vice Presidents | Hammond Real Estate Cambridge, Mass. carolandmyra.com hammondre.com Newton, MA 02465 02138 617.835.5008 & 617.834.0838 [email protected] | 617-921-6860

If you would like to list a property in our September-October issue, contact Abby Shepard: 617.496.4032.

Harvard Magazine 12I Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 New England Regional Section

Scripture Animals, at Maine’s Farnsworth Art Museum, which owns much of his work. Other Area House Museums with Harvard Connections Fisher also spoke six languages, fulfilled Hildene Marrett, A.B. 1790); Nickels-Sortwell his parsonage duties—writing and preach- Manchester, Vt.; 802-362-1788 House (industrialist Alvin Sortwell and ing more than 2,000 sermons—and was a www.hildene.org his sons: Daniel, A.B. 1907, Edward, A.B. founding trustee of the Bangor Seminary, of- Summer home of Robert Todd Lincoln, 1911, and Alvin, A.B. 1914); Otis House, ten walking the 40 miles there. “They were A.B. 1864; his popularity on campus (Harrison Gray Otis, A.B. 1811, politician not wealthy people,” reports Dodge. Fisher soared after his father’s election. and developer of Beacon Hill); Quincy and his wife, Dolly, worked hard to feed House (controversial Harvard president their nine children, even taking in board- The Glass House Josiah Quincy, A.B. 1828); and the ers and tutoring students. The whole family New Canaan, Conn.; 203-594-9884 Gropius House (Bauhaus founder and made buttons, shoes, and hats to sell. Fisher www.philipjohnsonglasshouse.org Harvard professor of architecture). also made prints and often made money re- Architect Philip Johnson ’27, B.Arch.’43, cording public events, including hangings. called the 47-acre property his “fifty- The Trustees of Reservations “He’d write a biography of the person, and year diary.” Beverly, Mass.; 978-921-1944 maybe do a sketch,” Dodge explains, “then www.thetrustees.org go to the hanging and sell them for two or Historic New England The nonprofit owns:Naumkeag (law- three cents.” During tours, visitors often Boston; 617-227-3956 yer Joseph Choate, A.B. 1852); The Old wonder “how he found the time to do all www.historicnewengland.org Manse (a center for transcendental- of this,” Dodge allows. “He was creative, The nonprofit owns:Cogswell’s Grant ists such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, A.B. industrious, and resourceful. And how he (Bertram Little ’23 and Nina Fletcher 1821); and Appleton Farms (Francis chose to spend his time and life is an im- Little, filled with American folk art); Randall Appleton, A.B. 1875, among oth- portant example of what we can do when Marrett House (Maine minister Daniel er family members who are also alumni). we want to.”

ttoh Our anValued Advertisingk y Partnersou Cadbury Commons Gail Roberts/Coldwell Banker Barbara Currier/Coldwell Banker Fresh Pond Ballet Carol & Myra/Hammond Residential International School of Boston Margaret Szerlip/Sotheby’s RE Lux, Bond & Green Fine Jewelry ree reasons to dine McLean Hospital & Pavilion with us this summer: Minot DeBlois Advisors 1. It’s too hot to cook. North Hill Living 2. Exciting prix ﬁ xe menus for Bastille Day in July and Amex Sandrine’s French Bistro Restaurant Week in August. The Charles Hotel 3. Our open-window al fresco dining. Support from these advertisers Reservations for lunch and dinner helps us produce the independent, now being accepted high-quality publication Harvard alumni rely on for information about 8 Holyoke St., Cambridge MA (617) 497-5300 the University and each other.

12J July - August 2013 88 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Tastes and Tables An “Urban Farmhouse” Puritan & Company’s thoughtful food with local flavor

surprising was a fun little dish called swordfish pastrami ($13), Gilson’s take on the Reuben sandwich. Thin slices of lightly smoked fish, encrusted with peppers, came curled over something brown, beside a delightful mustard ge- lato. The flavors were crazily good, especially grounded by the brown stuff: puréed pumpernickel bread. The black pepper pasta entrée ($17) featured fine homemade noodles with mushrooms (there could have been more of those), but the sauce tasted too much of salt and vinegar. The roasted chicken ($24) was simply that—juicy and delicious, having been seriously brined. Sunchoke purée added an earthy bite, as did fingerling potatoes cooked to perfect firmness. illed as an “urban farmhouse” crunchy. The kitchen must want to ensure Desserts change often. The homey but- that pays homage to the chef’s fam- that all the cruciferous vegetable’s beta caro- terscotch pudding ($7) was rich and sweet ily farm, Puritan & Company is the tene, vitamin C, and soluble fiber still hold and thick, almost like an Indian pudding. B newest member of the Inman Square sway post-ingestion. The broccoli tasted de- (Sweet fiends might have chosen the more restaurant scene. Two long tables for group licious, as though we’d hacked it off its root highfalutin molten chocolate cake, for $1 dining set the tone in the center of the open and taken a hulking bite right there in the more, instead.) room; we sat at a two-person table near the noonday sun. The “Little Gem” salad ($10) Opened last November, Puritan & Com- lively kitchen, which felt just as communal. also featured lettuce so crisp it could practi- pany (named for the cake factory once lo- The interior has an airy, clean, look, with cally stand up on its own. A thick sprinkling cated in its space) has already won several its high ceilings, creamy woodwork, and of fresh herbs—such as dill, spearmint, and awards—and is beloved by local residents. gray-blue walls, tinted a bit lighter than the oregano—excited the palate, obviating the That’s just what the owners, who include color of a robin’s egg. We liked the spacious need for any other vegetables. (No doubt chef Gilson, Eugenia Huh ’04, and her husband, white bar top, too, and the evocative dec- Will Gilson learned the art of “herbing” from MIT graduate Ming-Tai Huh (a financial orative details: the 1920s porcelain-coated his family’s Herb Lyceum and restaurant; see manager who largely put the project togeth- stove at the entrance, and a hutch with big “Rustic Charms,” July-August 2011, page 12K.) er), had hoped. The Cambridge couple, new metal hinges. But someone in the kitchen is also clued to the restaurant industry, got married in the Clean and thoughtful also sum up the food: in to bread. The house-made potato Parker Puritan space last fall, while it was still un- morsels of meat (think duck egg and pork House rolls were warm, spongy mouthfuls der construction. The creative venture has belly) are doted over, and a range of vege- of comfort, easily pulled apart. And each bite been inspiring. “I love being part of a local tables arrives unadulterated by sauces—or fed some deeply buried, hungry inner child. business, where people want to come,” says even much cooking. The shaved and seared The carefully construct- Eugenia Huh, who does broccoli salad ($12) had a faintly Asian-styled ed gougères ($6), pastry dough Puritan & Company marketing for a law firm, thin brown dressing and was downright infused with rosemary and 1166 Cambridge Street “and being part of what cheddar mornay sauce, were Cambridge makes Cambridge unique Puritan & Company offers a country-style 617-615-6195 respite from city life. golf-ball-sized treats. More and vibrant.” vn.p.b. www.puritancambridge.com

Photograph by Rachel Leah Blumenthal Harvard Magazine 12K Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 130710_HUECU.indd 1 5/23/13 9:34 AM Montage Art, books, diverse creations

14 Harvard Square, the Novel 15 Open Book 16 Off the Shelf 18 How Not to Be Clueless 20 The Screenwriter’s Toolbox 21 Jewish Jokes, Theoretically 23 Chapter and Verse

Literary Gardening

A Berkshire yard that recalls poetry, fiction, and drama Mistress and her domain: the “hot by craig lambert border” in summer, at left; Ilona Bell at her outdoor window; his is an English garden, to be sure, neighboring states have admired its riches. at right, “Aslan” with plantings arranged to mim- The splendid garden fills a verdant acre watches over all. ic natural settings such as ponds at the home of Ilona Isaacson Bell ’69, RI T or meadows or woodlands—very ’89, and Robert Bell, Ph.D. ’72, in William- A line from Andrew unlike the geometric, clipped formality of stown, Massachusetts. (She is the main Marvell’s poem “The French or Italian gardens. “I must congrat- gardener, he an actively engaged apprecia- Garden” (“A green ulate you—you’ve built an English garden tor; a few hours a week of hired help aids thought in a green outside of England,” observed an elderly with weeding and other maintenance.) shade”) surmounts British visitor a few years ago. But this isn’t The house is a century-old carriage barn a wooden window frame in the center of just another well-tended bower: in 2008, the remade into a residence, which the Bells things; not surprisingly, Ilona Bell special- Smithsonian Archive of American Gardens acquired in 1978. Both teach English lit- izes in Renaissance poets like Marvell, added the property to its national archive, erature at Williams College, and appro- John Donne, George Herbert, and Mary and on “open days,” organized by The Gar- priately enough, their cultivated landscape Wroth. The Bells named a stone statue of den Conservancy, hundreds of visitors from has several embedded literary references. a seated lion “Aslan,” after the central char-

Garden photographs by Carol Stegeman, portrait by Craig Lambert Harvard Magazine 13 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Montage

sight, sound, touch, smell, and even taste (the Bells eat some flowers, as well as their acter in The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lew- Cultivated retreats homegrown vegetables). She is—also a Renaissance lit scholar; another (above): the water garden, has explored its dimensions with surrounding planters, statue depicts Titania, the queen of the and the vine-covered folly. in a lengthy essay, “Super- fairies in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. And one A statue of Titania holds a ego in Arcadia: Gardening of the garden’s “rooms” is a white garden solar-powered orb. as Performance,” which ap- (based on white foliage and flowers) de- peared in a special issue of signed in tribute to a room at Sissinghurst red, gold, and fuchsia; Bell The Southwest Review in 2010. Castle in Kent, England, the creation of studs the border with an- “The trouble with the garden Vita Sackville-West, a lover of one of Ilona nuals like canna, perilla, as art,” she explains, “is that Bell’s favorite authors, Virginia Woolf. and red salvia to keep the as soon as you get it the way Seeing Sissinghurst in the 1970s “was a heat turned up as the seasons change. The you want it, something gives up the ghost. revelation,” Bell says. “The complexity of the garden is constructed so that there is al- One of our hemlocks got diseased and had design—each room had a different wood, ways something in bloom in every space. to be removed—that changed everything.” tone, color scheme, architecture. In Eng- But with thousands of plants, it’s challeng- She does have some advice, though, for land, a garden room is an enclosed area, of- ing (despite an inventory on Bell’s comput- those seeking a perennial philosophy. “If ten surrounded by walls er) “to keep it all in your mind—to remem- you want a garden to look good,” she says, that can be eight or 10 ber what’s blooming on May 1, or June 15, “you have to pay more attention to the Visit www.harvardmag. feet high. Here, I’ve tried and how they all go together.” leaves than the flowers, as they are there com/extras to view a to create a distinctness As someone immersed in the literary arts, all season long.” No matter the season, video of the literary to each area.” Rather Bell readily sees the garden as an art form— the endless project never loses its allure. garden. than brick walls or high created in partnership with Mother Nature “I like the imaginative complexity of the clipped hedges, as at Sissinghurst, she used and involving a temporal dimension, over challenge it poses,” she says. “There are so a pergola, for example, to separate her ex- seasons and years. It satisfies the senses of many elements in play.” tensive kitchen garden from the neighboring water garden, where goldfish swim among water lilies and lotuses in a small pond piped to allow a burbling flow of wa- Harvard Square, the Novel ter. A folly composed of a few “ruined” columns defines another space (“I call it ‘Bob’s A café-goer’s view of Cambridge, a generation ago folly,’ ” she explains, “but he calls it ‘Ilona’s folly.’ ”) The wooden window, a classic gar- young exile comes to Cam- ate and launched a doubly successful career: den element, helps frame the central space, bridge, masters his studies, and writer or editor of eight books of fiction, es- and supports climbing vines. succeeds—that’s the life story, says, and memoir, and Distinguished Profes- As in many English gardens, the Bells A at Twitter length, of André Aci- sor in comparative literature at the Graduate grow various trees (including a gingko and man, Ph.D. ’88. An Egyptian Jew from a once- Center of the City University of New York. a weeping beech), shrubs, and perennial wealthy family, Aciman arrived at Harvard in His third novel, recently published, is flowers. Their “hot border” features flow- 1973 to study comparative literature. More Harvard Square (Norton). In its brisk and ers selected for their deep warm hues like than a decade later, he earned his doctor- stylish prose, an Egyptian Jew from a

14 July - August 2013 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 caption caption caption caption caption caption caption caption caption caption caption caption caption caption caption

Montage

Publisher Paul Dry ’66, o p e n b o o k Ed.M. ’67, has reissued The Fields of Light: An Ex- periment in Critical Read- Travel the world with fellow On Reading Well ing (Paul Dry Books, alumni and Harvard study $14.95 paper), by Reu- leaders. Choose from more ben Arthur Brower, than 50 trips annually. Ph.D. ’36, the late Cabot professor of English literature and founder of the classic General Education course Humanities 6, “Interpretation of Literature.” This edi- FEATURED TRIPS tion has a new foreword by William H. Pritchard, Ph.D. ’60, Folger professor of English at Amherst, where Brower was teaching when he wrote the book, two years before leaving for Harvard. Pritchard, who was Brower’s student at Amherst and then a member of his Hum 6 staff in Cambridge, writes of his mentor, “When Brower taught in the English department at Amherst College, it was very much a teaching rather than a research-publishing enterprise.” The method, he sum- marizes, was “asking what the poem was ‘like’ rather than how it was structured so as to produce a ‘meaning’….” The spirit of Brower’s “experiment” in reading, Pritchard says, is suggested by the book’s opening sentences:

This is a book to read with, an experi- agree with me that the experiment has JAN 31–FEB 13, 2014 ment in critical reading. While writing been successful.… EXPEDITION TO ANTARCTICA STUDY LEADER: DAVID AGUILAR it, I have always been thinking of litera- There is no simple and certain way ture as read by someone, as an active of defending critical reading, as there is engagement between the reader and the no simple way of defending any educa- printed page. My aim has been twofold: tional activity. Two sorts of justifications to demonstrate some methods of read- are suggested by the two quotations at ing analysis and to use them in discover- the head of this introductory note. Prac- ing designs of imaginative organization tice in defining the meanings of words in in particular poems, plays, and novels. literature is an “instrument of a liberal A book of this sort necessarily calls for culture” [Leo Stein] since it is practice active participation if the experiment is in making discriminations. Practice in dis- to be even moderately successful. The covering the “masses of implications” [Le ideal reader of the chapters that follow Corbusier] in a work of literary art is will stop to read a poem more than once, practice in finding relationships, in finding FEB 18–24, 2014 CARNEVALE TRADITIONS IN VENICE or come back to a chapter a second time order in experience. These are among STUDY LEADERS: LEO DAMROSCH after he has reread the novel or play that the primary activities of civilized men. & JOYCE VAN DYKE is being discussed. He will on occasion want to read a poem or a passage of prose aloud. Above all he will not forget that he is making an experiment, that he is learning to do something, rather than pas- sively viewing a series of more or less revolutionary interpretations ives on which he is to vote “yes” or h rc “no.” I shall not measure the success of this book by whether the MAR 24–APR 5, 2014 iversity A reader agrees or disagrees with n GRAND SOUTH AFRICA WITH ROVOS RAIL my interpretations, but by the way in which he interprets the next TO BOOK YOUR NEXT TRIP, poem or the next novel he reads. If CALL US AT 800-422-1636. by adopting some of the methods FOR MORE TRIP OPTIONS, VISIT I have used he discovers relations ALUMNI.HARVARD.EDU/TRAVELS he had missed before, then he may

Professor Brower, reader, 1957 Harvard News office/courtesy of Harvard u

Harvard Magazine 15 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Montage onetime-wealthy family is a graduate stu- vard, women, and an outsider culture vy- driving a cab, he holds down a table in a dent in Harvard’s comparative literature ing for the narrator’s attention. series of Cambridge restaurants, delivering department, obsessed with Proust and the Caught between worlds, the narrator machine-gun bursts of rage that provoke 1678 French novel La Princesse de Clèves. Set is friendless. At Café Algiers on Brattle men and, on a good night, attract women. in the summer of 1977, Harvard Square is an Street, he meets an exile from Tunisia The narrator’s friendship with Kalaj (a interwoven series of romances, with Har- who’s everything he’s not: when Kalaj isn’t nickname shortened from “Kalashnikov,”

Bioluminescence: Living acting with their environment, not from Lights, Lights for Living, by their designer—and so are fundamental Off the Shelf Thérèse Wilson, senior research to the process of evolution. His text is Recent books with Harvard connections associate emerita, and J. Wood- clear and approachable, with some work; land Hastings, Mangelsdorf re- the argument is sweeping. search professor of natural scienc- 1940: FDR, Wilkie, Lindbergh, Hit- es (Harvard, $45). A clear explanation, Alice Aycock Drawings, by Jonathan ler—the Election Amid the Storm, beautifully illustrated, of the mechanisms Fineberg ’67, Ph.D. ’75 (Yale, $45). The by Susan Dunn, Ph.D. ’73 (Yale, $30). and evolutionary dispersal—far beyond Gutgsell professor of art history emeritus Some elections really are watersheds. summer’s fireflies—of one of nature’s at the University of Illinois at Urbana- Here, the indefatigable Third Century most beguiling phenomena. Champaign, who also curates at various professor of humanities at Williams Col- institutions, provides the analytical con- lege extends her prior narrative, Roos- The Citizen Patient, by Nortin M. tinuity for an exhibition catalog/book of evelt’s Purge (on the president’s effort Hadler, M.D. ’68 (University of North the industrial-techno sculptor’s fantasti- during the 1938 midterm campaign to Carolina, $28). A professor of medically detailed drawings. defeat party members who resisted his cine and microbiology/immunology and initiatives), with a gripping narrative of a rheumatologist, the author is a skep- Designed Ecologies: The Landscape the dramatic 1940 contest for the White tic about the contemporary healthcare Architecture of Kongjian Yu, edited by House. system and “the many perversities that William S. Saunders (Birkhauser, $54.95). characterize” it, driving up costs and The former editor of the Graduate School Intuition Pumps and Other Tools clouding the doctor-patient relationship. of Design’s Harvard Design Magazine here for Thinking, by Daniel C. Dennett He addresses consumers, urging them to assembles expert views on, and project ’63 (W.W. Norton, $28.95). The author, understand the system and to University Professor at Tufts and co-di- envision reform for the ben- rector of its Center for Cognitive Studies, efit of patients. presents a lay summing-up of his work as a philosopher, introducing “intuition How Everyone Became pumps” and other devices for provoking, Depressed, by Edward and providing insight into, thought. Shorter, Ph.D. ’68 (Oxford, $29.95). The Hannah professor In the Balance: Law and Politics in in the history of medicine— the Roberts Court, by Mark Tushnet, and professor of psychiatry— Cromwell professor of law (W.W. Nor- at the University of Toronto ton, $28.95). A legal historian and scholar examines the ever-broadening of judicial review on the Law School fac- diagnosis of depression, its fre- ulty examines the Supreme Court, as led quently inappropriate (in his by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. ’76, view) treatment with antide- Red Ribbon Park, along the naturally verdant Tanghe J.D. ’79, and finds not neutral “umpiring” pressants, and, he asserts, the n yu River in Qinhuangdao, Hebei Province, China, 2007 gjia

but a politicized jurisprudence on a politi- fundamental misunderstanding n cally divided court in a highly partisan era. of a suite of symptoms and problems in descriptions of, the work of Kongjian Yu, need of informed care. D.Dn. ’95. Yu still commutes from Beijing Sidetracked, by Francesca Gino, associ- to teach studios at the GSD; his firm, Tu- ate professor of business administration Probably Approximately Correct, renscape, is perhaps the preeminent land- courtesy of ko (Harvard Business Review Press, $25). A by Leslie Valiant, Coolidge professor of scape enterprise in China, and he is a lead- specialist in negotiation and decisionmak- computer science and applied mathemat- ing voice for environmentally sound design ing details the obstacles—narrow focus, ics (Basic Books, $26.99). A scholar at the in a country that desperately needs a new lack of perspective, and so on—that de- intersection of computing and evolution- model of urban development. His work rail decisions, and suggests strategies for ary neuroscience, Valiant explores “eco- was covered in “Global Reach” (May-June sticking to the plan. rithms”: algorithms that learn by inter- 2010, page 51).

16 July - August 2013 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Montage

In his old haunts: novelist André Aciman in the center of Harvard Square for his rapid-fire rants) is anything but a feel-good buddy story. “Perhaps he was a stand-in for who I was, a primitive version of the me I’d lost track of and sloughed off living in America,” the narrator says. “My shadow self, my picture of Dorian Gray, my mad brother in the attic, my Mr. Hyde, my very, very rough draft. Me unmasked, unchained, unleashed, unfinished: me un-

trammeled, me in rags, me enraged. Me er n without books, without finish, without a green card. Me with a Kalashnikov.” stu ros Harvard Square is a book of contrasts, all narrator, Aciman was obsessed with What is the truth? Because it is so auto- brutal. An undergraduate writing her thesis Proust and La Princesse de Clèves at Harvard. biographical, Harvard Square poses that on Proust comes to talk to the narrator and Like his narrator, he was a resident tu- question in a way that presents the read- becomes his lover. She’s any exile’s dream of tor in Lowell House. Like his narrator, he er with an uncomfortable problem. It’s a trophy wife—beautiful, rich, whip smart, was disabused of his illusions at Harvard. not hard to sympathize with an outsider principled, and, of course, a WASP. Lacer- They even share the same Coop number. struggling to assimilate, and Aciman’s ated by her nobility and goodness, he ends And as in all of Aciman’s fiction, the nar- narrator is doing his best; the romance and returns to Café Algiers, rator is unnamed. “If you write in the first as the author says, “The where, as Aciman explains, “Kalaj teaches person and use your name, it’s memoir, story of my life is the Visit www.harvardmag. him how to read people—and once you can and if you make up a name, it’s fiction,” opportunity to marry com/extras to hear read people, you can read books.” Aciman says. “I write ‘faction.’ ” up.” But assimilation Aciman read a portion Autobiographical? All of it. Like his Novels occasionally pose the question: and upward mobility of his novel aloud.

Harvard is...extraordinary opportunity

SUPPORTING FINANCIAL AID

Support the

alumni.harvard.edu/give alumni.harvard.edu/give

HARVARD ACCEPTANCE LETTERS BEING MOVED TO A USPS TRUCK FOR DELIVERY. A RECORD 35,023 APPLIED TO BE MEMBERS OF HARVARD’S CLASS OF 2017. PHOTO: ROSE PHOTO: UNIVERSITY LINCOLN/HARVARD

Harvard Magazine 17 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Montage are rarely smooth, and the narrator often born, they are manufactured. Ford-ersatz, smooth, even elegant, so you’re not over- falls out of love with Harvard and dreams Chrysler-ersatz, Buick-ersatz”—that the whelmed by how savage life can be.” of going home. reader wants Aciman to call it an exaggera- Harvard…savage? Aciman doesn’t back Kalaj, in contrast, shares none of the nar- tion and disown it. But he doesn’t. off. “Have I ever felt at home at Harvard, rator’s ambivalence. Like the narrator, he’s “The narrator tells you things he’s not at home in America? No. But I was no more needy and vulnerable and oh, so lonely, but happy about, and Kalaj is even more bru- at home in Egypt. I’m an outsider who is his tenderness is masked by his nonstop tally honest,” Aciman says. “My writing still trying to learn how to fit in. But really, aggression. His hostility toward America is unusually bold—those rants of Kalaj’s, there are no insiders. Like my characters, is so transparent—“Americans are not I wrote them—but I write in a way that’s we’re all exiles.” vjesse kornbluth

John Huth navigating through a rock slot of Placentia Island in coastal Maine

Huth’s story starts with kayaking. An avid paddler, he became disoriented in fog several years ago while exploring the waters around Maine’s Cranberry Islands. He had neither map nor compass. Using his knowledge of primitive navigation techniques—then quite rudimentary, though well beyond the average smartphone ad- dict’s—Huth called up a mental map of the area, noted wave angles and incidences to determine where the coast lay, listened

for shore-crashing waves, and counted out h

ut time as he paddled straight toward his an- hn h

o ticipated landfall. Eventually he made it. Rattled, yet pleased with his use of general navigational techniques, Huth decided

courtesy of J to study offshore-navigation techniques more carefully before next setting out. Several months later, Huth again found How Not to Be Clueless himself paddling in fog, this time off the coast of Cape Cod. Better prepared by his Navigating the smartphone world study, he had noted wave, shore, wind, and sound patterns before setting out, and thus, by isabel w. ruane when the fog hit, he navigated home without worry. But the next day, he read in the e’re living in a smart- ner professor of science John Edward Huth, newspaper about two other Cape Cod kay- phone world. It seems ev- a high-energy physicist, argues just that. akers who had not been eryone’s roommate, profes- In The Lost Art of Finding Our Way, Huth reso lucky. Sarah Aronoff, The Lost Art of W sor, kid brother, and even examines the post-smartphone world with 19, and Mary Jagoda, 20, Finding Our Way, by grandmother lives, eats, and breathes for an eye to the losses we have incurred in had been enveloped in John Edward Huth access to 4G (and good battery life). Ask exchange for boundless information at our the same fog; they never (Harvard, $35) (almost) anything of (nearly) anyone at (just fingertips. The book is a fascinating guide made it back to shore. about) any time, and her smartphone’s got to the “primitive” (and yet, we soon real- Huth surmises that, equipped with neither the answer. Lose track of how to get to the ize, incredibly sophisticated) techniques compass and map nor his knowledge of doctor’s office, forget your appointment’s by which our forebears charted, mea- navigation techniques, the young women time, or need, indeed, to find a doctor, and sured, predicted, and navigated their place became truly lost. This tragedy convinced your smartphone’s got your back. It hardly in space. Most important, Huth weaves Huth that he needed not only to study seems hyperbole to designate the smart- through all his practical information the primitive navigation for himself, but to phone the most revolutionary tool for the argument that in order to maintain touch get knowledge of those techniques to the dissemination and acquisition of knowledge with our natural world, we must relearn and smartphone-dependent public. The Lost Art since Gutenberg’s storied press. retain direct understanding of the natural of Finding Our Way is dedicated to the memo- But as fun, helpful, and indispensible as our world. Humans’ loss of our intrinsic, vis- ry of Aronoff and Jagoda in the hope that it smartphones may seem, might they also be ceral connection to nature would be regret- may educate other adventurers who some- our biggest crutch? In his new book, Don- table—and, in some cases, tragic. day find themselves lost.

18 July - August 2013 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 I Choose Harvard...

David Feinberg ’81, Mark Carbone ’79 JD ’86, P’13 When he headed off to David Feinberg ’81, JD ’86, Harvard in the mid-’70s, Mark P’13 learned early on that edu- Carbone ’79 was an anomaly cation can elevate people’s lives. in his hometown of Quogue, “My father [Maurice] believed New York. “I was the second or that through education, you third kid from eastern Long could change cycles of poverty Island to go to an Ivy League and the trajectory of families school,” he recalls. Carbone for generations,” Feinberg recalls. never regretted the choice. Now “So the best way for us to honor a real estate developer, he is him, after he died in 2002, was giving promising students from to endow scholarships.” Feinberg and his family established the that region and beyond a chance to attend the College. He Maurice Feinberg Undergraduate Scholarship Fund in 2006 to established the Mark E. Carbone Scholarship Fund in 2005, support Harvard’s commitment to enrolling outstanding students grew it to support two students in 2009, and intends to sustain from all socioeconomic backgrounds. Now a lawyer from two more in honor of his 35th reunion in 2014. Carbone, who Brookline, Massachusetts, Feinberg lived in Lowell House and lived in Leverett House and concentrated in government, concentrated in social studies. He was involved with the Institute applauds the University’s efforts to make a Harvard education of Politics and Phillips Brooks House, where he ran a tutoring affordable. “I hope the financial aid program continues to grow program for prisoners. “Harvard College made me strive to think and reach more and more students throughout the country.” deeper and broader,” says Feinberg. “They were four of the best TO READ MORE, PLEASE VISIT WWW.ALUMNI.HARVARD.EDU/CARBONE years of my life.” TO READ MORE, PLEASE VISIT WWW.ALUMNI.HARVARD.EDU/FEINBERG “ When you sponsor a scholarship, you change

that student’s life.” —WILLIAM FITZSIMMONS, DEAN OF ADMISSIONS AND FINANCIAL AID

SUPPORTING FINANCIAL AID

Support the

alumni.harvard.edu/give

LEFT: THE 2012 HARVARD-YALE GAME PHOTOS: JON CHASE/HARVARD UNIVERSITY; FEINBERG: ROBERT CASTAGNA PHOTOGRAPHY; PHOTOGRAPHY; CASTAGNA ROBERT FEINBERG: UNIVERSITY; JON CHASE/HARVARD PHOTOS: MACINDOE GRAHAM CARBONE:

130716_AAD_full.indd 1 5/29/13 3:00 PM Montage

Having deciding to share his navigation Interspersed throughout are narratives of the approach and arrival of warm fronts research at Harvard, Huth first crafted a navigation from other cultures—particu- and cold fronts, and understand what sorts freshman seminar. From there, the mate- larly those of Arab traders, Vikings, and of winds and precipitation these weather rial grew into a General Education course, Pacific Islanders. patterns will bring. I can entertain a night- Science of the Physical Universe 26: Primi- In the age of “my world is my iPhone,” time crowd by pointing out constellations tive Navigation. (SPU 26 shared many fea- Huth’s book will provide most readers beyond Orion and the Dippers. And I am tures of Harvard College’s longest-running with new, useful, enlightening informa- confident that when I am out in a sailboat course, Astronomy 2: Celestial Navigation, tion—the space beyond the screen, as (my own maritime hobby), I, too, will have which is still offered, but was intended as it were. In fact, I would rather have read the tools to avoid getting lost. a broad survey of navigational techniques the book than taken the course: when The Lost Art of Finding Our Way should and history, rather than an in-depth intro- curiosity is your motivating force, you’d be a field guide, not merely an armchair duction to celestial navigation.) rather soak in the information than worry exercise. As you read it, you must try its I participated in the last iteration of about assignments and grading. But class techniques out in the world. If Huth has “PrimNav” (as undergrads dubbed the participation did have its merits. Our as- done his job, and I think he has, then all popular class) before the book’s final ed- signments sent us out into the Cambridge his readers will turn this valuable book’s iting. Not surprisingly, it closely mirrors streets, across the Charles River bridges, last page feeling similarly enlightened and the proceedings of the course. Huth be- and up to both of Harvard’s observato- confident about setting forth into Cam- gins with surveys of basic land navigation ries—successfully putting the practical bridge, across land, and even out to sea. If based on “dead reckoning” and progresses back into science. you become lost some day—or, God for- to the more sophisticated application of My own experience of the world has bid, your phone’s battery runs out—there compasses and maps. From there, he ex- certainly changed since I spent a semester will be nothing but your eyes, ears, and amines celestial navigation via stars, sun, studying primitive navigation. Now, I al- mind to guide you home. moon, and the horizon. He next heads ways orient myself to the cardinal directions seaward, discussing waves, tides, currents, based on the sun’s location and the time of Former Berta Greenwald Ledecky Undergraduate wind, and sailing vessels. He also includes day. I notice the passing of the seasons based Fellow Isabel Ruane ’14 is a history concentrator a long, informative section about weather. on the angle of the sun’s ascent. I can track and co-captain of the sailing team. The Screenwriter’s Toolbox Danny Rubin teaches the “impossible” craft.

riting a screenplay out a 120-page script—the standard length ence, comes alive, engages us emotionally” “isn’t that hard,” says Dan- for a two-hour feature film, computed at certainly is. In 2008, when the English de- ny Rubin, Briggs-Copeland one page per screen minute—isn’t an espe- partment decided to add screenwriting to W lecturer on English. “It’s cially difficult challenge, but writing “one its creative-writing offerings, it tapped Ru- only impossible.” In other words, turning that actually works, that reaches the audi- bin, who has written dozens of screenplays in the past two decades. Three have been produced, including his big hit, Groundhog Day, the 1993 existential comedy starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell. In Cambridge, Rubin has taught the screenwriter’s craft to Harvard undergraduates, graduate students, and even Nie- man Fellows in workshop-format courses, “Dramatic Screenwriting” I and II. His students write short films of eight to 10 minutes; in many other screenwriting courses, students frequently attempt a full-length movie but end up completing only the first act. (The standard formula breaks feature films down into three acts, roughly equiva- lent to the story’s set-up, development, and resolution.) Rubin wants his aspiring writers to have the experience of finish-

Screenwriter Danny Rubin at home

20 July - August 2013 Photograph by Jim Harrison Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Montage ing a full story, with a In a scene from Rubin’s beginning, middle, and 1993 “existential comedy,” Groundhog end. “Anyone can write Day, Bill Murray swigs a first act,” he says, “but from a carafe of coffee when you are done with before a horrified Andie my course, you will have MacDowell. the tools to write a feature film.” lished the book How to Movie storytelling, Write Groundhog Day he explains, boils down (2012), which contains to “three basic things: the screenplay, Rubin’s who is your character, notes, and his saga of etty I mages what do they want, and G how the classic film came why can’t they have it?” into being, via the tortu- Suspense helps drive the ous Hollywood path of narrative, and its most agents, studios, produc- olumbia Pictures/ olumbia basic form is: “How C ers, directors, and actors. does this story turn out?” Suspense can break it. A character might line up for his It isn’t, though, a “how-to” book on screen- also energize a scene, keeping viewers daily bus ride to work, get on the bus, pay writing, of which there are dozens. “Every- on the edge of their seats: “You have to the fare, and then get off the bus before it one in Hollywood reads these books,” he expect something to happen, and then leaves. “That could show that somebody explains, “and they think they understand it doesn’t.” Expectation alone can do it: has changed his mind,” says Rubin. “If how to write a screenplay. But it’s like an Alfred Hitchcock scene might show the story has set it up, we’ll already know looking for the secret of how to live your two people conversing, and then reveal a where the character has decided to go in- life. You go to see the philosophers, and bomb beneath the table. “Now that con- stead.” each sage has a different piece of wisdom. versation becomes filled with dramatic During his five-year Harvard appoint The books give guidelines and rules to fol- energy,” Rubin explains. To keep the audi- ment, now nearly complete, Rubin has low, but the craft is knowing when and ence hooked, “You ask a question and then written and sold an original script, com where to apply them. No one can tell you don’t answer it. Keep that ball up in the air pleted two rewrite jobs, and also pub- how to live your life.” vcraig lambert as long as possible. Once you answer the question, the dramatic energy is over.” Perhaps the most fundamental tool is writing in a visual, not literary, mode. “One Jewish Jokes, Theoretically of the things I have to train out of prose writers is the idea that it’s about the lan- Does in-group humor displace political action? guage,” he says. “The script uses a visual language: that means scenes where people by daniel klein are doing things, not saying things.” A nov- ethnic group that historically has dwelt in elist can describe the inner experience of y, such a provocative book the margins of the nations and cultures of a character in great detail—think Henry this is—I’m telling you, I can’t others. Clearly, irony and satire often pro- James—but that doesn’t exploit the power tell you. vided a palliative outlet for the Jewish out- of film, which tells its stories in pictures, O But funny? siders, but this is only the starting point for with a strong assist from sound. “We get a Not so much, the comical picture of Wisse’s analysis; she goes on to raise ques- lot more information that way than we re- Groucho on the cover notwithstanding. tions about both the alize,” Rubin explains. “In the first 10 min- Delving into the history, anthropology, appropriateness and Ruth Wisse, No Joke: utes of ET, for example, there isn’t a single sociopolitical utility, and moral value of the effectiveness of Making Jewish Humor line of dialogue. You don’t want characters Jewish humor has the same built-in limi- making funny when (Princeton University telling the story. Free up the dialogue to do tations as analyzing sex—you really had anti-Semitism has Press, $24.95) more interesting things, like crack a joke to be there to fully appreciate what all the reached dangerous or establish a character.” tzimmes [fuss] was about. Come to think levels. Can humor abet the oppressor? Can A standard screenwriting technique is of it, the book’s title may be intended to it neurotically internalize the prejudices of to externalize the characters’ inner states. warn the reader not to expect a totally the other? Can it subvert creative energies For example, “You can give value to an satisfying shpritz. Sarah Silverman, author that would be better used to take effective object,” he notes. “Like taking a wed- Ruth Wisse is not. political action? ding ring and throwing it into the toilet. What Harvard’s Peretz professor of Yid- Much of No Joke’s focus is on the extent Or later reaching into a toilet to retrieve a dish literature and professor of comparative to which Jewish humor traditionally has wedding ring to show a change of heart.” literature does offer is a far-reaching discus- been aimed inward, satirizing the Jewish Another tool is to build a routine and then sion of the essential role humor plays in an storyteller himself and other members of

Harvard Magazine 21 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Montage his tribe, as compared to poking fun at the hensive and insightful historical survey of strict mutual exclusion. People have been dominant culture that surrounded him. Jewish humor and its perpetrators, ranging known to both laugh and act, even to act (Wisse notes that only the Scots rival the from Heinrich Heine to Woody Allen, its bravely. Some have even taken succor from Jews in lampooning their own stereotypes; recurring theme is the dangers of Jewish- laughter in a way that invigorates them to apparently Scots tell barrelsful of skinflint wrought humor that is not “good for the act bravely. This, sadly, was not the case for jokes—at their own expense, so to speak.) Jews”—psychologically, morally, aestheti- most American Jews in the 1930s, but is it The most poignant and prevalent target cally, and politically. For Professor Wisse, reasonable and fair to blame American Jew- of this humor are Jews who try to pass for such dangers are the serious questions. ish inaction on Milton Berle and Mel Brooks gentiles. These stories and gags strike at For example, at the end of a section and their cackling Catskill audiences? the heart of the assimilation dilemma: how about the heyday of Borscht Belt come- This finger-wagging attitude toward many steps in the direction of assimilation dians in the 1930s, a time when Ameri- North American Jews and our supposed does it take to cross the line into unfaithful- can Jews were beginning to prosper in shallowness with regard to humor crops ness to one’s Jewish identity? And up in other contexts. Wisse re- at what point does the assimilated counts a personal story about Jew find himself ineluctably be- attending a dramatic reading of traying his own people? Painful Sholem Aleichem stories by a material, hilarious gags. Yiddish actor in Montreal: “The My personal favorite among actor had chosen a funny story such jokes (it is not in Wisse’s and performed it well, but there book) involves two Jews who was less and less laughter with pass a church displaying a sign every sentence. The humor was promising $1,000 to all new con- simply too dense—too intimate, verts. After much debate, one too good. Rather than continuing of the men decides to go for the with the second Sholem Aleichem money and enters the church. An story, our entertainer switched to hour passes, then another and a sketch by the American Yiddish another as the friend waits out- humorist Moise Nudelman—a side. Finally the Jew comes out of tale that was thinner in substance the church and his friend eagerly and heavily dosed with English. asks, “So, did you get the money?” This went off much better, inad- The first man glares back and vertently showing us how much says, “Is that all you people ever was gone from our culture….” think about?” Clearly, the audience in this an- Oh, the levels, the levels. The ecdote is being put down. They joke pokes fun at the Jew not do not know good humor from only as stereotypically money bad, or richly layered European- obsessed, but as all too eager to born Jewish humor from adulter- take on the persona, including ated, simple-minded, feel-good the prejudices, of a gentile. Yet Jewish-American humor. I do gentiles do not get away untar- believe that some of us American etty I mages nished either; the converted Jew G Jews have just been insulted, al- o/ in the joke is a parody of gentile n beit humorlessly. ara holier-than-thou-ness. At a sec- That’s funny, because insult- arry M arry ondary level, the question arises L ing the audience has a long, of whether there is a significant difference Jewish humor central: comedian Jackie sidesplitting history for Members of the between a gentile telling this joke in pub- Mason at the Frank Sinatra Theatre, Tribe. Don Rickles and Jackie Mason Sunrise, Florida, in January 2008 lic and a Jew telling it exclusively to other are only recent American incarnations Jews. This raises yet another question, the New World even as their European of this tradition. No Joke takes us back one that springs to Jewish lips so habitu- counterparts were falling under the re- to the golden era of Yiddish in Europe, ally that it has become a joke unto itself: pressions of Nazism and Stalinism, Wisse when insults and curses, often uttered Is this story “good for the Jews?” Finally, concludes: “What, then, are we to make of by uneducated women, were so delight- there remains the simple query: Shouldn’t the fantastic spurt of Jewish laughter in fully serpentine—slipping artfully from the first and most pertinent question the very years when American Jews ought, blessing to stinger—as to be uproarious about any joke be, “Is it funny?” A scholar perhaps, to have been laughing less and miniature comic fables in themselves. and social critic like Wisse might only doing more?” Here is one from the book: “May you have shrug at this last question. Funny? Is that all The author’s either/or formulation—ei- the juiciest goose, but no teeth; the best you people ever think about? ther laugh or take political action—may wine, but no sense of taste; and the most Although the bulk of No Joke is a compre- strike some readers as an unnecessarily beautiful wife, but be impotent.” That

22 July - August 2013 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Montage c hapter Make a donation to & verse Harvard Magazine Correspondence on not-so-famous lost words AND SUPPORT Lewis Klebanoff seeks a poem, possibly titled “Together,” describing a mar- • Independent reporting ried couple aging together, in their living room, the husband reading, the wife knitting. “As I recall, they didn’t speak, • In-depth research but the poem dealt with the depth of their communication and relationship.” • International coverage

Bob Tieger asks whether “more brio than class” has a literary origin, and if 1 so, who said it about what or whom. /3 of our funding comes directly

“I’m a city boy myself” (May-June). from reader donations. Daniel Rosenberg and David Goldber were the first to identify the conclusion of Saul Bellow’s Humboldt’s Gift. Visit harvardmagazine.com/donate

Send inquiries and answers to “Chapter to learn more and make your gift today. and Verse,” Harvard Magazine, 7 Ware Street, Cambridge 02138, or via e-mail to [email protected]. insult is so delicious that the insulted Connect with could endure it with a measure of joy. Alas, there is not much joy in No Joke. Ivy League Alumni Obviously, writing seriously about humor, especially its potential to lead to shame Increase your brand awareness and defeat, does not lend itself easily to through one-of-a-kind event funny expression. But does this mean such opportunities with the Ivy a book must be virtually devoid of fun and League Magazine Network. wit? The entire enterprise of evaluating humor by extraliterary standards, particu- From tastings to tailgates, ILMN larly moral and political standards, is very events engage the most infl uential, much with us these days. Comedians and affl uent, and educated audience just plain partygoers routinely endure se- in print and online. celebrateHARVARD rious condemnation for going outside the with harvard magazine bounds of political correctness with their To fi nd out more, email: witticisms. Undoubtedly, this represents a [email protected] YALE step forward in sensitive civil behavior, but c e l e b r a t e t h e g a m e one cannot help wonder if something gets www.ivymags.com lost in the process. Something funny.

INVESTING IN AMERICA IS A VOTE OF CONFIDENCE. IN YOURSELF. Daniel Klein ’61 is the coauthor, with Thomas

When you work in this country, you realize the US economy isn’t an abstract chart or graph. It’s something you live and breathe every day. Why not benefi t from that experience? Cathcart ’61, of Plato and a Platypus Walk ® Consider the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average Exchange Traded Fund. With 30 of America’s blue-chip companies, it acts as a bellwether of the US economy. All wrapped up in an index investors can easily Whether he’s leading a buy and sell with the precision of a single stock. If you’ve always believed what’s good for foreign study program America is good for you, here’s your chance to in the african desert or prove it. Visit spdrs.com or scan the QR code with your smartphone for details. conducting climate research into a Bar—Understanding Philosophy in the frozen arctic, ecologist and popular professor ross Virginia is the Before investing, carefully consider the funds’ investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. To obtain a prospectus or summary prospectus, which contains this and other information, call 1.866.787.2257 or visit www.spdrs.com. Read it carefully. through Jokes (see “Joculor, Ergo Sum,” ETFs trade like stocks, fl uctuate in market value and may trade at prices above or below the ETFs net asset value. Brokerage commissions and ETF expenses will reduce returns. Natural The SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF is an exchange traded fund designed to generally correspond to the price and yield performance of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.SM “SPDR” is a registered trademark of Standard & Poor’s Financial Services, LLC (“S&P”) and has been licensed for use by State Street Corporation. No fi nancial product offered by State Street or its affi liates is sponsored, endorsed, sold or promoted by S&P. “Dow Jones®”, “The Dow®”, “Dow Jones Industrial AverageSM” and “DJIA®” are trademarks of the Dow Jones & Company, Inc. (“Dow Jones”) and have been licensed for use by State Street Bank and Trust. The Products are not sponsored, endorsed, sold or promoted by Dow Jones and Dow Jones makes no representation regarding the advisability of investing in the Product. ALPS Distributors, Inc., a registered broker-dealer, is distributor for the SPDR DJIA Trust, a unit investment trust. IBG-3219

July/August 2012 May-June 2007, page 26). Klein’s most recent Five Dollars

120705_StateStreet_Ivy.inddCLIENT: SSGA 1 JOB#: 04081 PUBLICATION: Ivy League Network AD: TR AE: PS 5/24/12 2:59 PM STUDIO#: TMC MACHINE: Timothy Cozzi PREV OP: PREV MACHINE: Timothy Cozzi BLEED: 8.625 x 11.125 01_cover.indd 2 5/31/12 4:25 PM TRIM: 8.125 x 10.5 SAFETY: 7 x 9.25 DATE: 5/23/12 - 11:39 AM CREATED: 9/11/09 - 11:40AM FILE NAME: 04081_ SSGA_8p125x10p5_m1a.indd FONTS: Univers 65 Bold, Univers 45 Light, Univers 85 Extra Black, Univers 65 Bold Oblique, Univers 67 Bold Condensed, Univers 47 Light Condensed GUTTER: - IMAGES: SSGA_BRIDGE_4c133ls_Pg_v2.tif, SSGA_DIA_logo_CMYK_30pctK.eps, SPDR_R_TagSM_CMYK_50pctK_v2.eps, SSGA_DIA_3945213_ ClkThruQR_v1.eps, SSGA_ShipLogo_50gry_v2.eps, NYSE_ListedArca_logo_50pcGREY.eps COLORS: grey background, Grey text, Paper, Black DOC PATH: Not Found book is Travels with Epicurus. LINE SCREEN: 133 SCALE: 100%

Harvard Magazine 23 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Anatomy of the Euro Crisis F The political economy of a continent at cross-purposes O R U “Ten years into its existence, the Euro by peter a. hall How did the Europeans get into this is a resounding success. The single currency mess—and how are they going to get out of M has become a symbol of Europe, considered by Euro-area citizens it? There are no obvious answers—indeed, the regional variation to be among the most positive results of European integration….” in the answers usually given across Europe is telling. But deeper Barely five years after the European Commission issued this 2008 analysis can be illuminating, not only about the euro crisis itself, celebration of its new currency, the statement seems highly iron- but about that unique political construction that is the European ic. Europe is locked in a struggle for the survival of the euro—and Union (EU). indeed, for the prosperity of the continent and its people. Ger- man chancellor Angela Merkel does not exaggerate when she says “Rules Rule”: Putting a Theory into Practice that “the euro crisis is the greatest test Europe has faced since the Reading about the euro in the financial press is like watching signing of the Treaty of Rome in 1957”—the foundation of the Eu- Rashomon, that marvelous Japanese film about memory and forget- ropean Economic Community (EEC). ting. Many who once applauded the monetary union now condemn Across southern Europe, millions of families are living in mis- it. Today, everyone agrees that the institutional structure of eco- ery, as rates of unemployment exceed 25 percent in Greece and nomic and monetary union (EMU) is inadequate. Why then did the Spain and approach 15 percent in Portugal (and, on the western Europeans agree to it in the Maastricht Treaty of 1992? periphery, in Ireland), while the salaries of teachers, nurses, and Monetary union was adopted as much for political reasons other public employees are slashed, and firms go bankrupt in as for economic ones. The EU members were dissatisfied with unprecedented numbers. The suicide rate in Greece has dou- the previous system that fixed their exchange rates within nar- bled during the past three years. This economic stagnation is row bands—a system that provided monetary stability but re- now depressing performance even in Germany, normally the quired painful negotiations when current-account imbalances arose between the member states; moreover, engine of the European economy; gross do- Hunger stalks southern Europe: A mestic product (GDP) in the 17 Eurozone nationalist political party distributes some governments resented the dominant countries is forecast to contract this year. food in Athens, September 14, 2012. role played by the German Bundesbank in this

24 July - August 2013 Photograph by Panayiotis Tzamaros/Demotix/Corbis Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 process. Ironically (in retrospect), the move to EMU was in some But that is only half of the story. Clinging to the illusion that mon- respects an effort to escape this need for transnational negotia- etary union had freed them from the need for serious negotiations tions about economic policy. about differing national budgets, the European governments were There were also economic payoffs. Germany was to gain se- reluctant to enforce the terms of the pact—especially because the cure markets in neighboring countries that would no longer be first countries to violate it were Germany and France. (Even on the able to devalue their currencies to increase the competitiveness brink of the crisis, Spain remained well within its terms.) of their goods vis-à-vis German ones, while the French imagined Moreover, much of the lending that fueled the crisis had gone that the new European central bank would be more sensitive to not to spendthrift governments, but rather to the private sector. their interests than the Bundesbank. But EMU was also conceived The euro crisis is really Europe’s version of the global debt crisis against the backdrop of German reunification after the fall of the (as the collapse of the housing market was in the United States). Berlin Wall in November 1989. There was never a strict quid pro There was plenty of “irrational exuberance” to go around. Dur- quo, but the single currency was sold in France and Germany on ing the past decade, for instance, Spain built more houses than the understanding that it would bind a newly powerful Germany Germany, France, and the United Kingdom combined, and the Irish to Europe. It matters for events today that EMU was ultimately a banks so inflated their balance sheets that rescuing them in 2010 political construction, seen then as the crowning achievement of briefly swelled the Irish budget deficit to 32 percent of GDP. In European integration. such instances, the lenders as well as the borrowers are to blame. But the institutional design of EMU was highly technocratic. With the advent of the single currency, international financiers Authority over monetary policy was vested in a new European treated all the member states as safe markets and flooded them central bank (ECB) entirely independent of political control. Fis- with cheap money. Was it entirely unwise for firms and govern- cal policy was to be guided by the minimalist rules of a Stability ments to take advantage of those funds to fuel their growth? Per- and Growth Pact that limited national deficits to 3 percent and haps—but as we know in this country, they were not alone. national debt to 60 percent of GDP. There was no institutional pro- Among those most eager to lend to the periphery were the vision for medium-term coordination of fiscal policy among coun- financial institutions of northern Europe, which by the end of tries, and the ECB was forbidden to issue debt to subsidize na- 2009 held more than €2 trillion in Irish and southern European tional governments—a capacity most national central banks have. debt. Thus, the crisis of confidence that occurred in 2010 was Behind this design we can see the influence of the economic really a crisis for the European financial system as a whole. doctrines of the early 1990s. By then, the Keynesian view that When they bailed out Greece, Portugal, and Ireland, the north- growth depends on active governmental macroeconomic man- ern Europeans were also bailing out their own banks—al- agement had been discredited by the stagflation of the 1970s. A though it was more politically expedient to blame the problems new “rational-expectations” economic orthodoxy specified that on southern governments. monetary policy has few effects on the real economy and fiscal Those seeking deeper causes for the crisis often fasten on the policy is generally ineffective. Thus, monetary policy should be rising imbalances in payments across Europe, as Germany built rule-based and targeted only on inflation, while growth was said up large current account surpluses and the peripheral member to depend, not on the management of demand, but on structural states deficits. The southern Europeans were buying more from reforms to the supply side of the economy—based on changes to northern Europe than they sold there, and financing those pur- regulations and tax rates designed to increase competition in chases with loans from the north. Behind these imbalances was a markets for goods and labor. “Rules rule” ran the graffiti in the growing gap in unit labor costs, a conventional measure of nation- City of London at the time, and that is what EMU provided. al competitiveness, as wages in southern Europe rose faster than those in much of the north. On this basis, many claim that south- The Theory Derailed ern Europeans used the first decade of the euro to live beyond What went wrong? The conventional answer, popular in their means without taking enough steps to keep their economies northern Europe, is that the southern Europeans and Irish broke competitive. the fiscal rules of EMU. There is some truth to this. The crisis was sparked in December 2009 by a new Greek government’s Asymmetrical Economies revelation that its budget deficit was more than twice as large as Taken literally, this is incontrovertible, but the reality is previously reported. Because Greek national debt was already at more complicated. What governments and firms can do is condi- 113 percent of GDP, these new figures sparked a crisis of confi- tioned by the organization of the political economy. That is based dence in the international bond markets that soon spread beyond on institutions that develop over long periods of time and cannot Greece, raising the cost of borrowing for the Irish, Spanish, Por- be changed overnight. The EMU joined together several different tuguese, and Italian governments (the other Eurozone members varieties of capitalism, each of which pursues economic growth in a perceived to have weak economies or national balance sheets). different way. To simplify slightly, we can distinguish between After torturous negotiations, the member states of the European northern and southern European economic models. Union (EU) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) offered Germany’s coordinated market economy exemplifies the long-term loans to bail out the Greek, Irish, and Portuguese gov- northern model. That nation can hold down labor costs because ernments, while the ECB pumped funds into their banking sys- its industrial-relations institutions encourage firms and unions tems to assure their liquidity. to coordinate on modest wage increases. Its highly collabora- If only these states had not violated the terms of the Stability and tive vocational training system, operated by strong employer Growth Pact, so this narrative goes, there would have been no crisis. associations and trade unions, provides firms with skilled labor

Harvard Magazine 25 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 that gives them comparative advantages in producing high-val- which some had relied. These issues escaped notice when EMU ue-added goods and capacities for continuous innovation—en- was designed (because it was widely assumed that the member abling German enterprises to compete globally on quality as well economies would converge on a single set of best practices), and as price. An economy organized in this way is ideally suited to they are still ignored by those who think that the solution to the mount the kind of export-led growth strategies that lead to suc- current crisis is for the southern European economies simply to cess inside a monetary union. become just like those in the north. By contrast, Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Italy entered EMU with political economies not well-suited to this type of growth Is There a Euro Future? strategy. They have fractious labor movements divided into com- So where does this leave the euro today? Can it survive continu- peting confederations, and weak employer associations. As a re- ing pressure in the international bond markets? What does the sult, they lack the capacities for collaborative skill formation and response to the crisis tell us about the European Union itself? wage coordination central to northern European economic strat- The problems are certainly daunting, because the euro crisis is ac- egies. Instead, their governments have tended to rely on demand-led tually three crises in one: a crisis of confidence in the bond markets, growth, in which governments increase spending to encourage a debt crisis in the European financial system, and a growth crisis domestic consumption and then use periodic depreciations of for the continent as a whole. the exchange rate to offset the inflationary effects of this strategy • The crisis of confidence is reflected in the reluctance of interna- on the competitiveness of their products. Depreciation lowers the tional investors to purchase sovereign debt in parts of Europe, price of a country’s exports in foreign markets and raises the price raising the cost of borrowing for some countries and firms to of imports that compete with domestically produced goods. unsustainable levels. Although confidence could fall again at For these countries, entry into monetary union offered as many handicaps as The euro crisis is three crises in one: in the advantages. By expanding education and initiating structural reforms to make la- bond markets, financial system, and growth. bor and product markets more flexible, they could improve the any moment, this crisis is abating. The ECB’s announcement last competitiveness of their firms—and to varying degrees, all south- September that it was prepared to purchase unlimited amounts ern European governments undertook some such reforms. But of sovereign debt from countries that met conditions imposed in the face of strong producer groups defending vested interests, by the European Stability Mechanism (the Euro-area bailout these reform processes are bound to be protracted. In the mean- fund) had a calming effect on the markets. With this step, Mario time, unable to operate export-led growth strategies, these coun- Draghi, the Italian president of the bank, was deftly skirting the tries continued to pursue growth led by domestic demand—but rules of EMU to offer something close to a guarantee for these in a context where they could no longer offset its inflationary ef- countries’ bonds. fects on the competitiveness of their products: they could no lon- • The underlying debt crisis, however, remains unresolved. A ger devalue their national currencies. The result was ballooning debt crisis arises when existing levels of debt are too high to be current-account deficits. fully repaid. The key to resolving it is determining who will pay At the root of the euro crisis, therefore, is an institutional what—and who will not get paid. Economists often argue that asymmetry built into EMU from its inception. The northern Eu- such steps will be less painful if taken quickly. Aside from some ropeans entered monetary union with institutional frameworks restructuring of sovereign debt in Greece, and of bank debt in well-suited to the export-led growth strategies that yield suc- Spain and Ireland, however, the member states of the European cess in such contexts, whereas the southern Europeans entered Union have largely put off such decisions. At the outset of the cri- with ill-suited frameworks—and lost the capacity to devalue on sis, this posture may have saved their financial system from even bigger problems, but the day of reckoning cannot be postponed forever. The ground has been laid for a resolution of this problem through a series of steps that put much of the questionable debt into the hands of national governments, the ECB, and European rescue funds. This suggests that some of the debt may be for- given, with the public sector footing the bill. But negotiations about which governments will pay, and whether the ECB will pay as well, are bound to be painful. Not much will likely get done until after the German elections this fall, but governments will then be seeking solutions that obscure the precise distribution of costs and benefits, as they did in February when Ireland’s promissory Political passions: Madrid protesters against austerity wear nooses and bag their heads with a European Union flag motif, March 16, 2013.

26 July - August 2013 Photograph © popicinio/Demotix/Corbis Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Debt in Dublin: A street protest in Ireland condemns the crushing burden of servicing bank debt and budget imbalances without addressing joblessness, February 9, 2013. notes were replaced by long-term bonds. From an electoral perspective, obscuring those costs is important because the initial response to the crisis by the northern European governments has made their long-term task more difficult. In- stead of presenting the crisis as an existential dilemma for Europe, northern politicians reacted as if it were entirely attributable to the fiscal feck- lessness of southern European governments. The media soon translated that into crude stereotypes about “lazy Greeks” that have evoked similar images in the south of “jackbooted Germans,” thereby eroding the pan-European solidarity the EU worked for so long competition from the world’s emerging economies. Monetary to cultivate. The resulting ill will has made the problem of mobi- union is making it hard for them to pursue demand-led growth. lizing political consent for any adjustment strategy more difficult. • Unfortunately, there is no solution in sight for the growth cri- The Political, European Union Solution sis afflicting Europe. Its effects have been worst on the periphery. But it would be premature to predict the monetary union During the past five years, GDP has fallen by more than 20 percent will break up. For Europeans, the single currency is not simply in Greece and nearly 7 percent in Spain, Ireland, and Italy. Because a convenient economic arrangement. It is the symbol of an inte- 40 percent of German exports, and 60 percent of French ones, go grated Europe to which many are committed—and the EU has to the Eurozone, continental growth is now depressed as well, a history of making novel political arrangements work. This is a and the ECB forecasts that GDP will grow by only 1 percent in fundamental point often missed in dry economic analyses of the the Eurozone next year. In response, the European Union claims institutional requisites for monetary union. Where there is a will, it has a growth strategy based on two pillars: a fiscal compact the political elites of Europe have often found a way, even when it that will commit most of the member states to balanced budgets, entails protracted negotiations and unwieldy compromises. and a program of structural reform that will intensify competi- The big question, therefore, is whether that will can be sus- tion in markets for products and labor. But neither step is of any tained and given effective political expression in the face of a de- real value in the short term. As the IMF recently confirmed, fis- bilitating austerity that has left southern electorates disillusioned cal austerity is making the problems of the south worse: in some and confused. Only with difficulty did Italy cobble together a co- countries, budgetary cutbacks designed to reduce the share of alition government after an election in which the third-most-pop- the public deficit in GDP are depressing output so much that the ular party was led by a comedian incensed at political corruption, debt share is in fact increasing. And even though structural reform and the third-most-popular party in Greece is an anti-immigrant can make some economies more efficient in the long term, the movement given to fascist tactics. It is not surprising that south- hope that it will regenerate growth in the near to medium term ern Europeans are fed up with their leaders. Many want monetary is a mirage. Sophisticated European policymakers know this, but union without austerity. But that is not currently on offer from because they have to have a growth strategy, in the absence of any their northern neighbors or the bond markets. Even with more agreement on an alternative, they keep repeating this mantra. help from the north, it is not clear that the political systems of Is there an alternative? In the immediate future, coordinated fiscal the south will continue to yield governments willing to take the reflation, which would see austerity relaxed in the south and gov- measures that would make monetary union sustainable. ernment spending increase in the north, would help. But because Since monetary union has always been a political construction, that could entail fiscal transfers from north to south, it is hard to perhaps it is fitting that its fate now turns on the political capaci- sell to electorates, and northern governments fear that if they loos- ties of Europeans to reconstruct it. Unless national governments en their fiscal demands on the south, the reform process there will can mobilize electoral majorities in favor of burden-sharing, the stop. Only when electorates across Europe realize that they are all prospects for EMU do not look auspicious. Watching them try in the same boat will they take turns rowing together. But the ques- has been a sobering and at times ugly spectacle. But, even on this tion is whether they will realize that before experiencing the kind of side of the Atlantic, we know that democratic politics is an inef- prolonged stagnation seen in Japan during the 1990s. ficient process, and Europe has a postwar record of reinventing The longer-term issues in the south are even more intractable. itself that suggests the task is not impossible. Most of the northern European countries have viable growth models, and Ireland can likely grow again as a low-tax site for Peter A. Hall is Krupp Foundation professor of European studies and co-director of multinationals in Europe. But it is unclear whether Spain, Por- the Successful Societies Program of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. tugal, and Greece can continue to prosper inside the single cur- His most recent book, edited with Michèle Lamont, Goldman professor of European rency. They do not yet have a strong institutional base for high- studies and professor of sociology and African and African American studies, is value-added production, and their low-wage sectors face stiff Social Resilience in the Neoliberal Era (Cambridge University Press).

Photograph by Art Widak/Demotix/Corbis Harvard Magazine 27 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Vita Albert Bigelow Brief life of an ardent pacifist: 1906-1993 by steven slosberg

ddressing the Democratic National Convention in Char- Maidens,” young women who had been injured and disfigured by lotte, North Carolina, last September, Georgia congressman the A-bomb blast and then brought to the United States for plas- AJohn Lewis recalled his first visit to the city—in 1961, as one tic surgery. Bigelow’s experience with the two women, he wrote, of the 13 original Freedom Riders. Their bus trip was planned by “forced me to see that I had no choice but to make the commitment the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) as a journey from Wash- to live, as best I could, a life of nonviolence and reconciliation.” ington, D.C., to New Orleans to test a 1960 Supreme Court ruling In 1956, before the presidential election, he sent $300 to Dr. banning racial discrimination in interstate public facilities. Just Martin Luther King Jr. and mentioned his plan to write in King’s south of Charlotte, in Rock Hill, South Carolina, Lewis and his name for president. In 1958, he became involved with an anti-nu- seatmate, Albert Bigelow ’29, tried to enter a white waiting room. clear-proliferation docudrama, Which Way the Wind, sponsored by “We were met by an angry mob that beat us and left us lying in a the American Friends Service Committee; he served as a producer pool of blood,” said Lewis. “Some police officers came up and asked and narrated performances after his Pacific expedition. One of the us whether we wanted to press charges. We said no. We come in Golden Rule’s crew members, James Peck ’36, a union organizer, was peace, love, and nonviolence.” also active in CORE projects and Bigelow later joined him in civil- Lewis would later describe “Bert” Bigelow, born into a promi- rights causes, including that first Freedom Ride. He also continued nent Boston family steeped in Harvard connections, as “a big, rug- to speak out tirelessly against the arms race in print and at rallies ged-looking guy from New England who looked as if he belonged at home and abroad. Reflecting on his years of activism in 1964, he on a sailing ship a century ago.” And several years before he board- wrote, “I remain an optimist despite mounting evidence that, if we ed that bus, Bigelow had sailed, literally, into the annals of mid- do not blow ourselves off the earth, we shall soon eat ourselves off twentieth-century nonviolent protest and political activism. In the earth.” (Vegetable gardening, he added, had become a “princi- the spring of 1958, as skipper of a 30-foot ketch, the Golden Rule, he pal side interest.”) and four other men tried twice to navigate into the Pacific nuclear- By the mid 1960s, his public activism quieted, though he still bomb testing grounds at Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands railed in lectures and letters against nuclear proliferation. He sa- to protest nuclear proliferation. Each time, the voyage was foiled vored sailing and a longtime love—painting (the Mystic Seaport by the U.S. Coast Guard and Bigelow was eventually jailed for 60 museum in Connecticut owns eight of his marine works)—and days in Honolulu—but the attendant publicity provided him with stayed involved in community affairs, at one point as “the sole male a stage for his political views. member of the [local] League of Women Voters.” Bigelow explained the evolution of his activism in his 1959 book, Although Bigelow’s prominence faded, his name and activism The Voyage of the Golden Rule. “Later in World War II,” he wrote, “I was live on, in commemorations of the Freedom Rides and through Captain of the destroyer escort Dale W. Peterson—DE 337—and I the efforts of Veterans for Peace, a national organization of mili- was on her bridge as we approached Pearl Harbor from San Diego tary veterans committed to the cause of world peace. The group is when the first news arrived of the explosion of the atomic bomb far along in its work to restore the Golden Rule (found derelict in a over Hiroshima. Although I had no way of understanding what an small California shipyard) and ultimately sail it as both a symbol atom bomb was I was absolutely awestruck, as I suppose all men and a classroom for instruction against the “manufacture and use were for a moment. Intuitively it was then that I realized for the of nuclear weapons.” The project serves as a fitting legacy for a man first time that morally war is impossible.” born to privilege who was jolted from complacency by the devasta- Bigelow described himself as he entered the navy as having “an tion wrought by war and committed himself to justice and peace. enormous latent desire to conform, to ‘go along.’ ” He had studied “I sense that most of us feel overwhelmed by a disintegrating architecture at MIT after Harvard and then worked at designing world, seemingly beyond our control,” he wrote in his fiftieth an- residences; he also helped design buildings for the 1939 New York niversary class report. “…At the same time, we have the potential to World’s Fair. Left a widower after a brief and tragic first mar- preserve and enhance our delicate, beautiful planet and create on riage, he married Sylvia Weld, an actress, in 1931. After the war, it a society of respect, sharing, and caring—where love will not be he searched for “some sort of unified life-philosophy or religion,” considered a sign of weakness.” and eventually followed his wife in joining the Quakers, in 1954. A year later, with their own two daughters grown, the Bigelows wel- Steven Slosberg worked as a journalist and columnist for three decades. He lives comed into their Greenwich, Connecticut, home two “Hiroshima in Stonington, Connecticut.

28 July - August 2013 Photographs by the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. Courtesy of Swarthmore College Peace Collection, Albert Bigelow photo collection, DG 076 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Antinuclear activist Albert Bigelow (second from left) with crew members William Huntington ’28, Orion Sherwood, and George Willoughby in Harvard Magazine 29 Hawaii in 1958; (inset) the 30-foot Golden Rule under sail , with James Peck ’36 and Willoughby visible Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 The Art of Subtraction No one has carved wood like David Esterly since…well, about 1700. by craig lambert

he royal palace of Hampton Court, land’s finest woodcarver, a “golden codger, almost of the order of built on the Thames nearly 12 miles upstream from Samuel Johnson, Thomas Chippendale, Charles Dickens or Wil- London by Henry VIII in 1514, suffered a devastating liam Morris,” as David Esterly ’66 puts it in his 2012 book, The Lost fire on March 31, 1986. A bedside candle in the room of the Carving: A Journey to the Heart of Making. elderly Lady Gale, a resident who perished in the flames, Given the British reverence for historical (and royal) heritage probably started the blaze. Grievously, the fire also consumed and the carvings’ importance, there was no question that restora- or seriously damaged some of the incomparable woodcarvings in tion would proceed after the fire. Miraculously, most of them had the King’s Apartments, an addition that Christopher Wren built survived, despite damage, but one spectacular overdoor drop, a Tfor William III near the end of the seventeenth century. These pendant of flowers and leaves, in the King’s Drawing Room, had delicate depictions of botanical subjects in wood, hung on walls been incinerated. The problem was that in the nearly three cen- and surmounting doorways and mantel- turies since Gibbons’s time, such finely de- pieces, were the masterworks of the final Above, a work in progress on tailed, high-relief carvings in limewood (the the carving bench; opposite, a botanical period of Grinling Gibbons (1648-1721), the head (2001), after the painter British term for linden wood) had become a Dutch-born artist widely regarded as Eng- Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1527-93) lost art. There had been “sorry attempts at

30 July - August 2013 Photographs courtesy of David Esterly, unless otherwise noted Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Gibbons revivals in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: Esterly at his workbench, crude embarrassments, almost all of them,” Esterly writes. In 1986, below, and, at right, attacking limewood with a number of English carving conservators were working assidu- the two-fisted technique ously in limewood, but the artist to whom the British entrusted of woodcarving. Opposite, the restoration was a 42-year-old craftsman living outside Utica, a foliage drop (2005) New York, who had been carving limewood for about a decade: Esterly himself. the W.R. Brady and Com- Then as now, Esterly was and is internationally regarded as the pany gallery in Manhattan. most accomplished practitioner of the “subtractive art” of lime- Soon thereafter, the collec- wood carving since Gibbons. Indeed, Esterly is something of an tion went on display for six anachronism: he has devoted most of his adult life (“I work seven weeks in an exhibit, The Art days a week, after dinner, all the time”) to chiseling soft, malleable of Subtraction, at the Munson limewood, a particularly receptive medium for these delicate ren- Williams Proctor Arts In- derings. Many of his pieces take a year or even two to complete: stitute, an elegant museum such carvings are a painstaking art that calls on skills cultivated in Utica designed by Philip over decades. Thus Esterly has created a magnificent, if small, Johnson ’27, B.Arch. ’43. oeuvre: his 38-year career has produced only a few dozen carv- Borrowing the carvings from their owners, transporting the frag- ings, almost all in private collections. ile works, and putting them on display was “an arduous under- They are not hidden from the public, though. This January, Es- taking,” Esterly reports. “It will probably never happen again.” terly assembled 15 of his most recent works for an 11-day show at Photographs, however, are viewable on his website (davidesterly. com). Exhibits are challenging to mount partly because Esterly sells everything he makes: he cannot afford to own his creations. He works almost solely on commission (and never lacks for one), but given the labor-intensive nature of his craft, he is hardly getting rich, despite the six-figure prices his works command. His artistic approach, a modern version of Gibbons’s style, is “so time- consuming that other carvers avoid it like the plague,” he writes. “Carvers are starvers, the old saying goes, and Gibbons’s style, with its fineness and naturalism, its profusion of detail, and its arduous undercutting, is regarded by most carvers as a shortcut to starvation.” (Undercutting is carving the back side of figures or objects to heighten their delicacy.) He may be the only professional woodcarver ever to graduate from Harvard.

n retrospect, it seems that Esterly was born to carve limewood, but in fact he discovered his calling only after earning a Idoctorate in English literature. A native of Akron, Ohio, he is the son of Firestone executive James Esterly ’33, a football star li- onized for playing the second half of the Yale game despite break- ing his back in the first. When David was 11, the family moved to Orange County, California, a place that didn’t resonate with the boy’s temperament: “I was very anxious to get out of Southern California.” At Harvard, he was “hugely intimidated by the prep- pies,” and pursued perfection of the work rather than the life—“I was a grind.” He wrote his senior English thesis on Yeats. A Fulbright took him to St. Catharine’s College, Cambridge, where the students seemed “fantastically bright and affable, and exceedingly witty,” he says. “They had an amused relationship to life which I liked a lot.” His first meeting with his tutor was a wa- tershed moment. “He diagnosed me immediately,” Esterly recalls. “He offered me sherry or whiskey—we had two. We talked about rowing, hunting, shooting, living in the countryside, Shakespeare. He gave me no assignment, and ended by saying, ‘This has been nice. Go out and get to know people here, join a boat club, row. Tuesday nights my wife and I are at home. Come back and let’s talk again in six weeks.’ I felt like a pit pony let loose from the coal mine. It was incredibly liberating.”

32 July - August 2013 Photographs by Steve Potter Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 On track to become a literary scholar, Esterly wrote his dis- sertation on Yeats and Plotinus. Yet, “I wanted to do something physical,” he says, recalling Yeats’s admonition to “think in the marrow-bone.” He had daydreams of making furniture in York- shire, seeking Yeats’s “unity of being,” he says. “I wanted to inte- grate the intellectual, moral, and physical.” He moved back to Ak- ron for a time to work as a teamster; then, in Boston, at an earplug manufacturer—“The machinery was so loud that you had to wear earplugs!” He also reconnected with Marietta von Bernuth, a porcelain restorer whom he had known in England, and the couple moved to London in the mid 1970s. Esterly got an office job and was “at loose ends.” One afternoon, on their way to meet Esterly’s parents for tea at Fortnum & Mason, von Bernuth pulled him into St. James’s Church in Piccadilly, where he saw, on the reredos behind the altar, a tangle of vegetation carved to airy thinness by Grinling Gibbons. He was thunderstruck. “From a technical point of view, I didn’t believe wood could be handled in this way—it looked like a pliable substance you could model with your hands,” he recalls. “It was also a hyperorganic form of art, a botanical medium por- traying botanical forms; it seemed to say something that couldn’t be said any other way. Mind and body connected.” His book elaborates: “The sickness came over me. It seemed one of the wonders of the world. The traffic noise in Piccadilly went silent, and I was at the still center of the universe.…my tongue seem to be moving over carved ivory, cool and smooth. Don’t ask. I haven’t a clue. It’s what I still feel in the presence of great limewood carving.” Yet that was not the real turning point. Esterly at first “assumed it was an academic interest—I thought I should write a book about Gibbons. I went to libraries.” Trying to understand how Gibbons invented this kind of carving, he got books on carving techniques, then bought some chisels and limewood. “I fastened the wood to a garden table, took a stroke, and the genie flew out of the bottle,” he says. “Very quickly I lost interest in writing about Gibbons.” He and von Bernuth moved to a cottage on an estate in the South Downs of Sussex where, during the next eight years, penniless but in splendid country surroundings, he taught himself to carve. His only mentor, really, was the long-dead Gibbons. “So my instructor was trial and error, an exacting master whose teaching methods involved the cracking of wood and sometimes the spilling of blood,” he writes. “I learned that long grain was strong, short grain weak, end grain tough…I learned these things the way a carver has to learn them, in the muscles and nerves. There was plenty of feedback from the wood. The air was filled with its reports.” He recalls these years as one of the happiest times of his life. At first he sat on a chair to carve, but the craft soon forced him to his feet. “Your whole body gets involved,” he explains. “Your torso is twisting in this contrapposto way.” A carver must work ambidextrously, and grip the chisel with both hands. (Strictly speaking, chisels have flat blades andgouges, which he uses 95 percent of the time, have semicircular ones. Esterly owns 130 chisels and gouges, most of them very old. Knives play no part in carving, though glue comes in handy on rare occasions.) With two hands in play, one hand impels the tool while the other resists the mo- tion, giving the carver precise control. “You take the resistance of the wood internally,” Esterly explains. High-quality limewood is essential. Anglophiles planted Euro- pean linden trees in the United States around 1900, and Esterly has

Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 tried linden wood from Central Park and from Newport, Rhode Of his improvement as an artist over the years, he says, “I never Island, but “the trees grow too fast in our hot summers,” he ex- had a sense of getting better, but my earlier work gets worse and plains. “So the wood isn’t as dense, as crisp, or as strong”—and worse.” Carving, for him, is “a profession for high-functioning that is what allows the carver to radically undercut it. Undercut- obsessive-compulsives.” He explains that “the first 90 percent ting is crucial: it is what makes the carved form very delicate— you can do with 50 percent of the effort. The last 10 percent may fashioning a flower petal, say, that’s nearly as thin as a real one. take another 50 percent of effort. But that last 50 percent is what “Undercutting defines the edges of things,” Esterly explains, “and changes it into something good.” edges are extremely important in defining their forms.” Limewood For Esterly, conceptual art is unsatisfying because “conceptual- enables this due to its “wonderful combination of strength and ists don’t care a lot about execution.” He calls his own work a com- softness,” he says. “And its grain is mild, forgiving, and crisp.” pendium of sins against much of contemporary art. “First, it takes He imports his limewood from England. “The problem now is unabashed delight in beauty,” he explains. “It also delights in natu- that they are worried about pests and won’t allow any hardwood ral forms, realistically presented—that’s pretty bad. It doesn’t seek into the United States unless it has been kiln-dried,” he says. to upend a tradition so much as to establish a bond with the past, “But kiln drying damages the carving properties. I have to get rather than a break with it. It uses a poignantly archaic medium, what amounts to a congressional waiver to import my limewood; wood—I mean, really, wood? One of the worst things is that it’s free I can import air-dried wood that I have to fumigate under com- of irony, it’s sincere; ironic and jokester art is pretty much the norm. plete supervision of the customs office. I would pay any amount It doesn’t have an intellectual or conceptual agenda—it doesn’t proj- for good limewood.” ect a critique or comment on a social problem. It’s made by hand, with no power tools. And it’s actually made by the artist.” sterly’s workroom is right in his home. For a long time, His time at Hampton Court was “when I really became a he and his family have lived in a converted barn (“This place carver,” he says. The restoration allowed Esterly to finally escape Ewas built on a shoestring—everything here is salvage”) on the “anxiety of influence” from Gibbons. “It’s uncanny—serving beautiful country land north of Utica, the summer property of von an apprenticeship to a long-dead master, this great predeces- Bernuth’s family. The couple married in 1980 and have a daughter, sor whom you revere and rebel against,” he says. At times, at the

Flora, a Columbia graduate and literary scout in New York. workbench, he could almost feel Gibbons’s presence. “He would Steve Potter

Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Opposite, detail of a gardening overmantel (2007); at right, a musical trophy (2004) and, below, a wall-mounted letter rack, Quodlibet #1 (2012) seem to be saying, over my shoul- der, ‘I’ve done that—but here’s how you should do it.’” Esterly kept a daily journal during his year carving the restoration, a diary that became the springboard for The Lost Carving two decades later. The book nar- rates his evolution as a woodcarver and describes how the project crucially shaped his own artistic development. Philadelphia Inquirer reviewer Rita Giordano noted that even a reader who cared nothing for woodcarving could “still be absolutely in thrall to the lushness of Esterly’s language, his passion for creation, his reverence for the physical act of work. The Lost Carving is a study in the mar- vel—both the pain and the joys— of doing a thing well.” In 1998, he returned to his beloved England to curate the exhibition Grinling Gibbons and the Art of Carving at the Victoria and Albert Museum, marking the 350th anniversary of the great carver’s birth. Esterly wrote a companion book of the same title, which has just been reissued. In replacing the incinerated carving at Hampton Court, he at first tried tobecome Gibbons for a while. But it was hard to find the master’s underlying design. The palace authorities unearthed one glass-plate photograph from the 1930s, “but it was poorly lit and difficult to read,” Esterly says. He had to work up a design, but “a design will only get you so far, and that’s emblematic of how far designs in general will get you. After that, something else takes over.” Midway through the work, “I looked down at this half-completed, unpromising carving, and suddenly I saw it with the same eyes as the guy in 1699,” he recalls. “I could see with complete freshness why decisions were made. At that messy halfway point, in mid course, the work will tell you what needs to be done next, if you’re open to it. The work will tell you where it wants to go. That halfway point is where the real creativity comes in, in the act of making. As observers of art, we pick that up—we mimic the creation of the work in hearing it, reading it, seeing it. That’s why, with the greatest art, you almost have the sense that you are making it yourself: you’re picking up the embedded creativity that occurred in the making of the thing. Inspiration comes in the business of making.”

Craig A. Lambert ’69, Ph.D. ’78, is deputy editor of Harvard Magazine. Steve Potter

Harvard Magazine 35 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 BufferingBufferingBuffering thethethe SunSunSun

avid Keith talks David Keith and the question fur-spewing volcanoes, involves fast and takes stairs of climate engineering modifying a fleet of jets to spray two steps at a time, sulfates into the stratosphere, as though impelled by Erin O’Donnell where they would combine with Dby a sense of urgency. The Har- water vapor to form aerosols. vard scholar is interested in both the scientific and the public Dispersed by winds, these particles would cover the globe with a policy questions that bear on climate change and has a hand in haze that would reflect roughly 1 percent of solar radiation away a surprising range of projects related to climate and energy. He from Earth. (The 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo, which shot co-manages the Fund for Innovative Energy and Climate Re- some 10 million metric tons of sulfur into the air, reduced global search (FICER), established by Microsoft founder Bill Gates ’77, temperatures about 1 degree F for at least a year.) LL.D. ’07, to support innovative climate-change research, and has Scientists have discussed such strategies for decades, but (until founded Carbon Engineering, a company that appears on track recently) mostly behind closed doors, in part because they feared to build the first industrial-scale plant to capture carbon diox- that speaking publicly about geoengineering would undermine ide from the air for possible commercial use. But Keith is best efforts to cut greenhouse-gas emissions. Keith, who is McKay known for his work on solar geoengineering: strategies to coun- professor of applied physics in the School of Engineering and ter rising global temperatures by reducing the amount of sunlight Applied Sciences (SEAS) and professor of public policy at Har- that reaches Earth and vard Kennedy School, its atmosphere. Such strongly advocates work might someday bringing discussion of save the planet. geoengineering into As skeptics con- the open. He says, tinue to question “We don’t make good whether global warm- decisions by sweeping ing is real, and world- things under the rug.” wide efforts to cut And even as he en- greenhouse gases stall, deavors to publicize a small but growing the geoengineering number of scientists debate, Keith has also believe that humans sought to move the may need to consider science itself beyond a “Plan B” that takes computer models, to- control of our cli- ward the possibility mate’s future. Solar of small-scale field- geoengineering en- testing. “It is by no compasses multiple means clear what the proposals to adjust the right answer is, or planet’s thermostat, how much, if any, geo- including deflecting engineering we should sunlight away from use,” he says, “but the the earth with massive balance of evidence space shields or with from the climate extra-bright low- models used to date altitude clouds over suggests that doing a oceans. One sugges- David Keith little bit would reduce tion, inspired by sul- climate risks.”

36 July - August 2013 Photograph by Eliza Grinnell Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Constructing Consensus ing Carbon,” page 26), and to limiting the amount of sunlight that By Keith’s account, the topic of solar geoengineering has tran- reaches the earth in the first place (where it can be trapped in the sitioned in the last five years from an obscure area, studied by only a atmosphere by greenhouse gases and contribute to warming). handful of what he calls “geonerds,” to a subject that draws increas- Although these two strategies could work together to ease BufferingBufferingBuffering ing attention from both scientists and the general public. That lends global warming, they have different costs and risks, and Keith Keith’s own publicizing efforts some of their urgency; he not only argues against lumping them together. “We will have a better sees a need to “broaden the scientific community to avoid the risk chance to craft sensible policy if we treat them separately,” he of groupthink,” but also wants to help shape the conversation about told a congressional committee in 2010. The massive scale of the these strategies and chart the course of related research. CO2 problem means that carbon removal “will always be relative- He and fellow FICER administrator Ken Caldeira (of the Carn- ly slow and expensive,” he added. It carries some local risks, but thethethe SunSunSun egie Institution for Science’s department of global ecology, at has no chance of harming the entire planet. Solar geoengineering, Stanford), have used the fund for projects that assess the risks of a in contrast, could work quickly—and at surprisingly low cost. warming planet and the benefits and risks of advanced technolo- (By recent estimates, spreading sulfur in the atmosphere to re- gies to address the problem. They’ve also used a small portion of duce global temperatures could cost a few billion dollars annu- the money to jumpstart the development of new technologies to deal with climate change. Not only are good solutions to the problem currently lacking, Keith says, but there is nothing approaching “a social consensus that it’s worth making serious efforts to solve the problem.” Meanwhile, the world’s nations emitted an esti- SUN mated 38.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide—the principal greenhouse gas, by volume—into the air in 2011, an increase of 3 percent over the previous year. This rate is expected to accelerate as developing nations SULFATE PARTICLES such as China and India burn more coal and expand REFLECT ABOUT 1 PERCENT their vehicle fleets. In May, scientists reported that OF SUNLIGHT the average daily level of CO2 in the atmosphere sur- passed 400 parts per million, a level last seen two to four million years ago. Even if humans miraculously halted all carbon emissions next week—an impos- sibility, and an economic catastrophe—the problem of climate change would still loom ahead: most of the heat-trapping gas will linger for decades or centuries. One study found that 40 percent of the peak concen-

tration of CO2 would remain in the atmosphere for a E R E E thousand years after the peak is reached—and even E R R E H then, inertia in the world’s warmed oceans will pre- E E R P H E H S P H vent a quick return to cooler temperatures. P O S P S “We have already committed ourselves to a certain O S M O One Proposed Means T O R level of warming in the future, whatever we do about S A P E E R of Solar Engineering O H our emissions,” says Andy Parker, a fellow in the sci- T M T R S ence, technology, and policy program at the Kennedy T NOT TO SCALE School’s Belfer Center. The most optimistic predictions for the rest of the century, cited by the Intergov- ernmental Panel on Climate Change in its 2007 assessment report, ally, a fraction of the projected cost of reducing greenhouse gas forecast a rise of 2.0 to 5.2 degrees by 2100, while the direst an- emissions. One 2006 review by the British government estimated ticipate a rise of 4.3 to 11.5 degrees. Among the anticipated effects that cutting emissions by 25 percent by 2050 would cost about 1 are rising sea levels, increasingly severe storms and droughts, and percent of annual global GDP, or about $1 trillion in 2050.) Keith melting glaciers and permafrost. argues that costs for solar geoengineering are so low that “cost Given these projected long-term consequences of global warm- will not be a decisive issue.” Instead, he says, scientists and poli- ing, certain geoengineering strategies that seem to offer relatively cymakers will have to weigh risks: “the risk of doing it against the quick-acting countermeasures could become especially attractive. risk of not doing it.” In 1992, Keith and his mentor Hadi Dowlatabadi, a physicist and Keith speaks candidly about the risks and uncertainties of solar applied mathematician, both then at Carnegie Mellon, wrote one of geoengineering, acknowledging a range of possible outcomes. “The the first papers assessing geoengineering strategies. Today, the term balance of evidence so far suggests that solar geoengineering could

is often used to refer both to removing CO2 from the air (for re-use reduce climate risks, but early science might be wrong,” he says. or for storage in reservoirs such as the deep ocean—see “Captur- “We need experiments, which might show that it does not work.”

Graphic by Funnel, Inc. Harvard Magazine 37 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Additionally, some research suggests that sulfate aerosols may further damage the ozone layer, an issue that he says needs further Governing David Keith, McKay study. professor of applied Alan Robock, professor of environmental sciences at Rutgers, Geoengineering physics in the School is one critic who has raised other concerns, theorizing that sun- Research of Engineering and Ap- light-blocking strategies could not only reduce the amount of plied Sciences (SEAS) electricity produced through solar power but also alter weather and professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, patterns, which might trigger widespread droughts. Keith does is eager to establish governance structures so that small-scale not find these possibilities convincing. He believes solar energy field studies of geoengineering technology can move forward. would be affected only in “extreme scenarios” with very heavy He also acknowledges the need for some government oversight, use of solar geoengineering, and he says he has not seen serious in part to limit rogue projects by individuals or countries acting analysis that supports the possibility of drought. Studies have unilaterally. found that crop yields could increase in some regions, because But the field is too young to expect a treaty that provides plants grow more efficiently in diffuse light, and excess CO2 from governance. “It’s not something that they’re going to spend an the atmosphere could have a fertilizing effect. Yet one critical hour on at the next G8 meeting,” Keith says. In an article pub- issue remains: solar geoengineering doesn’t address the underly- lished in the journal Science last spring, he and coauthor Edward ing danger of CO2 emissions, which would continue to build up Parson of the UCLA School of Law suggest starting with an in- and create further problems, such as acidification of the oceans, formal document, written by the main research bodies of the which harms coral reefs and other marine life. United States, Europe, and China, that would outline guiding Above all, the techniques currently proposed would have to be principles for geoengineering studies, including ways to man- applied gradually, to limit drastic climate changes. That presents age risk and promote transparency. “A document like that can knotty governance challenges—requiring diverse nations (and have a lot of power,” Keith says, “and you could do that next political groups within those nations) to agree on a joint course year if you wanted to.” of action, something they have been largely unable to do when ne- Cox professor of law Jody Freeman, director of the Law gotiating treaties to address greenhouse-gas emissions. “With so- School’s environmental law and policy program, says it lar geoengineering, at some level you’ve got just one knob,” Keith says. “That demands collective global decisionmaking.” And yet solar geoengineering’s relatively low cost raises the pos- lar geoengineering “does seem to provide a significant way to reduce sibility that a single nation, or perhaps a group of island nations climate risk at very low cost—is going to be very powerful,” Keith threatened by rising seas, could act unilaterally to initiate it. “One says, “and I think it’s going to be hard to stop people from rushing to small group of people can have a lot of influence over the entire plan- do it. I’m not eager to see things go faster.” et,” Keith says. But he does not view this as an inexorable threat. “If In light of these caveats, Keith laments that some journalists some crazy group decides they’re going to start flying airplanes and and scholars depict him as a “techno-optimist” cheerleader for putting sulfur in unilaterally,” he says, “it’s not that hard to stop.” these technologies. The reality, he says, is that he’s hopeful about Still, he’s concerned. “I think the underlying brute reality”—that so- technical innovation, “but deeply pessimistic about human be-

A rendering of Keith’s Capturing David Keith founded a company, proposed modular Carbon Carbon Engineering, in 2009, while carbon-capture plant; he held the Canada Research Chair he says such plants will not solve the carbon in energy and the environment at the University of Calgary, to emissions problem. capture carbon and use it to develop low-carbon fuels, among other projects. (He launched it with $3.5 million from a group of angel investors that included Bill Gates.) The pilot plant, which he expects to be operational by next summer, should capture a modest 1,000 tons of carbon per year, roughly the amount generated by the activities of 50 average Americans in 12 months. Eventually the company expects to sell the CO2 it captures for applications such as enhanced oil recovery (oil companies would use the gas to force oil out of the ground) and the production from his academic work. Not only does he see carbon capture and of algae-based biofuels. A commercial-scale plant built with this solar geoengineering as technologies with very different risks and technology might capture up to 100,000 tons of CO2 a year, but costs, he’s also conscious of critics who have suggested that he Keith stresses that his is a small company with a new technol- aims to profit from his aerosol-reflector research. In fact, he has ogy. “Anyone who knows anything about carbon and energy lobbied in Washington to outlaw patents on sun-blocking tech- knows that there isn’t any one magic bullet,” he says. “We’re not nologies. Because such global-scale climate solutions can have a trying to solve the world’s climate problems.” dramatic effect on the planet, Keith says, “I think this is a bit like

He is careful to separate his efforts on behalf of his company nuclear weapons, and there should be no for-profit work.” courtesy of carbon engineering ltd.

38 July - August 2013 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 would also be important to address such questions in the Unit- solar geoengineering, convened by the Royal Society, the Environ- ed States. “We simply don’t have a domestic legal infrastruc- mental Defense Fund, and the Third World Academy of Scienc- ture to regulate these kinds of experiments,” she says. “None es, the academy of science for the developing world. One way to of our current laws really address it.” Who would oversee the ensure responsible decisions around geoengineering is to engage research and decide what’s permissible? If there are risks to more countries in the conversation, including developing nations, this research, who would be liable for the risks? These ques- says Andy Parker, a research fellow in the science, technology, tions and more need to be considered carefully, Freeman says, and policy program at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center, but her sense is that the public is largely unaware of geoengi- who has been involved in multiple SRMGI efforts. neering, and other than a small elite group, most policymakers Parker helped organize a series of meetings about solar geoengi- lack knowledge about it. neering in Senegal and South Africa in 2012, and Ethiopia in 2013. Freeman, who served in the White House Office of Energy and Held jointly with the African Academy of Sciences, the meetings Climate Change from 2009 to 2010, says the Obama administra- were designed to introduce academics, NGO staff, policymakers, tion is focused on the pressing issues of greenhouse-gas mitiga- and the public to existing scientific and governance questions re- tion and adaptation to global warming, so geoengineering “has lated to geoengineering, and to encourage critical discussion of not been at the top of the policy agenda.” She continues, “Some- these technologies. “It’s extremely important to have a high de- times geoengineering pops up [in Washington], but it just hasn’t gree of international cooperation over this research and its gover- broken through because it sounds so contingent and risky and nance,” Parker says. “I think this [initiative] gives us a chance of unknown, and I think politicians are a little wary of it.” Although handling this issue responsibly as it develops and becomes more she’s noticed increased attention to the topic of geoengineering, controversial or pressing.” “it’s really not part of the mainstream dialogue yet, but it might SRMGI held similar meetings in India, Pakistan, and China in be before long.” 2011. Its website (www.srmgi.org) states that the organization The dialogue may broaden through efforts undertaken through does not advocate for or against solar geoengineering because “it the Solar Radiation Management Governance Initiative (SR- is impossible to tell at this stage whether the technology will be MGI), an NGO-driven project to encourage good governance of helpful or harmful.” havior when it comes to protecting the natural world. It’s con- scientists shouldn’t even discuss such strategies, and most people venient for critics to pigeonhole me as a booster and cite some “arrayed between those extremes.” Weitzman says the meeting skeptical social scientist on the risks,” he says, but he and fellow crystallized his sense that initial research should proceed to pre- researchers in the field “have usually been the first to voice con- pare for emergencies, such as unilateral action by a rogue nation. cerns about risk and governance challenges.” He calls geoengineering “a scary proposition,” but adds, “It’s better to be informed than to be…caught unaware.” Difficult Conversations Keith himself was particularly struck by a point made at that In 2007, Keith, then at the University of Calgary, and Daniel 2007 conference by Eliot University Professor Lawrence Sum- Schrag—professor of environmental science and engineering, and mers, who warned against withholding information about global- director of the Harvard Center for the Environment—invited a warming solutions, or prejudging how the public might react to group of environmental scientists and policymakers to Cam- these ideas. “I don’t think scientists by virtue of being scientists bridge for a daylong workshop on geoengineering. The meeting have deeper political insight or more moral weight,” Keith says. was held off-campus and closed to the public. “The idea that we as a scientific class should decide what the rest Keith and Schrag also invited three science journalists, who of society is able to handle is really obscene, and I think that Larry were permitted to write about the discussion, but couldn’t quote was very clear about that.” participants without their consent. Keith believes this is a use- But even as Keith considers public participation essential to a ful way to run early meetings on new and controversial topics. geoengineering conversation, he recognizes the need for public “People need time to figure out what their opinion is, and to say education beforehand. That brings the issue of small-scale field- things that they’re not sure about,” he explains. “If everything’s testing into play. Experimentation is necessary to determine public, you don’t have the freedom to say ‘Maybe it’s a nutty idea, whether an aerosol solution is even viable. He’s currently work- but maybe we should do X, or maybe we should do Y.’ For a thing ing with Weld professor of atmospheric chemistry James Ander- like this, if it’s all out in public, you shut people down, and they’re son to develop a test that would send a helium balloon bearing not free to engage in a give-and-take.” small quantities of sulfur and water into the stratosphere, to Although this wasn’t the first major meeting about geoengi- monitor how they affect ozone; previous research has shown that neering, it was among the first to include social scientists and sulfur and water vapor react with atmospheric chlorine, changing policymakers. “There was an excitement about confronting all it to a form that damages ozone. The experiment would likely use these mind-blowing issues,” remembers professor of economics just a couple of kilograms of sulfate particles and would have no Martin Weitzman, an attendee who believes the meeting changed effect on the climate, Keith says. Its impact “will likely be much some minds. He recalls a range of opinions: participants who be- less than a single commercial airline flight.” lieved geoengineering technologies should be used as a first line But the study may be a long time coming, in part because such of defense against global warming, others who felt strongly that research is so controversial. Some (please turn to page 75)

Harvard Magazine 39 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 john harvard’s Journal commencement 2013

were sanctioned. Concern about leaks from Lows and Highs that inquiry led to investigations of resident There were frost warnings for north- deans’ e-mail accounts, punctuated on May ern and western Massachusetts on Me- 28, minutes before the Phi Beta Kappa lit- morial Day eve, and snow fell on Mount erary exercises, by the announcement that Greylock. But by Commencement eve, at Harvard College dean Evelynn M. Ham- the honorands’ dinner in Annenberg Hall, monds was stepping down (see page 52). President Drew Faust hoped, uncharacter- The campus calendar was battered by Su- istically, for a few clouds to dampen the perstorm Sandy, a blizzard, and the man- forecast turn in the weather; she even won- hunt that locked down the metropolis after

dered aloud whether undergraduates would the Boston Marathon bombing (an act of tu rosner wear clothes under their gowns. Thursday terror that took the life of a University staff morning, a summer heat wave settled clam- member’s daughter—see page 59).

mily upon the Commonwealth: umbrellas But undergraduate House renewal began. arrison S (2); were wielded to ward off the sun. The sym- Plans were made, finally, for an academic bolism seemed almost too broad, in a year commitment to Allston (to be the School when Harvard swung between low points of Engineering and Applied Sciences’ new and high. home). Scores of faculty members engaged The Administrative Board probed unin ways to enhance learning and teaching, dergraduate academic misconduct on an and dozens in the experimental online-

unprecedented scale—dozens of students course platform (see pages 48 and 50). The clockwise from upper Jim right: H

Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 john harvard’s Journal commencement 2013

Celebrants all. Opposite page (from top): psychology concentrator Jem Marie Lugo ’13 of Cabot House; brand-new doctors (from left) Sheena Chew, Sagar Anil Patel, Benedict Uchenna Nwachukwu (also M.B.A. ’13), Stephanie Marie Cantú, Emily Morell Balkin, Sidharth Venkata Puram (also Ph.D. ’11), Kristine Marie Specht; doctor of education Lynette Nicole Tannis. This page (clockwise from top left): Ph.D.s, from left, Jonathan Ruel, Pan-Pan Xueke Jiang, Alison Lynn Hill, and men’s basketball team won its first NCAA an unknown colleague; seniors Charlotte Annie Lieberman and Zoe Tucker stood tournament game, defeating New Mexico— out among their more sedate fellows; true-blue Lowellians; and legal scholars Salwa and prompting Latin Salutatorian Fanaye Mohamed Saleh, Flora Maina Amwayi, and Sasha-Anaïs Sharif Yirga ’13 to utter the immortal phrase, “…il- for all of us. What is success? What is in- Boston police officer Stephen McNulty led lam unicam cladem gloriosam Novorum Mexicano- tegrity? How do we uphold it, in our own the singing of the national anthem. Faust rum!” (“… that single glorious defeat of those lives and as a community?”). But mostly she then came forward to ask for a moment of si- in New Mexico!”). Stupendous eight- and drew on Boston’s heartbreaking reprise of lence for the victims of the Marathon bomb- nine-figure gifts were announced to sup- New Yorkers’ heroism on 9/11, with first re- ing and of the recent Oklahoma tornadoes port some of these priorities, and others sponders dashing to the danger: she talked (cataclysms manmade and natural that pre- like biomedical engineering—a harbinger with the seniors about “lives of running to- figured her afternoon remarks on the pur- of more to come as The Harvard Campaign ward,” impelled by “something larger than poses of research universities; see page 47). lifts off this fall. yourselves, lives of engagement and commit- The McNulty family’s tradition of service im harrison; stu rosenr(2) ment and, yes, risk—risk taken in service to mirrors that of Jon Murad ’95, the gradu- Sober Sentiments what matters to you most.” (She might also ate English speaker. The mid-career M.P.A. The formalities of the 362nd Commence- have been channeling Facebook COO Sheryl recipient signs his e-mails, simply, “Detec- ment reflected the temper of the times. Sandberg ’91, M.B.A. ’95, best-selling author tive, NYPD/Harvard Kennedy School ’13” President Faust’s baccalaureate address, on of Lean In, who keynoted Harvard Business (see page 47). New York and Boston, fierce Tuesday afternoon, made the only official School’s half-century celebration of co-ed- rivals in sports and other realms, are now mention of the cheating controversy (the ucating the M.B.A. program—see page 55.) bretheren among American cities on the re- year “began with revelations about breaches The contemporary theme carried over to ceiving end of terrorism. lockwise from upper rosenr; left:stu j

C of academic trust and raised hard questions the morning exercises. Third-generation During the conferral of degrees, Provost

www.harvardmagazine.com/commencement Harvard Magazine 41 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 John Harvard’s Journal • Commencement 2013

Alan M. Garber made note of three people local healthcare, high-technology, higher- Jeffrey Toobin ’82, J.D. ’86, legal analyst for who have served Harvard: Graduate School education, innovation-driven economy— The New Yorker and CNN, addressed the Su- of Education dean Kathleen McCartney, all aligned with Harvard’s aspirations, par- preme Court’s changing composition. He appointed president of Smith College; Mi- ticularly on the mayor’s side of the Charles noted the retirement of associate justices chael Shinagel, dean of continuing educa- River. Cleverly echoing the rallying cry that John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O’Connor, tion and University extension, retiring after helped knit Boston together after the bomb- and David Souter ’61, LL.B. ’66, LL.D. ’10, a record-setting tenure; and the College’s ing, his citation lauded a leader “whose love observing that no one is likely to see “three Dean Hammonds. of his city and passion for its betterment more different people” than that trio, yet, Significant public-sector service was also have made and kept Boston strong.” “all were moderate Republicans who left the recognized in the conferring of an honor- Outside Tercentenary Theatre, and before Court completely alienated from the mod- ary degree on Boston’s street-savvy mayor, Commencement proper, most of the week’s ern Republican party.” He explained that Thomas M. Menino, who is concluding 20 guest oracles were similarly high-minded “the notion of moderate Republicanism has years in office, an era of robust growth in the and serious. Law School class day speaker disappeared from the Supreme Court, just

University of Christianity and its Cambridge, a orthodoxies and her- Honoris Causa leading thinker esies. Doctor of Laws: at the intersec- Bold expositor of the Gnos- tion of econom- tic Gospels, reading ancient Six men and three women received honorary ics, natural resources, scriptures anew, a scholar degrees at Commencement. University provost population, and social transcending tradition’s con- Alan M. Garber introduced the honorands in welfare. Doctor of Laws: straints to bring forth books the following order, and President Drew Faust An inexhaustibly resourceful of revelation. read the citations, concluding with the recipient’s economist, dauntless in con- name and degree. For fuller background on each fronting the largest of ques- Clemmie Dixon Span- honorand, see http://har- tions, he trains his keen eye on gler Jr., M.B.A. ’56. North vardmagazine.com/ the plight of the poorest and Carolina business and honorands-13. insists we value Nature when education leader, past we gauge the wealth of nations. president of the Board Donald Roswell Hop- of Overseers, Business kins, M.P.H. ’70. Di- José Antonio Abreu. School benefactor and rector of international Founder of El Sistema, volunteer. Doctor of José Antonio Abreu health programs for the Venezuelan music- Laws: Exponent of education, Donald Roswell The Carter Center, education and social-welfare program for executive extraordinaire, a transformative benefac- Hopkins the leader of efforts hundreds of thousands of disadvantaged tor both gracious and wise, who always does some- to eradicate Guinea worm disease. Doc- youths. Doctor of Music: Magnanimous mae- thing for others while he has the chance. tor of Science: Vanquishing fiery serpents with stro of an uplifting movement, orchestrating har- missionary zeal, banishing plagues from countless monies that far transcend the stage; in the sublime Thomas M. Menino. The longest-serv- houses, he nimbly wields the rod of Asclepius, with power of music he finds opportunity’s major key. ing mayor of Boston, now completing his a scientist’s skill and a humanitarian’s care. fifth elected term. Doctor of Laws:The Lord Robert McCredie May. Professor, consummate mayor JoAnne Stubbe. MIT’s Novartis profes- University of Oxford, past president of of the people, for the sor of chemistry and professor of biology, the Royal Society, national science advis- people, an urban me- a pioneer in discovering how enzymes er, and mathematical modeler of ecology chanic turned urban guide DNA replication and and biodiversity. Doctor of legend whose love of repair. Doctor of Science: Science: A prodigious polymath his city and passion Boundlessly curious, relent- and peerless peer whose mind for its betterment lessly rigorous, enrapt by the conceives models that sustain life have made and kept helical strands that encode our and whose voice resounds in sup- Boston strong. Thomas M. Menino existence, a sage of science who port of enlightened inquiry. elucidates enzymes crucial to the Oprah Winfrey. Talk-show host, media chemistry of life. Elaine Hiesey Pagels, Ph.D. entrepreneur, and philanthropist. Doctor ’70. Princeton’s Paine Foun- of Laws: Opening books, opening doors, opening Sir Partha Sarathi Das- dation professor of religion, minds to life’s possibilities, a bountiful altruist gupta. Ramsey professor the preeminent interpreter and woman of valor whose audiences owe her a emeritus of economics, of Gnosticism and of early spirited standing O. Elaine Hiesey Pagels

42 July - August 2013 Photographs by Stu Rosner Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 as it has from American life.” Toobin’s char- bers to move closer acterization of today’s court was sobering: to the front. “You a body “that now has five Republicans and should assert your- four Democrats—and that tells you most of selves in listening,” what you need to know.” (Phi Beta Kappa he said. “Listen to orator Linda Greenhouse ’68, another distin- what people say and guished Supreme Court reporter, touched see if you can make on these issues as well; see page 44). the connective tissue Both the Education School and Kennedy work.” (Wurman School speakers focused on children and might have liked the learning. At the former, activist and civil- venue for the Rad- rights pioneer James Meredith emphasized cliffe Institute’s Fri- im harrison im the role of faith and religion in education, day morning “From j and slightly recast the parable of the Good Artist to Audience” discussion, on the set of Nearing the end of the rainbow: Winthrop Samaritan. He said the religious The Pirates of Penzance, then at the House comrades and imminent graduates (from left) Nicholas L. Moore, Andrew K. leaders who passed by and did Loeb Drama Center—prompt- Cohen, Blaine Bolus, and Yusef Jordan nothing “probably asked the ing Institute dean Lizabeth Co- wrong question: ‘What will hap- hen to call the participating art- When summoned by the provost, each dean pen to me if I help this child?’ The ists “the panelists of Penzance.”) comes to the front of the platform, doffs her question should be, ‘What will or his cap, and bows to the president, the happen to this child if I don’t Hug-Fest Fellows of Harvard College, and the presi- do my duty?’” Geoffrey Cana- After the acknowledgments of dent and members of the Board of Overseers, da, Ed.M. ’75, L.H.D. ’01, presi- tragedy, aspiration, and achieve- before reporting on and presenting the can- dent and CEO of the nonprofit ment, it was left to Commence- didates for their respective degrees—which Harlem Children’s Zone, urged ment day’s final speaker, the are then presidentially bestowed, “By virtue the government graduates-to- nation’s unquestioned queen of of authority delegated to me….” be not only to contribute to the talk and listener-in-chief, hon- So it was startling to see many of those unfinished dream of bettering orand Oprah Winfrey, to bring grown men and women, resplendent in their

American society inherited from stu rosner both high-wattage celebrity and academic gowns, practically sprinting from generations before them, but to Fortitude: Officer an emollient presence to the oc- the microphone toward Winfrey for that remember that they can aspire to Stephen McNulty casion. (Such is her fame that famous, consoling, inspiriting hug. Gradu- sings “The Star- a higher calling without “need- Spangled Banner.” she has transcended even the ate School of Arts and Sciences, School of ing to take a vow of poverty.” ranks of those accorded first- Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard “Some of you better go out and make some name identification; her honorary-degree Medical School—none could resist, each money!” he urged, to a wave of applause and citation deftly nodded in recognition, end- approached with open arms for an embrace. laughter, as “some folk need to be really rich” ing by saying her “audiences owe her a Jules L. Dienstag, the dean for medical educa- in order for others to do good work. standing O”). tion, broke the new tradition by crossing to Creativity and the arts also got their due. The morning exercises proceed by a strict “shake the hand of our mayor,” Menino (the Graduate School of Design guest Richard script, “The Form of Conferring Degrees,” a medical school is located in Boston). He then Saul Wurman—who went “bankrupt, bel- document with wonderfully formal instruc- shook Oprah’s hand. Divinity dean David N. ly up” as an architect before founding the tions (“The Sheriff advances to the front of Hempton invoked a higher power to spare TED conferences—hailed design as a foun- the platform and strikes it thrice with his her yet another hug. After handing over Win- dational “way of thinking about the world” staff,” “Here follows the prayer,” and so on). frey’s honorary degree, Secretary of the Uni- because it enables students to versity Marc Goodheart gave make abstract connections, her a hug of his own. see patterns among diverse Introducing Winfrey at disciplines, and use infor- the lunch for honorands be- mation in novel ways. Act- fore the afternoon speeches, ing on that instinct, he sug- Harvard Alumni Association gested that the auditorium executive director John P. be redesigned, shunned the Reardon said of the hugathon, podium, nixed the planned “You have brought a sort introduction to his remarks, of informality to our Com- and ordered audience mem- mencement this morning that I have never seen—and As in years past, degree candidates from Harvard it’s only to the good.” After a Kennedy School celebrated year like this, Harvard needed im harrison im their global ambitions. j some hugs. www.harvardmagazine.com/commencement Harvard Magazine 43 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 John Harvard’s Journal • Commencement 2013 They Said… the 1993 Commencement, when the guest speaker, General Colin Powell, symbolized the military’s Taking stock of the talk discriminatory policies toward homosexuals—an Serious rhetoric prevailed for much of issue society and the court had yet to resolve: this Commencement, not yet seven weeks I started getting calls from classmates after past the post-Boston Marathon bombing General Powell’s selection had been an- manhunt that shut the city down. None- nounced. I knew some of these classmates, theless, the addresses varied in tone and but not most of them. I’m gay, these class- texture. Phi Beta Kappa orator Linda mates told me. And they asked: How can I Greenhouse put evolving social attitudes possibly participate in a ceremony honor- into a fine-grained, crimson context. Busi- ing someone who embodies a policy that ness School class day speaker Ann Moore withholds dignity and respect from men glossed changing management mores. Grad- and women who want only to serve their uate English speaker Jon Murad challenged country? How can I enjoy my reunion? Harvard perceptions in order to teach about Protest seemed likely. At the luncheon she hosted service. President Drew Faust highlighted between the morning exercises and Powell’s address, universities’ mission—and threats to it. And I invited one of my very out classmates, Drew Faust im harrison im in a year when it seemed Harvard needed who arrived in his top hat and tails, fes- j someone it could talk to, Oprah Winfrey tooned with banners and buttons pro- him with both arms, and replied: “So do had soothing advice. For reports on all the claiming the gay-rights cause and de- I, and I hope that day comes sooner rather principal addresses, visit harvardmagazine. nouncing “don’t ask, don’t tell.” He went than later.” My classmate was so taken com/commencement-2013. up to Colin Powell, whose aback and touched by this response that uniform was festooned he had tears in his eyes as he recounted Too Long Unacknowledged with a general’s stars and it to me. Word of the encounter spread Deploying the storytelling skills medals.…“General Powell,” quickly among the gay community as the that earned a Pulitzer Prize for my classmate said, “I look crowd gathered in Tercentenary Theatre.… her New York Times Supreme forward to the day when this The mood had shifted: the anxiety and in- Court reporting, Linda Green- issue no longer divides us.” cipient anger were gone. When General house ’68, a member of the Board …For all my classmate Powell got up to speak, some of my class- of Overseers, delivered an unusu- knew, General Powell would mates stood in silent, dignified protest. ally personal oration. She recalled spurn him, cut him dead. In- The general acknowledged them gracious- Linda Greenhouse her service as chief marshal during stead, the general embraced ly. What might have been an experience of pain and isolation became instead one of solidarity and community. …I saw connections being made among Commencement Highlights people who, while they had a Harvard de- From Class Day speeches to a run-through of Thursday’s events, harvardmagazine. gree in common, had been in a basic sense com brings you in-depth 2013 Commencement coverage. strangers to one another.…Wounds that for too long had gone unacknowledged were Soledad O’Brien: Don’t Take Advice at last being recognized and healed.…Har- At Harvard College Class Day, the CNN special vard,…through an accident of history, had correspondent urges the class of 2013 to follow their nonetheless managed to bring us together in a way that no one could have scripted own paths. With video. and no one would ever forget. We were, as harvardmag.com/classday-13 always, but in a new way, in Harvard’s debt.

The Right Way to Honor Veterans Sobering Up Corporate America President Faust, in her ROTC address, urges better In the Business School’s fiftieth-anniversary year of understanding between civilians and their military. admitting women to the M.B.A. program (see page harvardmag.com/rotc-13 55), Ann Moore, M.B.A. ’78, former chair and CEO of Time Inc., took this year’s graduates back in time: “Pugnacious” Poet and Pulitzer Prize-Winner I had two things in my first New York of- August Kleinzahler and Linda Greenhouse spoke at Harvard’s fice in corporate finance that you won’t Commencement-week Phi Beta Kappa literary exercises. find in your offices. First, the absolutely harvardmag.com/pbk-13 all-essential adding machine. The second? A fully stocked liquor cabinet. www.harvardmagazine.com/commencement For those of us who had young children at im harrison im j home, getting blasted at work wasn’t on

44 July - August 2013 Photographs by Jim Harrison Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 tute—who picked up a GSAS Centennial Medal (see page 66), and her husband, Commencement Confetti Thomas R. Jevon ’75. Their daughter, Fiona Jevon ’13, graduated from the Col- Stephanie Wilson lege, as had sister Ciara Jevon ’11. Presi- dent emeritus Neil L. Rudenstine and Angelica Rudenstine were part of the extended family attending nephew Jason Wagner, M.B.A. ’13, newly “ready to lead people and organizations in enterprises that will serve society.” im harrison im

j Early Birds for a Day The South, Risen. At the Harvard At the Quincy House champagne break- Alumni Association’s annual meeting fast on Commencement day, beginning on Commencement afternoon, at 6:30 a.m., master Lee Gehrke observed president Carl F. Muller ’73, J.D.- M.B.A. ’76, noted a hat-trick unprec- to the seniors as they ate, “I am here for

im harrison im Carl F. Muller edented for Harvard: President Drew

j breakfast nearly every morning and I Faust is from Virginia, speaker Oprah don’t think I have ever seen 90 percent of Winfrey from Mississippi, and he himself from South Carolina. In heaven above, he said, “Our Puritan fathers are scratching their heads and wondering what is going you here at this hour.” Offering granola on.” As a proper Southern gentleman, he felt obliged, he said, to refer to the honored bars and bottled water to go, co-master guest as “Miss Winfrey.” Farther afield, he noted that the chief marshal of the Deborah Gehrke warned of the rigors twenty-fifth reunion class, astronaut Stephanie Wilson ’88, might open a Harvard ahead: “You won’t eat until 1:00” (regular Club on the moon. (At lunch, Wilson gave Winfrey a magazine article about the honorand’s South African girls’ academy that had flown on Discovery with her in 2010, breakfast time, perhaps, for many). for 6.2 million miles: straightened out, enough for several trips to lunar club events.) CommencementX Weather Watch union class playfully recalled the great Ever more events are streamed online. Everybody talked about the weather, Boston blizzard that closed Harvard (and Gluttons for graduation oratory with but….During the Senior Chapel Service everything else) during their senior year. enough screens could have taken in sion Thursday morning, the Reverend South Carolinian Carl Muller came pre- multaneous live versions of the College’s Jonathan L. Walton—concluding his pared, in a light jacket, for his afternoon and several professional schools’ class first year as Pusey minister in the Memo- speaking duties as president of the HAA. days. Priming the pump, the Harvard rial Church and Plummer professor of Alumni Association’s associate direc- Christian morals, but already wise to the Deans, Entering and Exiting tor, alumni digital engagement, e-mailed ways of fund- “This is more nerve-wracking for me than graduates to encourage submissions raising—sug- presenting my own thesis defense,” con- of “gradvice” to 2013 degree recipients gested an air fessed Graduate School of Arts and Scienc- (complementing the wisdom they would conditioner as es (GSAS) dean Xiao-Li Meng, presenting hear from speakers, live or streamed, an apt naming the Ph.D. candidates for the first time—in presumably) by tweeting to @Harvar- opportunity. front of a world media figure, no less. “If dAlumni #gradvice to #Harvard13, post- He urged the I mispronounce anything, all your theses ing #gradvice on Facebook to the HAA class of 2013 to will be wasted and you will not get your group, and via other channels. Among c j use their privilege and power to “shift degrees.” (He didn’t.) Harvard’s long the pearls shared: “Follow your dreams” the cultural climate. We need you to be est-serving dean, the Extension School’s and, pertinently, “Be skeptical of crowd- thermostats, not thermometers.” The Bos- Michael Shinagel, who is retiring, intro- sourced advice.” ton Globe’s live blog showed Oprah Win- duced himself as “the lame-duck dean” for harvard magazine/ harvard frey (gowned, like all the honorands, but extension studies. Crimson Cred more experienced with hot studio lights) Beyond her crimson mopping her brow at 10:16 a.m. President Guests and Grads dress, Oprah Winfrey Drew Faust made the weather a theme Among those celebrating established her Harvard of her afternoon address—a segue to re- were Louise Richardson, smarts early in her talk. search on climate change and energy— Ph.D. ’89—principal and Referring to the former and observed that Harvard, which had vice-chancellor of the Radcliffe, now College, not closed for meteorological reasons University of St Andrews, Houses considered less since 1978, did so twice this year. While former executive dean desirable than those clos- Cambridge melted, the thirty-fifth re- of the Radcliffe Insti- er to the Charles River, Michael stu rosner Shinagel

www.harvardmagazine.com/commencement Harvard Magazine 45 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Grace Scheibner

she said she hoped to offer inspiration to An Orthopedist in the House? “anybody who has ever felt inferior or felt Honorands Thomas M. Menino, mayor of Boston (recovering from a fractured leg disadvantaged, felt screwed by life—this and facing surgery the next day), and is a speech for the Quad.” Maestro José Antonio Abreu traveled to the Commencement stage by wheelchair, Degrees Data and ascended around the back, avoiding the steps. Rev. Jonathan Walton navigated Harvard conferred a bumper crop of 7,321 with a crutch (torn Achilles tendon). They degrees and 44 certificates: 1,651 from the all had a sympathetic helper in the College, 950 from the Graduate School of indefatigable Grace Scheibner, Com- Arts and Sciences, 909 from the Business mencement director (recovering from a broken kneecap), who made some use School, 744 from the Education School, of a golf cart. 740 from the Law School, 650 from the Extension School, 564 from the Ken- joked, the selection committee discussed nedy School…and on down to 79 from the whether winning a Nobel was a positive School of Engineering and Applied Sci- factor or a negative one. ences and 73 from the School of Dental im harrison im Medicine—reversing their order of finish Decanal Directive j in 2012. At the end of the Graduate School of to say he liked attending fifth reunions Education’s convocation on Wednesday, and fiftieth reunions, but skipped the Top Theses Dean Kathleen McCartney prepped her others, because “Up to the fifth, they’re Radcliffe awarded the Captain Jonathan charges for Thursday’s big event. The all just friends; after the fiftieth, nobody Fay Prize for the most original theses to provost would call her forward, she said, cares anymore; in between, everyone is three College seniors. Mathematics con- and she would introduce the degree canon the make.” Proving at least part of centrator Ashok Cutkosky wrote about didates: “ ‘I have the honor of presenting Freund’s point: Éva Borsody Das ’63 said DNA topology. Benjamin Naddaff-Ha- to you these women and men who will her reunion was way more fun and not frey, a history and literature concentra- be leaders in education policy, practice, nearly so much work as climbing Mount tor, explored the “War of the Worlds” and research.’ And then your job is to be Kilimanjaro (accomplished prior to her radio broadcast. History concentrator very, very loud!” (“They were wonderful!” forty-fifth). “The best thing is, everyone Laura Savarese was recognized for re- she reported after the ceremony.) is getting more and more relaxed and search on slavery in antebellum St. Louis. fun-loving. Last night, people were doing Presidential First the twist and rock-’n’-roll like a bunch of Nobelists Need Not Apply? Harvard’s 2013 ROTC cohort received giddy teenagers—without the angst!” After the Centennial Medalists lun- copies of The Yellow Birds, a novel by Iraq cheon, GSAS dean Xiao-Li Meng, Jones veteran Kevin Powers, from President Timely Academic Publishing professor of statistics, noted that there Drew Faust at their commissioning cer- Following a year during which the Col- is no Nobel Prize for mathematics or emony. When the students presented lege has been roiled by the investigation for statistics. With so many candidates their gift to her, she exclaimed, “I’ve nev- of academic misconduct (see page 52), to choose among for GSAS’s medal, he er been given an artillery shell before!” Harvard University Press will release stu rosner The engraved brass casing included the Cheating Lessons: Learning from Academic Dis- statement, “continuing the proud tradi- honesty, by James M. Lang, of Assumption tion of harvard in our nation’s service.” College, late this summer. Nearly three- quarters of college students cheat, the Reunion Reflections jacket blurb observes—“because their John Daley ’61, LL.B. ’64, of the Happy learning environments give them ample Committee, on duty in front of Sever incentives to try.” More effective course Hall, recalled that Paul Freund, the late design and classroom practice can reduce Loeb University Professor emeritus, used cheating and improve learning, Lang finds.

91.5, Degreed. Accompanied by several family members, and reversing the normal educational sequence, Thomas C. Hall, M.D. ’49, rose from his wheelchair and walked across the Lowell House courtyard to receive his bachelor’s degree—73 years after enrolling in the College class of 1944 (see page 68). His undergraduate studies were interrupted by World War II, when he served a 13-month prison sentence for refusing to register for military service. Paroled, he took more courses, then entered medical school. He completed his biochemistry concentration requirements in 1976, but was four courses shy of a degree. He finished that work by computer and through visits to registrar Michael Burke and Brett Flehinger, lecturer on history. “I don’t like to leave things dangling,” said Hall, giving new meaning to lifelong learning.

Thomas C. Hall ’44 (’13) www.harvardmagazine.com/commencement Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 John Harvard’s Journal • Commencement 2012

our schedule. I think Starting with nature, she said: public research partnership during the past half- working mothers [T]he weather isn’t something that simply century, now at risk from “the erosion of federal should take some happens at Harvard.…It is a focus of study support for research—a situation made acute by credit for sobering up and of research, as we work to confront the the sequester.” Corporate America. implications of climate change and help The world and the nation need the kind The good old days shape national and international responses of research that Harvard and other Amer- weren’t all that great, to its extremes. ican research universities undertake. We as I recall them. Similarly for the Marathon bombings, where she need the knowledge and understand- cited the work of University security officers; per- Ann Moore ing that research generates—knowledge

ross campbell ross A Municipal Cop sonnel from the affiliated hospitals who treated the about climate change, or crisis manage- After college, Jon Murad ’95, M.P.A. ’13, became an wounded (all survived); researchers seeking to im- ment, or melanoma, or effective mental actor. But “something tugged at me,” he wrote in prove trauma care; and scholarship on emergency health interventions in schools, or hor- his tenth-anniversary class report—and he joined leadership, humanistic and behaviorial aspects of mones that might treat diabetes, or any the New York Police Department, where he learned terrorism; and more. Summing up, she said: of a host of other worthy projects our the virtue of clip-on ties (useful, he told the morning- Three unusual days, making for an unusual faculty are currently pursuing. We need exercises crowd, “if someone’s trying to choke you”). year. Yet these three unusual days illuminate the support and encouragement for the About to earn a midcareer and underscore the usu- students who will create our scientific public-administration deal work of this Univer- future. We need the economic vitality— gree, he put service in the sity: calling on knowl- the jobs and companies—that these ideas context he had learned dur- edge and research to and discoveries produce. We need the ing the past 18 years: address fundamental nation to resist imposing a self-inflicted Back then, greatness was challenges and dilem- wound on its intellectual and human the only option, and if mas with resources capital. We need a nation that believes you’d told me then that drawn from the widest in, and invests in, its universities because I’d end up a cop in the scope of human inqui- we represent an investment in the ideas Bronx, I’d have slooowly ry—from the insights and the people that will build and will be backed away. Harvard of natural and social the future. graduates don’t take jobs sciences to the reflec- …Even in a year when sometimes the like that; they become tions on meaning and world felt too much with us, we have nev- ibankers and start-up values at the heart of er lost sight of how much what we do here entrepreneurs.… the humanities. Univer- has to do with the world. And for the world. My hope today, in sities urge us towards a To sequester the search for knowledge, to this time before the di- Jon Murad osner better future and equip sequester discovery, to sequester the unre- tu R plomas and the family S us as individuals and as lenting drive of our students and faculty to photos and the deservéd revels, is to re- societies to get there. envision and pursue this endless frontier… mind us all—to assure us all—that there is Yet this work cannot be taken for granted, she puts at risk the capacity and promise of uni- as much stature in our being social work- said, given new challenges to the “fundamen- versities to fulfill our commitment to the ers and teachers, soldiers and preachers, tal assumptions undergirding American higher public good, our commitment to our chil- nurses and, yes, even cops, as in being pres- education and the foundations of our nation’s re- dren and grandchildren and to the future idents and poets laureate. search enterprise.” Faust reviewed the university- we will leave them. im harrison im A lot of you know this already, but I did j not, when first I sat out there. And now? Oprah Winfrey I’m probably not the only municipal cop in TALK THERAPY A year ago, Oprah Winfrey said, when her the country with two Harvard degrees, but new network seemed a flop, Harvard I’m surely in a tiny cohort, and that’s not came calling. She repaired to the shower a boast, it’s a lament. If there is something (“It was either that or a bag of Oreos”) special about this place and the lessons and emerged determined to turn her business around before her Commence- we’ve learned here, and I think there is, ment address. “There is no such thing as then America—the world—needs people failure,” she said. “Failure is just life trying like you in these roles. to move us in another direction”—so graduates must consult their “internal moral, emotional GPS.” Success and “The usual work of this University” happiness would follow, as it had for her, if In a year when disasters natural (Superstorm Sandy, the graduates “fulfill the highest, most a blizzard) and manmade (the Boston Marathon truthful expression of yourself as a human being. You want to max out your human- bombing) closed Harvard for the first time in a ity,” she urged—and then concluded, like generation, President Faust devoted her afternoon her interview subjects anxious to be address to explicating universities’ role in society— validated, “Was that okay?” and a manmade obstacle to their continued success.

Harvard Magazine 47 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 John Harvard's Journal

Talking about Teaching faculty members and students in enhancing on-campus education. Ever since the Harvard Initiative for HILT director Erin Driver-Linn, the as- Learning and Teaching (HILT) was launched sociate provost for institutional research, in late 2011, it has catalyzed conversation on introduced the conference theme: what cognition and learning, course design, class- are the essentials of good teaching and room spaces, educational technology, and learning at a time of disruption and in- assessment through a series of innovation novation for universities? Innovation may PICTURESQUE PLAZA. Harvard Law grants to faculty members and an annual seem risky and time-consuming, but “Edu- School’s Wasserstein Caspersen Clinical center is pedestrian-friendly along symposium. Its second symposium, on May cation with inert ideas,” she said (citing Massachusetts Avenue, with varied 8—attended by several deans among the au- Alfred North Whitehead’s 1916 essay, “The landscaping and views into classrooms. To dience of hundreds—suggested the variety Aims of Education”), “is not only useless: it the rear, a second-floor landscaped courtyard and green roof create an and reach of educational experiments un- is, above all things, harmful.” elevated quad: an oasis for conversation or der way in every Harvard school. The edX Driver-Linn discerned “a spirit of inno- lunch, for students to indulge in sun-and- online venture, formed in May 2012, has rid- vation” at Harvard, ranging from edX to study biathlons, and for small functions. den a national wave of interest in massive new curricular and course offerings, and The green spaces also helped the building secure a LEED Gold certification for open online courses (MOOCs), but HILT, in the 50 or so HILT-supported faculty energy and environmental design. operating less visibly, likely engages more experiments. The aim was “innovation informed by evaluation and grounded in In this Issue practice”—and shaped by a commitment to analytical assessment and by the insti- 50 Harvard Portrait 56 University People tution’s educational culture. 50 Online Overdrive 58 The Undergraduate Provost Alan Garber, alluding to “a time 51 Governance at Issue 59 Brevia of turmoil and uncertainty in higher edu- 52 E-mail Update 62 Sports cation,” with threats to federal research 53 Yesterday’s News 63 Alumni funding, tuition, and other revenues, said 54 Systematic Drug Discovery 68 The College Pump universities had to take control of their 55 “The Girls of HBS” own destinies by posing questions to

48 July - August 2013 Photographs by Stu Rosner Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 themselves. HILT had enabled Harvard to could not see, she could not be seen. Piag- high standards collides with deep devotion “think in new ways about how we teach et, he said, observed, “Children think ev- to others (children, students), making it dif- and how we learn,” and the faculty had erybody thinks like them,” and learn, over ficult to achieve desired levels of excellence. demonstrated its readiness not only to time, that this is not so. Yet experiments She also explained that Harvard Business “ask hard questions but to experiment.” have shown that knowing the outcome of School has found that its case method of As the HarvardX leader, Garber under- a problem or test—as teachers do—changes teaching—talking about what to do—no lon- scored that online innovations were not a one’s prediction of how others will behave ger suits all the challenges its students will diversion from classroom education (like or answer: a serious matter for instructors meet; thus, the new field-immersion course his own freshman seminar). “The future is trying to gauge what their students know for first-year M.B.A. students is focused on not really about online education,” he said. or can grasp. Skillful teachers have to take learning by doing. Frei said the innovation “It is about rethinking education” to improve this human tendency into account. worked because it was designed to comple- learning outcomes. • The Art of Teaching. On the second panel, ment and reinforce the case curriculum. • The Science of Learning. The three psychol- Jennifer L. Roberts, professor of history of Harvard School of Public Health dean ogists on the symposium’s first panel ad- art and architecture, made the case for decel- Julio Frenk, surveying his faculty’s centen- dressed cognition and learning, emphasiz- erating education by reintroducing Internet- nial-year revision of its curriculum, said ing the importance of practice and cumulative era undergraduates to the virtues of deep instruction was being designed around engagement with a subject in order to master patience and close attention. She requires competency-based learning, with modular, it, and of perspective on the part of teachers her students to prepare for an intense re- experiential units accommodating students who need to know what their students search paper on a single work of art by ex- at various points in their professional lives. don’t know in order to help them learn. amining the object closely for three hours. The mix of online and face-to-face instruc- Daniel T. Willingham, Ph.D. ’90, profes- Students emerge “astonished by what they tion would vary with the purpose: greater sor of psychology at the University of Vir- have been able to see.” Vision—seeing—has reliance on the former for “informative,” ex- ginia, explained that critical thinking— come to mean instantaneous apprehension, pertise-oriented learning, and progressively the desired outcome of so much learning she said, but “There are details, relation- more personal instruction for “formative” and education—“is hard, it’s taxing…It’s ships, and orders that take time to see.” (values and professional) and “transforma- not obvious that it’s going to pay off.” The For Roberts, these were some of the fruits tive” (leadership) courses. Among insti- best way to inculcate such thinking, he of “teaching strategic patience”—of giving tutional hindrances to change, he listed a said, is lots of practice, which makes this students permission to slow down and ex- cultural factor: how to shift from the term a “curricular issue”: looking beyond one ercise their unknown faculties. “teaching load” to one that gives teaching a course to the deep problems in a disci- Psychometrician Andrew Ho, assistant value equal to research. pline, and devising a curriculum that cumu- professor of education and research direc- The final speaker, Nan Keohane— latively teaches students how to approach tor of HarvardX, then made the case for as- president emerita of Wellesley and Duke, such problems. sessment in support of the art of teaching. Harvard Corporation member, and Rock- Katherine Rawson, associate profes- Given rising criticism of tuition costs and efeller Distinguished Visiting Professor at sor of psychology at Kent State Univer- demands for more value from education, Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School— sity, who studies strategies that promote he said, such testing was good offense. briskly listed attributes of higher educa- durable learning, noted that as students The third speaker, Jonathan L. Wal- tion worth defending in the online era. She progress through their education, they ton—Plummer professor of Christian said it would be “desirable” to preserve are asked to learn ever more content, and morals, Pusey minister in the Memorial institutional loyalty (of faculty, students, to learn more outside the classroom—but Church, and professor of religion and so- staff, and alumni); the traditional under- receive less guidance about how to learn. ciety—delivered a stem-winding sermon graduate rite of passage to adulthood; Common study techniques (rereading or on the importance of passion, not just ex- shared extracurricular activities not avail- highlighting texts) are the least effective, pertise, for teaching. He told how his parable online; and the beautiful campuses she said. The most effective ones—self-ad- ents prepared for a fish dinner: his mother and treasures in libraries and museums ministered testing (for example, she joked, drove to the local Winn Dixie supermar- that many institutions possess. Among via the “f” word—flash cards) and other ket—but his father phoned a buddy, read- the “essential” attributes to retain if higher forms of practice—are used least. She de- ied his tackle, drove to Florida, chartered education is to serve the future, Keohane tailed the efficacy of “successive relearn- a boat, and, as often as not, after failing to identified: accessibility for all who are am- ing” of foundational knowledge: drilling hook anything, swung by the supermarket bitious, curious, and prepared; the canon oneself on new foreign-language vocabu- on the way home. His mother was expert, of human achievements in every field; lary, for instance. Teachers have to help but his father was passionate—and Wal- works that are not classics—tax records, students use such techniques, she said; she ton, saying he learned far more his dad’s deeds, letters—but needed to understand provides course study-guides. way, concluded, “Let’s go fishing.” human history; “the marvelous symbiosis Pierce professor of psychology Daniel • Innovation, Adaptation, Preservation. The between teaching and research, for both Gilbert underscored part of Rawson’s mes- day’s final panel turned to the vexing is- teachers and students”; and “the commu- sage from a different angle. His two-year- sue of effecting change. UPS Foundation nity of teachers and learners.” old granddaughter, he noted, “hid” by cov- professor of service management Frances • The Way Forward. After an “innovation ering her own eyes, assuming that if she X. Frei said the human drive to perform to fair” exhibiting nearly four dozen HILT-

Harvard Magazine 49 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 John Harvard's Journal

funded educational experiments, Presi- harvard portrait dent Drew Faust celebrated the campus conversations about teaching during the past 18 months and cited the importance of conducting such experiments with an eye toward both future extension and assessment of their effectiveness. She also unveiled a second round of HILT grants, including much larger “Cultivation Grants”—from $100,000 to $200,000 apiece, with up to five conferred annually—in an effort to scale innovations up at the level of departments, larger organizations, or whole schools. Assuming HILT’s efforts to seed and support educational innovation flourish, Driver-Linn will need to find a bigger venue next year. For a more detailed report, see http:// harvardmag.com/hilt-13.

Online Overdrive The frantic pace of expansion and experimentation in online education—spur- ring HarvardX and its edX partnership with MIT, and its principal for-profit competitors Coursera and Udacity—has if anything sped up in recent weeks. Herewith a snapshot of new alliances; intriguing new applications for massive open online courses (MOOCs); some emerging criticisms and counterreac- tions; and future course offerings. • Global reach. On May 21, edX announced Bill Jaeger 15 new partners, bringing the total to 27. They include Cornell; a second liberal-arts Bill Jaeger never meant to become a union organizer: when he arrived at Harvard in college, Davidson; and, of particular impor- 1984, shortly after graduating from Yale with a degree in Russian studies, he planned tance, 10 international institutions, among to work at the Russian Research Center and then go to graduate school. But with them Peking and Tsinghua universities, in workers in his office and across Harvard unionizing, he was drawn in. “I saw some re- Beijing, the leading schools in China; Kyoto ally thoughtful, really impressive people throwing themselves into that,” he says. Jaeger University (Japan); Seoul National Univer- grew up outside St. Louis, where his father was an accountant for McDonnell Douglas. sity (South Korea); and two Hong Kong af- After high school, looking for more diverse geography, he headed to Yale, where he filiates. Rival Coursera now lists 81 affiliates met his wife, Susan Mintz, while singing in the glee club. They now live in Arlington, around the world, including several muse- where he enjoys watching European professional soccer with their two sons and plays ums; Yale became a partner in mid May, hav- recreationally with an over-50 club called the Arlington Pond Dawgz. At Harvard, he ing acted on a faculty committee’s recom- gave up on a master’s degree after a semester and joined the unionizing effort full time mendation to create an academic director of in 1986. As director, he now represents the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical online education and a standing committee Workers’ 4,600 members in negotiations with the University—which can involve as to advise its provost. Yale intends to offer many as 60 to 70 formal meetings a year. This past March, nine months after their con- four general-interest Coursera courses in tract expired, HUCTW and Harvard settled on a new three-year agreement. Jaeger, a the coming academic year, and will sepa- careful, measured speaker, says HUCTW makes use of what is known formally as an rately pursue its for-credit online language “interest-based approach,” and the union has never gone on strike. Even so, settling the courses with Cornell and Columbia. contract, and pushing forward on talks about health insurance, have made for a “really • New audiences and approaches. Beyond these tough year.” But it was because the agreement was slow to arrive that more of the institutional and geographic expansions, Harvard community was able to join in a discussion about labor. “That wouldn’t have MOOC providers have introduced new happened,” he says, “if this had been a quiet, quick, smooth negotiation.” teaching applications. First, Coursera rolled out free professional-development cours-

50 July - August 2013 Photograph by Jim Harrison Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 es for elementary- and secondary-school ed against letting undergraduates at that ademic mission.” The letter, which was ap- teachers, on subjects from classroom skills university receive credit for online cours- parently meant to be confidential but leaked, to early-childhood development. Partici- es through the nascent 2U consortium. On went on to ask Smith to “appoint a committee pating institutions include the University April 29, philosophy professors at San Jose of FAS ladder faculty to draft a set of ethical of Washington; the University of Virginia; State University, which is experimenting and educational principles that will govern Johns Hopkins; the American Museum of with online courses and “flipped” class- FAS involvement in HarvardX,” to be voted Natural History; the Museum of Modern rooms (students view lectures and then on in the coming academic year. Art; and others. Can courses for K-12 stu- meet in class to work through challenging Smith responded with a statement sup- dents be far behind? The potential market, content) wrote an open letter to Bass pro- porting “free inquiry and spirited debate” on and demand among hard-pressed school fessor of government Michael J. Sandel, ex- these matters, while emphasizing his com- districts, would seem enormous. pressing concern that the HarvardX version mitment to ensuring that all faculty mem- Then, in mid May, Udacity and Georgia of his popular “Justice” course could have bers have the academic freedom to structure Institute of Technology announced an on- the effect of wiping out indigenous facul- courses and pedagogy as they see fit, with line master’s degree in computer science, ties’ teaching at less wealthy institutions institutional support as required. HarvardX, aiming to serve 10,000 students during the like their own—a specific illustration of the he wrote, “consists of the faculty members— next three years (300 are enrolled on cam- economics of online teaching suggested by from FAS and across the University—who pus). The degree would cost $7,000—a frac- Georgia Tech’s master’s-degree experiment. have chosen to undertake these innovative tion of the annual tuition for residential The letter ignited a firestorm of comment in efforts.” He indicated his comfort with the students—in part reflecting a $2-million the academic press, focusing fears about the existing HarvardX committees, on which sponsorship from AT&T, and Georgia Tech’s changes that online pedagogy might entail. FAS is represented. What FAS decides on need to hire only a handful of instructors And on May 8, American University’s pro- matters such as compensation for partici- to support the new online learners; Udac- vost, Scott A. Bass, declared a moratorium pating professors’ time, granting credit for ity will provide staff “mentors” to handle on MOOCs while that school elaborates online courses, and so on, remains to be seen. student questions. policies on their costs and benefits; release • Forthcoming courses. In the meantime, the And at month’s end, Coursera unveiled time for faculty who develop a course dis- roster of those courses continues to expand. a partnership with 10 large public univer- seminated for free; academic oversight of The June HarvardX e-newsletter outlines sity systems—including those of Colora- MOOC courses; and other issues. new courses and “modules” (units short- do, Georgia, Kentucky, and New York—to Members of Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and er than a semester-length course), in fields create systemwide, for-credit online and Sciences touched on some of these concerns ranging from public health (the fundamen- “blended” classes. Coursera would report- in their May 7 meeting (see “Governance at Is- tals of conducting clinical trials) and poetry edly charge from $8 to $60 per student, de- sue,” below). On May 23, a letter signed by 58 (modules on early New England and Walt pending on the origins of the course con- FAS faculty members (among them three Uni- Whitman) to modern Chinese history, edu- tent and its application. Both the State versity Professors and four former high-rank- cation, religion (“The Letters of the Apostle University of New York and the Universi- ing FAS deans) to Dean Michael D. Smith as- Paul”), and cellular biology. ty of Georgia are focusing on tens of thou- serted, “It is our responsibility to ensure that sands of students who are not now served HarvardX is consistent with our commitment For continuing coverage, visit http:// in their systems—a potentially huge boost to our students on campus, and with our ac- harvardmag.com/topic/online-education. for enrollment and degree completion. For- mer Princeton president William G. Bowen, who has written extensively about online Governance at Issue emphasized by a background memoran- education (and addressed the subject at a dum from Jasanoff (a council member Harvard-MIT conference in early March), The Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) and vice-chair of the docket committee). told The New York Times, “We have encour- devoted most of its last regular meeting of That noted that “existing forums do not aged Coursera to work with the large state the academic year, on May 7, to an unusual, provide sufficient opportunity to discuss university systems…because that’s where the wide-ranging discussion of FAS and Uni- or respond to issues bearing on the FAS numbers are, and that’s where there are the versity governance. that originate outside or extend beyond it biggest issues in terms of cost, completion, The formal agenda item was introduced (such as HarvardX, the library, and the de- and access. It’s still exploratory, but this blandly: “On behalf of the velopment of Allston).” partnership has the potential to make real Faculty Council, Professor At the tense faculty meet- headway in dealing with those issues.” Maya Jasanoff will lead a ing of April 2 (at which ad- • Critiques. MOOCs are not for everyone, discussion on consultation, ditional investigations of resi- nor are they cost-free. In April, the faculty communication, and gover- ffice dent deans’ e-mail accounts of Amherst—then being wooed by edX— nance.” But its origins—from ews O were disclosed, during a re- d N voted against joining. Professors expressed the faculty’s elected council r view of student cheating on concern about seeming to move away from representatives, rather than r va a spring 2012 final exam—see the college’s strong focus on residential, from a substantive commit- “E-mail Imbroglio,” May- colloquy-based instruction. A few days tee—suggested this was not Maya Jasanoff June, page 46), Jasanoff, a later, Duke’s Arts & Sciences Council vot- routine business, a point Rose lincoln/Ha professor of history, had sug-

Harvard Magazine 51 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 John Harvard's Journal gested that communication within FAS fell as who controls credit for online educa- members include the centralization of li- short, and that many colleagues did not tion—have raised concerns in prior faculty brary services, under the provost’s direc- feel comfortable expressing themselves in meetings (see “Online Education Acceler- tion; the provost’s spring 2012 announce- such formal settings. Intro- ates,” March-April, page ment that financial-planning services for ducing the May 7 conversa- 50 and http://harvardmag. professors were being discontinued (see tion, she said the “shared com/edx-growth, and this “Faculty Finance Frustrations,” July-Au- sense” that communica- issue, “Online Overdrive,” gust 2012, page 48); and throughout this tion needed improvement page 50.) academic year, the investigation of under- arose both from faculty • At the February 5 fac- graduate academic misconduct, and the members’ crowded sched- ulty meeting where Presi- administrative probing of resident deans’ d news office ules and e-mail in-boxes r dent Drew Faust and Pro- e-mail accounts, with the initial approval and from “significant r va vost Alan Garber outlined of FAS dean Michael D. Smith and Univer- changes in higher educa- the relocation of SEAS to sity general counsel Robert Iuliano—and, isen/Ha tion, the nation, the world, Evelynn Allston, several SEAS area subsequently, by Harvard College dean

Hammonds cott E and Harvard.” The latter S deans rose to object that Evelynn M. Hammonds, without Smith’s included some items from her memo: deci- the decision was presented on short notice, knowledge or consent (see “E-mail Up- sions about HarvardX and the online edu- and to express their then-unaddressed res- date,” below). The announcement on the cation partnership with MIT, edX; the pro- ervations about the prospective move (see Tuesday of Commencement week that spective move of the School of Engineering http://harvardmag.com/seas-13). Hammonds would step down at year end and Applied Sciences (SEAS) to Allston; • Although a large University capital proved a kind of punctuation mark for this and the forthcoming capital campaign. campaign is under way (see “Campaign controversy. As background: Chatter,” May-June, page 50), many—per- Longer-serving faculty members re- • Faculty members uncertain about Har- haps most—FAS members seem to have member the trauma—focused on discus- vardX and edX (the development and de- little sense of its aims and impact on re- sions within FAS—that surrounded the ployment of “massive open online courses,” search and teaching, beyond the known administration of Lawrence H. Summers, MOOCs, that disseminate classes world- goals of funding financial aid and renovat- his abrupt dismissal of an FAS dean, and wide electronically)—and their costs and ing the undergraduate Houses. the early end of his own presidency, in implications for teaching and such matters • Other recent issues disquieting faculty 2006. That was followed by the financial

E-mail Update policies regarding access to, and confidentiality of, electronic communications that rely on university information During the April 2 disclosure that the e-mail accounts of a resi- systems. It will consult with faculty, staff, and students in dent dean were investigated multiple times in connection with an order to obtain a full understanding of the perspectives of Administrative Board review of students’ academic misconduct each group. (see “E-mail Imbroglio,” May-June, page 46), President Drew Faust In undertaking its work, the task force will inform itself told the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) that the University about policies now in place at Harvard and other relevant appeared to have “highly inadequate” policies and processes in institutions and solicit perspectives and advice on best place for treating electronic communications properly. practices. She therefore retained attorney Michael B. Keating, LL.B. ’65, The task force will consider whether and to what extent to review the facts and report on whether the situation is fully Harvard’s policies should be University-wide or specific understood; The Harvard Crimson subsequently disclosed that his to certain parts of the University or particular institu- report will be delivered to a committee comprising Faust and tional roles and responsibilities. Corporation members Lawrence S. Bacow, William F. Lee, and The task force will be expected to focus on recom- Theodore V. Wells Jr. According to a statement issued by Lee: mending policies for the future that are both principled In addition to discussing his findings with the Corporation and practicable and that account for the reasonable ex- committee, [Mr. Keating] will prepare a written report, pectations of individuals, the legitimate interests of the with appropriate regard for confidentiality, that will be University, and associated issues of notice and pro- shared with the Harvard community. He aims to finish his cess.… work by June 30. Barron’s task force includes administrative, associate, and Separately, Faust set up a University task force to establish executive deans from the schools of divinity, public health, and policies and guidelines on e-mail privacy, chaired by Green pro- medicine, and a dozen professors from diverse faculties (the fessor of public law David J. Barron. That group began meeting complete list appears at http://harvardmag.com/priva- on May 6; it expects to make recommendations for Corporation cy-13). It will be supported by vice presidents Marilyn Hausam- action by the end of the coming fall term. It operates under this mann (human resources), Robert Iuliano (University general charter from Faust: counsel), Anne Margulies (chief information officer), and Leah The task force will consider and recommend appropriate Rosovsky (strategy and programs).

52 July - August 2013 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 crisis of 2008-2009—especially stressful for a faculty that had become particularly Yesterday’s News reliant upon the endowment for operating revenue. The University and FAS have From the pages of the Harvard Alumni Bulletin and Harvard Magazine come quite a distance since then, but many professors retain personal recollections of 1913 Construction is underway on 1973 President Derek C. Bok’s name those governance and financial crises. the new Larz Anderson Bridge, connect- appears on the list of “political enemies” Although the May 7 discussion framed ing Cambridge and Boston, with comple- of the Nixon administration submitted to these mostly substantive differences in tion expected before the Yale Game. the Senate Watergate committee by John terms of communications processes and Dean. Possible explanations include Bok’s procedures, faculty comments illuminated 1943 Widener Library receives 11,000 opposition to the nomination of Judge G. some of the deeper concerns. books, pamphlets, and periodicals be- Harrold Carswell to the Supreme Court, Francke professor of German art and cul- longing to Theodore Roosevelt, A.B. and his Washington trip to protest the ture Jeffrey F. Hamburger, a Faculty Council 1880, LL.D. 1902, including 150 personal invasion of Cambodia. member, urged reaching out to the faculty scrapbooks and manuscripts, and micro- majority who skip faculty meetings, either film copies of thousands of his letters. The Department of Health, Education, and from genuine cynicism or mere expediency. Welfare’s Boston office criticizes the Uni- Professor of history Alison Frank John- 1953 Asked to comment on fellow versity’s affirmative-action plan, specifically son—newly elected to the council—said Appleton, Wisconsin, resident Nathan the dearth of “a department-by-depart- colleagues, and she herself, believed “a Marsh Pusey ’28, Ph.D. ’37, Senator Jo- ment breakdown of goals and timetables proliferation of administrators who are seph P. McCarthy describes Harvard’s for the hiring of minorities and women in not faculty members,” with new du- president-elect as a “rabid anti anti-Com- the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.” ties and responsibilities, had produced a munist” and is promptly chastised by “sense of alienation” and a “more corpo- most of the national press. 1988 Harvard announces plans to re- rate feeling” about faculty affairs “that not place the 48-year-old Colonial-style Gulf all of us fully understand.” Consultation Student housing remains a problem. Only station at the intersection of Mass. Ave. is different from governance, she noted; 10 percent of incoming freshmen are com- and Harvard Street with a “moderately people could be asked to share ideas, only muters, compared with 25 percent in the priced” 150 to 200-room inn. to see them ignored as impractical or in- 1920s and 15 percent in recent years. consistent with other aims. Professor of 1993 Noting that in the past academic philosophy Edward J. Hall said colleagues 1963 The College Pump reports that year, 64 percent of freshmen had Unix e- he had spoken to were invited to meetings “at the exact moment the representative mail accounts, but only 42 percent of se- about online program implementation, of the Twenty-Fifth Reunion Class pre- niors did, the editors explain, “Computer but not to consult on whether the overall sented the imposing Class gift of over a technology at Harvard is advancing…[so idea or educational direction made sense. million dollars to President Pusey, a dra- rapidly] that seniors are substantially less Saltonstall professor of history Charles matic lighting bolt flashed computer literate than Yardlings.” Maier observed that governance involved across the western sky.” talking together to contribute to government within the University. The sense had arisen, he said, that policies now originate within the administration. He cited the announcement of SEAS’s move; decisions about resources; the “debates and disquiet” about HarvardX (where it appeared there was a rush to board the “fast train at the station” without being sure of the destina- tion); and the University’s internationaliza- tion via structures that might better serve the needs of professional-school faculties than those of FAS. As a result, he said, “We don’t quite know how to have an input.” Other speakers’ specific suggestions for rethinking the Faculty Council or re- visiting its originating leg- islation, and for enhancing digital communications,

Illustration by Mark Steele Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 provided grist for future meetings. sions to raise questions—and encouraging sis resulted in budget cuts and even more The last speaker, Rakesh Khurana, Bower participants to do so—while deferring the centralization of financial management to professor of leadership development at the presentation of solutions; and soliciting produce better controls. Funds from some Business School (but, as master of Cabot written feedback afterwards. faculty research centers continue to be House, a member of FAS), a scholar of or- These may seem soft solutions to hard tapped to shore up FAS’s budget—a source ganizational culture, returned to Jasanoff’s problems. Experiments like HarvardX and of continued unhappiness. introductory presentation. The issue for edX involve matters essential to professors’ Such factors have reshaped the context FAS was “How do we create an engaged concerns, such as how they teach, at a time for faculty-administration relationships community” that feels genuinely consulted? when everything about teaching is under today, bringing discussion of governance An uncertain era for higher education made question. A single MOOC—with videog- to the fore within FAS once again. Khura- such engagement more important than ever raphers, computer programmers, and sup- na’s remarks elicited applause, suggesting before. The faculty needed to “create a psy- port services—may involve an investment the faculty members’ hunger for solutions chologically safe environment,” Khurana of $250,000—and a much more centralized to their current disquiet, and their enthu- said, where silence was not interpreted as approach toward “producing” a course. siasm for context-changing suggestions agreement, where there was no pressure to And further centralization has occurred. from someone they view as a colleague. create unanimity, and where people were The University libraries in effect are now not judged for raising ideas before they were led by professional managers, not by fac- For a fuller account, see http://harvard fully formed. He suggested creating discus- ulty members. The 2008-2009 financial cri- mag.com/governance-13.

Systematic Drug “We need to reexamine the fundamental (FDA) has declined from approximately 100 science behind drug therapy,” says Peter to about 30 per year in recent decades. Discovery Sorger, Krayer professor of systems pharma- To tackle this stark reality, the new cology at Harvard Medical School (HMS) HMS program aims to use multidisci- Midway through clinical trials for the ex- and head of the new Harvard Program in plinary approaches from systems biol- perimental melanoma treatment PLX4032, Therapeutic Science. The pathway to federal ogy (a new discipline that uses quantita- researchers were convinced they had a mir- approval is littered with failed drugs, repre- tive and computational methods to study acle drug. Patients on PLX4032 had shown senting many years of labor and millions of emergent behaviors of biological com- significant tumor shrinkage within weeks of dollars of investments; indeed, an estimat- ponents; see “Seeing Biological Systems beginning treatment, a radical change from ed 70 percent to 75 percent of a successful Whole,” March-April 2005, page 67) to the effective death sentence that is metastat- drug’s price reflects the cost of earlier losses create a more rational basis for drug devel- ic melanoma. And this was no ordinary treat- during development. Even as science crafts opment. “We don’t know why most drugs ment. PLX4032 was among the first appar- increasingly sophisticated techniques for work,” Sorger says. As the case of PLX4032 ent successes in the field of targeted therapy. understanding chemical action at the level shows, drugs often have unpredictable The drug was directed to a specific, cancer- of molecules, the number of drugs approved side effects and remarkable variation in ef- causing mutation present in more than half by the Food and Drug Administration ficacy from one patient to another. Sorger, of all melanomas, and its who has co-founded two success seemed to herald companies himself, Mer- a new age of personalized rimack Pharmaceuticals medicine. and Glencoe Software, What followed was sees research potential heartbreaking. The drug’s in the problems that early successes were fol- plague pharmaceutical lowed by the sudden companies, regulators, emergence of resistant and clinicians. “If you tumors. One after an- were to work closely other, patients relapsed. with a pharmaceutical The drug that seemed company,” he says, “you’d to snatch them from the continuously find these jaws of death wound up fantastically interest- delaying disease progres- ing biological questions sion by only an estimated spinning out. These six months. PLX4032 questions are usually eventually received fed- shelved in industry be- eral approval as the drug cause timelines are tight, Vemurafenib, but its re- but they come back to sults fell far short of its Peter Sorger haunt you over and over initial promise. again.”

54 July - August 2013 Photograph by Channing Johnson/Harvard Medical School Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 John Harvard's Journal “The Girls of HBS”

Harvard Business School (HBS) commemorated the entry of women into its M.B.A. program, half a century ago, with the W50 Summit in early April—complete with a survey of alumnae and the announcement of a new senior associate deanship for culture and community (see http://harvardmag.com/hbs-13 for a full report). A related exhibit, Building the Foundation: Business Education for Women at Harvard University, at Baker Library|Bloomberg Cen- ter through September 22, documents that progress from Radcliffe College’s one-year certificate program in 1937 to the residential integration of women at HBS in 1970. A two-page, typewritten memorandum in the exhibit, to “The One among many: Harvard Business School pioneer Robin Women of the Class of 1971” on the subject of “Life at H.B.S.,” Wigger, suitably attired, in class among fellow M.B.A. students, circa 1970 composed by Robin Wigger, Class of 1970, gives a vivid sense of the world then, for women and men alike. she wrote, “deemed the experiment a great success and have Written “in an attempt to answer some of the questions which chosen to live on campus again,” in part to belong to study I had last summer before beginning the MBA Program,” it starts groups, use the library, and meet people. None suffered the with the “vital” suggestion that “every woman have a fairly defi- imagined problem of “a possible loss of our (feminine) identity.” nite reply to the question: ‘What’s a nice girl like you doing in The accommodations were far better than those of Radcliffe business school?’” Wigger explained the context: Graduate Center—although women who chose campus living I do not wish to imply that you will be regarded as some must “provide your own iron and ironing board.” sort of freak, for many times…this question is intended as (A Harvard Crimson report of March 11, 1969, on “the only coed a compliment. But I would like to warn you that the ques- living plan at present in the University,” quoted Colleen Burke, tion will be a constant one, and it does help if you have a who petitioned with Wigger to live on campus, to the effect that ready answer. Some of the first-year men appeared to the HBS administration had been “flexible and progressive de- assume that most of the single girls at HBS were there with spite its conservative image.” They and “two other girls” drawn the sole intent of finding rich husbands. Others really could by lot, Peggy Jones and Dana Holzinger, inhabited McCulloch not understand why any woman would want to learn about C-13 and -14, previously a lounge for female students. Wigger business and/or management. reported that “now guys can understand more why we’re here. From there, Wigger offered practical advice on “exactly what A lot of guys have found out that girls are absolutely normal.” women were expected to wear to class.” Most of her peers, she Men had apparently overcome initial misgivings, including, Burke noted, chose “clothes appropriate to the suits and ties of the said, complaints about “perfume wafting up the corridors.”) male students. We wore dresses or suits with low heels and Wigger concluded, “I would not be providing you with an ac- hose.” One consequence: “[I]f you just graduated from an all- curate picture if I stated that being a woman at HBS involves no women’s college, you may find the switch in dress to be a bit of additional problems or adjustments than those faced by the male a shock to your clothes budget (especially the cost of nylons).” students. However, the difficulties are not insurmountable and After advising matriculating women to relax and be confident the personal experience and education” well worth it. Appar- that they could adjust to the workload, to “classes in which there ently so: she went on to be general manager, distribution and is a strong emphasis on discussion,” and to “the frightening pos- marketing, of IBM and, subsequently, a corporate director. sibility of being called on to start a class,” Wigger revealed her pioneering spirit. She and three other first-year women had par- The exhibition materials come from the Baker Library Historical Col- ticipated in an “Experimental Residence Project” during the lections and the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in second half of the year, “to determine the adequacy of the fa- America (at the Radcliffe Institute). The website for the exhibition, with cilities for women and also to discover whether there were any links to oral histories and research materials, is www.library.hbs. major problems for women living in the men’s dorms.” All four, edu/hc/wbe/exhibit_introduction.html.

Underlying the new initiative is the chair of the department of medicine and known to go awry in disease. Increasingly belief that drug discovery has been too physician-in-chief at Brigham and Wom- sophisticated technologies can provide a focused on a reductionist approach. His- en’s Hospital (BWH), who is involved detailed understanding of how the drug torically, pharmacology has been focused with the therapeutics initiative. Typical and its target interact at different dosage on the idea of a magic bullet—a single drug-discovery methods begin with high- levels across time and cellular space, but drug for a single disease process, says Jo- throughput screens that identify single Sorger nevertheless views this knowledge seph Loscalzo, Hershey professor of the molecules that interact with a particular as insufficient. PLX4032, for instance, theory and practice of physic at HMS and target—a protein or signal receptor that is was derived from this highly targeted ap-

Photograph courtesy of the Harvard Business School Archives Photograph Collection Harvard Magazine 55 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 John Harvard's Journal proach—a single drug for a single cancer therapeutics will draw on MIT’s position search facility. Additionally, a therapeutics with a single mutation—but the cancer as a leader in computational biology, and foundry will aim to develop methods and cells’ rapid resistance, as observed in the Harvard’s in systems biology (driven by technologies for smarter drug design—for clinical trials, also shows how much re- the creation of the department of systems example, using known molecular parts to mains to be learned. “In the case of Vemu- biology at HMS in 2003). “We need a radi- build proteins with desired functions. The rafenib, we need a much more sophisticat- cal rethink in the way that we organize LSP (construction is scheduled to finish in ed understanding of the drug pathways,” and interpret biological data,” he says. A the spring) will eventually house an esti- he says. “Most of that massive resistance more integrative research approach, based mated 60 researchers from Harvard, MIT, is due to bypasses, where one pathway upon predictive models of cellular net- and Tufts, and hospitals including Mas- turns off and the next turns on.” works, will help explain and predict drug sachusetts General, BWH, and the Dana- Sorger strongly advocates the use of side effects and interactions. “Many drugs Farber Cancer Institute. Researchers will more mathematical and computational provoke paradoxical responses,” he says. have similarly varied backgrounds, rang- methods to supplement biology’s tradi- “These are effects that, once understood, ing from experimental to computational tionally descriptive approach. When he could be applied in industry. It’s time to biology, and from basic to translational to taught at MIT, he co-founded its Com- rethink some of these underlying con- clinical research, all working in a single putational and Systems Biology Initiative, cepts.” (For an initial outline of the new physical space. “Colocalization drives in- and now his lab uses quantitative models approach, see “A New Prescription for terdisciplinary science,” says Sorger, prais- to study the biological circuitry control- Drug Development,” http://harvardmag. ing the benefits of proximity among re- ling decisions about programmed cell com/pharmacology.) searchers. “No electronic technology we’ve death, a process radically altered in cancer Such an integrative approach will re- discovered has been more than an aid.” cells. “My interest in quantitative meth- quire more interdisciplinary collabora- Loscalzo, whose own lab employs both ex- ods grew organically from being incred- tion. A key component of the therapeutics perimental and computational approaches ibly dissatisfied with this very anecdotal initiative is a new Laboratory of Systems to medically relevant issues, hopes that by picture,” he says. The new program in Pharmacology (LSP), a therapeutics re- working alongside each other, researchers

University People vitsky, professor of government; Michael medicine and professor of genetics, Har- J. Puett, Klein professor of Chinese his- vard Medical School (HMS); astronomer Peak Professors tory and chair of the committee on the Ramesh Narayan, Cabot professor of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences dean Mi- study of religion; Jennifer L. Roberts, natural sciences, Faculty of Arts and Sci- chael D. Smith has named a new cohort of professor of history of art and architec- ences (FAS); Norbert Perrimon, Still- Harvard College Professors. The five-year ture and chair of the committee on de- man professor of developmental biology, professorships (five are conferred annu- grees in the history of American civiliza- HMS; Daniel L. Schacter, Kenan professor ally) recognize superb undergraduate tions (read about her presentation at the of psychology, FAS (see “The Social Life teaching and advising. Honorands receive May learning and teaching conference in of Memory, page 10); Beth A. Simmons, extra research funding and a semester of “Talking about Teaching,” page 48); and Dillon professor of international affairs, paid leave or summer salary. This year’s Maryellen Ruvolo, professor of human FAS; Gerhard Wagner, Blout professor cohort is: Joseph D. Harris, Higgins evolutionary biology. of biological chemistry and molecular professor of mathematics; Steven R. Le pharmacology, HMS; Fred M. Winston, Scientists at the Summit Andrus professor of genetics and tutor in Eight Harvard faculty members have biochemical sciences, HMS and FAS; and been elected to the National Academy of Horng-Tzer Yau, professor of mathemat- Sciences: Mitzi I. Kuroda, professor of ics, FAS.

Interim Ed Dean. Thompson profes- Extraordinary Economist sor of education and society Richard J. The American Economic Association has Murnane has been appointed Harvard conferred the 2013 John Bates Clark Med- Graduate School of Education’s acting al on professor of economics Raj Chetty, dean, effective July 1. He is the interim successor to Kathleen McCartney, who who uses large data sets to examine taxa- departs to become president of Smith tion, employment, and education policy College, as previously announced. (see “Kindergarten Matters,” November- Murnane, an economist, has examined changing demands for workers’ skills in December 2010, page 13). The medal rec- the evolving U.S. economy, and the effec- ognizes the U.S. economist under the age tiveness of education policies in respond- of 40 judged to have made the most signif- ing to those changes. He also studies the icant contribution to economic thought effect of income inequality on educational opportunity. The search for a perma- and theory. He was awarded a MacArthur nent dean continues. Foundation Fellowship in 2012.

56 July - August 2013 Phtotograph by Tom Kates Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 will gain a deep appreciation for the pow- collaborative relationship between aca- Sorger also sees a role for academia in er of different research methods. demia and industry. The high cost of drug mediating the adversarial relationship The new lab will explicitly tackle com- failures places a limit on how much com- between pharmaceutical companies and plex problems like neurodegenerative or panies are willing to risk. “You get stuck federal regulatory agencies. Regulatory inflammatory diseases, where traditional in a rut,” says Sorger. “Research is too science, he says, could be restructured to drug-discovery methods have made little expensive, so you have to go with today’s enable companies to alter and improve progress. “I don’t think these are intractable ideas, even if today’s ideas aren’t good their treatment regimes during the trial problems,” says Loscalzo. “We have the data enough.” In contrast, he says, academia process, and to continue monitoring after sets. We have the cellular and animal mod- is better equipped to handle long-term, a drug reaches the market. “The FDA is els, and we know the biochemical, molecu- open-ended questions and to investigate complicit in the reductionist view of drug lar, and cellular underpinnings pretty well.” principles that could lead to more ratio- development, in that the approval process Here, collaboration is crucial. He suggests nal drug design and usage. To that end, requires the pharmaceutical industry to that a better understanding of basic biology a graduate program in therapeutics will identify a specific target for the drug can- will enable clinicians to characterize disease train students in the science behind drug didate,” adds Loscalzo. Yet infrequent tox- profiles in terms of their underlying biol- discovery and regulation, while requiring icities and nontoxic side effects are also ogy, rather than their large-scale, end-stage internships at pharmaceutical companies important components of how clinicians physiological effects. In many cases, Loscal- to get a taste of industry. “Exposure to prescribe drugs. Furthermore, combina- zo says, “the therapies that have been used real-world problems will help students tion therapies may be the way forward for so far have been largely focused on the end think about their own research projects,” drugs like Vemurafenib (new drugs are result of a disease, not the causes.” Exploring he says, by showing them what topics are already in development to combat the ob- those causes could lead to novel therapeutic best suited to each context. Nine students served resistance), but the current lengthy targets, as well as more effective diagnosis from existing HMS medical and doctoral approval process discourages collabora- and treatment in a clinical setting. programs are expected to enroll this fall in tion between industry competitors on The initiative also aims to foster a more the new therapeutics certificate program. potentially powerful drug cocktails. Plans

Pfoho’s First Family. Anne Harrington, professor of the history of science—and acting chair and director of undergraduate studies for the department—and her husband, John Durant, have been appointed master and co-master of Pforzheimer House. Harrington’s scholarship focuses on the mind-body connection and neuroscience; she has been a member of the faculty since 1988. Durant is director of the MIT Museum and an adjunct professor in that institution’s science, technology, and society program. The couple have an eight-year-old son, Jamie. They succeed Nicholas Christakis and Erika Christakis, master and co-master since 2009, who are relocating to Yale.

Academy Academicians and professor of physics (see Eleven faculty affiliates were elected “Shedding Light on Life,” members of the American Academy of May-June 2008, page 40). Arts and Sciences: David M. Altshuler, professor of genetics; Xandra O. Break Science Funding Lows— efield, professor of neurology; Paul A. and Highs Buttenwieser, clinical instructor in psy- The Boston Globe’s Robert chiatry; David W. Latham, lecturer on Weisman reported in April that the city are in medicine. The winners, whose sala- astronomy; Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, had for the eighteenth consecutive year ries, benefits, and research are underwrit- Fisher professor of education; Joseph led the nation in grants received from the ten for five years, are:Adam E. Cohen, Loscalzo, Hersey professor of the theory National Institutes of Health ($1.78 billion professor of chemistry and chemical biol- and practice of physic (see “Systematic in 2012), with Massachusetts General and ogy and of physics, and Hopi Hoekstra, Drug Discovery,” page 54); John F. Man Brigham and Women’s hospitals (Har- professor of organismic and evolutionary ning, Bromley professor of law; Richard vard affiliates) and the Medical School biology and of molecular and cellular biol- J. Murnane, Thompson professor of edu- (HMS) in the forefront. That such fund- ogy, from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences; cation and society (opposite); Charles ing is being reined in is a source of worry and professor of systems biology Vamsi K. A. Nelson III, professor of pediatrics; and vulnerability for the school’s research Mootha, professor of genetics David E. William J. Poorvu, M.B.A. Class of 1961 enterprise. So it was heartening that six of Reich, professor of biological chemistry adjunct professor in entrepreneurship 27 investigator awards announced in May and molecular pharmacology Johannes emeritus; and Xiaowei Zhuang, profes- by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Walter, and professor of neurobiology sor of chemistry and chemical biology went to Harvard scientists, four of whom Rachel I. Wilson—all from HMS.

Photograph by Kris Snibbe/Harvard News Office Harvard Magazine 57 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 are under way for a partnership between The Undergraduate the new therapeutics initiative and the FDA to add nuance to the current regulatory structure, and to implement a structure for failure analysis, as in engineering. Harvard: The Mix Tape Sorger also hopes to develop the science needed to test novel treatment methods; gene therapies, stem-cell therapies, by kathryn c. reed ’13 and engineered proteins, for instance, are promising research frontiers that the cur- friend in middle school used to At Harvard in the fall of my freshman year, rent system is poorly designed to evaluate. make me mix tapes. He would I went to the Crimson’s open house and signed Ten-year costs for the therapeutics ini- find me by my locker after the up for every content board on the paper. tiative are estimated at $200 million, with last bell to hand me the cassette. Arts, Sports, News, Editorial, Fifteen Min- significant funding anticipated from pri- AI could barely make out the names of the utes—I thought I could do them all. “Most vate and philanthropic as well as federal songs, written in scratchy boy handwrit- people only comp one,” I was told. “Once sources; a $5-million grant from the Com- ing. Usually, they’d be rap. you’re on staff, though, you can write for any monwealth’s Massachusetts Life Sciences The tracks ran into one another; some- board you want.” I went to each introduc- Center is funding the construction of the times they’d be cut off. I would have my fa- tory meeting before deciding to drop to one. LSP. In the next decade, Sorger believes, vorite songs, but it was too hard to get the A week earlier, my roommates and I the initiative will make significant ad- rewinding and fast-forwarding just right. had sat in our common room, searching vances in areas like toxicology and person- I’d always end up in the middle, then go through the course catalog, trying to de- alized therapy. Although federal budget back too far. It was easier to listen straight cide what to shop. There were hundreds of cuts have drastically decreased funding of through, anyway, in the order my friend options; for the next week, we could go to scientific research, Sorger is undeterred. wanted them to be heard. as many—or few—courses as we wanted. “In crisis lies opportunity,” he says, and They were all I had to listen to, until I My friends made color-coded spread- institutions have been willing to con- bought a Walkman at the end of the year. sheets while I felt inundated by choices. sider more collaborative ways to organize I still kept the tapes after that, though we I knew some who shopped more than 30 research. The financial crisis and public started burning CDs. debates on healthcare have imparted an You could fit more additional sense of urgency to current songs on the discs; research. “Given these tough economic it was easier to skip times, people realize that we are funda- around. We’d sit on mentally dependent on the success of the the bus wearing head- broader economy, and our economy is, in phones—the big kind part, medical practice,” he says. “The piece that wrap around we can drive is innovation: innovation fo- your ears. At home, cused on improving patient outcomes and we’d upload to our reducing costs.” By promoting a more inte- computers, bring back grative view of drug development—from more the next day. research through testing to regulation— Listening to the the new therapeutic science team hopes mix tapes ended in to provide the needed change in the status eighth grade. (We had quo. “We’re trapped in a linear narrative continued to trade here,” says Loscalzo. “Genetics, genomics, them occasionally, de- and conventional wet-bench biology have spite the convenience evolved through linear, reductionist rea- of CDs.) But the iPod soning. It’s not a feasible approach if you’re had just come out, thinking about systems and networks.” making the Walkman vkatherine xue seem cumbersome in turn. Eventually I Katherine Xue ’13, a former Ledecky Undergradu- acquired a turquoise ate Fellow at the magazine, concentrated in chemi- mini. (It, too, would cal and physical biology and will be a freelance seem cumbersome writer for the coming year before entering graduate now.) I could carry school in systems biology. She recently won Har- thousands of songs vard’s Bowdoin Prize for Undergraduate Essays in with me; instead of the Natural Sciences for a manuscript adapted from mix tapes, we traded her senior thesis. mp3s.

58 July - August 2013 Illustrations by Zara Picken Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 John Harvard's Journal

The Marathon Bombing The Pity of War). Separately, the Harvard Among the three victims killed in the ter- Gay and Lesbian Caucus is changing its rorist bombing at the Boston Marathon Brevia name to the Harvard Gender and Sexu on April 15 was Krystle Campbell, daugh- ality Caucus at the end of the academic ter of long-time Harvard Business School year. And on income-tax day, the Univer- Restaurant Associ- sity announced that ates employee Patty it would extend Campbell and sister tax-equalization of Cabot House din- payments of $1,500 ing-services staffer to faculty and staff Billy Campbell. members and post- Krystle Campbell doctoral fellows had herself worked whose same-sex for HBS Restaurant spouse (or same-sex Associates while domestic partner in she was in college; states that do not she was remem- recognize same-sex bered in a campus marriage) is covered observance led by under a Harvard Dean Nitin Nohria. family medical plan. In a cruel twist, the surviving suspect Earnings Update in the bombings, Harvard Manage Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, reportedly worked Primate Denouement. Harvard ment Company has reported calendar- as a lifeguard at Malkin Athletic Center Medical School (HMS) plans to wind year 2011 compensation for its president as a high-school student in Cambridge. down operations of the New England and top-earning portfolio managers: Finally, among the lawyers assigned to Primate Research Center, in Southbor- Jane L. Mendillo, president and CEO, ough, Massachusetts. The school cited represent Tsarnaev is Miriam Conrad, financial pressures; Carolyn Y. $5.3 million; Andrew G. Wiltshire, al- J.D. ’87, the highly respected head of the Johnson, of The Boston Globe (who ternative assets, $6.6 million; Stephen Boston Federal Public Defender Office. earlier reported on the center’s lapses Blyth, public markets, $6.2 million; Alva in animal care, federal warnings, and ro Aguirre-Simunovic, natural resourc- ensuing changes in operations—and Visitas Derailed wrote “Animal Research Reforms” for es, $5.3 million; Apoorva K. Koticha, With Boston and environs locked down this magazine, May-June 2012, page fixed income, $3.1 million; andMarco C. during the day-long manhunt for terrorist 45), cited an HMS estimate of $25 Barrozo, fixed income, $3.0 million. Sep- million needed to sustain the facility. In suspects on April 19, the Visitas campus the meantime, with federal research arately, the University’s tax return for its orientation program for admitted un- funding declining, HMS appears to be fiscal year ended June 30, 2012, revealed dergraduates was suspended, with many focusing on human research frontiers that President Drew Faust’s salary was students en route. The admissions office (see “Systematic Drug Discovery,” $729,000, plus other compensation (prin- page 54). Provisions need to be made coped by transporting some of the arrivals for the nearly 2,000 animals at the cipally, use of Elmwood, the presidential to hotels, while undergraduates shared in- facility; about 200 faculty members, residence) of $171,000. Other reported formation about campus life with the pre- postdoctoral researchers, and staff salaries, for the executive vice presi- frosh via VirtualVisitas. The impact on employees will also be affected. See dent and various vice presidents, ranged http://harvardmag.com/primates-13 the yield was apparently nil: of 2,029 can- for details. from $579,000 to $265,000. For details, see didates offered admission to the class of http://harvardmag.com/pay-13. As pre- 2017, some 82 percent accepted—the high- ent to the long-term effects of his econom- viously reported, Faust last year joined est yield since 1973. (Separately, according ic theories because he was homosexual the board of directors of Staples, Inc., to The Choice, The New York Times blog on and childless, Tisch professor of history the office-supplies retailer. The company admissions, Stanford’s admissions rate Niall Ferguson made several apologies, reported the value of her pro-rated cash was actually lower than Harvard’s this written and in person. In The Crimson of compensation and stock awards during year: 5.7 percent in Palo Alto, 5.8 percent May 8, he also assailed his “vituperative 2012 as $275,000. in Cambridge. In 2012, it was Crimson 5.9 online critics,” some of whom wrote about percent, Cardinal 6.6 percent.) the conservative trope of attacking Keynes On Other Campuses based his sexual orientation. The Boston Echoing Yale, Princeton tapped its long- Sexual-Orientation Matters Globe noted that Ferguson had himself time provost, Christopher L. Eisgruber, After he was widely reported to have said gone into footnoted detail about Keynes’s a constitutional scholar, to succeed Shir that John Maynard Keynes was indiffer- sexuality (in chapter 11 of his 1999 book, ley M. Tilghman, who became president

Photograph by Kristen C. Toohey Harvard Magazine 59 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 John Harvard's Journal

in 2001. He has published a pair of books atop the current 385. Interdisciplinary pri- Pulitzer honorands. Tom Reiss ’86 won with Harvard University Press.…Much orities include programs on global health, the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for his biography farther afield, private-equity executive urban challenges, and education and the of Alex Dumas (the basis for the Vita pub- Stephen A. Schwarzman, M.B.A. ’72, of science of learning.…Cornell secured a lished in this magazine’s the Blackstone Group, has donated $100 second nine-figure gift for its technology November-December million and is raising $200 million more campus on New York City’s Roosevelt Is- 2012 issue, page 30). Staff to endow a Rhodes Scholarship-like land: alumni Irwin Jacobs, co-founder of reporters of the online program to bring 200 international stu- Qualcomm Inc., and his wife, Joan Jacobs, InsideClimate News, tesy of tom Reiss

dents annually to Beijing, for one-year have donated $133 million.…Columbia re- founded by David Sas r

master’s programs at Tsinghua Univer ceived a second $100-million gift for the soon ’79, won the nation- cou sity.…As neuroscience research acceler- business-school facilities at its new Man- al-reporting prize for Tom Reiss ates (see “Mapping the Way to a Brain hattanville campus. The donor is Ronald coverage of the regulation Survey,” page 9), Columbia recently se- O. Perelman, chairman and CEO of Mac- of oil pipelines. Finalists included Adams cured a $200-million gift to fund work Andrews & Forbes Holdings Inc., and a University Professor emeritus Bernard in the field and the University of South member of the school’s board of overseers. Bailyn (history), for The Barbarous Years ern California trumpeted hiring leading Diller Scofido + Renfro are designing the (reviewed in the January-February issue, neurology professors away from UCLA, two new buildings.…Charles T. Munger, page 20); Juliette Kayyem ’91, J.D. ’95, a to anchor a new neuroinformatics insti- vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., Harvard Kennedy School lecturer, for her tute for brain mapping and imaging. gave the University of Michigan, his alma Boston Globe columns (commentary); and mater, $110 million for a graduate-student Globe reporter Patricia Wen ’80, as part of Competing Campaigns residential commons and fellowships. a team that covered compounding phar- As the public launch of The Harvard Cam- macies (national reporting). paign nears, other institutions suggest the Nota Bene scale of higher-education philanthropy Bond blessing. Taking advantage of favor- Anchoring architecture. Iñaki Ábalos today. Johns Hopkins unveiled its $4.5-bil- able market conditions, the University has been appointed chair of the depart- lion “Rising to the Challenge” effort, fol- in April issued $402 million of taxable ment of architecture at the Graduate lowing a $3.7-billion drive that concluded bonds, maturing variously in 2023, 2031, School of Design. A founding member of in 2008 (much of it focused on medicine and 2037, at interest rates scaling up from Ábalos + Sentkiewicz Arquitectos, based and on facilities). The new drive, begun 2.3 percent to 3.619 percent. The proceeds in Madrid, he has previously taught stu- with 43 percent of the goal in hand, seeks are being used to refund all of a 30-year is- dios and lectured at the school. nearly $700 million for financial aid, as well sue of similar bonds issued in 2006 at a 6.3 as funding to endow 300 professorships percent interest rate. Miscellany. William Russo has been appointed managing director of the Galvanizing Gifts. The University announced in May American Repertory Theater, joining that Hansjörg Wyss has made a second, $125-million gift artistic director Diane Paulus in leading (complementing one in 2008) to support the Wyss Institute the nonprofit organization. He comes to for Biologically Inspired Engineering, which focuses on developing new medicines and technologies for commercial Cambridge from the New York Theatre application. It now engages 27 affiliated faculty members Workshop.…President Barack Obama has and a staff of more than 350 people, occupying 100,000 nominated Penny S. Pritzker ’81 as U.S. square feet of research space; see further details at http:// harvardmag.com/wyss-13. The Blavatnik Family Founda- Secretary of Commerce.…The Honorable tion, led by Len Blavatnik, M.B.A. ’89, has given Harvard Margaret H. Marshall, Ed.M.’69, Ed ’77, $50 million; the funds, following an earlier, $5-million gift, L ’78—a graduate of Yale Law School— will enable the Office of Technology Development to scale has been appointed Senior Fellow of the up the University’s Biomedical Accelerator Fund, launched in 2007, now renamed for the donor. It is an investment Yale Corporation. She is the first woman vehicle that encourages further and Yale Law graduate to hold that work on academic discoveries position—and the first person born Hansjörg Wyss so they can become suitable for commercial development. The outside the United States: a native gift will also underwrite of South Africa, she became a U.S.

andau postgraduate life-sciences-entrepreneurship fellowships citizen in 1977. (Marshall is also an at Harvard Business School. See a full report at http:// Incorporator of this magazine.)… isia L M isia harvardmag.com/blavatnik-13. And long-time Harvard benefactor Sidney R. Knafel ’52, M.B.A. ’54, has given Medical-software company athena the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study a gift of health inc. completed its acquisition $10.5 million to convene scholars from around the of the Watertown Arsenal complex, University and across the world to work together, and along the Charles River, from the to support public programs. The renovated Radcliffe Gymnasium, now a conference facility, has been University, for $168.5 million. The renamed the Knafel Center. company is headquartered there. Len Blavatnik 60 July - August 2013 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 classes, running in and out. I went to seven is fairly easy to answer. It’s the “why” that umns: the first, what I thought I might have and still had a hard time narrowing down has eluded me. No, no—there’s plenty of added to my time at Harvard; the second, to a final four. fun for the first three years, I tell them. what I had chosen instead. The second list I was overwhelmed sophomore year. It just comes with added responsibility. was shorter, though it had more depth. My friends set up lunch dates and dinner It’s hard to ever truly do nothing, with all I tried to weigh the decisions I had dates, scheduling people and meals. Dif- of that running around. Focusing on one made, rereading the list on the right. ferent people in different houses—I un- or two things at a time is better, rather There was nothing I would have removed derstood wanting to see them all. But that than trying to excel at clubs, school, and and there was little space to add more. was too much inconsistency for me, too a social life concur- The time couldn’t many people to cycle through. I preferred rently. The clubs, be extended. There stability and the groundedness of a group. work, and thesis are many things By junior year, everyone was overcom- come first; then I haven’t done on mitted—running to meetings, with little the final semester campus, but—in time between. A semester in, most people marks their end- seeing my lists to- quit at least one organization. We realized point, when obliga- gether—I was hap- we couldn’t do it all, despite wanting to tions are complete. py with what I had. try new things. There’s a reward at the end, what we’ll My friends used There are 3,174 songs in my iTunes library. remember when we to reuse mix tapes, Compared to my friends’ playlists, that’s rel- leave. That’s why we recording over them atively few. I still haven’t listened to 1,082. have senior spring. when they had lis- I put the same songs on repeat—over and The explanation tened long enough. over until I find something new. When I like makes sense at Har- They rewound, fast- a song, I’ll buy the whole album. There’s lit- vard, when running between activities. forwarded, paused until everything fit per- tle reason to cut down when my computer My friends and parents would raise their fectly, without overlap. I never could erase still has room. Most are still sitting in my li- eyebrows. Doesn’t make sense to me. what I had made, and always bought more brary. I’ve gotten used to them sitting there, cassettes instead. I liked knowing the inten- waiting to be heard. The first mix tape I made was country tion behind what was included on my tapes, I tried to put too many tracks on my music—cowboy country, the kind I listened the character that they had. first mix tape; my favorite song gets cut to with my dad. We had an old radio in my My cassettes and semesters have been off at the end. You can only fit so many on parents’ bedroom, with two places for cas- imperfect. Some things run into each a cassette. The C46 has only 23 minutes settes. You put the blank one in the right, other; there’s little pause between. For a per side—enough, if you put thought into the one with music on the left. I sat watch- while, in the beginning, I tried to include your choices and keep track of time. ing the tape rolling and tried to figure out too many things. There’s something about where the music went. You had to get the finite space, the intangible that is added In April, I entered my “Senior Spring” at timing just right when making a mix tape, when you are forced to subtract. It’s hard Harvard—something I don’t think exists in pressing pause and play as soon as the song to get to the end without wanting more quite the same way at other schools. Leader- ended. Usually I’d get caught up listening; time, but I’ve learned to see both holisti- ship positions in most student groups end it was easy to forget. cally. in the fall; theses are submitted in March. You have to be careful when making Cassettes aren’t often practical; it’s eas- Commitments slowly diminish and there is a mix tape; it’s important to get the or- ier to store mp3s. But sometimes I still put suddenly less to do. By April, dinner conver- der just right. There’s a balance that goes them in my parents’ old player, though I’ve sations last two hours. More time is spent into the creation, a weighting of tempo lost the inserts that list the tracks. I like that I have to listen to each side in succes- There are whispers of senior spring— sion, that it doesn’t make sense to rewind and go back. I like that I’ve forgotten the the promised freedom that comes at the end. songs I once wish I had included, and that the ones I did include still bring back the in common rooms. There are whispers of and sentiment meant to carry the listener same memories. I can remember where I senior spring as an underclassman, the through. Thought is given to song choice, was when I first heard them—how it felt, promised freedom that comes at the end. sure, but attention must be paid to the even though the meaning is more distant, Just work hard for seven semesters, the ru- tape as a whole, too. changed. At the time, I just wanted to fit mors tell you; then you can enjoy your time in one more song. Now I flip the cassettes on campus and stop worrying about get- In May, I made a list at the beginning of over, listen again. ting ahead. reading period: all the things I had not done. I’ve tried to explain this to friends from Most senior bucket lists are comparable, a Kathryn C. Reed ’13 is completing her term as one of home and my family, especially when they mix of things we can still accomplish and this magazine’s Berta Greenwald Ledecky Under- came to visit this past spring. The “what” missed opportunities. Mine had two col- graduate Fellows.

Harvard Magazine 61 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 sports Long Innings The crimson Cricket Club, bowling and batting

ction in cricket, as in baseball, which means that any starts with a ball thrown to a bat- contact with the bat puts Ibrahim Khan ’14 talks ter. But in cricket, everything else the ball in play, no matter strategy with teammates before a game against happens faster: the bowler— whether it goes up, down, Boston University in May. Acricket’s version of a pitcher—gets a run- forward, or backward. A ning start, and even in recreational games ball in flight that reaches (or goes over) a full-length version of the game, in which the ball often heads toward the batsman, off perimeter fence is good for six runs. One matches can stretch across days. a hop, at faster than 90 miles per hour. And that reaches a fence off a bounce counts for But the games still aren’t short. A typi- it often heads right at the batsman: hitting four. For singles, doubles, and triples, both cal T-20 match lasts three hours, struc- your opponent as he guards the wicket is the batsman (and his partner, called the tured around two halves, which are called one of the surest ways to retire him. runner, who is stationed near the wicket innings. Each innings (the word is always “Attack, that’s the name of the game,” where the bowler lets fly his delivery) plural) features 20 overs; each over con- says Ibrahim Khan ’14, the most recent co- must run back and forth between wickets sists of six deliveries, or pitches, by the founder of the Harvard Cricket Club. “You without being thrown out. bowler. And this is where the appellation need to score rapidly.” And in twenty- Wickets, two sets of three bamboo T-20, or 20-20, comes from: 20 overs per twenty (T-20), the scaled-down version sticks placed 22 yards apart, are inte- innings, two innings per game. Scorekeep- of cricket usually played at American col- gral to the game: not only do they mark ing, no surprise, is a major effort. leges, batsmen face fewer deliveries, mean- the distance a runner has to travel—like Khan, an applied mathematics and ing they’re rewarded for aggressive batting bases, in baseball—but if the opposing economics concentrator from Kirkland even more than in the professional version team’s bowler or a fielder hits one with a House, learned the game while grow- of the game. ball during play, the batsman is dismissed ing up in his native Lahore, Pakistan, but To score runs, a batting team tries to and replaced. All of that gives the sport, had not played seriously before coming smack the ball past the 11 players on the and especially T-20, a much quicker pace to Cambridge, owing to a cricket injury opposing team. There are no foul balls, than both its American cousin and the sustained as a young kid. “I got hit in the head,” he says. “Ever since then, my parents have always been a little bit paranoid about cricket.” For years, he played a recreational version, with tennis balls covered in tape and no pads, but once at Harvard, he decided to revive its cricket club—originally founded in 1868, it existed on and off until 2009—at the end of his freshman year. He recruited a group of cricket fans in the fall of 2011 (all but one regular club member grew up in a Commonwealth country, or has parents who did), and for several months they played with tennis balls indoors at the Malkin Athletic Center. This year, they graduated to the real game, with proper equip- ment—leg pads and helmets for Sher Afgan Tareen, M.T.S. ’13, bowls to a BU batsman at Jordan Field. batsmen, and heavier leather-covered balls—and began practicing and playing at Jordan Field, home www.gocrimson.com Photographs by Stu Rosner

Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 John Harvard's Journal

to Harvard’s field-hockey squad. confines make balls hit to the left or right Lauderdale in March. There, playing in the Last spring, at a student-faculty dinner, much more likely to reach the fence. That’s only full-size cricket stadium in the coun- Khan was chatting with Stephen Blyth, one reason why batting strategy—wheth- try, they went up against some of the best Ph.D. ’92, managing director of the Har- er to attack with a full or checked swing, college cricket competitors from among vard Management Company and profes- when to block a ball headed at the wicket, the 70-odd teams that play under the um- sor of the practice in statistics. Blyth, who and whether to hit to the left or right—is brella of the ACC. Their matches didn’t go grew up in Great Britain, played cricket a key part of the game. Likewise, a smart as well as Khan had hoped—several play- for the club in the late 1980s. (Cricket, he bowler will watch a batsman’s habits ers were exhausted after driving nonstop says, “is the first thing that an Englishman and adjust his deliveries. “You can notice from Cambridge to Florida—but they re- and a Pakistani would talk about.”) Blyth where the batsman likes to go,” Khan says. bounded to score more than 200 runs at soon agreed to be their faculty adviser; Last fall, the club won its first five home in the final game of the season, losing under American College Cricket rules, he games, then dropped six straight, and only narrowly to Dartmouth. Next school is even allowed to participate in games if finished with a 6-9 overall record. But the year, Khan hopes to improve on the team’s the team is short-handed. (When he plays, cricketers played well at the New England top-15 national ranking. The challenge will he’s among the club’s best batsmen.) regional tournament organized by Ameri- be getting more of the club’s two dozen In competitive matches, teams often can College Cricket (ACC), the sport’s casual members to show up consistently score more than 150 runs. They can score national governing body, and earned a for practices and games. “Planning,” he even more at Jordan Field: its narrow spot at the national tournament in Fort says, “is in full force.” vpeter vigneron

Andy Sharpless on Easter Island. He predicts that proposed restrictions on fishing will help regenerate marine life in the surrounding waters within a decade.

Alumni ertheless arrive daily to see the famous carved-stone human figures, calledmoai, that dot the landscape. The ancient stat- ues are impressive, Sharpless says. But so Fish by Fish are signs of the island’s current environmental problems—and its historic legacy as a man-made ecological disaster. “No fish Oceana aims to restore the oceans’ health. jumped out of the water,” Sharpless notes. The once abundant forests and plant life are long gone, along with the island’s im- n a recent trip to Eas- life throughout Chile’s coastal waters and portant role as a major rookery for sea- ter Island, Oceana CEO Andy fisheries—and is now pushing to curb over- birds. During a 12-mile hike over scrubby Sharpless ’77, J.D. ’86, took a fishing around the famous island, a Chilean ground strewn with volcanic rocks, “We hike along the coast. The con- special territory. saw only two tiny forests, maybe a half- Oservation group he runs has helped over- It is the most isolated inhabited place acre each,” Sharpless says. “We also saw haul national laws to better protect marine on earth, where hundreds of tourists nev- two birds, neither of which was native:

Photograph by Jim Simon/OCEANA Harvard Magazine 63 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 John Harvard's Journal they were raptors introduced at some fight against oil drilling during the year that committees such as the International point to kill the rat population that the “BP was ruining the Gulf of Mexico, prov- Commission for the Conservation of At- Polynesian colonists brought with them in ing that people care more about what goes lantic Tuna (ICCAT)—which Sharpless the tenth century. The only other wildlife in their stomachs.” says is more commonly known in the in- were horses and cows and three dogs.” The fraud investigation supports dustry as the commission “to Catch All Oceana’s push for a national system that Tuna.” It is much harder to change fishing Oceana, based in Washington, D.C., be- tracks fish from “boat to plate”; Sharpless operations at that level, he adds, because lieves the world’s oceans “are in crisis from says that would reduce illegal fishing sig- committees “tend to make decisions by overfishing, acidification, and habitat de- nificantly. Bills to require such a system are consensus, which means they arrive at struction [and] works internationally to al- pending in both the House and the Senate, the lowest common denominator—and leviate these and other problems through and the American fishing fleet, he reports, very often do not even enforce that.” By policy-oriented campaigns.” The nonprof- agrees, for a change, with Oceana’s efforts contrast, the top fishing countries, he it group has a $20-million annual budget, “because they see themselves as more law- says, “generally have the capability, if they about 130 employees, a team in Chile, and abiding than the foreign fleets.” (“More of- choose to do it, to manage their fisheries eight other overseas offices. (In addition to ten,” he adds, “we are fighting with them.”) well and to make them abundant forever.” Sharpless, three other alumni are also in- Oceana focuses on influencing the laws The Perfect Protein promotes eating more volved: president Jim Simon, J.D. ’83, as- of the nine countries, plus the European fish because Sharpless believes, along with sistant general counsel Eric Bilsky, J.D. ’91, Union, that together control two-thirds many others, that it’s healthy for the brain, and board member María Eugenia Girón, of the world’s marine fish production. the body, and the world. Choosing meat or M.B.A. ’92.) Its goals extend from banning Seven out of eight fish are caught within poultry instead, he argues, directly affects the shark-fin trade and requiring seafood 200 nautical miles of the coast in an “ex- the demand for grain, which leads in turn traceability in the United States to over- clusive economic zone” controlled by the to further deforestation and loss of biodi- hauling the European Union’s fisheries pol- closest country; Peru, China, the United versity; the oceans, which cover 71 percent icy, preventing offshore oil drilling in Belize States, Russia, and Indonesia lead the of the planet, can still recover, despite cur- (and elsewhere), and saving specific endan- pack. Sharpless outlines the workings of rent pollution and overfishing. The concise gered marine species and habitats, such as the global fishing industry as part of his book, with a foreword by former president the Steller sea lion in Alaska. Earlier this first book, The Perfect Protein: The Fish Lover’s Bill Clinton, gives a general audience guid- year, Oceana publicized its “seafood fraud” Guide to Saving the Oceans and Feeding the World ance on “eating responsibly,” along with 21 investigation, which found that one-third (Rodale), published in May. The rest are “sustainable” recipes from renowned chefs, of the seafood sold to American consum- nabbed in the “high seas” controlled by and a fine selection of further readings. ers was mislabeled. The results, Sharpless wryly notes, got more Sharpless loves the media attention than Oceana’s challenge and sense of integrity in public-ad- Time, Flying vocacy work. A birth- right Quaker, he was Senior English orator Félix de raised in Philadelphia Rosen ’13 (who in a throat- and finds compelling clearing moment told the Ter- “the idea that Quak- centenary Theatre throng, “This ers are radical and feels a little bit different from definitive about your speaking in section”) chose a responsibility for your graduation chestnut—the pas- own moral judgment. rr ison

sage of time—as his theme, but a You are not to be a fol-

refreshed it by tying in the story h jim lower,” he says. “You of the late Charles A. Ditmas Jr., From left: David Otto, Bruce Johnson, Xandy own your own life, conscience, and moral long the keeper of the College’s Walsh, Alex Walsh, John Fryer ’64, Tony Rossmann, decisionmaking.” and Paul Bamberg read letters buried in 1988. antique clocks. On Wednesday, He cannot tolerate ineffectiveness or some Eliot House members of the class of 1963—who as seniors had created one time waffling. “I am very nonmystical, very capsule, exhumed at their twenty-fifth reunion, and buried a second during that event— hardheaded,” he asserts—and a devoted gathered to examine their 1988 missives. Tony Rossmann, David Otto, Bruce Johnson, player of competitive sports, even though and Paul Bamberg opened the capsule at Eliot; missing was Boone Turchi, stuck in he didn’t come close to varsity: “I think traffic. Not all the letters proved prescient, but one did. Also missing was Myles Alex- I got to play two minutes for Harvard’s ander Walsh III, who died in 2008 (he was represented by his son Myles Alexander freshman soccer team, all year.” Walsh IV, and his son, Myles Alexander Walsh V); he had written, “There is a chance For the last 12 years, he has held an an- that I will not be able to attend our 50th reunion.” (For more on this story, see http:// nual “Gameboy Weekend” at his summer harvardmag.com/capsule.) house on Chesapeake Bay, to which about 30 male friends between 34 and 65 (includ-

64 July - August 2013 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 ing Harvard buddies) eagerly flock. They play softball and tennis (with Harvard Medalists rules changed “to make them bet- On Commencement day, three people received ter, in my opinion,” he says), along the HAA’s Harvard Medal, awarded for outstand- with his own complex creations. In ing service to the University. “blind replica,” for example, teams James V. Baker ’68, M.B.A. ’71. President of the are challenged to “ replicate a struc- Harvard Alumni Association and President of the Har- ture [using Tinkertoys® or Legos®] vard Club of the United Kingdom, First Marshal of the that you cannot see, based on advice Class of 1968 and student athlete extraordinaire, you from a teammate who can see the have served Harvard as a loyal leader and outstanding original, but not the replication.” organizer, strengthening Harvard’s relationship with its The final products are put on dis- international alumni. play and critiqued. “There’s an elab- William Thaddeus Coleman Jr., J.D. ’43, LL.D orate point system,” he says, “and ’96. Harvard Overseer, distinguished American, and de- everyone gets ranked.” voted alumnus of the Harvard Law School, you have always

Although his career path may rr ison upheld the highest standards for law and public service in James V. Baker seem nonlinear, evidence of his Ha im our community and country, leading by exhortation and J drive—and innovation—is every- example as a visionary advocate for civility and civil rights.

where. In a formative experience just af- (Although illness prevented Coleman from attend- rr ison ter college, the economics concentrator ing the event, his daughter was present; President Drew im Ha im worked as a consumer-rights organizer Faust announced J under Ralph Nader, LL.B. ’58, and led the that the award Georgene Botyos state-level campaign that established the would be given to Herschbach first citizens’ utility board, in 1979 in Wis- him at a later date, consin. “Amazingly—we won!” he says, before reading his just as happy about it now. He went on citation aloud, along to the London School of Economics, law with the others). school, and then to McKinsey & Company Georgene Botyos for five years before pursuing a longstand- Herschbach, Ph.D. William Thaddeus ing interest in mass media in a job at the Coleman Jr. ’69. Exemplary Har- Museum of Television and Radio. Along vard citizen holding the way, he and Beth Inabinett married. countless administra- She is a volunteer coordinator at another tive roles in the College, including Registrar, Dean of Ad- nonprofit, Ashoka, and the couple have ministration, and co-master of Currier House, you have two daughters, now in their twenties. served with excellence and selfless devotion, helping to In 1994, Sharpless took a calculated risk improve the education and life experiences of students, and joined the leadership team of a fledg- faculty, and staff. ling, pre-“Internet boom” software firm, Progressive Networks, that ultimately became the first company to develop and a long list of ways in which I thought the required is that bycatch (fish caught unin- commercialize streaming audio and video, world could be improved,” he says, smiling. tentionally and in many cases discarded) and then encouraged the technology for And he still does. But he wouldn’t take the be limited and managed by independent use in online activism. By the time he left, job without assurances of clear, business- observers on all large commercial vessels. in 1997, to become executive vice president like goals. “We have specific campaigns This spring, Oceana forestalled off- of the Discovery Channel’s Internet divi- with measurable outcomes: we win or we shore oil drilling in Belize by challenging sion, the company had grown to 300 em- lose,” he says. “And we are very effective, if the legality of the government’s awarding ployees and was well on its way toward a we don’t spread ourselves too thin.” of leases “on 100 percent of its ocean to public offering. Much of its conservation effort entails oil companies without seriously manag- In 2003, Sharpless was hired to lead protracted litigation. Five years of work ing the risk of that activity,” Sharpless Oceana, then barely a year old. The orga- in Chile (seventh on the list of top fish- reports. (Among those working pro bono nization was begun by five ocean-conser- catchers), for example, led to national laws on the case is Rebekah Lacey, J.D. ’08.) “We vation philanthropies, including the Pew being “rewritten in 2012 to mandate that won at the trial-court level, validating Charitable Trusts and the Oak Foundation fishing quotas be based on scientifically what we’ve been saying for two and a half of Geneva and is still primarily funded by set limits and that habitats be protected, years,” he adds. “The Belize government such groups. At the time, he knew little including 118 seamounts [submerged plans to appeal that decision, however. about oceans, but he liked the immense mountains that are important oceanic And so the battle continues.” environmental challenge—and potentially ecosystems] that are now off-limits to bot- Resistance to fishing restrictions also world-changing rewards. “In college, I had tom-trawling,” Sharpless explains. Also looms on Easter Island. Oceana wants to www.alumni.harvard.edu Harvard Magazine 65 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 John Harvard's Journal triple the size of an already established cepting any limits, a situation complicated Europeans arrived, the rats that came 150,000-square-kilometer “no-take” fish by the economic gains and the wish for with the original Polynesian settlers reserve (the fourth-largest of its kind in more autonomy at the provincial level. “were devouring the seeds of the future the world) around a neighboring island, “We are in a pre-existing, complicated po- forests, and the forests were being cut Salas y Gomez. Especially critical to re- litical environment,” Sharpless concedes. down to plant sweet potato fields,” he storing the region’s fish population is con- “I don’t know whether we’re going to win explains. By the time Dutch explorer serving the chain of seamounts between there. But I think we have a good chance.” Jacob Roggeveen got there, on Easter the two islands. Separately, Oceana is in Oceana hopes that Chilean president Se- morning in 1722, “the place was already discussions with the indigenous people, bastián Piñera acts within a typically in rapid decline, with anarchy, disorder, the Rapa Nui, about prohibiting indus- nonpoliticized time frame: after this No- starvation, and signs of cannibalism.” trial fishing (vessels more than 18 meters vember’s presidential election and before The risks and results of environmental long) within a 200-mile zone around Eas- March 2014, when he leaves office. ruin were probably as clear to Roggeveen ter Island “in a way,” Sharpless says, “that then as they should be to modern observ- does not offend their ancestral fishing This May, Sharpless’s Gameboy Weekend ers, he adds. “This is what you get when rights.” The rapid decline of tuna, sharks, also featured a Saturday night discussion, you have shortsighted overuse of natural and other big fish is primarily due to in- over drinks, of life’s lessons. The question resources: a collapse that is ugly and dis- dustrial fishing, particularly from illegal posed was: What do you know to be true advantageous for civilization.” foreign fleets, according to Oceana. As a now that you didn’t believe when you were Still, there is hope, he insists. The oceans result, in an ironic scenario, the majority younger? At 20, Sharpless believed good in- are surprisingly resilient and, with help, of island businesses are importing tuna tentions led to good outcomes. Environmen- can regenerate. Oceana predicts that the from Tahiti to feed tourists, whose mon- tal work has shown him otherwise: “Pure- changes in Chile, and those proposed for ey, in turn, sustains the local economy. of-heart incompetence is a very dangerous Easter Island, mean that within five to The proposed restrictions would “help thing,” he asserts. “You are going to create 10 years, “people will be hiking and see- regenerate fish populations over time,” problems for yourself and the world if you ing more fish. More people will be fish- Sharpless says, “and spur an artisanal fish- don’t know what you are doing.” ing off the island,” he adds, “and bringing ing fleet of the Rapa Nui.” The history of Easter Island’s ecologi- a healthy dinner home for their families.” The Rapa Nui are conflicted about ac- cal demise is well known. Even before vnell porter brown

Centennial Medalists The Graduate School of Arts and Sci- ences Centennial Medal, first awarded in 1989 on the occasion of the school’s hun- dredth anniversary, honors alumni who have made notable contributions to society that emerged from their graduate study at Harvard. It is the highest honor that the Graduate School bestows, and awardees include some of Harvard’s most accomplished alumni. The 2013 recipients, announced at a ceremony on May 29, are: Everett Mendelsohn, Ph.D. ’60, professor of the history of science emeritus; biographer and scholar of American literature Arnold Rampersad, Ph.D. ’73, Stanford’s Kimball professor in the humanities emeritus; Louise Richardson, Ph.D. ’89, formerly professor of government and executive dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, now principal and vice-chancellor of the University of St Andrews; and Sherry Turkle ’69, Ph.D. ’76, professor of the social studies of science and technology at Clockwise from top left: Everett Mendelsohn, Arnold Rampersad, MIT. For more about the honorands, see Louise Richardson, and Sherry Turkle http://harvardmag.com/medalists-13.

66 July - August 2013 Photographs by Martha Stewart Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Oldest Graduates The senior members of Harvard and Radcliffe present on Com- mencement day, and recognized in the afternoon ceremony, were Lillian (Sher) Sugarman ’37, 97, of Swampscott, Massachusetts; and 104-year-old Donald F. Brown ’30 of Stow, Massachusetts. The oldest class representative to attend was 104-year-old George Barner ’29 of Kennebunk, Maine. Sugarman said she has always enjoyed the excitement of Com- mencement, and used to come with her Radcliffe friends. This year, “I came to see Oprah,” she added, “and to enjoy the day with my grandson,” Peter S. Cahn ’96, RI ’09 (whose father is Arthur S. Cahn ’60). “It was a wave of unexpected attention From left: Donald F. Brown and George Barner for her; she was really overjoyed,” Cahn reported. “I was going to walk with my class—but it was much more fun to walk with her.” According to Harvard records, the oldest alumni also include: Edith M. Van Saun ’29, 106, of Sykesville, Maryland; Frances Pass Adelson ’30, 104, of Coral Springs, Florida; Evelyn Sigel Baer ’30, 103, of Montpelier, Vermont; Mary Anglemyer ’31, 103, of Medford, New Jersey; Erhart R. Muller ’32, 103, of Harvard, Massachusetts; Louise J. Wells ’32, 103, of Harwich, Massachusetts; Alice E. Rockett ’32, 101, of Gulfport, Florida; Edward Lane ’33, 101, of Canton, Mas- Lillian (Sher) sachusetts; George F. Bennett ’33, 101, of Hingham, Massachusetts; and Helena W. Sugarman Phillips ’33, 101, of West Palm Beach.

Voting Results Richard R. Buery Jr. ’92, New York City. concentrator in environmental science and The names of the new members of the President and CEO, The Children’s Aid public policy and earth and planetary sci- Board of Overseers and new elected direc- Society. ences, will be the John Eliot Scholar at Je- tors of the Harvard Alumni Association Patrick S. Chung ’96, J.D.-M.B.A. ’04, sus College; William Rafey, of Pforzheimer (HAA) were announced during the HAA’s Menlo Park, California. Partner, New En- House and California, a social studies con- annual meeting on the afternoon of Com- terprise Associates. centrator, will be the Charles Henry Fiske mencement day. Shilla Kim-Parker ’04, M.B.A. ’09, New III Scholar at Trinity College; and Aziza The new Overseers (six-year term) are: York City. Senior director, strategy and Suleymanzade, of Eliot House and Azer- Susan L. Carney ’73, J.D. ’77, Hamden, business development, Lincoln Center for baijan, a physics and astrophysics concen- Connecticut. Circuit Judge, U.S. Court of the Performing Arts trator, will be the Lionel De Jersey Harvard Appeals for the Second Circuit. Barbara Natterson-Horowitz ’83, A.M. Scholar at Emmanuel College. Christopher B. Field ’75, Stanford, ’83, Los Angeles. Professor and cardiolo- California. Director, department of global gist, David Geffen School of Medicine at Campaign Warm-Up ecology, Carnegie Institution for Science; UCLA; author. The twenty-fifth reunion class of 1988 Melvin and Joan Lane chair in interdisci- Julie Gage Palmer ’84, Chicago. Lec- raised an eye-popping, all-time-record Har- plinary environmental studies, Stanford turer in law, University of Chicago Law vard-reunion gift: $115 million, according to University. School. University treasurer James F. Rothenberg, Deanna Lee ’84, New York City. Chief Argelia M. Rodriguez, M.B.A. ’84, who publicly thanked the class during the communications and digital strategies of- Washington, D.C. President and CEO, Dis- HAA’s annual meeting on the afternoon of ficer, Carnegie Corporation of New York. trict of Columbia College Access Program. Commencement day. He also thanked all the Sanjay H. Patel ’83, A.M. ’83, London. other alumni who’d contributed to the Uni- Managing partner and head of interna- Cambridge Scholars versity this year by, for example, interviewing tional private equity, Apollo Management Four seniors have won Harvard Cam- 35,000 applicants, leading more than 230 Har- International LLP. bridge Scholarships to study at Cambridge vard clubs and Shared Interest Groups, and Gwill York ’79, M.B.A. ’84, Cambridge. University during the 2013-2014 academic drawing 6,700 to reunions. He acknowledged Managing director and co-founder, Light- year. Rediet Abebe, of Leverett House and in particular the help of the youngest mem- house Capital Partners. Ethiopia, a mathematics concentrator, will bers of the alumni community, noting that 80 be the Governor William Shirley Scholar percent of the class of 2013 had contributed The new HAA elected directors (three- at Pembroke College; Charles Gertler, of to the class gift and, for the first time, partici- year term) are: Mather House and Connecticut, a joint pation exceeded 70 percent in every House.

Photographs by Jim Harrison Harvard Magazine 67 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 The College Pump Philosophic Fun

gence was there from the start, accompanied by a catchy score, some exceptional singing, and even some philosophical jokes.” “Opening in 1970s Harvard,” wrote critic Gavin Elias, “the play centers on Rawls’… quixotic quest to revitalise political philosophy with an encompassing ‘theory of “Your wooden arm you hold outstretched justice.’ Inspired (and aroused) by a beau- to shake with passers-by.” tiful student…with a penchant for eminent on

philosophers, he sets out to establish that s he magnum opus of the late ‘justice is fairness,’ only to see his newly

John Rawls, Conant University found muse/love-interest sucked into a time harri Jim Professor, was A Theory of Justice vortex that bursts into being in the college Major General Robert C. Davenport (U.S. (Harvard University Press, 1971), quad. Cue a madcap voyage through philo- Army, retired) hoists his class’s placard on Tnow regarded, according to the Cambridge sophical history as Rawls encounters, ques- Commencement afternoon. Secretary Fenn is at right. (See also page 46.) Dictionary of Philosophy, as “one of the primary tions, and debates intellectual giants such as texts in political philosophy.” It advanced Plato, Rousseau, and Kant on his search for Primus this dispatch extolling his College the idea of justice as fairness. Rawls himself both the student Fairness and the inspira- class, of which he was first marshal. “The is taken to be the most important political tion for his magnum opus. He is not alone, class of 1944, with due humility, claims to philosopher of the twentieth century. however, as his ideological nemesis Robert be Harvard’s most outstanding class since Undaunted, a company of merry Oxford Nozick...sets off in hot pursuit to sabotage 1636. Of course, the members of our class undergraduates his theory, egged on are all in the Greatest Generation, but we wrote, composed, by his malevolent lov- have several other more specific claims to produced, per- er, Ayn Rand.…Never fame—and challenge other classes who may formed to great ac- before has philosophy dispute our temerity. Here is the tip of the claim, and is taking been as flat-out fun.” iceberg: on the road a musi- One of the show’s • We have four Nobel Prize winners. We cal comedy (yes, writers, Eylon Aslan- haven’t checked it out, but we doubt that comedy) entitled A Levy, tells Primus the any college class in the world has four No- Theory of Justice: The show will be part of belists. We have one in physics, two in eco- Musical! Amaryllis this year’s Edinburgh nomics, and one in medicine.

Barton reviewed Sain Giacomo Festival Fringe, the • We have the longest-serving class sec- it in The Tab Oxford Smarmy cad Rousseau sweeps Fairness off world’s largest arts retary in history, Dan H. Fenn Jr., A.M. ’72, of (as the production her feet with talk of the “general will.” festival, and will run Lexington, Massachusetts. [Full disclosure: was wowing Oxo- from July 31 through Primus is a third cousin of Fenn’s.] nians from January 30 through February 2 August 26 at C venues, Chambers Street. Now • I believe we have two state Supreme this winter) as “an all-singing, all-dancing how about a Harvard production, somebody? Court justices and other successful movers romp through Western thought.” and shakers in government. “Whilst I may not be convinced of John • We had one of the very top spies for Rawls’ theory of justice,” wrote reviewer Russia in World War II. Robert Holtom, “I am more than convinced Any challengers? Shortly before his “Since we are now 90 years old, I didn’t that the musical version was utterly bril- death in March, George M. Burditt ’44, want these facts to go relatively unknown to liant—the energy, ingenuity, and intelli- LL.B. ’48, of La Grange Park, Illinois, sent present and future generations.”vprimus v

68 July - August 2013 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746

LETTERS (continued from page 8) behavior. When it comes to human behav- The article on John Monro took me back ior, the family, culture, religion, custom, to the spring of 1960. I was a senior at Cam- and Nature before being published in the Pro- and peer pressure were far more influ- bridge High and Latin, recently accepted for ceedings in the National Academy of Sciences.” Per- ential than the dictates of the courts and admission to Harvard, and working after haps the article was declined because only legislators. I am pleased to see the verity of school as a stock boy at Phillips Bookstore Harvard laboratory researchers would con- that comment being carried forward at the in the Square. One afternoon as I maneu- fuse mice with men (or women). law school in 2013. vered a pile of dirt across the floor with my George L. Spaeth, G ’57, M.D. ’58 Paul Mishkin, J.D. ’48 push broom, I was approached by a tall, dis- Philadelphia New York City tinguished gentleman with very prominent cheekbones and a bristling crewcut. “Are E-mail investigations Peerless Dean Monro you Jim McGovern?” he asked, and when The account of the “E-mail Imbroglio” The manila folder John U. Monro holds I said yes he responded, “I’m John Monro, (May-June, page 46) illustrates incompe- in the May-June issue (Vita, by Toni-Lee dean of Harvard College.” I don’t remember tence at a high level of the College’s adminis- Capossela, page 30) could be mine. He got what I mumbled in reply, but I do remember tration. And the adjacent photo of Harvard’s me admitted for the February semester in being embarrassed about that broom and remarkable basketball team, minus its co- 1946—but it was a struggle. that pile of dirt. I also remember thinking, captains, reminds us of the heavy price paid After World War II, millions of veterans “Uh oh, they changed their minds about let- by so many undergraduates. But neither this counted on the GI Bill to finance their col- ting me in.” report nor prior ones address the role of in- lege educations. Me too. Why not Harvard, Monro said that he had seen my appli- ept instruction. I thought. As a product of Iron Mountain, cation and noted that I worked at Phil- No Harvard graduate familiar with in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and a grad- lips. He also noted my stated intention to higher education and cheating can accept uate of Neenah (Wisconsin) High School, I concentrate in engineering, and suggested the unethical, mass collaboration of exam- though I was well prepared. Shortly before that economics might be a better choice. takers at face value. There simply had to my army discharge, I wrote Harvard re- (Presumably he had also checked my SAT have been a widespread, profound mis- questing admission forms. John responded scores and decided that while the quantita- communication of the rules to test-takers with a polite note sug- John Monro tive aspects of economics or a unilateral reinterpretation of these gesting I apply elsewhere. might appeal to me, it was parameters pursuant to the exam. Having No forms. I wrote again. less likely to overtax my failed so many of its students, Harvard has And again. And again. Six math ability.) He smiled, failed the smell test. times. Each time, John wished me luck, and left Ernst R. Habicht Jr. ’60 gave me a lesson in stylish me in something of a state Port Jefferson, N.Y. turndowns. I was con- of shock. fused. At least let me ap- I did take his sugges- Sequester as first step ply, I thought, before you f the artist tion about economics, al- It is interesting (and revealing) to note reject me. Finally, John though it took less than a that President Drew Faust feels it necessary relented a little. All right, year for me to realize that in her View from Mass Hall (May-June, page he wrote, send me four I had no more real inter- 4) to refer to America’s sequester as a “self- essays describing your est in the “dismal science” sed with permission o inflicted wound.” A 3 percent reduction in background, your educa- than I had in engineering. oit. U oit. our nation’s expenditures, amounting to less tion, your reasons for se- But even then I knew how than 10 percent of our outrageous annual lecting Harvard, and your amazing it was that the deficit, is hardly a “wound.” Perhaps it could aims in life. dean of the College had more correctly be called a first small step to I did as told. Finally, paid that much attention opyright ©stephen C financial sanity made in a decade. he sent me a thick packet C to my application, and F. Gregg Bemis Jr., M.B.A. ’54 with admission forms. After discharge, I had then gone out of his way to offer some Santa Fe took my SATs and waited. In two weeks advice and counsel. I never spoke to Monro or so, a telegram notified me that I was ac- again, but based on my one brief encounter The habit of tyranny cepted. The first week, at a mixer for new with him, I for one was not at all surprised Randall Kennedy’s comment (“Black, students, John saw me and came across the when he opted to leave Harvard for Miles. White, and Many Shades of Gray,” by Craig room to shake my hand. What he said I James M. McGovern ’64, M.A.T. ’65, Lambert, May-June, page 25) that tyranny have never forgotten. “Welcome,” he said. Ed ’72, CAS ’80 can take the form of custom or habit re- “You are the young man who would not Cambridge minds me of Dean Roscoe Pound’s course take no for an answer.” John and his lesson in jurisprudence (the last he ever gave at in perseverance helped me the rest of my Editor’s note: The portrait of John Monro Harvard Law School). life. Of all my great teachers at Harvard and was incorrectly credited, reflecting an error He told us that we were mistaken if we elsewhere, John U. Monro ranks first. in the material provided to the magazine. believed that the statute and case books E. Aaron Cohodes ’50 The correct credit is: Copyright © Stephen contain the laws that govern a society’s West Palm Beach, Fla. Coit. Used with permission of the artist.

74 July - August 2013 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 buffering the sun to see an international moratorium on climate-change solutions in terms of risks (continued from page 39) large-scale deployment. Without broadly and costs, comparing, for example, the accepted governance, Keith says, field re- cost of climate damages to the cost of cut- critics say field tests should be banned search will remain deadlocked. Funding ting emissions. “The money we spend cut- because they are the first step down a agencies won’t support experiments that ting emissions will save money in climate slippery slope toward full-scale solar geo- lack a system of oversight, but such sys- damages,” Keith says, and he believes we engineering. Keith emphasizes that he and tems won’t be created unless scientists are should spend much more on current emis- Anderson will not move forward without ready to conduct experiments. sions-slashing efforts. But he points out, public assent: “We will not do [our study] “If you reduce the risk even a little bit with unless we have some formal governmental Climate-Change Costs solar geoengineering, then in a perfect approval and public funding.” Keith admires a quote on the Albert world you should be able to put a little less Indeed, he hopes that the study, beyond Einstein Memorial at the National Acad- money into cutting emissions,” thereby al- its scientific aims, will also help establish emy of Sciences in Washington, D.C.: leviating some of the daunting trillions in a structure to govern similar small-scale “The right to search for truth implies also costs anticipated for future greenhouse- research in the future. This spring, he a duty; one must not conceal any part of gas mitigation efforts. and Edward Parson of the UCLA School what one has recognized to be true.” Some researchers say they hope solar of Law called for government oversight As a leader in his field, Keith’s conclu- geoengineering technologies are never de- of geoengineering research; they say that sions have at times run counter to accept- ployed, but Keith objects to this automatic self-regulation isn’t sufficient to man- ed wisdom. For example, many scientists discomfort about manipulating the planet. age the risks. But in place of a treaty, they who investigate and think about solar geo- He hopes to foster a more nuanced debate. suggest a nonbinding set of norms issued engineering stress that the emphasis on “I think there are lots of things that are scary jointly by scientific bodies in the United cutting global greenhouse gas emissions about this prospect, but I just don’t see how States, Europe, and China: “sensible prin- must not change, even if research reveals finding a potentially life-saving technology ciples about how to manage risk, and that geoengineering strategies are worth that helps to reduce climate risk a lot is aw- about transparency and openness,” Keith pursuing. ful,” he says. “I just don’t see that.” says (see “Governing Geoengineering Keith disagrees. He points out that Research,” page 26). He would also like many policymakers and scholars weigh Erin O’Donnell is a freelance writer in Milwaukee.

[ e-mail ]

Curated content delivered to your doorstep.

• Editor’s Highlights • This Week • Harvard Headlines • Football • Arts • Science • Classifieds

Harvard Magazine 75 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Treasure Seen at the Beach A personification of time

his big boy location, along “time is Colossus trails” to 40 other ob- monarchi- jects elsewhere in the cus statua Museums of Science TDanielis, published by and Culture. Matthaeus Seutter in Themes include de- Augsburg, Germany, termining time from in 1730. Sara Schech- nature (with trilo- ner describes it as “a bites) and timekeep- timeline of monar- ing by human artifice chies drawn on a co- (Schechner’s own lossal statue of Daniel museum’s extensive made of different ma- holdings of pocket terials to represent sundials and pock- the golden age, silver et-size clocks). Time age, copper age, and travelers can examine so forth down to his cultural beliefs about feet of clay.” the creation and end Schechner, who is of time, the flow of Wheatland curator time, and personal of the Collection of time as marked by Historical Scientif- rites of passage. Here, ic Instruments, was for instance, is a Bay- lead architect of Time aka initiation mask, & Time Again, an inter- dated 1948, from Af- disciplinary explo- rica, that was worn ration of what time in dances through is, or what answers neighboring villages have been given to by a boy of 10 to 14 that question in vari- years celebrating his ous ages by different completion of a year- world cultures and long “bush school,” disciplines. The exhibition, in several venues, parts of Harvard’s Museums of Science which began with his circumcision. And a offers a wide array of time-related objects. and Culture (the Museum of Natural His- beaded, turtle-shaped amulet containing a The starting point is the second-floor ex- tory, the Peabody Museum of Archaeology dried umbilical cord, worn by a young La- hibition gallery of Schechner’s own baili- and Ethnology, the Semitic Museum, and kota (western Sioux) girl of the late nine- wick, in the Science Center. The punching the Historical Scientific Instruments), as teenth to early twentieth century. “Lakota sound of a time clock marks each visitor’s well as from other treasure troves, such as youngsters were called ‘carry your navel’ entrance into the gallery. Straight ahead is the Map Collection (this colossus) and the kids,” says Schechner, “because they wore a chicken, to remind explorers of the old Schlesinger Library on the History of Wom- such umbilical amulets until about age six.” conundrum about time, chickens, and eggs: en in America (Julia Child’s stopwatch). The exhibition opened in March and runs Which came first…? One may download a free smartphone app until December 6. There’s plenty of time left Gathered here are things from the four that will lead from this gallery, using geo- to see it. vc.r.

76 July - August 2013 Image courtesy of the Harvard Map Collection, Harvard College Library Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Art by renowned illustrator Alex nabaum.

Renowned INSIGHT

our innovative thinking is grounded in a century of experience. which is why families, corporations, and institutions

turn to us with their most complex wealth and financial matters. For access to the highest caliber people in the

business, call Mark Graham at 302-651-1665, email [email protected], or visit wilmingtontrust.com.

WEALTH ADVISORY | INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT | GLOBAL CAPITAL MARKETS | RETIREMENT PLAN SERVICES

130709_WilmingtonTrust.indd 1 5/17/13 2:54 PM 130711_HarvardAthletics.indd 1 5/23/13 2:12 PM