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140311_Kiawah_Harvard.indd 1 1/24/14 12:10 PM March-April 2014 Volume 116, Number 4

features 30 Why “Big Data” Is a Big Deal | by Jonathan Shaw New methods for understanding the torrent of data promise to save lives and propel scholarship

36 Vita: Henry A. Murray | by Marshall J. Getz Brief life of a personality psychologist: 1893-1988 p. 38 38 Advancing Leadership | by John S. Rosenberg A multidisciplinary faculty engages “third-stage” learners in a novel program promoting social enterprises

47 Nuclear Weapons or Democracy | by Craig Lambert Elaine Scarry warns of the incompatibility of thermonuclear armaments and democratic governance

John Harvard’s Journal 17 The hub of House renewal, rebooting long-term planning for Allston, the Extension School’s leader looks online, robotic Harvard, designs for Dunster, the College’s dean-designate, Undergraduate baby talk, and sibling swimmers

departments 2 Cambridge 02138 | Letters from our readers p. 10 3 The View from Mass Hall 7 Right Now | The science of gender, bridging human and rat brains, what healthy eating costs 12A New England Regional Section | Spring events, spa selections, and a French-Tunisian kitchen

13 The Harvard Magazine app 52 Montage | Daring aerial photographer, character actor Dean Norris, an Irish island memoir, layered paper, quote-hunting with Google, and liberalism as a “fighting faith” 58 Alumni | A passionate public defender, a Harvard citizen takes senior status, HarvardX for Alumni, Overseer and director candidates, club awards, and more

64 The College Pump | Anatomy on view, and the return of Pooh p. 52 76 Treasure | How Harvard helped resolve big boundary issues

from top: stu rosner; jim harrison; jessica ambats 65 Crimson Classifieds On the cover: Illustration by Pete Ryan

www.harvardmagazine.com Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746

Letters

editor: John S. Rosenberg Cambridge  senior editor: Jean Martin Loving L.A., Robert Frost, Keystone continued managing editor: Jonathan S. Shaw deputy editor: Craig Lambert associate editor: Katherine Xue Eviction Impacts (legal, carrying costs, repairs, etc.). assistant editor-online: Laura Levis Kudos to Elizabeth Gudrais for her article So when a tenant fails to pay the rent assistant editor: Nell Porter Brown on Matthew Desmond and the victims of on time, the landlord usually tries to con- eviction (“Disrupted Lives,” January-Feb- tact the tenant to resolve the situation by art director: Jennifer Carling ruary, page 38). However, Desmond should payment plan, moving-on help, etc. The have spent some “immersion” time with the breakdown comes after no response from berta greenwald ledecky other victims of eviction—the landlords. the tenant or multiple breaking of prom- undergraduate fellows I have been a landlord for many years, ises or commitments. Noah Pisner, Jessica C. Salley and can tell you from experience that just And the author should note that anyone from financial considerations, eviction in the eviction process has at least received editorial intern is the last resort when all other options a letter from the landlord, and been legally Nu Xiong have been exhausted. Based on my experi- served, and notified of a court date, and ence, evicting a tenant costs the landlord the judgment. So a tenant saying that they contributing editors at least the equivalent of six months’ rent didn’t know about the eviction is either ly- John T. Bethell, John de Cuevas, Adam Goodheart, Elizabeth Gudrais, Jim Harrison, Courtney Humphries, 7 Ware Street supported substantial construction debt. Christopher S. Johnson, Adam Kirsch, But as reported in the last issue (page Colleen Lannon, Christopher Reed, Stu Counting Costs 31), the University has in the meantime in- curred another Allston expense: from fis- Rosner, Deborah Smullyan, Mark Steele No public figure exists for Harvard’s in- cal 2008 through last year, Harvard paid vestment in Allston since the 1980s: prop- $1.255 billion to unwind interest-rate swap harvard magazine inc. erty purchases, planning consultants for the agreements it put in place in late 2004 to president: Henry Rosovsky, JF ’57, research campus envisioned a decade ago, finance planned borrowing for fast-tracked Ph.D. ’59, LL.D. ’98. directors: Suzanne design fees and construction for the halted construction. Money is fungible: dollar for Blier, Peter K. Bol, Jonathan L.S. Byrnes, science complex (about to be rebooted for dollar, the disbursements from the half- D.B.A. ’80, Thomas F. Kelly, Ph.D. ’73, engineering and applied sciences), permit- percent decapitalization may not have Randolph C. Lindel ’66, Lars Peter ting and community benefits for recent proj- paid directly for undoing the swaps. But Knoth Madsen, John P. Reardon Jr. ’60 ects and their price tags, and financing for that money had to come from Harvard’s re- all of the above—totaling at least many hun- sources, and the facts remain: about $1.5 bil- Board of Incorporators dreds of millions of dollars. Few if any other lion of endowment funds were disbursed; This magazine, at first called the Harvard Bulletin, was universities could have absorbed the cost. Harvard had to pay $1.255 billion to undo founded in 1898. Its Board of Incorporators was char- tered in 1924 and remains active in the magazine’s One source of development funds was the swaps; effectively, very little of the sum governance. The membership is as follows: Stephen an annual half-percent “decapitalization” released from the endowment has been J. Bailey, AMP ’94; Jeffrey S. Behrens ’89, William I. Bennett ’62, M.D. ’69; John T. Bethell ’54; Peter K. Bol; from the endowment put in place by Presi- available to defray costs to date for actual Fox Butterfield ’61, A.M. ’64; Sewell Chan ’98; Jona- dent Neil L. Rudenstine in 2001, for five development in Allston (the original ratio- than S. Cohn ’91; Philip M. Cronin ’53, J.D. ’56; John de Cuevas ’52; James F. Dwinell III ’62; Anne Fadi- years, to pay for Allston infrastructure. nale for the assessment)—at a time when man ’74; Benjamin M. Friedman ’66, Ph.D. ’71; Rob- President Lawrence H. Summers broad- the endowment has declined in value, limit- ert H. Giles, NF ’66; Richard H. Gilman, M.B.A. ’83; ened its scope and extended its duration, ing academic budgets. Owen Gingerich, Ph.D. ’62; Adam K. Goodheart ’92; Philip C. Haughey ’57; Brian R. Hecht ’92; Sarah Blaf- to reconfigure the campuses old and new. Recent changes in how administrators fer Hrdy ’68, Ph.D. ’75; Ellen Hume ’68; Alex S. Jones, From fiscal 2002 through 2013, that levy has and the Corporation manage capital proj- NF ’82; Bill Kovach, NF ’89; Florence Ladd, BI ’72; Jennifer 8 Lee ’99; Scott Malkin ’80, J.D.-M.B.A. ’83; yielded $1.523 billion. (The figure, now 10 ects and finances should help avoid repeat- Margaret H. Marshall, Ed.M. ’69, Ed ’77, L ’78; Lisa L. percent of the annual endowment operat- ing such costly missteps, as planning for Martin, Ph.D. ’90; David McClintick ’62; Winthrop L. McCormack ’67; M. Lee Pelton, Ph.D. ’84; John P. ing distribution, is no longer published, Allston’s future resumes (see page 18). So Reardon Jr. ’60; Christopher Reed; Harriet Ritvo ’68, and the proceeds are considered a central will Harvard’s new preference for donor Ph.D. ’75; Henry Rosovsky, JF ’57, Ph.D. ’59, LL.D. ’98; administrative assessment, not an Allston and partner funding, instead of debt. More Barbara Rudolph ’77; Robert N. Shapiro ’72, J.D. ’78; Theda Skocpol, Ph.D. ’75; Peter A. Spiers ’76; Scott line item per se.) Those revenues could transparency would be desirable, too. H. Stossel ’91; Sherry Turkle ’69, Ph.D. ’76; Robert H. have paid some of the up-front costs, and vJohn S. Rosenberg, Editor Weiss ’54; Jan Ziolkowski.

2 March - April 2014 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 The View from Mass Hall

See, Compare, Reason, Decide

n January, I gathered with hundreds of Harvard alumni and thinking beyond immediate friends in London, and from there made the trip to Davos, needs and making creative Switzerland for the World Economic Forum. In both places, I leaps. Where better to mod- was struck by how often conversations centered on the value el this approach than in the Iof the humanities. Introducing a faculty discussion at Guildhall in arts and humanities? They London, alumnus Don Guiney described Harvard as having “handed champion boldness in do- him a looking glass,” an invaluable perspective that stretched be- ing and thinking, leading yond himself and yet at the same time cast his own life into new to new and deeper under- view. For the next hour, Harvard faculty members David Hempton, standings of the world. Jill Lepore, and Michael Norton explored the ways in which the Training students narrowly ideal of a “successful life” has changed over the centuries. In Davos, for jobs that they can occu- an alumnus told me that, while at Harvard, he took a course called py immediately upon gradu- “Thinking About Thinking” that continues to influence all he does. ation is shortsighted: how I met later with Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, who credits many of those jobs will even his reading of Classics at Oxford with shaping his views on every- exist a decade or two from thing from politics to public transportation. The common refrain now? Far better to create in was that such courses did more than transmit knowledge: they students the capacities to taught you how to imagine, adapt, assess, interpret, change, create. confront the circumstanc- es of life with a combination Yet—at Harvard and elsewhere—students worry aloud of realism and resilience and about the repercussions of following their interest in art or linguis- with habits of mind and tics or any of the other humanities disciplines. Given recent public skills of analysis that transcend the present. discourse, their concern is understandable. It seems that every few In 1869, Harvard President Charles W. Eliot noted that “…to make weeks another column or report comments on bleak job prospects a good engineer, chemist, or architect, the only sure way is to make for recent graduates who did not major in something “useful.” Never first, or at least simultaneously, an observant, reflecting, and sensible mind that gaps in unemployment rates between degree holders are man, whose mind is not only well stored, but well trained also to sometimes just one percent—as is the case with accounting and see, compare, reason, and decide.” While we now would of course English language and literature—or that liberal arts majors close add women to his prescription, we must continue to embrace his the salary gap over the course of their careers. Short-term snapshots goal. We must challenge ourselves to ensure that our graduates are translate into real anxiety for students and their parents, and it is indeed prepared to “see, compare, reason, and decide.” The humani- imperative that we continue to make the case for education that ties are a critical part of that work. Understanding derives from encourages flexibility and invites change. both what is measurable and what is unmeasurable—it is enhanced Why study the humanities? Interpretation, judgment, and dis- by scientific insights and mathematical proofs, by philosophical cernment will always be in demand, and they are cultivated and puzzles, and by literature and art that transform the heart as well refined in the humanities. We learn, for example, how civilizations as the mind. Education must encompass all of these as it seeks to have varied across space and time. We come to understand that the fashion not just employees and employers, but human beings who world has been different and could and will be different again. Lit- can help create a better future—for themselves and for the world. erature and the arts enable us to see through a new lens, to look at the world through others’ eyes. Students in the humanities learn Sincerely, how to think critically and communicate their ideas clearly, and those transferrable skills lead to rewarding lives and careers in ev- ery field of endeavor. If we hope that the next generation of leaders will build a world that is better than the one we inhabit, we must teach them the importance of stepping back from the urgent present to imagine a different future. The ability to innovate—a skill that nine of out ten employers agree is the most important for new hires—requires

Harvard Magazine 3 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746

Letters ing, or someone in their household is dis- decisions lead to and can keep persons in posing of their mail. poverty. And while it is unfair to make general- For those born into poverty, we need izations about evicted tenants’ character, to communicate loudly and often that these tenants often cause massive dam- no matter what the circumstances or the publisher: Irina Kuksin age to the apartment. Or what about Des- macroeconomic environment, poverty director of circulation and mond’s roommate, “Woo,” who had been can be overcome and/or avoided by doing fundraising: Felecia Carter jailed for delinquent child-support pay- three things: complete high school (at a donor relations and stewardship ments. Was he a hard-luck victim or an ir- minimum); work full time; and marry be- manager: Allison Kern responsible and uncaring father? fore you have children. I don’t pretend to know the solution to For those currently in poverty, we need director of advertising: this problem. However, I would suggest to communicate loudly and often that Robert D. Fitta some research be done on how to stop the this can be temporary if you make bet- new england advertising manager: household perpetrators of eviction who ter choices. Choose to stay in school and Abby Shepard victimize so many of those who sadly de- earn your high-school diploma. Choose classified advertising manager: pend on them. to learn a trade if college is not appropri- Gretchen Bostrom Richard Odessey, Ph.D. ’74 ate. Choose to take a minimum-wage job designer and integrated marketing Lawrenceville, Ga. without benefits at a fast-food restaurant manager: Jennifer Beaumont rather than remain unemployed. Choose to My most recent issue arrived in my mail- delay having children if you don’t have or production and new media box on Christmas Eve. I talked to at least earn enough money to support them. manager: Mark Felton two people yesterday who will soon be I was born 50 years ago into a family on associate web developer: evicted from their homes. I had to tell them public assistance residing in low-income, Jeffrey Hudecek that there was nothing that I, as a legal-aid public housing in a small town in Georgia. gift processor and office manager: attorney, could do to stop it. The best ad- I was able to overcome this circumstance Robert Bonotto vice I could give them was to start packing as did all my siblings. We need to spend and see if they could store their belongings less time, as this article seems to suggest, ivy league magazine network with family or friends. This happens on a categorizing the poor as “victims” and director, sales and marketing: daily basis for me and my colleagues at legal assigning others blame for their state. I Ross Garnick, www.ivymags.com services and other social-services agencies recommend we share more about what is across the country. possible when working with those in dif- editorial and business office To Matthew Desmond and to Harvard ficult situations. Life is a series of choices 7 Ware Street Magazine, I have this to say: thank you for and one’s fate is predominantly self-de- Cambridge, Mass. 02138-4037 Tel. 617-495-5746; fax: 617-495-0324 your important work, and for telling the termined. It is not just what I believe but Website: www.harvardmagazine.com stories of my clients’ lives, and for sharing what I know to be true. E-mail: [email protected] these with the wider Harvard community. Harold S. Lewis ’85 Kathleen Flaherty, J.D. ’94 Atlanta @harvardmagazine Newington, Conn. facebook.com/harvardmagazine I would hope that the next article about I appreciate this article and the sincere Matthew Desmond’s work would examine Harvard Magazine (ISSN 0095-2427) is published bi- monthly by Harvard Magazine Inc., a nonprofit cor- work that Professor Desmond does on a the problems owners experience in dealing poration, 7 Ware Street, Cambridge, Mass. 02138-4037, subject most would rather look away from. with tenants who boldly lie on their rent- phone 617-495-5746; fax 617-495-0324. The magazine is supported by reader contributions and subscriptions, I would ask that sociologists direct more al application, trash the property once en- advertising revenue, and a subvention from Harvard of their research, however, toward solu- sconced therein, and work the system to University. Its editorial content is the responsibility of tions, and that we spend more time talk- avoid paying rent for which they are legal- the editors. Periodicals postage paid at Boston, Mass., and additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send ad- ing to those in poverty about how poverty ly responsible. dress changes to Circulation Department, Harvard can be overcome and explaining how poor John Purdy, M.B.A. ’62 Magazine, 7 Ware Street, Cambridge, Mass. 02138-4037. Subscription rate $30 a year in U.S. and possessions, $55 Tucson Canada and Mexico, $75 other foreign. (Allow up to speak up, please 10 weeks for first delivery.) Subscription orders and customer service inquiries should be sent to the Cir- Harvard Magazine welcomes letters “Disrupted Lives” was jarring. Kudos to culation Department, Harvard Magazine, 7 Ware Street, on its contents. Please write to “Let- Matthew Desmond and his colleagues for Cambridge, Mass. 02138-4037, or call 617-495-5746 or ters,” Harvard Magazine, 7 Ware Street, their courage to take an ethnographic re- 800-648-4499, or e-mail [email protected]. Single copies $4.95, plus $2.50 for postage and han- Cambridge 02138, send comments by e- search approach to exposing eviction as a dling. Manuscript submissions are welcome, but we mail to your­turn@har­­vard.edu, use our significant source of degrading the poor fur- cannot assume responsibility for safekeeping. Include stamped, self-addressed envelope for manuscript re- website, www.harvard­maga­zine.­com, ther into a class tantamount to that of the turn. Persons wishing to reprint any portion of Harvard or fax us at 617-495-0324. Letters may homeless refugee. Moreover, this body of re- Magazine’s contents are required to write in advance for permission. Address inquiries to Irina Kuk- be edited to fit the available space. search throws a mirror up to the plethora of sin, publisher, at the address given above. public-health issues that eviction generates, Copyright © 2014 Harvard Magazine Inc.

4 March - April 2014 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Start at Harvard. Go anywhere.

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140327_HUECU.indd 1 1/28/14 1:50 PM Letters as well as our collective Many more need to solve these prob- correspondents lems in our communities. weighed in on eviction, As an aside, your Keystone XL, and other Travel the world with fellow readership may consid- alumni and Harvard study issues. Read additional er the ironic juxtaposi- letters at http://harvard- leaders. Choose from more tion of the magazine’s mag.com/letters-14. than 50 trips annually. front cover, “Eviction: A plague on America’s FEATURED TRIPS poor,” with the back- cover ad for Maserati, on teamwork and less on indi- “The Key to an Extraor- vidual responsibility.” dinary Life Is Quite Literally the Key,” in Next, Desmond studied the “involun- questionable taste. Frankly, it speaks vol- tarily displaced,” explaining that the poor umes about the challenges we face as a create “disposable ties” for urban survival. “great society.” However, these disposable ties “fray or

JUNE 6–15, 2014 Robert G. Denmark, M.P.H. ’92, S.D.M. ’94 break off after a short duration.” Desmond Lafayette Hill, Pa. also states that displaced children live “a REMEMBERING THE GREAT WAR: transient existence that is known to affect BELGIUM, FRANCE & GERMANY Thank you for publishing the excellent children’s emotional well-being and their STUDY LEADER: SUE WEAVER SCHOPF, article on eviction. I would just like to note performance in school.” ASSOCIATE DEAN, HARVARD EXTENSION SCHOOL a couple of additional ironies. In Massa- Succinctly put, instability creates more chusetts, if a family leaves its housing after instability. receiving an eviction notice but before the The questions Desmond ponders in re- sheriff arrives to toss its belongings onto the lation to firefighters are applicable to the sidewalk, the state considers that the family poor as well: why do some people choose left shelter voluntarily and so is not eligible to engage in risky behaviors and does their for aid through the homeless assistance pro- upbringing socialize them to underesti- gram. Most families, of course, are not aware mate just how dangerous their behaviors JULY 23–AUGUST 1, 2014 of this Catch-22 and believe they are doing can be? HIDDEN GEMS OF THE AEGEAN the right thing by leaving before undergoing Can the same remedy Desmond suggest- ON HARMONY V the public humiliation (and public expense) ed for the firefighters work for the poor?

STUDY LEADERS: HARVEY COX, HOLLIS RESEARCH of being physically expelled. Can society focus more on teamwork, i.e., PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY; NINA TUMARKIN, PROFESSOR The article notes that sociologist Mat- the nuclear family, and less on the indi- OF HISTORY, WELLESLEY COLLEGE thew Desmond advocates increasing access vidual? to free legal counsel for tenants to protect Gudrais and Desmond ignore the obvi- their housing rights. However, during the ous instability of the nuclear family with recent era of increasing rents, support for the evicted poor. Who are the “relative” legal aid has fallen, not risen. One reason is children with Danielle Shaw and Jerry that a major source of funding for legal aid Allen? Why are Shaw and Allen living to- is interest on lawyers’ trust accounts. Since gether in the first place, especially since interest rates have fallen drastically, legal- they are both so young and neither has SEPTEMBER 8–16, 2014 aid groups have lost up to 80 percent of the a stable job? Where are their parents? funds they receive from this resource. That’s Where is the husband of the woman who TOWN & COUNTRY LIFE: PROVENCE TO PARIS how it seems to go with services for the works two jobs, with two children, one of ON AMADEUS SYMPHONY poor in hard times: more need, less access. whom is two months old? How can Woo Jane Collins ’71 consider marrying someone else when he STUDY LEADER: ROBERT DARNTON, CARL H. PFORZHEIMER UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR Medford, Mass. does not support the children he has with AND UNIVERSITY LIBRARIAN another woman? Prior to studying the poor, Matthew No problem in society will be fixed TO BOOK YOUR NEXT TRIP, Desmond, the sociologist in Elizabeth Gu- while the family is broken. Period. CALL US AT 800-422-1636. drais’s article, wrote On the Fireline. There, he Beth Donofrio, Ed.M. ’94 FOR MORE TRIP OPTIONS, VISIT examines why firefighters “choose to enter Nokomis, Fla. ALUMNI.HARVARD.EDU/TRAVELS. such a risky profession, and how their up- bringing socializes them to underestimate Los Angeles, Defended just how dangerous it is.” To promote fire- While I commend Noah Pisner’s choice fighter safety, Mr. Desmond concludes that of university, persistence, and writing abil- the U.S. Forest Service should “focus more ity (The Under- (please turn to page 72)

6 March - April 2014 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Right Now The expanding Harvard universe

the x and y files Sex Science and Gender Culture

en are from Mars, and women are male. The sex chromosomes, says Rich- mosomes themselves at the turn of the are from Venus. Right? The sub- ardson, are “objects of scientific knowledge twentieth century. Contrary to what the ject of sex differences is a staple that have circulated between popular cul- Victorian period’s rigid sexual mores might M of popular culture, and various ture and scientific research in a way that suggest, sex was considered fluid and spec- fields—sociology, psychology, neurobiol- tells us a lot about how gender beliefs”— trum-like at the time, Richardson notes; ogy, and, recently, genomics—have taken on socially constructed ideas about masculin- early theories hypothesized that environ- the topic. Studies have argued that women ity and femininity—“enter the cognitive mental signals like nutrition or tempera- talk more than men, that men occupy both work of science.” ture could affect sex determination. At- high and low extremes of intelligence, and She begins her series of case studies by tention shifted from such external factors even, recently, that there are strong differ- examining the discovery of the sex chro- to each individual’s chromosomal makeup ences in the very wir- after researchers es- ing of male and female tablished that sex in brains. humans correlates In her new book exactly to the pres- Sex Itself: The Search for ence or absence of Male and Female in the the tiny Y chromo- Human Genome, Sarah some. Together with S. Richardson, an the later discovery of assistant professor sex hormones, the X of the history of sci- and Y chromosomes ence and of studies of established a new bio- women, gender, and logical framework for sexuality, examines understanding sex. science’s claims to In midcentury, reveal “what is really Richardson writes, real about male and this framework in- female.” Her focus is creasingly became a on the sex chromo- vehicle for social no- somes, the stretches tions of gender differ- of DNA referred to as ence, with male and X and Y that together female presented as determine biological opposite and comple- sex in most mammals: mentary. In the 1970s, individuals with two scientists observed X chromosomes are that males with an female, and those extra Y chromosome

with one X and one Y petrone valeria were overrepresented

Cartoon by Donald Reilly, The New Yorker Collection/The Cartoon Bank Harvard Magazine 7 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Right Now in prison populations and hypothesized fundamental logical flaws: for instance, interacting.” “Looking over 30 or 40 years that XYY “supermales” had received an scientists often fail to distinguish prop- of critical discussions of gender in sci- additional dose of “male” traits like ag- erly between biological and social influ- ence,” she says, “we can document how gression and physical strength. Later ences, she observes, even though gendered those conversations have begun to change studies thoroughly discredited the “su- norms in areas ranging from exercise to and benefit the science” by pointing out permale” theory: XYY and XXY males workplace interactions can complicate gendered assumptions and suggesting were found to have similarly high rates of what appear to be essential biological dif- alternative models. “The book makes the imprisonment (now attributed to slightly ferences. argument that we should continue to cul- lower average intelligence caused by chro- The errors, Richardson writes, illus- tivate these discussions as we move into mosomal imbalance). Even so, the XYY trate a broader conceptual problem. It an age in which genomics will proliferate “supermale” theory captured the public has been too convenient to think of male findings of human differences.” imagination—highlighting, Richardson and female as opposite, she says; the sexes vkatherine xue argues, how the X and Y chromosomes must be seen not as “natural kinds”—dis- have been persistently conflated with so- tinct and separate categories—but rather sarah richardson website: cial notions of gender. as “permanently paired and dynamically http://www.sexitself.com Examples such as the XYY “supermale” theory illustrate how social ideas of gender can shape scientific inquiry, says Richard- updating dr. doolittle? son. She is concerned not only with “black- and-white” cases of gender bias; in fact, she introduces the term “gender valence” to il- Fusing Faculties of Mind lustrate the varied and sometimes produc- tive intersection of cultural and scientific understanding. Thus she highlights scien- hat if people could com- oped the first interspecies “brain-to-brain tific debate over the theory of Y-chromo- municate with animals, and interface” (BBI). The mechanism retrieves some degeneration, which posits that the Y even with each other, using a signal from a human’s brain (generated chromosome is rapidly losing genes and may W only their thoughts? by staring at a flashing light) and trans- eventually disappear; the discussion, Rich- Such direct brain-to-brain communi- mits it into the motor cortex of a sleeping ardson argues, consciously engages with cation became a reality, at least in a very rat, causing the rodent to move its tail. societal anxieties over the status of men basic sense, at Harvard last year, when a “We were interested in creating a way for in a postfeminist world. “Gender beliefs team of researchers led by associate pro- information to be transmitted between are playing a role in the science here, but it fessor of radiology Seung-Schik Yoo devel- two brains without using nerves or mus- doesn’t have the pejorative connotation of bias,” she explains. “Bias, in my view, hap- pens when we insert our assumptions into scientific research in a way that is not reflec- tive, that’s invisible to us.” She ends by examining modern re- search into sex differences. In the related area of race-based research, scientists have found that individual humans have similar amounts of genetic variation, whether they are from the same or differ- ent populations, and critical dialogue has revealed the potential pitfalls of ascribing biological significance to socially con- structed racial categories. Sex-difference research, Richardson argues, requires this critical perspective as well. Per the New Yorker cartoon, she cautions that “older, once debunked, theories of sex difference [have been revived] decades later in the language of molecular genetics,” as mech- anisms of gene expression or neurological wiring are used to reinforce existing ideas of gender. Building on several published statistical criticisms, Richardson finds that many sex-difference studies have

8 March - April 2014 Illustration by Stuart Bradford Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Right Now “We were interested in creating a way trate bone. But Yoo’s team “found that you can overcome those limitations if you are for information to be transmitted between two using low acoustic frequencies.” In their experiment, the researchers brains without using nerves or muscles.” attached an FUS machine, calibrated to activate the specific cortical region asso- cles,” says Yoo, who found—as reported in signals into the brain of a separate organ- ciated with tail movement, to a rat’s skull the journal PLOS ONE in mid 2013—that a ism. “The real challenge was figuring out and placed a human volunteer in a BCI human subject could successfully control how a computer can somehow control machine that reads neural signals using an tail movement 94 percent of the time. the brain activity in the rat—the computer- electroencephalogram. Then they linked To achieve this advance, Yoo and his col- brain interface,” he explains. “The diffi- the two interfaces together via computer. leagues incorporated discoveries made by culty was to create a method that offered In order to generate a command to send to others in the rapidly growing field of com- a fine level of control without having to the rat’s brain, the human subjects were puter-brain interaction. In recent years, perform surgery” to insert electrodes into asked to stare at a flickering light pattern scientists have overcome immense tech- the brain. on a computer screen whenever they in- nical challenges to build computers that The most common method of nonin- tended to move the rat’s tail. This elicited read and interpret signals directly from vasive brain stimulation—transcranial a particular pattern of brain waves, which the brain. These brain-computer interfaces magnetic stimulation—is not accurate triggered a focused burst of ultrasound (BCIs) have been adapted for use in clinical enough to stimulate the tiny region of the connected to the rat’s brain, causing its settings—for instance, doctors use them to rat’s brain associated with tail movement, tail to move. allow quadriplegic and “locked in” patients Yoo says. Instead, he and his team relied Despite the success of the experiment, to move computer cursors, mechanical on a technology that he has been studying Yoo sees three areas for improvement. arms, and even their own wheelchairs. since 2007, “focused ultrasound” (FUS), First, he’d like to achieve the same re- Using this research, Yoo and his team that enables stimulus of specific areas of sults when the rat is awake. Second, the built a machine that not only receives the brain using focused beams of acoustic existing device is essentially just an on/ signals from the brain using existing BCI energy. One challenge of ultrasound imag- off switch controlling the rat’s tail, but fu- technology, but also inserts those same ing is that the sound waves cannot pene- ture brain-brain interfaces might be used

Renzo Lucioni ’14, a computer science concentrator in SEAS, used data visualization techniques to illustrate changes in voting behaviors over time in the U.S. Senate, providing a stark picture of a widening partisan divide. PHOTO: PHOTO: ELIZA GRINNELL/SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING AND APPLIED SCIENCES

Harvard Magazine 9 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Right Now to send more sophisticated messages that Giving Pause to Policy would affect the rat’s entire range of mo- tion. And finally, he would like the system to be bidirectional, allowing in a more The Price of distant future for two-way communica- tion between humans, perhaps facilitating brain-to-brain messaging across great dis- Healthy Eating tances via the Internet. Eventually, these technologies might even be used to pro- mote social understanding and empathy necdotally, the cost of a nior study author Dariush Mozaffarian, an through a technique called “neural cou- healthy diet—rich in fruits, associate professor at HSPH and Harvard pling,” in which one person’s neural pat- vegetables, fish, and Medical School. It’s “the cost of a cup terns and experiences are transmitted into A nuts, for exam- of coffee,” or about $550 a year the brain of another, allowing the recipi- ple—has been assumed ($2,200 for a family of four). ent to experience the thoughts and mental to be higher than The findings, based states of others. that of a diet consist- on a meta-analysis These mind-boggling possibilities, Yoo ing of unhealthy pro- of 27 studies under- says, are likely to be questions for future cessed foods. Now re- taken in 10 high-income generations. His own experiments are not search from the Harvard countries, are part of a conducted in order to achieve any practi- School of Public Health larger effort to understand cal outcome, he points out. “For me, this (HSPH) has quantified how government policy and is more philosophical than practical,” he that cost difference, often existing food-supply systems says. “It is really just my boyish curiosity.” cited as a barrier to eating affect health. The research vpeter saalfield well, as roughly $1.50 more shows that a healthy diet is per person per day. That’s affordable for most people, seung-schik yoo e-mail: “smaller than many people Mozaffarian says, given that

[email protected] might have expected,” says se- “for 60 percent to 70 percent of istock

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10 March - April 2014 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 THE DEAN’S INNOVATION FUND AT SEAS

WHEN A TEAM OF HARVARD scientists and engineers demonstrated a new type of battery that could fundamentally transform the way electricity is stored on the grid, it made headlines worldwide. The metal-free “fl ow battery,” based on safe, inexpensive organic molecules, could one day make power from renewable energy sources such as wind and solar a far more signifi cant contributor to our electricity supply.

The research results, published in the journal Nature in January 2014, were the culmination Kat Taylor (left) and her husband, Thomas Steyer, gave fl exible research funds after talking of years of work by a team led by Michael J. with Dean Cherry A. Murray (right) about how best to support innovation at SEAS. Aziz, Gene and Tracy Sykes Professor of Materials and Energy Technologies, and col- laborators Roy G. Gordon, Thomas Dudley Cabot Professor of Chemistry and Professor research funds to SEAS faculty pursuing a of Materials Science, and Alán Aspuru-Guzik, variety of environment and energy projects, Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology. from novel fuel cells for transportation and A PRIORITY OF THE electronics applications, to the monitoring of It all started with a seed grant from the CAMPAIGN IS TO greenhouse gases in urban areas. TomKat Charitable Trust. STRENGTHEN THE SEAS “It is rewarding to see this gift used to jump- In 2011, Kathryn “Kat” Taylor ’80 was talk- start some truly imaginative and impactful DEAN’S INNOVATION FUND ing with SEAS Dean Cherry A. Murray about research,” Taylor says. “Harvard is one of a the future of the School. What would it take, TO PROVIDE FLEXIBLE, handful of institutions that has the breadth she wondered, to realize Harvard’s aspira- and capacity to take on research that can EARLY-STAGE SUPPORT tion of moving SEAS to the top echelon of have transformative consequences for the engineering and applied sciences programs? TO RESEARCHERS. future of the planet.” “We honed in on an innovation fund to Thanks to the initial TomKat support, the

PHOTOS: LINDA RUSSELL; ELIZA GRINNELL/SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING AND APPLIED SCIENCES APPLIED AND ENGINEERING OF GRINNELL/SCHOOL ELIZA RUSSELL; LINDA PHOTOS: spur high-risk, high-reward research at its U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced earliest stages,” Murray says. “It is common Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) “Our faculty are tackling big, complex prob- for faculty to want to try out ideas that are awarded Aziz and his team a one-year proof- lems on the frontiers of energy and environ- so innovative that they can’t get funding of-concept grant in 2013 and recently mental science and engineering—as well as elsewhere.” extended its support with a three-year, mul- translational life sciences, computational Taylor and her husband, Thomas Steyer, timillion-dollar award. science, robotics, and nanotechnology,” have an avid interest in sustainability and Murray says. “We have an unparalleled “One never knows exactly how an idea will environmental protection. In keeping with opportunity to fundamentally advance sci- pan out in the laboratory,” Aziz says. “To their priorities. Murray has used the multi- ence in ways that will improve people’s lives.” really explore radical solutions you need a year gift from TomKat to direct fl exible bit of a leap of faith and the funds to test VISIT CAMPAIGN.HARVARD.EDU/FAS your ideas.”

140330_AAD_full.indd 1 2/3/14 2:28 PM Right Now

Americans, $1.50 a day is not a big deal.” Nev- ertheless, he adds, it is a “big barrier” for the remaining 30 percent to 40 percent of the popu- lation—even though the economic costs of chronic diseases related to poor diet vastly ex- ceed the higher price of healthy food. There is a public benefit, there- fore, to ensuring that everyone eats well, as he and his fellow authors, including research fel- lows Ashkan Afshin, Gitanjali Singh, and Mayuree Rao (the lead author), point out. There is broad con- sensus about which foods are particular- Dariush Mozaffarian ly good or bad. “We should emphasize reducing the things we Even though the detrimental design of sensible nutrition guidelines required by know are unhealthy like processed meats, the present system “wasn’t purposeful,” he WIC, the federal government’s special highly refined starches, sugars, and carbo- continues, large companies now have “a fi- supplemental nutrition program for wom- hydrates, trans fat, and sodium,” Mozaf- nancial interest in selling processed foods en, infants, and children. farian says, and “highlight the things we that have very inexpensive ingredients, of- “That would have a transforming effect know are good like fruits, vegetables, nuts, ten [costing only] pennies on the dollar.” on the food supply,” he concludes. Because vegetable oils, and fish. Many other foods, To change that, Mozaffarian advo- most food-stamp recipients live in low-in- like chicken or eggs, are “kind of in the cates taxing unhealthy foods and using come neighborhoods, a policy shift would middle”—neutral in terms of health effects. the revenue to subsidize healthy choices. change what was stocked in local stores. Unhealthy diets cost less, in part, be- When a tax and subsidy are paired, he “Many have only a 7-11 for shopping. [Re- cause producers are focused on providing explains, food on balance costs the same, moving that] incentive to pack the aisles “inexpensive, high-volume commodities. and healthier diets actually become less with Coke, candy, and chips would im- This is partly an accident of history,” Mo- expensive. prove the health not only of people on food zaffarian explains. “The main goal of food U.S. policies are in fact counterproduc- stamps, but the health of the entire neigh- production through most of human his- tive to bringing healthy foods to super- borhood.” tory and even into the 1950s and ’60s was markets in low-income neighborhoods, Mozaffarian’s interest in the cost of producing as many inexpensive calories he points out: for example, food stamps healthy food is not just domestic—it is as possible that were safe from bacterial are used to purchase $2 billion of sugar- global. Because existing food-aid pro- contamination and toxins. A whole sys- sweetened beverages a year. “The aver- grams focus on hunger and calories, he says, “I fear that we are making the same Unhealthy diets cost less, in part, mistake in low-income countries that we made in the U.S. in the last 100 years. By because producers are focused on providing focusing only on getting as many calories as possible to people without thinking “inexpensive, high-volume commodities.” about the quality,” he warns, policymakers are promoting the same harmful long-term tem was built around creating, shipping age lower-income teen drinks two to price disparities, and, ultimately, “We risk and storing a handful of products—rice, three servings of soft drinks per day,” he recreating there the same obesity and dia- wheat, soy.” New systems “to grow, ship, reports. “Using our tax dollars to create betes epidemic we have here.” and store fruits, vegetables, nuts, and sea- death and disability that we then pay for vjonathan shaw food,” could be created, “but it could take in our healthcare system—that’s obvi- decades without strong government sup- ously insane.” He advocates reforming the dariush mozaffarian e-mail: port.” program so that it adheres to the same [email protected]

12 March - April 2014 Photograph by Jim Harrison Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 New England Regional Section

American Repertory Theater Extracurriculars www.americanrepertorytheater.org 617-547-8300 special events ty performances—and honors the 2014 Arts • Through March 16 http://ofa.fas.harvard.edu/boxoffice Medalist: novelist, poet, and environmental- Witness Uganda. A young American vol- 617-496-2222 ist Margaret Atwood, A.M. ’62, Litt.D. ’04. unteers for a project in Africa that changes • March 10; March 24; and March 31, at 4 p.m. his life forever. Inspired by a true story, this http://mahindrahumanities.fas.harvard. music new, award-winning musical is staged by edu/content/norton-lectures. (Tickets are Sanders Theatre A.R.T. artistic director Diane Paulus. free, limited to two per person, and will be http://ofa.fas.harvard.edu/boxoffice • April 5-27 available at the box office starting at noon 617-496-2222 The Shape She Makes explores, through on the day of each lecture.) • April 11 at 8 p.m. a mix of dance and theater, how early ex- The 2014 Norton Lectures by Herbie “A Joyful Noise!” features Harvard-Radcliffe periences with an absent father and bar-

Hancock. Collegium Musi­ cum­ old arboretum;

The series, “The Ethics of Jazz,” and the Joyful Noise tender mother affect the adult life of a n is presented by the Mahindra Humanities Chorus. woman striving to succeed in the profes- Center. • April 26 at 8 p.m. sional realm. • April 10-11 The Harvard Glee Club, Radcliffe Choral

www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/ Society, Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra, Nature and science Ward/theayve ar event/2014-who-decides-conference and Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musi- The Harvard-Smithsonian Center 617-495-8277 cum present “VISITAS Concert: Giuseppe for Astrophysics D istory; The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Verdi’s Requiem.” www.cfa.harvard.edu/events/mon.html

conference, “Who Decides? Gender, Med- 617-495-7461; 60 Garden Street f Natural H icine, and the Public’s Health,” features a Theater Observatory night lectures with night-sky

performance by playwright Eve Ensler. • March 27 through April 6 viewing, weather permitting, at 7:30 p.m. useum o Radcliffe Gym. www.hrgsp.org/happeningnow.htm • March 20: “A More Perfect Heaven: How arvard M

• May 1-4 ofa.fas.harvard.edu/boxoffice Copernicus Revolutionized The Cosmos.” a n d E th ology A rchaeology http://ofa.fas.harvard.edu/arts 617-496-2222 • April 17: “Jupiter and Mars Return!” 617-495-8676 The Harvard-Radcliffe Gilbert & Sullivan The Arnold Arboretum t to right: H t to right: The annual Arts First Festival offers dance, Players present Patience; or, Bunthorne’s Bride. www.arboretum.harvard.edu; 617-384-5209 f From le theater, music, and other student and facul- Agassiz Theatre. As spring unfolds, check the website for a M useum o f Peabody Left to right: the now extinct passenger pigeon, at the Harvard Museum of Natural History; Beatrix Potter’s home, gardens, and tales of small creatures, at the Arnold Arboretum; the fine art of crafting and using Native Americans’ birch bark canoes, at the Peabody Museum

Harvard Magazine 12A Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 New England Regional Section plethora of other classes, lectures, exhibits, cuss the creative process that led to projects Beverages, and Health at the University of tours, and events. such as the ChongGae Canal Restoration in Pennsylvania Museum. (Tastings of recre- • March 9, 2-3:30 p.m. Seoul, Korea, and the Crown Sky Garden for ated, ancient-style brews are included for Explore Beatrix Potter’s Gardening Life: the Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago. those aged 21 and older.) The Plants and Places that Inspired the • April 14, 7-8:30 p.m. Classic Children’s Tales with landscape Uncorking The Past: The Quest for Wine, film consultant and historian Marta McDowell. Beer, and Extreme Fermented Beverages The Harvard Film Archive • March 27, 7-8:30 p.m. features a talk by Patrick E. McGovern, sci- http://hcl.harvard.edu/hfa Mikyoung Kim’s Transformational Land- entific director of the Biomolecular Archae- 617-495-4700 scapes. The landscape architect will dis- ology Laboratory for Cuisine, Fermented • March 23 A Spell to Ward Off the Darkness. A screening of this beautifully filmed existen- tial “participatory ethnography” by avant- garde filmmakers Ben Rivers and Ben Rus- sell. Russell will be on hand for a discussion. Your& anown entire campushome to explore

INCOLN S EWEST OMMUNITY

L ’ N 62+ C hysics p or astro or ter f n ter harvard ce harvard ith visiting professors, fine dining, clubs, classes, and maintenance- Jupiter is well-placed for viewing at the Center for Astrophysics early this year. Wfree living, The Commons welcomes you to celebrate lifelong learning and luxury living. exhibitions & events Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts www.ves.fas.harvard.edu; 617-495-3251 Model Home Tours Daily • March 27 at 6 p.m. Call 781-728-5721 “An Evening with Nato Thompson,” chief curator of the New York City-based public arts organization Creative Time, is connect- ed to the current exhibit, Living as Form (The Nomadic Version), which examines the daily interactions between art and hu- man culture through new works by artists in Cambridge, Boston, and Providence. A Benchmark Signature Living Community Harvard Art Museums One Harvest Circle • Lincoln, MA 01773 • 781-728-5721 www.harvardartmuseums.org www.TheCommonsInLincoln.com 617-495-9400/4544. Live wonderfully today. Preserve your tomorrow. The museum galleries are closed for renova-

12B March - April 2014 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 R R R ond eosinddo ndes idesid m m men en en t t t m m m i i i a a a a a a l l l H H H

YEARS YEARYEARS S

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33 1 33 1 33 1 9 9 1 9 1 1 81 - 20181 -8 210 -1 201

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Create Positive & Lasting useums Change for your Organization rt M A rt arvard H Byzantine coins at the Sackler Museum

tion until the fall, but some special events Document1Document1 11/20/03 11/20/03 11:51 11:51 AM AM Page Page 1 1 are being held in the lecture hall at the Sack- ler Museum, 485 Broadway. • March 13 at 6 p.m. A lecture on “Byzantine Money: The Politics and Aesthetics of a World Cur- rency,” by Eurydice Georganteli, a fellow in the history of art and architecture. (617) 328-3900 ext. 114 Harvard Museum of Natural History [email protected] www.hmnh.harvard.edu; 617-495-3045 www.thompsonisland.org • March 9 at 2 p.m. Discussion and book signing with Joel Greenberg, author of Echoes of Their Wings: The Life and Legacy of the Passenger Pigeon, in con- junction with the museum’s current exhibit Final Flight: The Extinction of the Passen- ASSISTEDASSISTEDLIVINGLIVINGRETIREMENTRETIREMENTCOMMUNITYCOMMUNITY ger Pigeon, Independent and Assisted Living which commemorates the spe- Specialized Memory Care cies that once filled the North American Here’sHere’s what what people people are are skies by the millions. Whatsayingsaying do Harvard about about us. alumni us. Peabody Museum of Archaeology have in common? and Ethnology www.peabody.harvard.edu; 617-496-1027 Cadbury Commons • April 12 A Remarkable Senior Residence The Legacy of the Penobscot Canoes: A View from the River showcases Native Ballet classes: American birchbark craft and inventions. age 3 - teen, Lectures Name:Name:MiltonMilton R. R. adult & pointe Occupation:Occupation:PostalPostal Supervisor, Supervisor, Retired Retired Radcliffe Institute Hobbies:Hobbies:Reading,Reading, Walking, Walking, Exercising Exercising for Advanced Study Dance your way Lifestyle:Lifestyle:Independent,Independent, Active Active ChoiceChoice of Senior/Assisted of Senior/Assisted Living: Living: www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/event/2014-ro- to grace and wellness! CadburyCadbury Commons Commons salind w picard lecture; 617-496-8600 The Harvard alumni who chose - - - Visit us at: “There“There is a is stable a stable and and gentle gentle atmosphere atmosphere Fay House, 10 Garden Street of Cadbury helpof help and and Commons empathy empathy throughout throughoutmay have the the • March 11 at 5 p.m. www.freshpondballet.com community.retiredcommunity. from I feel Iwork, feelassured assured but that not thatI am fromI partam part oflife. of Part of the “Smart Clothes” science lecture others’others’ lives, lives, as they as they are ofare mine. of mine. For Formyself, myself, Or on Facebook at: I feelIMuseum feel that that Cadbury CadburyVisits Commons • CommonsPlay Reading provides provides a a series, “Your Future Smart Wristband” facebook.com/FreshPondBallet wellSymphonywell trained trained and andcaring Selections caring group group of •people ofLecture people who who examines how sensors collect important are interestedare interested in my in welfare.”my welfare.” Series • Yoga • Organic Gardening physiological data related to emotions and CallCall (617) (617) 868-0575 868-0575 to arrange to arrange a personal a personal health. The speaker is MIT media arts and Nina Alonso, Director, FPB tour,tour, or visit or visit www.cadburycommons.com www.cadburycommons.com Call (617) 868-0575 to arrange a personal tour, science professor Rosalind W. Picard, who 1798a Mass Ave, Cambridge WhereWhereor visitThe www.cadburycommons.comThe Emphasis Emphasis Is On Is OnLiving Living directs the Affective Computing Group at 66 Sherman6666 Sherman Sherman Street, Street, Street, Cambridge, Cambridge, Cambridge, 617.491.5865 EQUAL EQUAL MA 02140◆ ◆ (617) 868-0575 HOUSING HOUSING the MIT Media Lab. MAMA 02140 02140 (617)• (617)868-0575 868-0575 OPPTY OPPTY

12D March - April 2014 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Explorations More Than Skin Deep

Regional spas offer “a place to ease burdens.” • by Nell Porter Brown ich Inn w

a at Nor a at Clockwise from top left: Take a dip in the pool at the Equinox Resort & Spa pool, boogie down at a dance fitness class at he Sp Canyon Ranch, or just relax in quiet privacy at The Spa at ch; T n

a Norwich Inn. n R yo n a healthcare busi- 19,960 spas across the country—“places a; C ness consultant devoted to overall well-being through a in Boston. Dur- variety of professional services that en- esort & Sp ing her one-hour courage the renewal of mind, body, and ox R ox n foot treatment, spirit”—according to The International qui

t: E t: she recalls, “they Spa Association (ISPA). f

p le soaked my feet, In 2012, the trade group reports, these did a salt scrub spas generated about $14 billion in revenue rom to and an aroma- thanks to 160 million visits, slight increas- ise f w hen she finally felt con- therapy scrub, and ended with a pedicure.” es over figures from the previous year. lock

C fident leaving her one-year- Meanwhile, her husband took advantage of Andrea Foster, vice president and na- old with relatives, Robin the fitness center and reveled in a back mas- tional director of spa and wellness con- W Lockwood Heffernan ’02, sage. “There is tons of stuff to do here,” she sulting for PKF Consulting USA, in Bos- Ph.D. ’07, lived out any new mother’s dream: says of the Connecticut hotel spa, which also ton, further defines the true spa as a place she spent a few days at The Spa at Nor- happens to be near the Mohegan Sun casino. that provides “a relaxing and rejuvenating wich Inn. There, in the depth of New Eng- “There’s a good balance: all the relaxation ele- experience that includes massage, body land’s snowy January, she swam in a warm, ments, but you can also have a good workout treatments, and could also include facials, freshwater pool, had a massage, and padded and take classes, get a facial, and then go to the nutrition counseling, and fitness training.” around a cozy room in a thick robe and slip- restaurant for a really nice dinner.” In short, hair and nail salons are not auto- pers. “I especially love having my feet rubbed,” Heffernan is far from the only one en- matically spas, she says, nor “are the dental admits Heffernan, a chemical engineer and joying such healthful pleasures. There are offices that say they have a massage chair.”

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

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share your commitment to live a vibrant lifestyle in a lovely community. t Twin Farms offers an intimate setting in Call today to set up an appointment for a tour! the woodlands of Vermont. A Full-Service Lifecare Retirement Community Foster’s company publishes the annual www.brookhavenatlexington.org (781) 863-9660 • (800) 283-1114 Trends® in the Hotel Spa Industry report. “We are seeing continued demand growth [for spas], and within that, there is a need for more skilled labor now for existing spas and for the projected spa growth,” she says. Also clear is a qualitative shift in over- all demographics and, therefore, changes to Our anValued Advertising Partnersou in spa services and new facilities. For one thing, more spa-goers are aging and, con- th Brookhavenk y sequently, more likely to have disabilities, Canyon Ranch chronic conditions, and medical needs: Cadbury Commons they may want spa services to address chal- Cambridge Inns lenges such as pain relief and physical reha- The Charles Hotel bilitation. Or, that group wants to focus on Gail Roberts/Coldwell Banker strengthening their bodies to prevent inju- Barbara Currier/Coldwell Banker ries and maintain an active lifestyle. “With baby boomers aging, there is a growing The Commons in Lincoln need [for them] to incorporate into their Fresh Pond Ballet lifestyles a wellness approach,” Foster says. Carol & Myra/Hammond “I think we will see increased demand for Brattle Office/Hammond those services, and I expect to see the sup- International School of Boston ply of spas with medical components grow Lux, Bond & Green Fine Jewelry at an appropriate pace.” Teens and young McLean Hospital & Pavilion adults are also a growing spa customer base, as is the slowly rising number of male Thompson Island guests, who now account for between 20 Welch & Forbes and 25 percent of all spa visitors. “Typical- Support from these advertisers ly,” Foster reports, “they are first taken by helps us produce the independent, a female, and then realize the benefits and high-quality publication Harvard alumni return by themselves.” rely on for information about One “early adopter” is Manchester, Ver- the University and each other. mont, native Max Levis, M.T.S. ’11, a tutor

12F March - April 2014 88 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 140316_LuxBondGreen.indd 1 1/27/14 11:02 AM New England Regional Section in the Harvard psychology department. people are there to help you. It’s a place to with us. It’s a place to ease our burdens.” He grew up going to the Equinox Resort let go of distractions—work, personal life, Such gentle catering to the “mind, body, & Spa because it was near his parents’ or the headaches we are carrying around and spirit” is, arguably, especially impor- hotel, The Wilburton Inn, tant in New England, where and his mother is a long- residents often struggle with time member who takes the transition from the slum- movement classes and gets berous wintry months to the facials, massages, and other energetic nature of spring. treatments. He swims in Robin Heffernan began try- the pool and loves the sau- ing spas at Starwood Hotels na and steam room, which, while traveling for work. She he asserts, are “definitely found the treatments so help- health benefits.” “Part of ful that she began sampling the fun is also sitting out- day spas in Greater Boston, side on a snowy day in the including H2O, Exhale, Corbu, hot tub,” he adds. Equinox and Massage Envy. “My gen- is “elegant and indulgent,” eral philosophy is that I treat he allows, but it’s also “a massage as I would diet and healing place…it offers time exercise or any other wellness and space for reflection. activity, as more than a luxury There’s a fire going and event,” explains Heffernan, who also plans to return to the Topnotch’s outdoor lounge has a roaring fire and otch Norwich spa later this year. pn mountain views. T o “I wholeheartedly regard the

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12H March - April 2014 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 New England Regional Section relaxation experience and physical benefits don’t know if frugal is the word, but they but in a less obviously luxurious atmo- of massage as essential to health and well- tend to be more conservative in their be- sphere than the other two spas boast. being.” havior, and in their spending. They want Further north, Foster notes, are the high- New England’s hotel and resort spas value—and to see results.” end Omni Mount Washington Resort, provide just that through dedicated “get- The Berkshires and locales around New in New Hampshire, the White Barn Inn, away vacations” that come without the York City, including places throughout in Maine, and several others in Vermont: added hassle and unpredictability of air- Connecticut, have become known as “spa Twin Farms, the Equinox Resort & Spa, plane travel—or even having to waste too destinations,” Foster reports. In Con- Topnotch Resort, and The Woodstock Inn many hours in a car. The spas range widely necticut, for example, the Mayflower Inn & Resort, among others. in price (roughly from $250 to more than & Spa is another popular destination. New England spas seem to be thriving $1,000 per person, per night) and degree The Berkshires have three distinct spa and even growing, in terms of added ser- of luxuriousness. But many also offer all- resorts located in and around the town vices and lodgings. Canyon Ranch, which inclusive packages (including meals), sea- of Lenox (also the home of Tanglewood). opened in 1989, has a 100,000-square-foot sonal rates, or special deals with ad hoc Canyon Ranch is an adult-only “destina- spa and additional lodgings. In addition to fees for various services, all of which can tion spa” focused on health and wellness, indoor and outdoor pools, tennis courts, a bring the cost down. that includes optional classes as well as running track, and fitness classes, the re- Foster notes that New England’s spas medical evaluation and treatments. Cran- sort offers medical evaluations, spa treat- tend to focus on “simple, beautiful spaces well is more of a traditional resort, with ments, and even, within the last several and excellent services,” whereas elsewhere golf, family activities—and a sizable spa. years, the increasingly popular “metaphysi- “you may see spas topping each other in “The wide range of spa services are an op- cal” consults (e.g., astrology, Tarot card how fancy or glamorous they can be.” Per- tion on your vacation, but may not be the and clairvoyant readings, numerology, and haps characteristically, “based on typical primary purpose of the stay,” Foster ex- handwriting analysis). Laurie Matthews, spending patterns and behavior,” she adds, plains. Kripalu, an epicenter for yoga and Ed.M. ’79, M.B.A. ’83, found a special rate “by nature New Englanders are more,—I mindfulness, also offers body treatments, that enabled her to spend her first spa va- © lizlinder.com PHOTO:

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

cation there, almost four years ago. That’s Matthews, a director in the Harvard The experience, however, is more than when her planned health and fitness trip to Business School’s career and professional mere pampering. Her periodic retreats Mexico was canceled at the last minute; in development office, has returned for the are not really what many people call “spa looking for an alternative, she found Can- semi-annual Gotta Dance program ever vacations,” Matthews adds. It’s more like yon Ranch, which is only two and a half since. She has also enjoyed the spa’s daily “an immersion in an active, healthy ex- hours from her house, and went. It also hikes, a tai chi workshop, a labyrinth on perience,” she says, and reflects “a gift to happened to be the week the resort runs its its well-manicured grounds, or just relax- myself.” As the April Gotta Dance pro- “Gotta Dance” program. “It was three and a ing in the café lounge. All that, and spa gram nears, she is ready and waiting in half days of dancing and rehearsals, five to treatments: one day it’s hot-stone mas- the wings. “As mothers, wives, partners, six hours a day” with professional dance sage, the next day it’s deep-tissue work. parents, children of elderly parents, as instructors and choreographers, Matthews “Canyon Ranch is phenomenal at making managers and bosses, and co-workers,” reports. “Then, you put on a show. I loved you feel taken care of,” she says. “There, she adds, “we can be more productive and ballet and dance as a kid and I found the I am not just in touch with my body, but better with others when we ourselves are classes inspiring. Dance is a lovely form of I’m of a more quiet mind and surrounded in balance. My philosophy is a twist on self-expression and joy. You get to channel by beauty, looking out at the Berkshire the golden rule: It’s important to give unto your own inner Ann Reinking!” Hills.” ourselves as we give unto others.” Spas around New England All the establishments below offer visitors the chance to “get away from it all” and linger, lounge, and otherwise soak up the spa experience during an overnight (or multiple-night) stay.

Canyon Ranch Equinox Resort & Spa Lenox, Massachusetts Manchester Village, Vermont www.canyonranch.com/lenox www.equinoxresort.com 413-637-4100 800-362-4747 Kripalu Chatham Bars Inn Stockbridge, Massachusetts Chatham, Massachusetts www.kripalu.org Dining room at www.chathambarsinn.com 866-200-5203 The White Barn Inn 800-527-4884 nn

Mayflower Inn & Spa www.topnotchresort.com n i Cranwell Washington, Connecticut 802-253-8585 Lenox, Massachusetts www.mayflowerinn.com hite bar he w www.cranwell.com 860-868-9466 Twin Farms T 413-637-1364 Barnard, Vermont Omni Mount Washington Resort www.twinfarms.com Guest room at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire 802-234-9999 the Woodstock www.omnihotels.com/mtwashington Inn & Resort 603-278-1000 Wentworth by the Sea Portsmouth, New Hampshire Saybrook Point Inn & Spa www.wentworth.com Old Saybrook, Connecticut 888-252-6888 www.saybrook.com 860-395-2000 The White Barn Inn Kennebunk, Maine The Spa at Norwich Inn www.whitebarninn.com Norwich, Connecticut 207-967-2321

esort www.thespaatnorwichinn.com 860-886-2401 The Woodstock Inn & Resort Woodstock, Vermont Topnotch Resort www.woodstockinn.com

Woodstock Inn & R Stowe, Connecticut 8 02- 457-110 0

12J March - April 2014 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 1730 Massachusetts Ave Cambridge, MA 02138 617 245-4044

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140324_Coldwell-GailRoberts.indd 1 1/28/14 8:57 AM Tastes and Tables Global Kitchen A French-Tunisian chef’s personal touch in Cambridgeport

and cilantro. The smoky Algerian egg- plant dip ($5), loaded with roasted red peppers, garlic, and parsley, is topped with labne (a yogurt cheese). Flat Berber bread, cooked until it’s burnt and bitter in spots, helps blunt the heat and comes in various forms. It is laid thick with thyme, sesame seeds, lemon juice, salt, and sweet caramelized onions in the zaatar coca ap- petizer ($7) and also supports the open- faced sandwiches (from $7 to $9.50)—try the grilled housemade merguez, flavored with paprika, cumin, and ras el hanout spic- es (“top of the shop”—the best). That one comes with a salad dressed with a black caraway, thyme, and mustard vinaigrette, and some of the best fresh pommes frites we’ve had. The classic bastilla torte must be ordered 36 hours in advance and features home- made phyllo layered with tender chunks of few blocks from Central fabric tablecloths, pillows that line bench squab or chicken, mixed with cinnamon, Square, a cozy jewel-box of a seating, an iron scrollwork screen, and Mo- saffron, and almonds (market price). But restaurant has quietly served roccan-style tin and glass lampshades that all the regular dishes are very good. The A up North African fare—Berber add moody romance. “I am going to hire vegetarian couscous stew ($11) has carrots, bread, merguez sausage, bastilla—and a flaw- someone to think for me? Of course not,” squash, potatoes, lentils, and fava beans in less chocolate torte since 1997. she says. “Maybe if you have the dollars you a complex bouillon. The baby lamb chops, At night, Baraka Café’s 25 seats can fill can do that, but I like to make sure I design also marinated with ras el hanout, are paired up fast. Regulars savor the food and styl- the things themselves the way I like it.” with an almond and saffron tartlet, as well ish, homegrown décor. Both reflect the She also painted the rear brick wall gold as mint sauce and a sautéed medley of roots of Alia Radjeb Meddeb, Baraka’s (a doorway leads to the tiny galley kitch- spinach, shallots, and leeks ($21). feisty executive chef and co-owner. Raised en) and has hung mirrors, along with post- The intriguing entrées make it easy to in Paris by Tunisian immigrant parents, ers and paintings of North African land- forget about dessert. Don’t. Meddeb often Meddeb is also a pastry chef and restau- scapes. (The co-owner/chef, Krimo Dahim, makes her flourless chocolate torte ($7), rant veteran. “My first job in this country is from Algeria). akin to a soufflé, but she also likes to mix was as a dishwasher at the Algiers Café, in No alcohol is served. But nearly as brac- it up. “Right now I have the Key lime con- Harvard Square, in 1976,” she says. “I had ing is the cherbat ($2.50), a house-made lem- densed milk and mascarpone cheesecake to work my way up. It wasn’t easy!” (She onade infused with rose water and cinna- with the grape compote,” she said in a re- is also the sister of celebrated chef Moncef mon that tingles the nerves. cent phone call. “But I will Meddeb, founder of L’Espalier in Boston.) Bold flavors and spices Baraka Café also make the baklava with But Baraka is undoubtedly her place: rule. Meddeb marinates 80 Pearl Street hazelnuts and a honey rose- she picked out the purple disco-glittering green olives ($4) in harissa Cambridge petal sauce. It all depends The small Baraka Cáfe lays out a feast of (hot chili sauce) and most 617-868-3951 on what I feel like that day. North African fare. often adds parsley, mint, www.barakacafe.com It’s all up to me.” vn.p.b.

12L March - April 2014 Photograph by Jim Harrison Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 From this...

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140328_HAA-SIGs.indd 1 2/3/14 10:36 AM JohnJohn Harvard’s JournalJournal

Hub of the (undergraduate) universe. The Inn at Harvard, shown in late January, is being converted into residential space to accommodate students during House renovation. Dunster is the first scheduled to be closed in toto, after Commencement, for complete renewal during the ensuing 15 months, following completion of pilot projects at Quincy and Leverett. Dunster’s diaspora will house students in existing swing spaces along Massachusetts Avenue; apartment buildings and a renovated frame house (former home of Expository Writing) on Prescott Street; and the repurposed Inn, a hub including common dining and social spaces for House affiliates during their temporary displacements. House renewal will be on the new College dean’s agenda (see page 23); renderings of the Dunster renovation appear on page 21; and complete House renewal coverage is available at http://harvardmagazine.com/ search/node/house%20renewal.

Photograph by LesJim HarrisonVants Aerial Photos/courtesy of Harvard Art Museums Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 John Harvard's Journal The Long Game in financial realities. Construction on one hind Barry’s Corner; “a gateway” office large laboratory complex halted in 2010, building at the northeast corner of that in- Allston when the University felt unable to incur tersection; and a hotel-conference center more debt (at least several hundred mil- on Western Avenue—the only facility tru- Following approval of the Univer- lion dollars) to complete it. Now reenvi- ly separated from the existing campus or sity’s Institutional Master Plan (IMP) by sioned as a home for much of the School current building sites. (The draft environ- the Boston Redevelopment Authority last of Engineering and Applied Sciences mental impact report, published January October, the work of envisioning much (SEAS), the building is a major capital- 6, has comprehensive maps and a schedule larger, longer-term academic and commer- campaign priority; work is under way to for the IMP projects; see evp.harvard.edu/ cial growth on Harvard’s Allston properties redesign the site and proceed to comple- allston%20.) has now begun. President Drew Faust sig- tion soon. Construction has also begun But most of Harvard’s Allston plans re- naled the news in a low-key e-mail, titled on Barry’s Corner: residential and retail main unformed. Schematic “long-term vi- “Allston Update,” just before the December buildings at the northwest corner of the sion” diagrams from recent filings show holiday break. It announced that provost Western Avenue-North Harvard Street new road systems, academic quadrangles Alan Garber and executive vice president intersection. Other projects are under way on the parking lots and playing fields south Katie Lapp would direct three committees (renovation of the hockey arena) or just and west of HBS, new academic and com- charged with advising on “the creation or completed (Tata Hall, the new executive- mercial buildings lining Western Avenue relocation” of academic facilities; planning education residence at Harvard Business to the Charles River, and a large enterprise “a community of commercial and nonprofit” School—HBS). campus behind the Genzyme factory and entities in an “enterprise research campus”; The IMP authorized nine projects, most beside the Massachusetts Turnpike inter- and consolidating these ideas and putting within, or at the periphery, of the exist- change. In time, these developments may them into a University, regulatory, and fi- ing HBS campus and the athletic facilities. approach the scope of the plans from a de- nancing context. They include renovation or replacement of cade ago. (See diagrams, page 23.) Harvard’s aspirations for Allston have executive-education, housing, and confer- The committees “formalize a structure come in waves. Ambitious plans early in ence buildings; construction of new HBS for the next phase of planning for Allston,” the previous decade for a multimillion- offices; and the Harvard Stadium renova- said Provost Garber during a mid Janu- square-foot research campus, perhaps tion. There are three greenfield projects: ary conversation—beginning the process with new undergraduate Houses, fell to a new basketball arena with housing, be- of “thinking hard about what else will go into Allston” for academic and other facili- ties as the area develops. Allston has been Explore More part of his agenda continuously, he noted. The new committees had begun to take Harvardmagazine.com brings you continuous coverage of shape even before approval of the IMP. University and alumni news. Visit to find these stories and more: Their unveiling, he said, formally starts long-range planning beyond the IMP, and in effect reboots the larger process of The Next Level } Mapping the border thinking about Allston. page 26 | Watch members page 76 | View maps from The academic planning committee, of the Harvard swim Harvard’s collection that helped which he chairs, will revisit research and team practicing techniques establish the Canada- teaching needs identified before the reces- to improve their speed. } United States border. sion in light of current aspirations, Gar- ber said (all three committee rosters are posted at www.provost.harvard.edu/re- ports). Purpose-built facilities in Allston may better suit research synergies emerg- Wynton Marsalis on the Soul of Jazz ing in new fields or across disciplinary The bandleader blends performance and storytelling to paint a picture of jazz in lines than opportunities in Cambridge. nineteenth-century New Orleans. harvardmag.com/marsalis (And SEAS will have a large presence in the vicinity now; the new planning will Rediscovering the Unconscious In a visit to Harvard, Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman discusses decisionmaking and happiness with Walmsley University Professor Cass Sunstein of Harvard Law In this Issue School. harvardmag.com/kahneman

Harvard College’s Honor Code? 20 Yesterday’s News The faculty debates a new, formal approach to undergraduate academic integrity. 21 Brevia harvardmag.com/honorcode14 23 The College’s New Dean 24 The Undergraduate visit harvardmagazine.com 26 Sports

18 March - April 2014 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 be influenced by what might locate near those applied scientists, by the non-SEAS harvard portrait users sited there, and by shared facilities incorporated into the structure.) Identifying those fields involves judg- ments about how research will evolve in the next decade to 15 years, he indicated— a process in which the views of the Har- vard community will be solicited. To that end, the committee members are drawn from most Harvard schools—including SEAS, on a growth trajectory, and the Graduate School of Design, which is out of space in Gund Hall. Members will help winnow the focal fields for Allston, con- sider faculty and student space needs, in- vestigate how to pay for the plans, and see where these fit in Allston overall: a major role in shaping Harvard’s future. Asked whether the committees’ cre- ation signals anything about the pace of The enterprise campus site is near “one of the greatest concentrations of research, students, and faculty in the world.” Huntington Lambert the Harvard Campaign and ambitions to accelerate the Allston timetable, Garber In the old farmhouse in Dover, Massachusetts, where “Hunt” Lambert grew up, “ev- observed only that philanthropy and ex- erything was broken.” His chore as an eight-year-old was to wake up early and take ternal economic conditions (such as en- a blowtorch to the pipes, so the water could get past the ice—or, if ice had burst dowment returns) were unpredictable— the pipe, to cut out that section and weld in a new one. “I’m a handyman—all I do is but having plans in place would enable fix things,” he says. “I went from pipes to fixing multinational corporations and now, Harvard to move quickly if the means be- fixing higher education. Toasters are my specialty, but multinational corporations pay come available. better.” As dean of continuing education and University extension since 2013, his am- External conditions, aided by planning bitions run large: “to ensure that high-quality education is available at a fair price to foresight, will also affect the timing for the 20 million Americans who need better education to participate in a knowledge the 36-acre enterprise research campus. economy.” At 10 years old, the “massively dyslexic” Lambert couldn’t read, but could It is intended to accommodate commer- break down and reassemble a car. He became an expert cliff-jumping and mogul skier cial space capitalizing on discoveries from who turned into a “really serious” student at Colorado College, where he majored in Harvard and other universities. The site, psychology and business, met his wife, Kelly, now a lawyer, and graduated in 1980. Next near what he characterized as “one of the he joined a venture-capital company before earning an M.S. in management from MIT’s greatest concentrations of research, stu- Sloan School in 1984. He worked in strategic marketing for US West in Denver, then dents, and faculty in the world,” is one- moved to Colorado State University, where he taught, directed the Center for Entre- fifth larger than Kendall Square, the area preneurship, and, with a team, created a public online university in 11 months. Now, around MIT that has become a magnet for Harvard is offering HarvardX MOOCs, with student services, for credit at low tuition. biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and infor- “Besides the 20 million in America, let’s talk about the two billion outside America,” he mation technology businesses. says. “We all know that the only path to sustainable freedom is education.” That planning committee, co-chaired by

Photograph by Jim Harrison Harvard Magazine 19 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 John Harvard's Journal

Lapp and Rick McCullough, vice provost Yesterday’s News for research, includes faculty members versed in real estate and economic devel- From the pages of the Harvard Alumni Bulletin and Harvard Magazine opment, and administrators responsible for technology licensing and campus plan- 1924 The statue of John Harvard is Management Training Program, the “clos- ning and construction. They have been moved from the Delta, west of Memorial est thing to a Harvard Business School charged to think “expansively,” Garber Hall, to today’s position at University Hall. education available for women.” said. Given Boston’s process for negotiat- ing taller, denser development than Cam- 1939 Each undergraduate House has 1974 Thanks to $180,000 from the bridge permits, the resulting facilities, gradually acquired a nickname for its resi- National Endowment for the Humanities, in toto, could represent a big investment dents: “Gold Coasters” (Adams); “Pio- the Faculty of Arts and Sciences has set up (presumably led by private investors, on neers” or “Funsters” (Dunster); “Ele- a major program of instruction in oral lit- terms to be discussed). He emphasized phants” (Eliot); “Deacons” (Kirkland); erature, including the study of folklore, that no one envisions a biotech or IT park “Rabbits” (Leverett); “Bellboys” (Lowell); natural magic, balladry, and mythology. per se: the uses will emerge with discov- and “Puritans” (Winthrop). ery and might embrace fields of research, 1984 Roger Brockett, McKay profes- as yet unknown, with commercial po- The Harvard Crimson (reportedly sacrific- sor of applied mathematics, is assembling tential. Much planning, permitting, and ing more than $2,000 in advertising) inau- Harvard’s first robotics laboratory in an infrastructure investment must precede gurates “a campaign to eliminate [local] effort to improve ways to incorporate the construction, but the torrid pace of build- tutoring schools as an organized vice humanlike capacities for vision, touch, and ing in Kendall Square and on the Boston racket violating University rulings and eth- manipulation into a robot’s repertoire. waterfront makes it attractive to prepare ics”; a front-page editorial denounces “in- the site, should developers’ appetite ex- tellectual brothels [where] cheating and 1989 Plans announced in January to tend westward. illegitimate tutoring [are] elevated to…a assign one-sixth of the freshmen to the The academic and enterprise groups large scale commercial enterprise,” thus upperclass Houses randomly are retracted will exist for a few years at least, Garber enabling some undergraduates to pass (at least for a year) by dean of the College suggested, assisted where necessary by courses without doing any work whatso- L. Fred Jewett under pressure from irate support staff and consultants. They report ever, “making a mockery of a Harvard first-years and worried House masters. to a steering committee. Garber is chair, education, a lie of a Harvard diploma.” joined by Lapp; the deans of law, design, Olympians Lane MacDonald ’89 and Allen SEAS, HBS, and the Faculty of Arts and 1954 After 17 years of partial assis- Bourbeau ’89 help lead the men’s hockey Sciences (FAS); a professor of urban plan- tance, the Business School agrees to be- team to sudden-death overtime victory ning who has completed significant as- come a full partner in Radcliffe’s one-year and the NCAA championship in St. Paul. signments in Boston (including the master plan for the Seaport innovation district); and administrators— significantly including Har- vard’s senior development, gov- ernment relations, and financial officers. They are responsible, he said, for “Allston develop- ment from a holistic perspec- tive”: how pieces fit together, design, financing, and permit- ting. The steering committee will coordinate its work with the detailed planning and cap- ital-budgeting functions man- aged by Katie Lapp, and with the schools, and issue recom- mendations to Faust. The Cor- poration’s finance and capital- planning committees will also weigh in, before the governing board decides to authorize de- velopment projects. The schematic plan for greater Allston laid out in the

Illustration by Mark Steele

Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Compensation Costs Clarified Primate-Care Penalties In recent financial reports, the Univer- The U.S. Department of Agriculture has sity has emphasized the importance of Brevia cited Harvard Medical School (HMS) reining in burgeoning compensation for 11 violations of the Animal Welfare costs, particularly for employee benefits Act from early 2011 through mid 2012— (for instance, see “Fiscal Portrait,” Janu- four of which resulted in the death of ary-February, page 28, primates—and levied for the 6 percent rise penalties of $24,036. in benefits costs during Many of the problems fiscal 2013)—a point have been previously for protracted bar- reported (see “Animal gaining with some of Research Reforms,” Harvard’s unions. Such May-June 2012, page costs have not been 45). HMS announced adjusted for growth last April that it would in the workforce, on close the New England which data are now Primate Research Cen- available. From a low of ter, in Southborough, 15,203 full-time-equiv- its principal venue alent faculty and staff for animal experi- members during 2009, ments; it cited fi- in the wake of the finan- A Renovation nancial pressures Revealed. Dunster, the cial crisis and cost-cutting, first undergraduate on research as well Harvard’s census has risen residence scheduled for a as the estimated each subsequent year, to complete overhaul as part large capital cost nearly 16,600 last October. of House renewal, will of renovating the feature enhanced social, Benefit costs per employee arts, and exercise spaces, facility (see http:// do rise—as healthcare ex- and a contemporary harvardmag.com/ penses increase beyond classroom, as shown in primate-14 for more these renderings released changes in plan terms, in late January. Construc- information). payroll taxes expand with tion, which is scheduled to higher salaries and pro- last for 15 months, will postgraduate public- Thinking Spatiotemporally motions, and so on. But begin immediately after service fellowships.… The National Science Foundation has Commencement. given annual employment Separately, Harvard funded a Center for Spatiotemporal growth averaging 2 percent Medical School is Thinking, Computing, and Applica- in recent years, the per capita increase in one of six research institutions each tions (www.stcenter.net) to support benefit costs is significantly lower than to receive a $90-million endowment research and development of solutions the aggregate figure. from Ludwig Cancer Research; it will to large challenges where spatiotempo- support work on the disease’s resis- ral analyses could be decisive (in climate The Giving Spirit tance to therapy, as fully described at change, reduction of risks from natural The Graduate School of Design has re- http://harvardmag.com/cancer-14. disasters, and so on). In addition to busi- ceived a $10-million gift from John K.F. Days later, Weill Cornell Medical Col- ness and government-agency partners, Irving ’83, M.B.A. ’89, and Anne Irving lege announced a $75-million gift for the collaborating schools, to date, are the Oxley in honor of their father, John E. cancer research and care, and the Uni- University of California at Santa Barbara, Irving; they had previously endowed a versity of Southern California (in the George Mason, and Harvard—through professorship in landscape architecture. middle of a $6-billion capital campaign) the Center for Geographic Analysis The gift endows fellowships, research unveiled a $50-million gift toward a (http://gis2.harvard.edu—see “Hello, funds for junior professors, and re- 190,000-square-foot bioscience, engi- Geotech,” November-December 2006, search in landscape architecture; it also neering, and medical research center.… page 44). The new center’s anticipated supports funding for innovations, the On January 20, Columbia president Lee research budget is more than $2 million undergraduate architecture concentra- C. Bollinger announced that its cam- annually, for at least several years. tion, and Gund Hall renovations. John paign, launched in 2006, had concluded K.F. Irving will chair the school’s cam- with $6.1 billion raised—including $1 On Other Campuses paign.…Media-industry leader Sumner billion for financial aid, a like amount As further evidence of changes in higher Redstone ’44, LL.B. ’47, has donated $10 for facilities, and more than 260 en- education driven by new conditions in million to Harvard Law School, to fund dowed professorships. the financial and competitive landscapes,

Renderings courtesy of Harvard Public Affairs and Communications Harvard Magazine 21 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 John Harvard's Journal

Inside Higher Education (IHE) has reported and could face five years in prison and a ence on January 24, was underwritten by that Haverford College may restrict its $250,000 fine. For a full report, seehttp:// Liberty Mutual Insurance (platinum), no-loan aid packages, at least for students harvardmag.com/kim-14. VMware (gold), and Microsoft (the stu- from somewhat higher-income families. dent computational challenge sponsor). Cornell and Virginia have recently an- Arts honorand. Novelist and poet Mar- The Women Engineers Code Conference nounced similar refinements.IHE also re- garet Atwood, A.M. ’62, Litt.D. ’04, re- was “made possible by” Goldman Sachs, ported that Johns Hopkins is discussing turns to campus on May Facebook, Intuit, Rackspace, Google, larger, longer stipend packages ($30,000, 1 to receive the Harvard Qualcomm, Microsoft, and others. And five years, up from $22,000 now) for grad- Arts Medal during the Hasty Pudding Theatricals’ man and uate students, accompanied by reducing annual Arts First fes- woman of the year extravaganzas are graduate enrollment by 25 percent dur- tival. She was the Rad- now sponsored by Related Companies, ing a five-year period; it is also “leaning cliffe Medalist in 2003 the New York-based real-estate devel-

junior”—emphasizing hiring junior pro- (see http://harvardmag. Malek Jean oper (with Boston operations). fessors to succeed retiring senior faculty com/democracy). Margaret members. Atwood Football facilities. As plans advance to Making book. Five Harvard affiliates are renovate Harvard Stadium (including the Nota Bene finalists for National Book Critics Circle addition of 350 enclosed seats and reduc- Early app avalanche. The College an- awards for works published in 2013; win- tion of overall capacity from 30,262 spec- nounced in December that 992 applicants ners will be announced on March 13. tators to 22,333), another storied venue is from a pool of 4,692 were granted early- They are: Amy Wilentz ’76, Farewell, Fred about to be overhauled, too. Notre Dame action admission to the class of 2018, Voodoo: A Letter from Haiti (autobiography); has announced that it will spend $400 entering this autumn. During 2011 and Leo Damrosch, Bernbaum professor of million to add 750,000 square feet of new 2012—when early action was reinstated literature emeritus, Jonathan Swift: His Life buildings to the south, east, and west sides after a four-year hiatus—774 and 892 ap- and His World (biography); Kevin Cul- of its stadium. The structures will house plicants were admitted. Because admit- len, NF ’03, and Shelley Murphy, Whitey academic departments; student organiza- ted early applicants have a strong pro- Bulger: America’s Most Wanted Gangster and the tions and recreation and career centers; pensity to enroll, members of the regular Manhunt That Brought Him to Justice (nonfic- and up to 4,000 premium seats. admissions pool face an extraordinarily tion); Frank Bidart, A.M. ’67, Metaphysical low admissions rate—heading toward 3 Dog; and Lucie Brock-Broido, a former Miscellany. Sandra Naddaff ’75, Ph.D. unications

percent. Total applications were 34,295, Briggs-Copeland poet, Stay, Illusion (the ’83, senior lecturer on literature and com- mm down 2 percent from last year. latter two both in poetry). parative literature and director of the freshman-seminar program, has been ap- Bomb scare. Undergraduate exams were Commercial connections. In further pointed dean of Harvard Summer School. disrupted on December 16 when Univer- signs of Harvard’s interest in business She served as Mather sity police and others received e-mailed connections and sponsorships, the ath- House master from 1993 to threats that explosives had been placed letics operations’ affiliation with John 2010.…Skanska USA, the in Sever, Emerson, Thayer, and the Sci- Harvard’s Brewery extends into winter- construction company, ence Center—especially alarming fol- season sports with the “Crimson Pub” has announced a $57-mil- lowing the Boston Marathon terrorism offering food and a cash bar in Dillon lion contract to build last April. After the e-mails were traced, Lounge before games, at intermission, Harvard Business School’s Eldo Kim ’16 was charged with making and post-game. At the School of Engi- Ruth Mulan Chu Chao co and affairs public m itchell/harvard stephanie the threats in order to avoid an exam— neering and Applied Sciences, the third Sandra Center, a replacement for Naddaff annual symposium Kresge Hall, part of the on the future of executive-education complex at the east- computation, pre- ern end of its campus (see full details in sented by the In- http://harvardmag.com/chao-14). Work stitute for Applied is to begin in March, and to be completed Computational Sci- for Commencement 2016.

Rebuilt to a LEED gold sustainability standard and expanded by 10,000 square feet, the Tozzer Library building on Divinity Avenue will, this May, help bring together all the sub-disciplines of the anthropology department, as the social anthropologists (now

C in William James Hall) move in to join the archaeologists in the adjacent Peabody Museum. In accord with larger discussions about the changing role of academic libraries, the project has agazine/J reconceived Tozzer as a series of collaborative spaces, rather than simply as storage for the 54,000 volumes that will remain. harvard m harvard

22 March - April 2014 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 John Harvard's Journal

Harvard in Allston, now and in development (above left): The figure shows existing uses, ber 2013 such as the athletic facilities (the Stadium is the blue U) and the business School campus. m Orange and blue blocks are projects authorized by the Institutional Master Plan; yellow ece blocks, previously approved, include the science center (the large quadrilateral, lower center). Allston imagined (above right): the schematic indicating potential building along eport, D eport, Western Avenue and filling the enterprise research campus (lower right). pact R pact IMP and environmental report is exactly ity; and as Boston’s building momentum ental Imental m that, he emphasized: provisional at best. resumes and the University’s fundraising But clearly, as FAS, the design and medi- gains momentum, the sap is running again nviron cal schools, and others plan for future re- for a new season of imagining the Allston, 11th Annual raft E search and teaching space; as the IMP and and Harvard, of the future. Said Garber, Attention Juniors other projects morph from plan to real- “We’re excited to move forward.” ource: D S Class of 2015 Enroll Now... The College’s portant aspect of the College dean’s re- College Application sponsibilities. In inclination and intellect ® New Dean (he studies leadership development, orga- Boot Camp nizational behavior and effectiveness, and Intensive 4-day Camp Summer 2014 Rakesh Khurana, Bower professor of management as a profession), he is known Join us in Cambridge, MA leadership development at Harvard Business for building consensus, listening and cre- Complete your college applications School and professor of sociology in the Fac- ating opportunities for others to be heard, with leading admission pros: ulty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), will become and enthusiastic engagement with the stu- Dr. Michele Hernandez, dean of Harvard College on July 1. He and his dents in Cabot House. (For a full report on former Assistant Director of Admissions at Dartmouth College and wife, Stephanie Ralston Khurana, have served Khurana’s background and Harvard com- author of A is for Admission as master and co-master of Cabot House since mitments, see http://harvardmag.com/ and mid 2010, and will retain those posts when khurana-14.) Mimi Doe, Khurana assumes his new duties in University In his statement, Dean Smith said Khura- parenting guru and author of Busy but Balanced Hall. FAS dean Michael D. Smith announced na “brings to the deanship an intimate un- • Last 10 years were sellouts the appointment on January 22. It follows a derstanding of the Harvard College experi- • Call now to reserve your space formal search, and concludes a somewhat ence, a profound commitment to the values difficult decanal transition from Evelynn M. of a liberal-arts education, and a warm and Hammonds, who departed at the end of the compassionate personality that accompa- 2012-2013 academic year, to Donald Pfister, nies his belief in the importance of commu- who serves as interim dean this year. nity and an inclusive approach to decision- ® Application Boot Camp As a House master, Khurana is already making.” The new dean, he continued, “will deeply involved with undergraduates’ advance undergraduate education with ApplicationBootCamp.com daily lives outside the classroom, an im- both a respect for enduring values and the 1-781-530-7088 Email: [email protected]

Harvard Magazine 23 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 John Harvard's Journal ability to embrace change. He understands the undergraduate the interplay of academic, extracurricular, and residential life at Harvard….” Speaking by telephone from Davos, where he was participating in the World Baby Talk Economic Forum, Khurana said that he and his wife insisted on remaining at by jessica salley ’14 Cabot House, citing their enjoyment of the responsibility and its importance in informing their sense of student needs bout halfway through fresh- promptly shoved him toward my father. as he shapes College policy. Asked about man year, one of my roommates He looked at me, concerned. “Is some- FAS’s prospective academic honor code for made a startling confession. thing wrong?” he asked. undergraduates (Khurana serves on the “You know, before we all got to “No. No. I mean, no, I just didn’t know committee leading this work), he broad- Aschool…I thought you had a baby.” what to do with that thing.” ened the conversation this way: “There is My roommates and I were draped a strong thirst among students, faculty, across the futons in our common room, Four years later, not much has changed and staff to discuss these issues and cre- and as she said it, she burst out laughing. in that department. I teach civics to fifth- ate space for these discussions to happen. Everyone else followed, but I stayed silent. graders in Allston once a week, and I’m That is a really important part of the Col- “Wait. What?” I asked, dumbfounded. quite fond of all of them. They are witty, “Well, you had that Facebook album insightful little people who drive me insane just called ‘BABY!’ and someone left a com- in their own individual fashions, but who ment on it saying, ‘I didn’t know you had also sometimes restore my faith in human- a kid!’” ity. At the same time, I appreciate the stat- “Uhh. That’s my 40-year-old half-sis- utes that prevent me from making physical ter’s son,” I finally said. “And the com- contact with them, if only because this has menter was my friend Anthony, who sat legally justified my awkward, two-pat-on- next to me in math class for three years. the-shoulder response to the few instances I’m pretty sure he’d have noticed if I’d had in which they’ve rushed to greet me or seek a baby.” comfort from me. (This mostly happens in

unications She held up her hands, as if accused by attempts to trump up charges of meanness mm the law. “I know. I figured that out when against classmates.) you showed up to school and didn’t have At school, even my friends in serious re- a kid,” she responded, still laughing. “My lationships think mostly like me: for most brother and I just had this theory that you of us, having children, and even marriage, were a teen mom and you wrote a really are entirely abstract ideas at this point. moving essay about it, and that’s how you In conversations with my roommates, it’s got in. It was sort of a joke, but, I mean, about Pinterest boards full of bridesmaid you are from Louisiana….” She trailed off, dresses or arguments on DJs versus live unsure whether she was still in friendly bands. “When I get married to Justin Tim- Rakesh Khurana territory or had overstepped the line. berlake” is still a pretty common way that

itchell/harvard public affairs and co and affairs public m itchell/harvard stephanie I laughed, because what else can you do these dreams take form, whether or not a lege education. It goes back to the roots of when your freshman roommate tells you flesh-and-blood significant other is in atten- the liberal arts,” as students shape their she thought you would show up to Har- dance. We have no idea whom we’ll marry, “moral identities” and determine “the vard dragging a baby carriage up the stairs or when; we just like the idea of planning people they hope to become.” That work of your freshman dorm, saddled with a a big party with an open bar that all of our goes on not only in the classroom but also carry-on diaper bag, a suitcase full of for- friends will feel obligated to attend. in the Houses, he said. “It’s hard to have mula, and a baby on your hip? When conversations about marriage those conversations without considering My laughter turned a little more genu- and having children turn more serious, we the whole person,” and he expressed hope ine when I tried to picture it myself. I’m talk of the unrealistic expectations set up that the opportunities for such exchanges not exaggerating when I say I completely for us by the media. We share blog posts and reflections could be strengthened— lack whatever complex mental or chemi- about how race, class, and womanhood part of his desire, as College dean, to cal processes comprise “maternal in- are represented in TV shows from Girls to “work in ways that create a transformative stinct.” When my half-sister first handed Scandal. We’ve read books like Lean In, and experience for our students.” me my newborn nephew, the BABY! from if we haven’t, we know how to talk as if we Read more about the Khuranas’ perspectives on my Facebook album all those years ago, I have. We ultimately agree that we want to the undergraduate experience in “Learning, and looked into his beautiful steel-blue eyes, be established in our careers before we can Life, in the Houses” (November-December 2013, took in the reality of his teensy button really consider starting a family. But we page 46). nose and his little yawning mouth, and also know how to critique Sheryl Sand-

24 March - April 2014 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746

berg’s book: that her claims about how I’m at lunch with my family at a café in expectations from teachers and parents, women should assert themselves in the town during winter break, and I notice a and teenage rebellion! They think they can home and in the workplace are mostly ap- table of women across the room. They’re have stable relationships and children at 21 plicable to a narrow subset of the popula- done with their meal, and one of the wom- and 22, before they have a degree or a job! tion—women with lots of education, lots en, a redhead, gets up and hugs the other My head fills with exclamation points. of money, and lots of privilege. two goodbye. She picks up the plastic baby- Later that day, as I browse Facebook to It was hard for me the first time I real- carrying device that sits next to the table avoid writing my thesis, three engagement ized that, when I graduate from Harvard, I and walks out of the restaurant, and that’s announcements pop up on my news feed. will certainly fall into two of these catego- when I realize she graduated from high I inspect them all with an interest that I ries, even if I’m never rich. I couldn’t—and school with me. suspect I couldn’t sustain if I weren’t sup- still can’t—help feeling sometimes like I’m betraying a part of myself, no matter how The week of high-school commencement, my much I know that I sent off my application to Harvard with every hope of receiving a friends and I made a list of the 10 mothers who letter in the mail that would set me free from spending the rest of my life in Cov- would graduate with us the next day. ington, Louisiana. At home, well, things are not like they She sort of looks like a grown-up, but posed to be analyzing my primary sources. are here. My friends and I made a list, the I remember her birthday was after mine Suddenly, another former classmate posts week of high-school commencement, of and I certainly don’t feel like a grown-up. a link to a blog entry entitled “23 Things to the 10 mothers who would graduate with I am almost incensed, because I remember Do Instead of Getting Married at 23.” us the next day. As if some great water all the gossip that went on in high school Shots have been fired. I watch the com- had broken, baby and wedding announce- about the girls who got pregnant. My ini- bative comments pour in before I return to ments have continued pouring into my tial response is admittedly unkind: This the article I was reading. “Really? Eating Facebook news feed since then. But now, is even worse! I think. My old classmates a whole jar of Nutella is better than be- even some of us who went to college are who are having children now are no longer ing married at 23?” one of the comments getting engaged and—or—pregnant. just products of bad sex education, low begins, referencing number 17 on the list.

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Harvard Magazine 25 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 John Harvard's Journal

“Spare me.” for a couple of years now, The commenter has a and it’s actually amazing point. I’m currently writ- how fast they grow—the ing 70-plus pages that children, I think at first, probably five people in the but my old classmates, world—six, I guess, if my too—how quickly things mom makes it through my change. In photographs, whole thesis—will ever at least, everyone is all read, so I suppose I should smiles. They look truly understand what it means happy, at least for the mo- to have different priorities. ment caught in the frame. Still, there are some as- I wonder if my room- pects of baby madness I mates will ever actu- can’t abide. One day over ally see me toting a child break, my older sister is through Harvard Yard. getting ready to meet a Maybe one day, I think. good friend from high Maybe not. Certainly not school, who has just come now. After all, I haven’t from his best friend’s baby finished my thesis, gotten shower. This one had a a job, met someone I’d ever twist, though. It was a consider spending my life “gender reveal” party—a with, or even read Lean In trend I’d never heard of yet. But when I go home before—in which the hap- after graduation, I want to py couple presents their meet my friends’ kids and guests with a cake, the pat them awkwardly on outside covered in white the head. By God, though, frosting. But when the if someone invites me to knife is brought down and a gender-reveal party I the first slice produced for will— the waiting crowd—like Make some comment magic!—the icing holding about loving your child the layers together is pink no matter what, grit my or blue. Everyone celebrates the impend- Mostly, though, what they post is pic- teeth, and show up to the party, gender ing arrival of the baby boy or girl. tures: of their babies, of themselves with role-subverting baby gift in hand. Eat- My sister and I talk about how annoy- their children, of kids with their fathers, ing the cake, I suspect—whether pink or ing it is to prescribe gender expectations of family trips with young grandparents blue—will be hard to avoid. to your children even before they are born. on the weekend. As for the few good We discuss it in the kitchen for a couple of friends I’ve had who are now mothers— Berta Greenwald Ledecky Undergraduate Fellow minutes, before our mom provides the last who mostly stopped being good friends, Jessica Salley ’14 is likely still procrastinating in word: “That is one of the stupidest things because I never knew how to talk to them writing her thesis. After graduation, she hopes to I’ve ever heard. I was just so happy to be about it, really—I’ve been paying attention enter a career in anything but childcare. having my children at all!” I wonder about having a child, whether it means you’ll be happy. Especially when Sports you’re so, so young. The girls at home—a lot of their Facebook statuses include the same worries and sadnesses. While they’re pregnant, the morning sickness—and the Thicker than Water apprehension—are unbearable. When they finally have their kids, the vomiting Flying down Ivy lanes with the brothers Satterthwaite stops but the anxiety doesn’t. They write that they never get enough sleep. That the bills are getting higher, that it’s tough to n mid November, at a swim meet tition. Crimson co-captain Chris Satterth- figure out how to fill out insurance forms among Harvard, Cornell, and Dart- waite ’14 and sibling Sean ’17 swam for Har- or find the right daycare. That they’re sick mouth at Hanover, spectators wit- vard, while middle brother Tim, a Cornell of people judging them for having kids nessed a rarity in college aquatics: junior, raced for the Big Red. To make things when they’re young. Ithree brothers racing in the same compe- even more interesting, all three swim the

26 March - April 2014 Illustration by Caroline Attia Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 same events: the 50-, 100-, and 200-yard free- RiveRwatch style. In the anchor leg of the 4 x 100-yard freestyle relay, Chris and Tim went head- to-head: Harvard took first, Cornell third. Harvard also won the meet, garnering 13 wins in 16 events. “They blew us out of the water,” says Tim, “but the trash talk- ing was all there, the joking around.” He informed Chris that with another five yards, he probably would have caught him, and told Sean, the slimmest of three, “That Harvard weight room hasn’t put any weight on you.” The trio’s parents flew in from Min- nesota for the meet. “You end up root- ing for the kids to do well rather than to beat each other,” says Ann (MacKen- zie) Satterthwaite ’84, who managed the women’s swim team in college. A former investment banker, she married Tony Satterthwaite, a Cornell-educated busi- nessman. They started a family in Eng- land and in equatorial Singapore, where viRginia • 56 acre Riverfront estate • 7,237 Finished Sq. Ft. the kids all hit the pool. (“It was so hot • Spectacular James River views • 30 minutes to Charlottesville there,” Chris recalls. “From very, very • Gracious Rooms • owned by an HBS ’66 alum • $2,400,000 young ages we were in the water a lot.”) The youngest, daughter Katie, now a StevenS & Company RealtoRS • Charlottesville • (434) 296-6104 www.stevensandcompany.net high-school junior, also swims competi- tively. “The only one who doesn’t swim is the dog,” Ann says. The family settled in Edina, Minnesota, in 2003. “Tim is and always was super-com- petitive. He likes beating the other guy. He loved playing rugby in England—he would like swimming even more if he could hit people,” Ann explains. “Chris Answers likes the grace and solitude, and challeng- for ing himself to do better. Sean has good stamina and is also competitive. All three addiction were Eagle Scouts.” So far, Chris has made the biggest splash Fernside helps break the cycle of relapse, in Ivy League pools. His best times for the treating addiction and any accompanying 50 free (19.67 seconds), 100 free (42.99), 200 illnesses. Blending compassion and research, free (1:35.00), and even the 100 backstroke this Harvard Medical School-affiliated program is unparalleled. (49.92) all rank in the top 10 ever record- Let us help you today. Call 855.707.0552. ed by a Harvard athlete, and the 100-free time is a College record. He also swam on the 200- and 400-freestyle and 400-med- ley relay teams that hold Harvard records, with the 400-free relay also setting an Ivy record. Years of training and practice un- derlie his success, but it doesn’t hurt that at six feet, five inches, and 185 pounds, he slices through the water with a long, nar- America’s #1 Hospital for Psychiatry row silhouette. A longer body and arms translate into fewer, but lengthier, strokes to cover a given distance, and extra reach Boston, Mass. www.mcleanhospital.org increases both water speed and the ability www.gocrimson.com Harvard Magazine 27 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 John Harvard's Journal to touch the wall sooner at the finish. Sean and Tim are built on a similar model, though three and six inches shorter, respec- tively, than their brother. (Male Olympic swimmers typically stand between six feet, two inches, and six feet, four inch- es, and weigh from 180 to 190 pounds.) Aerodynamics count. “It is about efficiency, minimizing water resistance,” says head swimming coach Kevin Tyr- rell. “There aren’t many fish designed like a barge.” Chris explains, “The wider I am, the more drag, the more water I have to displace to move for- ward.” In freestyle, streamlin- ing means rotating from side to side through an arc of nearly 180 degrees with each stroke, Sean and Chris Satterthwaite maximizing the time spent sideways in the water: a body perpendicu- white shark chasing me,” Sean recalls. England. (“Swimmers are very uncoordi- lar to the pool’s bottom offers less resis- “You will go pretty fast.” nated on land,” says Chris, who once broke tance than one parallel to it. “You want Swimmers go even faster in relay races, a foot playing beach football on a team trip that rotation to look smooth,” Chris says. in which four teammates each swim a leg; to Puerto Rico. “You want to keep them “Graceful and easy.” relays score more points than individual away from any activity where they might Freestylers usually breathe every three events. In an individual race, a typical hurt themselves.” Sean adds, “Chris stuck or four strokes, but in the 50-yard sprint, reaction time to the starter’s electronic with swimming because he was good at lasting only about 20 seconds, he swims “beep” is 0.7 seconds, but in a relay race it. I stuck with it because I was awful at the whole race on one breath. In addition that can drop to 0.03 or 0.04 seconds, and everything else.”) All three brothers had to sound technique, fitness is the key to such tiny differences can be decisive. Fur- distinguished, state-championship careers winning races; the swimmer in better thermore, the first swimmer in the race at Edina High School under coach Art shape slows down less in the final lap. dives in from the blocks, but the other Downey, who has just completed his fifty- seventh year there. “Swimming for him,” “I used to picture a great white shark chasing Sean says, “was an experience you wanted to have at all costs.” me,” Sean recalls. “You will go pretty fast.” History suggests that Chris and Sean are more likely than Tim to leave col- There are also intangible talents like hav- three “can take two steps and almost get lege as Ivy League champions. Since 1994, ing “a feel for the water,” says Chris: that a running start,” Tyrrell explains. As the only Harvard and Princeton have won Ivy means having a good kinesthetic sense of previous swimmer finishes his leg, “you titles—nine for the Crimson, 12 for Princ- where your body is and how it reacts to judge how fast he is coming in and predict eton, including the last five. Cornell’s lone water. And there’s a huge mental com- when he will touch the wall,” Chris says. championship came in a four-way tie in ponent that includes the ability to stare (Diving in too soon disqualifies the team, 1984. This year’s win- at a black line on the bottom of the pool but it’s a legal exchange as long as a swim- ner gets decided at for five hours a day, or 20 hours a week, mer’s toes are in contact with the block the season-ending Ivy Visit harvardmag.com/ of practice. In addition, “Some people are as his teammate hits the touch pad on the meet, held at Harvard’s extras to view a video very, very competitive,” Sean notes. “They wall; electronic sensors flag violations.) Blodgett Pool from of the Satterthwaites may do less work in practice, but have a The group effort seems to energize the February 27 through training to increase their speed. racing mentality: as soon as that guy steps athletes: “No one wants to have the slow- March 1. Regardless onto the blocks, he’s a racer.” It helps to est split time,” Chris explains. of the outcome, it’s a foregone conclusion reach as far out as possible on every stroke, Technically, the two Harvard brothers that three of the athletes having the most especially the last one, where “out-touch- are walk-ons; neither received a “likely let- fun, rooting for each other, and swimming ing” an opponent at the wall often decides ter” prior to admission, as recruits gener- some of the best times, will be named Sat- a race. “As a kid, I used to picture a great ally do. They’d played cricket and rugby in terthwaite. vcraig lambert

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140110_AdvancedLeadership_Harvard.indd 1 11/21/13 10:33 AM 0011100100 010010 100010011110000101010100 010101011110101 100101010 011101000111001000011100100 010010 100010011110000101010100 010101011110101 100101010 01110100011100100 0 1001010001001111000010101010001010101111010110010101011101010101011101110001001000001000010011100100 0100101000100111100001010101001001010001001111000010101010001010101111010110010101011101010101011101110001001000001000010011100100 010010100010011110000101010100 010101011110101 100101010 011101010 10101110111000100100000100001000111001000100101000100111100001010101000101010111101011001010100111010101010111011100010010000010000101010101110111001001000001000010 00111 00100010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101100101010011101000111001000100101000100111100001010101000101010111101011001010100111010101010111011100010010 000010000100011100100010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101100101001110101010101110111000100100000100001000111001010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101 10010101001110101010101110111000100100000100001010101011101110001001000001000010001110010001001010001001111000010101010001010101111010110010101001110100011100100 0 1001010001001111000010101010001010101111010100101010011101010101011101110001001000001000010001110010010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101001010100111010101001010001001111000010101010001010101111010110010101011101010101011101110001001000001000010011100100 010010100010011110000101010100 010101011110101 100101010 011101010 10101110111000100100000100001000111001000100101000100111100001010101000101010111101011001010100111010101010111011100010010000010000110101011101110001001000001000010 00111 00100010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101100101010011101000111001000100101000100111100001010101000101010111101011001010100111010101010111011100010010 000010000100011100100010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101100101001110101010101110111000100100000100001000111001010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101 10010101001110101010101110111000100100000100001010101011101110001001000001000010001110010001001010001001111000010101010001010101111010010101001110100011100100 0 1001010001001111000010101010001010101111010100101010011101010101011101110001001000001000010001110010010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101100101010 0111010101001010001001111000010101010001010101111010110010101011101010101011101110001001000001000010011100100 010010100010011110000101010100 010101011110101 100101010 011101010 10101110111000100100000100001000111001000100101000100111100001010101000101010111101011001010100111010101010111011100010010000010000110101011101110001001000001000010 00111 00100010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101100101010011101000111001000100101000100111100001010101000101010111101011001010100111010101010111011100010010 00001000010001110010001001010001001111000010101010001010101111010110010100111010101010111011100010010000010000100011100101001010001001111000010101010010101011110101 10010101001110101010101110111000100100000100001010101011101110001001000001000010001110010001001010001001111000010101010001010101111010100101001110100011100100 0 10101110111000100100000100001000111001000100101000100111100001010101000101010111101011001010100111010101010111011100010010000010000101010101110111001001000001000010 00111 00100010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101100101010011101000111001000100101000100111100001010101000101010111101011001010100111010101010111011100010010 000010000100011100100010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101100101001110101010101110111000100100000100001000111001010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101 10010101001110101010101110111000100100000100001010101011101110001001000001000010001110010001001010001001111000010101010001010101111010110010101001110100011100100 0 1001010001001111000010101010001010101111010100101010011101010101011101110001001000001000010001110010010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101001010100111010101001010001001111000010101010001010101111010110010101011101010101011101110001001000001000010011100100 010010100010011110000101010100 010101011110101 100101010 011101010 10101110111000100100000100001000111001000100101000100111100001010101000101010111101011001010100111010101010111011100010010000010000110101011101110001001000001000010 00111 0010001001010001001111000010101010001010101111010110010101001110100011100100010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101100101Data now stream from daily life: from phones and credit cards in academia and science, industry and government0100111010101010111011100010010 and nonprof- 000010000100011100100010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101100101001110101010101110111000100100000100001000111001010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101 1001010100111010101010111011100010010000010000101010101110111000100100000100001000111001000100101000100111100001010101000101010and televisions and computers; from the infrastructure of cities; its,” says King, who directs Harvard’s Institute1111010010101001110100011100100 for Quantitative 0 1001010001001111000010101010001010101111010100101010011101010101011101110001001000001000010001110010010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101100101010 0111010101001010001001111000010101010001010101111010110010101011101010101011101110001001000001000010011100100 010010100010011110000101010100 010101011110101 100101010 011101010 1010111011100010010000010000100011100100010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101100101010011101010101011101110001001000001from sensor-equipped buildings, trains, buses, planes, bridges, Social Science (IQSS), a hub of expertise0000110101011101110001001000001000010 for interdisciplinary 00111 00100010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101100101010011101000111001000100101000100111100001010101000101010111101011001010100111010101010111011100010010 0000100001000111001000100101000100111100001010101000101010111101011001010011101010101011101110001001000001000010001110010100101and factories. The data flow so fast that the total accumulation projects aimed at solving problems in 0001001111000010101010010101011110101human society. Among 1001010100111010101010111011100010010000010000101010101110111000100100000100001000111001000100101000100111100001010101000101010111101010010100111010001110010101110111000100100000100001000111001000100101000100111100001010101000101010111101011001010100111010101010111011100010010000010000101010101110111001001000001000010 00111 0010001001010001001111000010101010001010101111010110010101001110100011100100010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101100101of the past two years—a zettabyte—dwarfs the prior record of faculty colleagues, he reports, “Half the 0100111010101010111011100010010members of the govern- 000010000100011100100010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101100101001110101010101110111000100100000100001000111001010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101 1001010100111010101010111011100010010000010000101010101110111000100100000100001000111001000100101000100111100001010101000101010human civilization. “There is a big data revolution,” says Weath- ment department are doing some type of 1111010110010101001110100011100100data analysis, along with 0 1001010001001111000010101010001010101111010100101010011101010101011101110001001000001000010001110010010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101001010100111010101001010001001111000010101010001010101111010110010101011101010101011101110001001000001000010011100100 010010100010011110000101010100 010101011110101 100101010 011101010 1010111011100010010000010000100011100100010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101100101010011101010101011101110001001000001erhead University Professor Gary King. But it is not the quantity of much of the sociology department and a good0000110101011101110001001000001000010 fraction of econom- 00111 00100010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101100101010011101000111001000100101000100111100001010101000101010111101011001010100111010101010111011100010010 0000100001000111001000100101000100111100001010101000101010111101011001010011101010101011101110001001000001000010001110010100101data that is revolutionary. “The big data revolution is that now we ics, more than half of the School of Public00010011110000101010100010101011110101 Health, and a lot in the 10010101001110101010101110111000100100000100001010101011101110001001000001000010001110010001001010001001111000010101010001010101111010010101001110100011100100 0 1001010001001111000010101010001010101111010100101010011101010101011101110001001000001000010001110010010010100010011110000101010can do something with the data.” Medical School.” Even law has been seized100010101011110101100101010 by the movement to 0111010101001010001001111000010101010001010101111010110010101011101010101011101110001001000001000010011100100 010010100010011110000101010100 010101011110101 100101010 011101010 10101110111000100100000100001000111001000100101000100111100001010101000101010111101011001010100111010101010111011100010010000010000110101011101110001001000001000010 00111 0010001001010001001111000010101010001010101111010110010101001110100011100100010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101100101The revolution lies in improved statistical and computational empirical research—“which is social science,”0100111010101010111011100010010 he says. “It is hard 00001000010001110010001001010001001111000010101010001010101111010110010100111010101010111011100010010000010000100011100101001010001001111000010101010010101011110101 1001010100111010101010111011100010010000010000101010101110111000100100000100001000111001000100101000100111100001010101000101010methods, not in the exponential growth of storage or even com- to find an area that hasn’t been affected.”111101010010100111010001110010101110111000100100000100001000111001000100101000100111100001010101000101010111101011001010100111010101010111011100010010000010000101010101110111001001000001000010 00111 00100010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101100101010011101000111001000100101000100111100001010101000101010111101011001010100111010101010111011100010010 0000100001000111001000100101000100111100001010101000101010111101011001010011101010101011101110001001000001000010001110010100101putational capacity, King explains. The doubling of computing The story follows a similar pattern in 00010011110000101010100010101011110101every field, King asserts. 10010101001110101010101110111000100100000100001010101011101110001001000001000010001110010001001010001001111000010101010001010101111010110010101001110100011100100 0 1001010001001111000010101010001010101111010100101010011101010101011101110001001000001000010001110010010010100010011110000101010power every 18 months (Moore’s Law) “is nothing compared to The leaders are qualitative experts in their1000101010111101010010101001110101010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101100101010111010101010111011100010010000010000100 field. Then a statistical 11100100 010010100010011110000101010100 010101011110101 100101010 011101010 10101110111000100100000100001000111001000100101000100111100001010101000101010111101011001010100111010101010111011100010010000010000110101011101110001001000001000010 00111 0010001001010001001111000010101010001010101111010110010101001110100011100100010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101100101a big algorithm”—a set of rules that can be researcher who doesn’t0100111010101010111011100010010 know the details 000010000100011100100010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101100101001110101010101110111000100100000100001000111001010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101 1001010100111010101010111011100010010000010000101010101110111000100100000100001000111001000100101000100111100001010101000101010used to solve a problem a thousand times of the field comes1111010010101001110100011100100 in and, using modern 0 1001010001001111000010101010001010101111010100101010011101010101011101110001001000001000010001110010010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101100101010 0111010101001010001001111000010101010001010101111010110010101011101010101011101110001001000001000010011100100 010010100010011110000101010100 010101011110101 100101010 011101010 1010111011100010010000010000100011100100010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101100101010011101010101011101110001001000001faster than conventional computational Information data analysis, adds0000110101011101110001001000001000010 tremendous insight 00111 00100010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101100101010011101000111001000100101000100111100001010101000101010111101011001010100111010101010111011100010010 0000100001000111001000100101000100111100001010101000101010111101011001010011101010101011101110001001000001000010001110010100101methods could. One colleague, faced with and value. As an0001001111000010101010010101011110101 example, he describes 1001010100111010101010111011100010010000010000101010101110111000100100000100001000111001000100101000100111100001010101000101010111101010010100111010001110010101110111000100100000100001000111001000100101000100111100001010101000101010111101011001010100111010101010111011100010010000010000101010101110111001001000001000010 00111 0010001001010001001111000010101010001010101111010110010101001110100011100100010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101100101a mountain of data, figured out that he science how Kevin Quinn,0100111010101010111011100010010 formerly an assistant 000010000100011100100010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101100101001110101010101110111000100100000100001000111001010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101 1001010100111010101010111011100010010000010000101010101110111000100100000100001000111001000100101000100111100001010101000101010would need a $2-million computer to ana- professor of government1111010110010101001110100011100100 at Harvard, ran 0 1001010001001111000010101010001010101111010100101010011101010101011101110001001000001000010001110010010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101001010100111010101001010001001111000010101010001010101111010110010101011101010101011101110001001000001000010011100100 010010100010011110000101010100 010101011110101 100101010 011101010 1010111011100010010000010000100011100100010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101100101010011101010101011101110001001000001lyze it. Instead, King and his graduate stu- promises to a contest comparing0000110101011101110001001000001000010 his statistical model 00111 00100010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101100101010011101000111001000100101000100111100001010101000101010111101011001010100111010101010111011100010010 0000100001000111001000100101000100111100001010101000101010111101011001010011101010101011101110001001000001000010001110010100101dents came up with an algorithm within to the qualitative 00010011110000101010100010101011110101judgments of 87 law pro- 10010101001110101010101110111000100100000100001010101011101110001001000001000010001110010001001010001001111000010101010001010101111010010101001110100011100100 0 1001010001001111000010101010001010101111010100101010011101010101011101110001001000001000010001110010010010100010011110000101010two hours that would do the same thing change fessors to see which100010101011110101100101010 could best predict the 0111010101001010001001111000010101010001010101111010110010101011101010101011101110001001000001000010011100100 010010100010011110000101010100 010101011110101 100101010 011101010 10101110111000100100000100001000111001000100101000100111100001010101000101010111101011001010100111010101010111011100010010000010000110101011101110001001000001000010 00111 0010001001010001001111000010101010001010101111010110010101001110100011100100010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101100101in 20 minutes—on a laptop: a simple ex- outcome of all the0100111010101010111011100010010 Supreme Court cases in 00001000010001110010001001010001001111000010101010001010101111010110010100111010101010111011100010010000010000100011100101001010001001111000010101010010101011110101 1001010100111010101010111011100010010000010000101010101110111000100100000100001000111001000100101000100111100001010101000101010ample, but illustrative. a year. “The law 1111010100101001110100011100100101000100111100001010101000101010111101010010101001110101010101110111000100100000100001000111001professors knew the ju- 001001010001001111000010101010001010101111010100101010 0111010101001010001001111000010101010001010101111010110010101011101010101011101110001001000001000010011100100 010010100010011110000101010100 010101011110101 100101010 011101010 1010111011100010010000010000100011100100010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101100101010011101010101011101110001001000001the world. 0000110101011101110 001001000001000010 00111 0010001001010001001111000010101010001010101111010110010101001110100011100100010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101100101New ways of linking datasets have played risprudence and what010011101010101011101110 each of the justices 0010010 000010000100011100100010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101100101001110101010101110111000100100000100001000111001010010 100010011110000101010100 010101011110101 1001010100111010101010111011100010010000010000101010101110111000100100000100001000111001000100101000100111100001010101000101010a large role in generating new insights. And had decided in previous11110101 cases, 100101010 they 01110100011100100knew 0 1001010001001111000010101010001010101111010100101010011101010101011101110001001000001000010001110010010010100010011110000101010100 010101011110101 100101010 0111010101001010001001111000010101010001010101111010110010101011101010101011101110001001000001000010011100100 010010100010011110000101010100 010101011110101 100101010 011101010 1010111011100010010000010000100011100100010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101100101010011101010101011101110001001000001creative approaches to visualizing data—hu- the case law and all000010 the arguments,”10101011101110 King 001001000001000010 00111 0010001001010001001111000010101010001010101111010110010101001110100011100100010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101100101010011101010101011101110 0010010 000010000100011100100010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101100101001110101010101110111000100100000100001000111001010010mans are far better than computers at see- recalls. “Quinn and 100010011110000101010100 his collaborator, An 010101011110101- 1001010100111010101010111011100010010000010000101010101110111000100100000100001000111001000100101000100111100001010101000101010by 11110101 100101010 01110100011100100 0 1001010001001111000010101010001010101111010100101010011101010101011101110001001000001000010001110010010010100010011110000101010ing patterns—frequently prove integral to drew Martin [then100 an 010101011110101 associate professor 100101010 0111010101001010001001111000010101010001010101111010110010101011101010101011101110001001000001000010011100100 010010100010011110000101010100 010101011110101 100101010 011101010 1010111011100010010000010000100011100100010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101100101010011101010101011101110001001000001000010 10101011101110 001001000001000010 00111 0010001001010001001111000010101010001010101111010110010101001110100011100100010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101100101the process of creating knowledge. Many of of political science010011101010101011101110 at Washington Uni 0010010- 000010000100011100100010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101100101001110101010101110111000100100000100001000111001010010Jonathan Shaw 100010011110000101010100 010101011110101 1001010100111010101010111011100010010000010000101010101110111000100100000100001000111001000100101000100111100001010101000101010the tools now being developed can be used versity], collected11110101 six crude 100101010 variables 01110100011100100 on 0 1001010001001111000010101010001010101111010100101010011101010101011101110001001000001000010001110010010010100010011110000101010100 010101011110101 100101010 011101010 010101011110101 100101010 011101010 1010111011100010010000010000100011100100010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101100101010011101010101011101110001001000001across disciplines as seemingly disparate as a whole lot of previous000010 10101011101110cases and did 001001000001000010 an 00111 0010001001010001001111000010101010001010101111010110010101001110100011100100010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101100101010011101010101011101110 0010010 000010000100011100100010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101100101001110101010101110111000100100000100001000111001010010astronomy and medicine. Among students, there is a huge appetite analysis.” King pauses a moment. “I think 100010011110000101010100 you know how this 010101011110101 is 100101010011101010101011101110001001000001000010101010111011100010010000010000100011100100010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101 100101010 01110100011100100 0 1001010001001111000010101010001010101111010100101010011101010101011101110001001000001000010001110010010010100010011110000101010for the new field. A Harvard course in data science last fall attracted going to end. It was no contest.” Whenever100 sufficient010101011110101 information 100101010 011101010 1010111011001001000001000010 0011100100 010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101100101010 01110101010101110111000100100000100001010101011101110 001001000001000010 0011 100100400 010010 students, 100010011110000101010100 from the schools of010101011110101 law, business, 100101010 government, 01110100011100100010010 design, can be quantified, 100010011110000101010100 modern statistical 0101010111 methods10101 100101010will outperform 011101010101011101110 an 0010010 00001000010 0011100100 010010 100010011110000101010100 010101011110101 10010101011101010101011101110 0010010000010000100011100100 010010 100010011110000101010100 010101011110101 100101010and medicine,01110101010101 as well 1101110 from 001001000001000010 the College, the School10101011101110 of Engineering 001001000001000010 individual 0011100100 or small 010010 group 10001001111000010 of people every1010100 time. 010101011110101 100101010 01110100011100100 0 10010 100010011110000101010100 010101011110101 100101010 011101010101011101110 001001000001000010 0011100100 010010 100010011110000101010100 010101011110101 100101010 011101010 101011101110and Applied 001001000001000010 Sciences (SEAS), 0011100100 and even 010010 MIT. 100010011110000101010100 Faculty members have 010101011110101100101010 In marketing, familiar 011101010101011101110 uses of big data 0include01001000001000010 “recommendation 10101011101110 001001000001000010 0011100 100 010010 100010011110000101010100 010101011110101 100101010 01110100011100100 010010 100010011110000101010100 010101011110101 100101010 011101010101011101110 0010010 00001000010taken note:0011100100 the Harvard 010010 School100010011110000101010100 of Public Health 010101011110101 (HSPH) will intro 100101010- engines” 011101010101011101110 like those used 001001000001000010by companies such 0011100100 as Netflix 010010 and 100010011110000101010100Amazon 010101011110101 100101010 011101010101011101110 001001000001000010 10101011101110 001001000001000010 0011100100 010010 100010011110000101010100 010101011110101 100101010 01110100011100100 0 10010 duce 100010011110000101010100 a new master’s program 010101011110101 in computational 100101010 biology 011101010101011101110 and quan- to 001001000001000010 make purchase suggestions0011100100 010010 based 10001 on the0011110000101010100 prior interests 010101011110101 of one 100101010 011101010 101011101110 001001000001000010 0011100100 010010 100010011110000101010100 010101011110101 100101010 011101010101011101110 001001000001000010 10101011101110 001001000001000010 0011100 100 010010titative 100010011110000101010100 genetics next year, likely 010101011110101 a precursor 100101010to a Ph.D. 01110100011100100program. In customer 010010 100010011110000101010100 as compared to millions 01010101111 of others.0101 Target 100101010 famously 011101010101011101110 (or in- 0010010 00001000010 0011100100 010010 100010011110000101010100 010101011110101 100101010 011101010101011101110 001001000001000010 0011100100 010010 100010011110000101010100 010101011110101 100101010SEAS, 011101010101011101110 there is talk of organizing 001001000001000010 a master’s in 10101011101110 data science. 001001000001000010famously) 10 used100010011110000101010100 an algorithm to detect 01010101 when1110101 women 100101010 were pregnant 011101010101011101110 0010010 00001000010 0011100100 010010 100010011110000101010100 010101011110101 100101010 011101010101011101110001001000001000010 0011100100 010010 100010011110000101010100 010101011110101 100101010“There 011101010101011101110 is a movement of001001000001000010 quantification 10101011101110rumbling across 001001000001000010 fields by tracking 0011100100 purchases 010010 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1010111011100010010000010000100011100100010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101100101010011101010101011101110001001000001Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-57460000110101011101110001001000001000010 00111 00001000010 0011100100 010010 100010011110000101010100 010101011110101 100101010 011101010 00100010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101100101010011101000111001000100101000100111100001010101000101010111101011001010100111010101010111011100010010 101011101110 001001000001000010 0011100100 010010 100010011110000101010100 010101011110101 000010000100011100100010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101100101001110101010101110111000100100000100001000111001010010100010011110000101010100010101011110101 100101010 011101010101011101110 001001000001000010 10101011101110 001001000001000010 0011100 10010101001110101010101110111000100100000100001010101011101110001001000001000010001110010001001010001001111000010101010001010101111010010101001110100011100100 0 100 010010 100010011110000101010100 010101011110101 100101010 01110100011100100 0 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011101010 101011101110 001001000001000010 0011100100 010010 100010011110000101010100 010101011110101 100101010 011101010101011101110 001001000001000010 10101011101110 001001000001000010 offered special discounts and coupons to those valuable Gary King’s study of and health; or using genomic analysis to speed patrons. Credit-card companies have found unusual asso- social media uncovered the breeding of crops like rice for drought re- massive government ciations in the course of mining data to evaluate the risk of censorship in China. sistance. In more specialized research, to take default: people who buy anti-scuff pads for their furniture, one example, creating tools to analyze huge for example, are highly likely to make their payments. datasets in the biological sciences enabled associate professor of In the public realm, there are all kinds of applications: allocat- organismic and evolutionary biology Pardis Sabeti, studying the ing police resources by predicting where and when crimes are human genome’s billions of base pairs, to identify genes that rose most likely to occur; finding associations between air quality to prominence quickly in the course of human evolution, deter-

Harvard Magazine 31 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 mining traits such as the ability to digest cow’s milk, or resis- In Africa, Nathan largest economy in the world) was built into the tance to diseases like malaria. Eagle learned a law. So Frenk (with no inkling he would ever come valuable lesson King himself recently developed a tool for analyzing social when he used to Harvard), hired “the top person in the world” to media texts. “There are now a billion social-media posts every cell-phone data conduct the evaluation, Gary King. two days…which represent the largest increase in the capacity showing people’s Given the complications of running an experi- of the human race to express itself at any time in the history movement pat- ment while the program was in progress, King had terns to predict of the world,” he says. No single person can make sense of outbreaks of in- to invent new methods for analyzing it. Frenk calls what a billion other people are saying. But statistical methods fectious disease. it “great academic work. Seguro Popular has been developed by King and his students, who tested his tool on studied and emulated in dozens of countries around Chinese-language posts, now make that possible. (To learn what the world thanks to a large extent to the fact that it had this very he accidentally uncovered about Chinese government censorship rigorous research with big data behind it.” King crafted “an in- practices, see http://harvardmag.com/censorship.) credibly original design,” Frenk explains. Because King compared King also designed and implemented “what has been called the communities that received public insurance in the first stage (the largest single experimental design to evaluate a social program in rollout lasted seven years) to demographically similar communities the world, ever,” reports Julio Frenk, dean of HSPH. “My entire that hadn’t, the results were “very strong,” Frenk says: any observed career has been guided by the fundamental belief that scientifi- effect would be attributable to the program. After just 10 months, cally derived evidence is the most powerful instrument we have King’s study showed that Seguro Popular successfully protected to design enlightened policy and produce a positive social trans- families from catastrophic expenditures due to serious illness, and formation,” says Frenk, who was at the time minister of health his work provided guidance for needed improvements, such as pub- for Mexico. When he took office in 2000, more than half that na- lic outreach to promote the use of preventive care. tion’s health expenditures were being paid out of pocket—and King himself says big data’s potential benefits to society go far each year, four million families were being ruined by catastrophic beyond what has been accomplished so far. Google has analyzed healthcare expenses. Frenk led a healthcare reform that created, clusters of search terms by region in the United States to predict implemented, and then evaluated a new public insurance scheme, flu outbreaks faster than was possible using hospital admission Seguro Popular. A requirement to evaluate the program (which records. “That was a nice demonstration project,” says King, “but he says was projected to cost 1 percent of the GDP of the twelfth- it is a tiny fraction of what could be done” if it were possible for

32 March - April 2014 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 academic researchers to access the information held by companies. almost no capacity for disease surveillance. (Businesses now possess more social-science data than academics Eagle’s next project, based in Rwanda, was more ambitious, do, he notes—a shift from the recent past, when just the opposite and it also provided a lesson in one of the pitfalls of working with was true.) If social scientists could use that material, he says, “We big data: that it is possible to findcorrelations in very large linked could solve all kinds of problems.” But even in academia, King re- datasets without understanding causation. Working with mobile- ports, data are not being shared in many fields. “There are even phone records (which include the time and location of every call), studies at this university in which you can’t analyze the data un- he began creating models of people’s daily and weekly commuting less you make the original collectors of the data co-authors.” patterns, termed their “radius of generation.” He began to notice The potential for doing good is perhaps nowhere greater than in patterns. Abruptly, people in a particular village would stop mov- public health and medicine, fields in which, King says, “People are ing as much; he hypothesized that these patterns might indicate literally dying every day” simply because data are not being shared. the onset of a communicable disease like the flu. Working with the Rwandan ministry of health, he compared the data on cholera Bridges to Business outbreaks to his radius of generation data. Once linked, the two Nathan Eagle, an adjunct assistant professor at HSPH, was datasets proved startlingly powerful; the radius of generation in one of the first people to mine unstructured data from businesses a village dropped two full weeks before a cholera outbreak. “We with an eye to improving public health in the world’s poorest na- could even predict the magnitude of the outbreak based on the tions. A self-described engineer and “not much of an academic” amount of decrease in the radius of generation,” he recalls. “I had (despite having held professorships at numerous institutions in- built something that was performing in this unbelievable way.” cluding MIT), much of his work has focused on innovative uses And in fact it was unbelievable. He tells this story as a “good of cell-phone data. Drawn by the explosive growth of the mo- example of why engineers like myself shouldn’t be doing epide- bile market in Africa, he moved in 2007 to a rural village on the miology in isolation—and why I ended up joining the School of Kenyan coast and began searching for ways to improve the lives Public Health rather than staying within a physical-science de- of the people there. Within months, realizing that he would be partment.” The model was not predicting cholera outbreaks, but more effective sharing his skills with others, he began teaching pinpointing floods. “When a village floods and roads wash away, mobile-application development to students in the University of suddenly the radius of generation decreases,” he explains. “And Nairobi’s computer-science department. it also makes the village more susceptible in the short term to a While there, he began working with the Kenyan ministry of cholera outbreak. Ultimately, all this analysis with supercomput- health on a blood-bank monitoring system. The plan was to recruit ers was identifying where there was flooding—data that, frankly, nurses across the country to text the current blood-sup- you can get in a lot of other ways.” ply levels in their local hospitals to a central database. “People are Despite this setback, Eagle saw what “We built this beautiful visualization to let the guys at literally dying was missing. If he could couple the the centralized blood banks in Kenya see in real time data he had from the ministry of health what the blood levels were in these rural hospitals,” he every day” and the mobile operators with on-the- explains, “and more importantly, where the blood was ground reports of what was happening, needed.” In the first week, it was a giant success, as the simply because then he would have a powerful tool for nurses texted in the data and central monitors logged in data are not remote disease surveillance. “It opened every hour to see where they should replenish the blood my eyes to the fact that big data alone supply. “But in the second week, half the nurses stopped being shared. can’t solve this type of problem. We texting in the data, and within about a month virtually had petabytes* of data and yet we were no nurses were participating anymore.” building models that were fundamentally flawed because we Eagle shares this tale of failure because the episode was a valu- didn’t have real insight about what was happening” in remote able learning experience. “The technical implementation was bul- villages. Eagle has now built a platform that enables him to sur- letproof,” he says. “It failed because of a fundamental lack of insight vey individuals in such countries by paying them small denomi- on my part…that had to do with the price of a text message. What I nations of airtime (as with the Kenyan nurses) in exchange for failed to appreciate was that an SMS represents a fairly substantial answering questions: are they experiencing flu-like symptoms, fraction of a rural nurse’s day wage. By asking them to send that text sleeping under bednets, or taking anti-malarials? This ability to message we were asking them to essentially take a pay cut.” gather and link self-reported information to larger datasets has Fortunately, Eagle was in a position to save the program. Be- proven a powerful tool—and the survey technology has become cause he was already working with most of the mobile opera- a successful commercial entity named Jana, of which Eagle is co- tors in East Africa, he had access to their billing systems. The founder and CEO. addition of a simple script let him credit the rural nurses with a small denomination of prepaid air time, about 10 cents’ worth— New Paradigms—and Pitfalls enough to cover the cost of the SMS “plus about a penny to say Willy Shih, Cizik professor of management practice at Har- thank you in exchange for a properly formatted text message. vard Business School, says that one of the most important changes Virtually every rural nurse reengaged,” he reports, and the pro- wrought by big data is that their use involves a “fundamentally gram became a “relatively successful endeavor”—leading him to *A petabyte is the equivalent of 1,000 terabytes, or a quadrillion bytes. One tera- believe that cell phones could “really make an impact” on public byte is a thousand gigabytes. One gigabyte is made up of a thousand megabytes. health in developing nations, where there is a dearth of data and There are a thousand thousand—i.e., a million—petabytes in a zettabyte.

Harvard Magazine 33 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 different way of doing experimental design.” Historically, social rized researchers. Quackenbush is currently collaborating with a scientists would plan an experiment, decide what data to collect, dozen investigators—from HSPH, the Dana-Farber Cancer Insti- and analyze the data. Now the low cost of storage (“The price of tute, and a group from MIT’s Lincoln Labs expert in security—to storing a bit of information has dropped 60 percent a year for six develop methods to address a wide range of biomedical research decades,” says Shih) has caused a rethinking, as people “collect problems using big data, including privacy. everything and then search for significant patterns in the data.” He is also leading the development of HSPH’s new master’s “This approach has risks,” Shih points out. One of the most program in computational biology and quantitative genetics, prominent is data dredging, which involves searching for patterns which is designed to address the extraordinary complexity of in huge datasets. A traditional social-science study might assert biomedical data. As Quackenbush puts it, “You are not just you. that the results are significant with 95 percent confidence. That You have all this associated health and exposure information that means, Shih points out, “that in one out of 20 instances” when I need in order to interpret your genomic information.” dredging for results, “you will get results that are statistically A primary goal, therefore, is to give students practical skills in significant purely by chance. So you have to remember that.” Al- the collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of genom- though this is true for any statistical finding, the enormousnumber ic data in the context of all this other health information: electronic of potential correlations in very large datasets substantially mag- medical records, public-health records, Medicare information, and nifies the risk of finding spurious correlations. comprehensive-disease data. The program is a joint venture be- Eagle agrees that “you don’t get good scientific output from tween biostatistics and the department of epidemiology. throwing everything against the wall and seeing what sticks.” No matter how much data exists, researchers still need to ask Really Big Data the right questions to create a hypothesis, design a test, and use Like Eagle, Quackenbush came to public health from another the data to determine whether that hypothesis is true. He sees discipline—in his case, theoretical and high-energy experimen- two looming challenges in data science. First, there aren’t enough tal physics. He first began working outside his doctoral field in people comfortable dealing with petabytes of data. “These skill 1992, when biologists for the Human Genome Project realized sets need to get out of the computer-science departments and they needed people accustomed to collecting, analyzing, manag- into public health, social science, and public policy,” he says. ing, and interpreting huge datasets. Physicists have been good at “Big data is having a transformative impact across virtually all that for a long time. academic disciplines—it is time for data science to be integrated The first full human genome sequence took five to 15 years to into the foundational courses for all undergraduates.” complete, and cost $1 billion to $3 billion (“Depending on whom Safeguarding data is his other major you ask,” notes Quackenbush). By 2009, eight years later, concern, because “the privacy implica- “We built this the cost had dropped to $100,000 and took a year. At that tions are profound.” Typically, the owners beautiful point, says Quackenbush, “if my wife had a rare, difficult of huge datasets are very nervous about cancer, I would have mortgaged our house to sequence sharing even anonymized, population- visualization her genome.” Now a genome sequence takes a little more level information like the call records than 24 hours and costs about $1,000—the point at which Eagle uses. For the companies that hold to let the guys it can be paid for “on a credit card. That simple statement it, he says, “There is a lot of downside to at the central- alone,” he says, “underscores why the biomedical scienc- making this data open to researchers. We es have become so data-driven. need to figure out ways to mitigate that ized blood banks “We each carry two copies of the human genome— concern and craft data-usage policies in one from our mother and one from our father—that ways that make these large organizations in Kenya see in together comprise 6 billion base pairs,” Quackenbush more comfortable with sharing these real time what continues, “a number equivalent to all the seconds in data, which ultimately could improve 190 years.” But knowledge of what all the genes en- the lives of the millions of people who are the blood levels coded in the genome do and how they interact to influ- generating it—and the societies in which ence health and disease remains woefully incomplete. they are living.” were in these To discover that, scientists will have to take genomic John Quackenbush, an HSPH profes- rural hospitals data and “put it in the context of your health. And sor of computational biology and bioin- , we’ll have to take you and put you in the context of the formatics, shares Eagle’s twin concerns. and more population in which you live, the environmental factors But in some realms of biomedical big you are exposed to, and the people you come in contact data, he says, the privacy problem is not importantly, with—so as we look at the vast amount of data we can easily addressed. “As soon as you touch where the blood generate on you, the only way we can effectively inter- genomic data, that information is funda- pret it is to put it in the context of the vast amount of mentally identifiable,” he explains. “I can was needed.” data we can generate on almost everything related to erase your address and Social Security you, your environment, and your health. We are mov- number and every other identifier, but I can’t anonymize your ge- ing from a big data problem to a really big data problem.” nome without wiping out the information that I need to analyze.” Curtis Huttenhower, an HSPH associate professor of com- Privacy in such cases is achieved not through anonymity but by putational biology and bioinformatics, is one of Quackenbush’s consent paired with data security: granting access only to autho- really big data collaborators. He studies the function of the hu-

34 March - April 2014 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 man microbiome, the bacteria that live in and on Curtis Hutten- of how entire communities of bugs are transferred from one humans, principally in the gut, helping people hower studied person to another and at what speed. “Everyone tends to microbes in extract energy from food and maintaining health. Boston’s public- have a slightly different version ofHelicobacter pylori, a bac- “There are 100 times more genes in the bugs than transit system terium that can cause gastric cancer and is transmitted ver- in a human’s genome,” he reports, and “it’s not to understand tically from parents to children,” he says. “But what other unusual for someone to share 50 percent or less of how the bugs portions of the microbiome are mostly inherited, rather that live on and their microbes with other people. Because no one in us—for better than acquired from our surroundings? We don’t know yet.” has precisely the same combination of gut bacteria, or worse—move As researchers learn more about how the human genome researchers are still learning how those bacteria from one person and the microbiome interact, it might become possible to to another. distinguish us from each other; meanwhile both administer probiotics or more targeted antibiotics to treat human and microbial genetic privacy must be maintained.” Not or prevent disease. That would represent a tremendous advance only do microbiome studies confront 100 times more information in clinical practice because right now, when someone takes a per human subject than genome studies, that 100 is different from broad spectrum antibiotic, it is “like setting off a nuke,” say Hut- person to person and changes slowly over time with age—and tenhower. “They instantly change the shape of the microbiome rapidly, as well, in response to factors like diet or antiobiotics. for a few weeks to months.” Exactly how the microbiome recov- Deep sequencing of 100 people during the human microbiome ers is not known. project, Huttenhower reports, yielded a thousand human ge- A major question in microbiome studies involves the dynamics nomes’ worth of sequencing data—“and we could have gotten of coevolution: how the bugs evolved in humans over hundreds of more. But there is still no comprehensive catalog of what affects thousands of years, and whether changes in the microbiome might the microbiome,” says Huttenhower. “We are still learning.” be linked to ailments that have become more prevalent recently, Recently, he has been studying microbes in the built environ- such as irritable bowel disease, allergies, and metabolic syndrome ment: from the hangstraps of Boston’s transit system to touch- (a precursor to diabetes). Because of the timescale of the change screen machines and human skin. The Sloan Foundation, which in the patterns of these ailments, the causes can’t be genomic, says funded the project, wants to know what microbes are there and Huttenhower. “They could be environmental, but the timescale how they got there. Huttenhower is interested in the dynamics is also right for the kinds of ecological (please turn to page 74)

Harvard Magazine 35 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Vita Henry A. Murray Brief life of a personality psychologist: 1893-1988 by marshall j. getz

he spontaneous propulsion of [my] thoughts by the ray—who rose to any challenge, including his own crossed eyes sanguine surplus…”—so Henry A. Murray ’15 described and a stammer—began to speak about the pointlessness of aca- his intellectual process in “The Case of Murr,” an autobio- demic psychologists attempting to apply the principles of science graphical“ t chapter published in 1967. “Sanguine surplus,” or raw ex- to something as complicated as the mind. They “are looking criti- uberance for knowledge, became his creed. (This vitality extended cally at the wrong things,” he wrote in 1935, while psychoanalysts beyond academic enterprises; although married, he had a lengthy (who had accessed the origins of personality, but lacked the scien- affair with his closest collaborator, Christiana Morgan.) He be- tist’s discipline and the opportunity to share and refine what they came one of psychology’s original voices, but is sometimes over- learned) “are looking with reeling brains at the right things.” looked today: in part, perhaps, because his personality led him into Appreciation came with Explorations in Personality (1938), a journey unnecessary battles with fellow psychologists over what could be into the mental worlds of 50 young men who volunteered as sub- considered valid research, and because he enthusiastically began jects. He shared authorship with the HPC staff, though a student, projects that he obviously cared about, yet never completed. Robert R. Holt, Ph.D. ’44, has said Murray did most of the writing. Murray sought the origins of life, a quest that led him to study The book electrified many psychologists and their students, show- history at Harvard and earn an M.D. and a master’s at Columbia ing there could be far more depth to their research than the quanti- and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Cambridge. (By his own admis- tative data on reflexes or perceptions most experimental psycholo- sion, this varsity crew captain became a dedicated student only in gists reported. Murray found such studies unspeakably dull. medical school; his relatively easy educational progress may have He guided research at the HPC with a view that psychology, in- seeded his frustration with some of his later endeavors.) Embry- formed by psychoanalysis, could address human problems; during ology brought him closer to life’s beginnings, but a larger mystery World War II, he devised testing to help the Office of Strategic Ser- loomed. He found his calling at 30, when he read Carl Jung’s Psy- vices choose intelligence officers scientifically. In 1946, President chological Types. After private sessions with Jung in 1925, he eventu- James B. Conant offered him a full professorship in the new inter- ally left biomedical research to pursue psychology, a field he ap- disciplinary department of social relations, a grouping of social, de- proached as “deep diving.” Physiologist Lawrence J. Henderson, his velopmental, and personality psychology with sociology and social mentor, encouraged the head of the Harvard Psychological Clinic anthropology. Soc Rel fit beautifully with Murray’s goals—outside (HPC) to hire Murray as his assistant; he started there in 1927. the psychology department, he would be free to pursue personol- At the HPC during the 1930s, Murray and lay researcher Chris- ogy. But he rejected the offer, to focus on research and writing. tiana Morgan developed the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), a Nevertheless, he became professor of clinical psychology in 1951 set of picture cards, still used, that challenge subjects to invent a and contributed to Soc Rel’s development until retiring in 1962. His story, a process that often reveals more about their psychological willingness to teach women and support their research when many states than responses to direct questions do. In an era when many of his colleagues refused was honored in 1976 when Radcliffe Col- other academics disdained psychology as “unscientific” and impos- lege opened the Murray Research Center, dedicated to longitudinal sible to research, Murray disagreed, having worked out protocols research, particularly on women. (Its archives are now housed at for interpreting nontraditional data. He applied empirical meth- Harvard’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science.) Meanwhile, ods—standardized data collection and interpretation—and pio- writing projects attracted and bedeviled him: a multivolume study neered the longitudinal study, in which investigators follow their of Melville, a book on hubris, and a memoir, coauthored with Mor- subjects to determine whether initial results are stable or changing. gan, about their love affair. Yet by 1967, he had acknowledged “the But he was also developing his own branch of psychology. Hav- fading of the mental energies” on which he had been counting to ing studied Jung, he incorporated biology, sociology, culture, and deal with some of his half-finished books, “residual products of literature into his research. (He promoted the works of Herman [my] sanguine surplus.” Those who carry on his work today fol- Melville—believing the Pequod’s crew illustrated every psychologi- low the charge he used on a medal that he and Morgan designed to cal type—when the novelist was largely ignored by the academy.) honor the HPC in 1937: “Let Not Him Who Seeks Cease Until He He dubbed his approach “personology”; its tenets include study- Finds, And When He Finds He Shall Be Astonished.” ing individual life histories to find the main themes, internal drives, and outside factors that influence personality formation. Marshall J. Getz is an independent scholar in Houston. The author of a biography When some in the field suggested this work lacked rigor, Mur- of Subhas Chandra Bose, he is now writing a biography of Murray.

36 March - April 2014 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Murray in 1962. Courtesy of the Harvard University Archives Harvard Magazine 37 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Advancing Leadership

uring 2013, Michael J. Bush audited Professor Joseph P. Newhouse’s course on the economics of health- “Third-stage” learners using care policy and worked with Richard Frank, Morris professor of healthcare policy, to better understand a specific social problem: how to cover the costs for a novel Harvard curriculum people who suffer severe bodily harm—brain trau- Dma, spinal-cord injuries, debilitating burns, catastrophic ampu- engage social challenges. tations—and survive, often to require extensive, expensive life- long care. Amid national debate over routine health coverage, the subject might seem esoteric. But for the tens of thousands afflict- ers from diverse professions to come to Harvard from around the ed and their families, the issue may be even more disastrous than world to explore how to address vexing social issues, drawing on sudden death. The costs of support services often are not covered skills and resources beyond their fields. Bush, for example, has by traditional medical and disability insurance, long-term care three decades of experience as a senior retailing executive, turn- coverage, or workers’ compensation. In many cases, the victims around manager, and business investor. and their loved ones are mostly on their own. The passions vary by fellow, but in Bush’s case, could not be And so on the Thursday before Thanksgiving, Bush briefly out- more immediate. As his paper matter-of-factly notes, “I am acute- lined for a supportive but challenging audience his mathematically ly aware of these issues because my brother was severely brain precise, actuarially sound proposal for “catastrophic injury life-care injured while working a summer job on an oil rig in Texas. It hap- annuities,” developed during his year on campus. He concluded that pened 60 days after his eighteenth birthday and 25 days after his private insurers could affordably provide adequate coverage, and high-school graduation.” Two years of coma ensued, followed by that people would sign up for it—addressing a social problem while prolonged rehabilitation; today, 33 years after the rig accident, creating a tremendous business opportunity. He said he planned to Bush’s brother, though conscious, “cannot walk, cannot talk, has work with disability advocates around the country to persuade the use of only one of his arms, suffers from occasional seizures,” and industry to begin offering this mutual solution. is maintained by “constant supportive living care from an atten- Bush’s presence at Harvard and the forum where he presented dant staff”—available only because he has “adequate resources.” his work reflected both a distinctive program and a unique per- A few days after his remarks, Bush flew to Galveston, where the sonal passion. The program is the Advanced Leadership Initiative family holds Thanksgiving with his brother, before continuing (ALI): an opportunity for a cohort of a few dozen midcareer lead- home to California.

by John S. Rosenberg • Portraits by Stu Rosner

38 March - April 2014 “Plan for Influence and Impact” or vocational retooling, or leisure learning in retirement. Other fellows’ motivations and projects bear different Perhaps most important, in a University that valorizes educat- emotional weights, but all have benefited from a bundle of edu- ing leaders, they defined the term, and their aims, with unusual cational innovations, now in their sixth year of evolution, that precision. The advanced leader-learners, they determined, would have proven anything but characteristic of Harvard. The visitors, have to be prepared to address problems that are both techni- neither regular students nor executive-education enrollees, par- cal and political: seemingly intractable issues where known solu- ticipate as “fellows” in the Initiative. They spend spring and fall tions (cures for diseases, food semesters at Harvard, initially taking a course together on “Chal- aid) are “mal-distributed,” lenges and Opportunities in Advanced Leadership” (COAL) and embedded in complex auditing other classes relevant to their interests and nascent systems crossing institu- projects. The initiative, originating in Harvard Business School tional and professional (HBS), also draws professors from the schools of education, boundaries, and involv- government, law, medicine, and public health, plus the Faculty ing diverse stakehold- of Arts and Sciences. ALI’s curriculum and pedagogy—includ- ers. For many such ing multiday “think tanks” (immersions in the issues of fields problems, research such as education or healthcare) and a midyear travel-study “tends to be oriented experience (last June, a week in Shanghai)—break the bounds toward the technical of conventional courses of study. And the fellows’ colleagues, by side, toward special- design, include not only peers from prior ALI cohorts (extending ists’ content, and not back to the first, in 2009) but also their own spouses (during the toward action or system- semesters in residence) and (on excursions) even older children. change processes that draw The path to Bush’s November 21 presentation, and those on knowledge from special by the other 2013 ALI fellows, can be traced precisely disciplines.” In other to an October 2005 paper titled “Moving High- er Education to Its Next Stage.” The three HBS authors—Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Arbuckle professor of business ad- ministration; Rakesh Khurana, then associate professor, now Bower pro- fessor of leadership development, master of Cabot House, and College dean-designate (see page 23); and Nitin Nohria, then Chapman profes- sor of business administration and now dean—were, revealingly, from the school’s general-management and organizational-behavior units (as opposed to finance, technology- management, entrepreneurship, or other fields). Their paper is a brisk mash-up of higher-education history (the evolution of universities, graduate education, and beyond); obdurate challenges (global poverty, health, edu- cation reform, and environmental deg- radation); and demographics (increasing longevity, the potential for “third-stage” education for professionals—beyond college and graduate school—who have talent, energy, skills, and active post-career time before retirement). From these vantage points, the au- thors proposed a new role for teach- ing and learning in “advanced lead- ership”—beyond extant options in executive educa- tion, retraining Michael J. Bush

Harvard Magazine 39 words, “[W]e often know more about “What is the obligation of the university to what than how and who.” Ameliorating “controversial and sys- society?” Rakesh Khurana asked himself. “When are temic” problems, they wrote, depends on “new action models…that involve universities seen as most legitimate and thriving?” cross-sector collaboration based on cross-profession expertise.” The best chance to build effective and they would focus on a practical project: “the detailed plan for collaborations, in turn, lay in “a new field of practice…particular- influence and impact” on their chosen problem. ly well suited to the capabilities and desires of experienced lead- As Khurana put it in conversation, he was motivated by a large ers” who have already proven their capacity to shape organiza- question: “What is the obligation of the university to society? When tions and effect change in at least one realm and are now eager to are universities seen as most legitimate and thriving?” His answer: develop “solutions to significant societal and global problems.” when they adapt and renew their mission of creating knowledge To that end, the “students” would be exposed to ways of exam- and transferring it to new generations. With a generation of accom- ining problems and solutions from multiple disciplinary perspec- plished leaders eager for new challenges that give meaning to their tives. They would learn how to assess the legal and political con- lives, the program he and his colleagues envisioned could strengthen text, the better to define a course of action embracing nonprofit, universities and societies at the same time. for-profit, and public enterprises as warranted, and involving In 2005, Kanter, Khurana, and Nohria envisioned this paradigm multiple partners and participants. And they would learn to read as the prospectus for a new School for Advanced Institutional and use public opinion. Leadership. For now, their vision has come to life in the inventive The candidates would pedagogy and energetic engagements of Harvard’s ALI. have to be free from other career ob- “It Sounds Incredibly Ambitious” ligations, able Where Michael Bush’s effort to stimulate a new market for life- to plunge into care insurance stems from personal experience, Mark Feinberg’s “a school for ac- focus—establishing a partnership to develop HIV treatments tion,” not merely to meet the needs of low-income countries heavily affected by for intellectual AIDS—is rooted in his career in academic medicine (working discourse. They since 1984 on basic and clinical research and as a physician car- would, as a cohort, ing for HIV-infected individuals); the public sector (the National help each other, Institutes of Health, the Institute of Medicine, and service on boards including the Scientific Advisory Board for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief—PEPFAR); and the pharmaceu- tical industry (most recently as vice president and chief public health and science officer for Merck Vaccines). He seeks to bridge “untapped opportunities to promote alignment and collabora- tion” among those sectors toward an urgent end. When he joined the 2012 ALI fellows’ cohort, he had this project in mind; as it progressed, he remained affiliated as a senior fellow during 2013— one of a handful who devote a second year to pursuing their goals. Feinberg hopes to “significantly” improve the prospects for “people living in low-income countries heavily affected by AIDS to have access to treatments that would be of greatest benefit to them.” That carefully phrased, even bland, description epitomizes his deliberately low-key rhetoric, his desire to serve as a facilita- tor in fraught terrain. In affluent countries, sophisticated drug “cocktails” of highly efficacious antiretroviral medications in single, often once-a-day, “fixed-dose combinations”—complemented by multiple options for those who develop drug resistance to their initial treatments— are making HIV a manageable, chronic condition. PEPFAR and other programs finance therapies for needy nations, but many of these treatments are not widely available in low-income coun- tries. Aid efforts aimed at treating the maximum number of HIV patients there have made tremendous progress, Feinberg says, but much more must be done to make the most effective, con- venient combination treatments the routine standard of care for as many infected people as Mark Feinberg possible—and to significantly in- crease access to options for those who fail initial therapy. Those ration for his current efforts, Feinberg says, it was important to patients also need treatment options designed to be most effec- “have the time and encouraging context to work on this” as an tively dispensed where healthcare systems are inadequate, and ALI fellow. “Themes important to the ALI curriculum—how one to address the needs of specific HIV-infected populations dis- effects change, getting stakeholders to work together, difficult proportionally common in many low-income countries: preg- challenges needing new synthetic approaches”—all resonate. nant women, infants, and children; individuals co-infected with And, he continues, so does a lesson that Kanter drives home for tuberculosis. Because these circumstances are rare in wealthier every fledgling fellow (it’s known as “Kanter’s Law”): the middle countries, typical market forces that foster development of new of any project—after the exciting flush of defining the idea and drug formulations don’t yield treatments optimized to meet these achieving promising early results, but before compelling evidence special circumstances of the low-income countries where most of of success is secure—is the hardest part. HIV-infected people live. In other words, this is a classic situation requiring advanced leadership, as ALI’s founders define it. “The Box Isn’t Big Enough” Feinberg says the innovator companies in fact want to solve the Introducing the ALI final symposium on November 21, before challenges that slow access to optimal antiretroviral regimens for the 2013 fellows summarized their projects and solicited com- these unmet needs, but cannot do so individually. But they might ments and support, Kanter (speaking as the initiative’s chair collaborate, mixing and matching the most effective compounds, and director) reminded them of the difference betweengreat and and providing access to their intellectual property to low-cost advanced leadership—a theme she had sounded throughout the generic manufacturers to help make the drugs cheaply and at year. “You don’t just manage a single organization or network large scale. Global health agencies and experts on AIDS of organizations to success,” she said. “Advanced leaders treatment would help inform the priority products on take on messy problems that cannot be contained by which pharmaceutical companies would focus their one profession, one field, one business, one organi- collaborations. Donors, foundations, and govern- zation.” Those “messy” goals may be ill-defined ments could subsidize development and deploy- (how to improve education?) or even conflict- ment of the best therapies. ing, posing the problem of which paths to Feinberg, experienced across these sectors, pursue—a strategic challenge far harder than has been working in concert with pharma- most businesses face. “You have to figure out ceutical industry colleagues, global health what to do” as a result, she said, aligning authorities, public-sector AIDS treatment “multiple stakeholders, often disorganized, experts, and AIDS treatment advocates to who don’t report to you”—and who may explore new models for addressing these not welcome newcomers to their affairs. interconnected issues. Scores of par- Because existing institutions fall ticipants—with different techno- short, she said, advanced leader- logical, political, and historical ship puts a premium on innova- perspectives—have met in tion and changing rigid estab- diverse forums to see if they lishments. can agree on this longer- “Think outside the building,” term direction for HIV Kanter exhorted the fellows. therapy. Each party would “The box isn’t big enough.” need to engage with oth- Resorting to a useful meta- ers more deeply than has phor, she concluded, “The previously been com- difference between great fortable, or feasible. leaders and advanced “It sounds incredibly leaders is the differ- ambitious,” Feinberg ence between Fred concedes—but suc- Astaire and Ginger cess would be hugely Rogers. Fred Astaire positive for maximiz- led, and was beautiful ing the reach, impact, to watch. But Ginger and sustainable ben- Rogers was the advanced efits of HIV therapy in leader, because she had to low-income countries do everything he did back- and perhaps, he hopes “for wards and in high heels.” other important diseases, and Kanter’s remarks may not maybe even other development sound like an intellectual pro- challenges, of global relevance.” spectus, but they are a fair proxy Despite decades of prepa- for the fellows’ common learn- ing adventure: the challenges Rosabeth Moss Kanter and opportunities course,

Harvard Magazine 41 COAL. It is meant to equip people who have been accustomed to ies of power (hard, soft, smart) with former dean Joseph S. Nye success in defined roles—running companies, managing law firms, and lecturer in public policy Peter B. Zimmerman of the Kennedy investing assets, leading part of the United Nations—to take on School. Among other guest teachers, Flom professor of law and daunting ventures backwards, in high heels. business Guhan Subramanian, of the law and business schools, Thus, although the form is familiar (weekly discussions based and Kennedy School academic dean Iris Bohnet join Kanter and on case studies and other readings), COAL’s contents, cases, and Khurana to probe complex negotiations and nudges to influence. faculty members are radically heterogeneous when compared to Professor of management practice William W. George—former an HBS class or its analog at any of the other professional schools. chief executive of Medtronic, and member of several boards of di- Three “modules” cover “sectors and institutional strategies,” “be- rectors—reviews authentic leadership and its personal costs. The havioral strategies and skills,” and “moving into action”—the lat- fellows learn about scaling up social enterprises. ter, on turning a passion into a practical project. Finally, they receive practical instruction in defining a project In the initial unit, Kanter, Khurana, and guest faculty members and developing its “public narrative” to mobilize resources and cover leadership; the distinct roles of government, businesses, and support. Then, drawing on their multidisciplinary faculty and nonprofit enterprises (with illustrations ranging from a case study peers (including ALIers from earlier cohorts), the fellows chan- on water supply to a New Yorker article on conflicts over privatizing nel everything they have learned and the contacts they have made the supply in Bolivia); and law, social movements, and social change with diverse instructors from audited classes, aiming to articulate (with ALI faculty member Charles J. Ogletree Jr., Climenko profes- the ideas they hope to enact. Following their summer work on sor of law, and readings from All Deliberate Speed, his book on Brown v. their projects, a two-day autumn workshop on mobilizing stake- Board of Education, paired with Kanter’s holders and leading change acts as a lever to focus their projects writing on Nelson Mandela). A class for unveiling just before Thanksgiving. on health systems involves Barry Given the aspirational nature of their proposals, Kanter told R. Bloom, former dean of the the 2013 cohort in November, the COAL cases they read on health- School of Public Health, and care in India and American civil rights, on law and education, all sessions touching on educa- turned out to matter: “Familiarity with all of them is essential for tion rely on joint HBS-Gradu- advanced leadership, even if you’re not expert in every one.” ate School of Education cases on school systems. The “Blank-Napkin Stage” During the behavior and “I’m a recovering investment banker” was Robert M. Whelan skills classes, fellows en- Jr.’s self-introduction last April at ALI’s education think tank— counter variet- one of the two or three “deep dives” into substantive matters the initiative offers each year. The sessions (open to the Harvard com- munity) depart from the semester model: panels of faculty mem- bers, outside experts, and others provide, in effect, the content of a full course during a couple of days, typically in fields that interest a number of fellows (school reform, healthcare). The participants last April ranged from ALI-affiliated faculty mem- bers (Ford Foundation professor of international education Fernando M. Reimers, Kanter, Ogletree, and others), to practitioners (John S. Wilson Jr., M.T.S. ’81, Ed.D. ’85, then president-designate of Morehouse College; see “Morehouse Man, Redux,” November-December 2013, page 72), to Whelan himself, an ALI alum- nus. His project, on financing students’ college attendance, had made him a “revolutionary” on the subject, he said. After a career financing start-up companies “from the blank-napkin stage,” Whelan was attracted to ALI, itself a start-up enterprise, and became a fellow in the initial class of 2009. “The beauty of this program is that it gives peo- ple the opportunity to figure out what their next chapter is, in a fairly structured way, but within an unstructured environment,” he recalled last spring. “It’s an opportunity to think the big thought and yack the big yack.” Through service on private-school boards, and his own children’s college bills, he had become increasingly aware of ris- ing tuition and “who gets pushed off the Robert M. Whelan Jr. edge” as a result. He also reflected that Whelan’s experience serves as an example for successor superiority to the debt and defaults that today stand fellows, suggesting how far their missions can take them— in the way of many seeking higher education—precise- and cautioning about the difficulty of their new work. ly the sort of problem ALI hopes its fellows will ad- as a first-generation college student, he had been able to attend dress anew. And his experience serves as an example for succes- Dartmouth debt-free “because of my parents’ big sacrifices.” (He sor fellows, suggesting how far their missions can take them, and later earned an M.B.A. at Stanford.) cautioning about the difficulty of their new work. As he took courses on managing nonprofit institutions and dis- cussed education with a “highly numerate” former business col- “Moments of Truth” league, Whelan said, a truly blank-napkin idea emerged. Focus- Whelan’s teaching role at ALI’s education think tank points ing on low-income learners from low-wealth families (net worths in a small way to the most distinctive feature of its pedagogy: its of $5,000 to $10,000), he found troubling circumstances: many omnidirectional nature. It does have an intellectual architecture, de- first-generation students who lack role models, many for whom rived from HBS and Kennedy School research on leadership and English is a second language, some who are undocumented and so managing change, and embed- cannot access funds. These students, frequently older than typi- ded in the COAL course on cal undergraduates, must often shoulder work and family obliga- core competencies. (As tions, too. (“Dealing with so many things unrelated to education Kanter puts it, “You it’s a wonder they even want to get an education,” he said.) All lose sight of the wa- these students “have a pilot light” waiting to be lit, Whelan said. ter you’re in if you’re But he discovered a toxic combination in a shaky job market: a fish. The one thing pervasive financial illiteracy and onerous levels of college debt that gets leaders (approaching $30,000 on average), even among students enrolled into trouble most is principally at community colleges, vocational-technical institu- not seeing the [larg- tions, and small liberal-arts or church-affiliated institutions. er] context”—hence Atop all the other odds such students face, the financing system the introduction to is stacked against them. Student loans are a profitable, trillion- diverse sectors, modes dollar business. Institutions without aid resources have a strong of action, and incentive to enroll people—and little reason even to counsel them about the postgraduate burden of making fixed debt-ser- vice payments. There are, in other words, powerful stakeholders supporting a status quo in which students bear all the risk. So Whelan aims at nothing less than “very systemic change.” After several years of work modeling the finances, devising a le- gally workable “human-capital contract,” and beginning a pub- lic discussion on education as an investment to be financed by its returns, his initiative,13th Avenue Funding, aims to jettison the student-debt paradigm. Instead, it would draw on philanthropic or institutional capital; make grants to students; and replenish those funds from their future earnings—in a pilot, 5 percent of annual income above $18,000, for a set number of years. That is the way Australians finance college; it has been debated in the Oregon legislature (which has not yet appropriated the billions needed to fund a program up front); and economists across the spectrum support the rationale. Though no longer a blank napkin, Whelan’s enterprise remains experimental. Foundations have been wary about advancing capi- tal. The schools where the need is greatest lack resources. So he and his partners have secured private funds to pilot the program with small groups of students. In the future, 13th Avenue Funding may well be seen as the seed of a major advance over the present sys- tem. But for now, the organization is somewhere under the sway of Kanter’s Law, at the midpoint between germination and operat- ing at scale. Nonetheless, Whelan has found the next chapter in his life’s work. He and his partners pros- elytize actively about their idea’s clear James P. Honan stakeholders through COAL and the think tanks.) and interacting with its residents. The fellows “are phenomenal But in practice, ALI is a multifaceted and -tentacled entity. In role models,” he said, giving “clever” College students direct ac- duration, it is like an academic year (although scheduled during a cess to “wise” adults whose perspectives provide “moments of calendar year, to fit participants’ lives), but it is not connected to any truth.” In a word, he said, “It is what the House was meant for.” degree studies. The fellows often resemble registrants in executive- The interactions extend to classes, where the intersections of education classes, but those typically last only a week or two, and undergraduates, graduate students, and auditing adult fellows focus on a specific skill or subject. A better analogy for the ALI fel- amount to a new kind of diversity “on a dimension of life expe- lows auditing classes around Harvard might be the Nieman Fellows, riences,” Khurana continued. In these teaching moments, “The journalists taking a year of courses they choose to assemble. fellows are the content.” (Pforzheimer professor of teaching and The educational result is unlike anything else on campus—far learning Richard J. Light, who is not affiliated with ALI, reports beyond other interdisciplinary research collaborations. Khurana, that when 2013 fellow William A. Plapinger audited a course on a junior professor when the fellowship was conceived, had no higher education, he became an invaluable resource for its mas- idea then that he would be a House master, bridging the freeform ter’s degree students; Plapinger, who led Sullivan & Cromwell’s lives of undergraduates and the more controlled studies of M.B.A. European legal practice, chairs Vassar’s board of trustees, and candidates and their famously planned, vetted HBS case curricu- could provide vivid insights into the decisions trustees face.) The lum—or that he would have ALI fellows living in Cabot House fellows also teach each other, in part by sharing ideas or even col-

Elevating logistics in China. Drawing on decades of experi- ence as a lawyer and trade-association executive involved in in- ternational logistics, and representing China’s national shipping Fellows’ Travels line, Richard D. Gluck, based in Washington, D.C., launched a Sino-American logistics council to help the swiftly urbanizing People’s Republic promptly cut tremendous waste in food trans- The Advanced Leadership Initiative (ALI) fellows’ courses of portation, reduce energy-wasting return trips of empty freight action range widely: from raising awareness of sex trafficking trucks, and accelerate rail shipping of trailers and freight con- in Boston to deploying a mobile app for real-time evaluation of tainers. food’s nutritonal value; from moderating environmental impacts Making writing exciting. David Weinstein, a 2011 fellow and by improving grazing practices for beef cattle to combating 2012 senior fellow, worked with “really smart people” at Fidelity childhood obesity by creating rewards programs for lower-calo- Investments, where he was chief of administration. But he found rie meals; from building online resources to help families coordi- their written communications, especially across disciplines, sub- nate autism care to accelerating global certification of “B Corpo- ject to misinterpretation and “often filled with jargon.” Teaching rations” that pursue economic gains and social benefits. Here are at Boston College Law School, he saw a similar need to improve snapshots of a few recent fellows’ projects. students’ writing. As an ALI fellow, he explored with Harvard Training Internet-era apprentices. Having watched his father Graduate School of Education (HGSE) experts how students learn and others invest in and advise entrepreneurs on growing nascent to write effectively. With HGSE students, he evolved an online companies, Miguel Rey, M.B.A. ’83 (a native of Bogotá, Colombia, platform, Write the World (www.writetheworld.com), that en- now living in South Florida), emphasizes “the enormous value of gages high-school pupils in writing in an interactive tutorial set- mentorship.” As vice chair of a computer-networking company ting: they submit work in response to a prompt, and then receive in Rhode Island (a state suffering very high unemployment), Rey comments from trained reviewers—a rarity in the school context, became involved in its mentoring and apprenticeship program. where teachers are hard-pressed for time. With technologically proficient people scarce, the company be- The low-cost platform challenges students and enables them gan training its own workforce, while offering full pay and ben- to build a portfolio of their work. Weinstein and his team are ex- efits for a year; the apprentices acquire technical proficiency and panding distribution by partnering with nonprofit groups, like receive guidance on a competitive work ethic and the “soft” skills Zoo New England, that encourage writing for subject-matter needed to succeed. Trainees (ranging from a track-and-field coach competitions, as a way of demonstrating the value of the pro- to a construction worker, and including the unemployed) all found gram to school systems. placements at the company or with customers, enlarging the com- Managing mental health. As governments have deinstitu- puter ecosystem—and typically nearly doubled their income. tionalized care, people with severe mental illness and their fami- This is precisely the kind of investment recommended by the lies have had to navigate uncoordinated programs and services; experts involved in Harvard Business School’s U.S. Competitive- for many mentally ill Americans, “care” is treatment in the emer- ness Project (see “Can America Compete?” September-October gency room or a cell, punctuating periods of homelessness. Ron- 2012, page 26). Rey aims to expand it to biotechnology and other ald A. Lauderdale, a former vice president and assistant general industries in Rhode Island, and to develop a curriculum for such counsel at IBM, and his wife, Valerie Lauderdale, participating training. The result, he said, is that “Human beings will be able as an ALI partner, probed Connecticut’s program to coordinate to do more because they are more.” mental healthcare for this population. Their analysis points to-

44 March - April 2014 laborating on their projects: Plapinger Undergraduates, graduate students, and auditing adult and Cristián Shea, an investment ex- ecutive from Chile, combined forces to fellows intersect in classes, creating a new kind of work on financial aid for international students enrolling in U.S. colleges and diversity “on a dimension of life experiences.” In these universities. They also teach their teachers. Khura- teaching moments, “The fellows are the content.” na said it had been revealing to ob- serve at close hand the different approaches and “habits of mind” as they help us illuminate something” requiring action. Given the of fellows who are lawyers (focused on the “cleanliness of the initiative’s distinctive aims, Kanter has even drawn upon fellows’ idea,” and able to advocate either side), physicians (struggling work to craft nine and counting HBS teaching cases, used in au- to reconcile professional norms, patient care, and the health bu- tumn sessions where the current cohort refine their projects. reaucracy), and business people (pragmatists who focus on “the Outside the class setting, Khurana cited examples of fellows workability of the idea, not necessarily its elegance”). He came who have mentored graduate students, enlisted undergraduates away with a central lesson for ALI itself: “Being problem-driven, in executing their projects, or—in the case of a former food-re- it doesn’t really matter where the tools are coming from so long tailing executive—made contacts for M.B.A. students seeking work in the sustainable-foods industry. What makes all this possible, of course, is the fellows them- selves. They are highly accomplished—and highly motivated to be ward business initiatives—fee-for-service care in more affluent at Harvard (most pay their own way, the equivalent of a full year at areas; continuing-education programs for health professionals; the College, plus living and travel expenses during the year). and after-care services that save hospitals money compared to Still, these elements constitute a lot of energies and intentions readmission of indigent patients—that could strengthen the to tie together in one program. And there, in assembling ALI by program’s finances and enable it to fulfill unmet needs. working her contacts, Kanter made her own luck. Although he Helping children think big. How can children in impov- had not been involved in early planning for the initiative, she erished households imagine the sort of better future (becom- asked senior lecturer on education James P. Honan to sit in on a ing an engineer or a Supreme Court justice) that is routine conversation, to draw on his teaching and research in nonprofit for those in more fortunate environments—and then tie that management, in measurement of organizations’ performance, vision to their education? Floridian Susan G. Johnson, and in higher education (in both degree programs and executive- who has been principal of a private investing and education courses). With that, she attracted one of Harvard’s management company, has developed a “dream- classroom masters—a teacher who melds diverse people big” learning tool, “Lead a Brilliant Life,” that, and interests, making connections that lead to cooperative for example, ties the letter “a” to “architect,” pro- learning. vides an illustrative role model, invites play and Honan, now an ALI co-chair and senior associate direc- storytelling about the role, and links it to school tor, teaches extensively in COAL—he said he found the fel- lessons. “Kids live what they know,” she said, “so lows arrive with “a lot of professional and personal experi- let’s be sure they know more.” She is working to se- ences,” making them deep, broad, quick learners cure distribution in daycare centers and after-school whose expertise he aims to “honor.” He programs. is heavily involved each May in helping Re-humanizing medical care. Alarmed at them prepare brief project proposals (a the loss of “the physician as the healer of statement of the problem, who is work- ills, not just the fixer of problems,” and ing on it, the gaps they see, the stake- doctors’ pervasive discontent with their holders, how to proceed), and then profession, Vincent de Luise, a Con- convene in small work groups to re- necticut ophthalmologist, devised “The fine their statements. Course in Compassion,” intended to A week later, in what may be reform medical-school curriculums by ALI’s most defining pedagogical introducing instruction in art, observa- moment, Honan runs the annual tion, narrative, mindfulness, and empa- “cross-cohort exchange.” The fel- thy training—all grounded in human- lows hang up their “shingles” ism and humanities disciplines. (visual representations of their projects) and solicit comment, Nina J. Lahoud ’78, a 2013 ALI fellow and share their written proposals, and 2014 senior fellow, who is a principal officer in wait nervously for peers and alum- the United Nations’ peacekeeping operations, ni fellows to sign on, using that will be profiled in a forthcoming highest of high-tech devices, issue of Harvard Magazine. Miguel Rey the Post-it®. The notes indicate that another person wants to

Harvard Magazine 45 learn more about a project, or can help advance it, or both. Honan, in Kunshan factories assembled 89 million laptop computers, 40 somehow, calls on people from throughout the room, bringing to percent of the world’s supply. Even by the standards of the bur- bear on a 2013 fellow’s proposal for climate-change action or edu- geoning Yangtze River delta, the city is an extraordinary econom- cation reform the expertise of a 2009 fellow and the experiences ic success, a showcase for China’s oxymoronic Communist Party- of someone from the 2011 cohort, and grouping them by interest led, market-style growth. That status is captured in an HBS case, and affinity for concentrated brainstorming sessions—all in real “Kunshan, Incorporated: The Making of China’s Richest Town,” time. At the fellows’ moment of maximum vulnerability, he con- jointly written by William C. Kirby, Chang professor of China nects them with others who have been there, makes their projects studies and Spangler Family professor of business administra- real, sets them up for a summer of focused work on developing tion, and Nora Bynum, vice provost for Duke Kunshan University their ideas. In so doing, he makes the ALI enterprise a continuous, (DKU)—the institution Duke and its Chinese partner, Wuhan multiyear community of learners and doers. For all the informal University, will open for students this autumn. connections that arise during the year, Honan said, the cross- A principal in the case is Guan Aiguo, the local Party secre- cohort exchange is the formal way ALI “deploys the cadre of ad- tary, who directs his city’s continuing evolution from simple vanced leaders over a period of time,” in a way degree programs manufacturing to high-tech assembly now and toward a future and executive-education classes cannot. of value-added, knowledge-based industry, symbolized by the When the fellows reconvene in the fall, it is Honan who leads new 200-acre DKU campus the government is funding. During them in sharpening their projects, and then directs the November an afternoon briefing in a conference room at the Tsinghua Sci- capstone experience where they present the refined plans. “Not ence Park, accompanied by a panel of six local CEOs (he called all of them,” he said, “but many of them will make that transition them “my partners”), Guan rose to address the delegation of and get engaged” in solving large social problems. Crimson visitors, capitalists all. He promptly established himself Along the way, Khurana said, the intergenerational experi- as the ur-capitalist present, extolling Kunshan as “a place where ences the fellows bring to, and model for, Harvard contribute to dreams can be realized” and sketching a vision of trained work- a new kind of diversity, “on a dimension of life experiences,” that ers, efficient financial markets, and infrastructure that would “create a paradise for entrepreneurs” to Party secretary Guan, the ur-capitalist present, rival Cupertino—headquarters for Apple Inc., in Silicon Valley. extolled Kunshan as “a place where dreams can be Kirby’s case study describes Guan, working within the world’s vastest hier- realized”—a future “paradise for entrepreneurs” archy, as an “entrepreneurial bureaucrat.” Kunshan’s leader might well recognize to rival Cupertino, headquarters for Apple Inc. ALI’s Harvard leaders as kindred spirits. Then, in an exercise that would aston- might well be built into much of what the College and profes- ish an American local-government official struggling to fund her sional schools do. The fellows he has met, he said, are idealistic city’s pension plan or sort out demands for, say, new street lights, about pursuing new ventures, and understand that the University Guan propounded a sweeping strategy—buttressed by manage- context is an ideal setting for the proverbial spreading of wings— ment consultants and backed with data—for his town’s future exactly the attitude a teacher might hope for in any learner. “I’m progress. It envisions investing in DKU and other internation- excited to see the fellows make that transition,” he said, “and get ally oriented institutions of higher education; raising commu- engaged in trying to develop solutions to large social problems.” nity health standards; providing home care for retirees; building cultural and leisure facilities, and “A Place Where Dreams Can Be Realized” greener transportation; and relent- For more information Early each summer, ALI fellows have the option of joining a lessly raising the townspeople’s on ALI, see its website: learning experience with faculty members off campus—some- skills, preparing them for higher- http://advancedleadership. times internationally, to broaden their project perspectives and value employment and thus raising harvard.edu. reflect the international homes and interests of many of their peers incomes many-fold in the years to themselves. Last June, during an immersion week in Shanghai, sev- come. Keeping himself firmly grounded, Guan invited critiques of eral dozen fellows, from various cohorts (many accompanied by the plan by e-mail, and referred to the HBS case study as a source family members), learned about Chinese business and the coun- for sharpening Kunshan’s vision. It’s been a long time since the era try’s energy and environmental challenges. They took in panels on of Mao’s Little Red Book. local intellectual-property law (led by Charles Ogletree), enter- Guan surely works with resources—power, finances—far be- prises and entrepreneurship (directed by Rosabeth Kanter), and yond those explored in the different “sectors” in ALI’s curriculum. health and a promising experiment with patient-focused electron- But the propulsive force of the strategy he laid out, its results to ic medical records (led by Barry Bloom). date, and its momentum made Michael Bush’s plan for post-catas- The highlight of the trip—a midweek day outing to Kunshan, a trophe life care, or Mark Feinberg’s emerging HIV-therapy collab- city of some two million people between Shanghai and Suzhou— orative, or Robert Whelan’s idea for upending student financing combined substance with a subtext applicable to the fellows’ seem not so far over the horizon after all. own aspirations. Thirty years ago, the area was farmland: mul- berry trees. But in 2011, among myriad other products, workers John S. Rosenberg is editor of Harvard Magazine.

46 March - April 2014 Nuclear Weapons or Democracy “Out of ratio” weapons are essentially ungovernable. by Craig Lambert

he most fateful object yet to appear on this planet Ike also delegated the power to launch a strike to certain mili- could be the “nuclear briefcase,” or “nuclear football,” a tary commanders if he were unavailable. Former secretary of de- 40-pound titanium case containing top-secret informa- fense Robert McNamara, M.B.A. ’39, LL.D. ’62, said, late in his life, tion and tools that enable the president of the United that John F. Kennedy ’40, LL.D. ’56, came “within a hairbreadth TStates to launch a nuclear strike. The president carries authenti- of nuclear catastrophe” three times—this in a presidency lasting cation codes to assure recipients that the source of any nuclear only 34 months. Lyndon Johnson contemplated deploying nuclear orders is actually the Commander in Chief. When the president arms to prevent China from building them. Richard Nixon con- is away from the White House, a military officer with the nation’s sidered using them three times—other than in Vietnam—includ- highest security clearance (“Yankee White”) always remains ing one case in which North Korea shot down a U.S. reconnais- nearby with this doomsday device, at times cabled to his wrist. sance plane in 1969. Due to the extraordinary secretiveness surrounding nuclear “The crucial point is that there’s an interval of 30 or 40 years be- matters, Americans have no idea how many times presidents may tween those incidents and our learning about them,” says Elaine have opened the nuclear briefcase or its equivalent. We do know Scarry, Cabot professor of aesthetics and the general theory of that Eisenhower considered using nuclear weapons twice, during value. “We wrongly assume that the Cuban missile crisis is the

© Bettmann/CORBIS Bettmann/CORBIS © the Taiwan Straits crisis of 1954 and a flare-up over Berlin in 1959; model: ‘when the world is at risk, we know it.’ Well, we don’t

Mushroom cloud from U.S. nuclear test, Eniwetok Atoll, Marshall Islands, 1951 Harvard Magazine 47 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Elaine Scarry know it. In eight of these nine cases, we didn’t have a clue. Do In her book, Scarry asserts that the United States, “…a country we want to simply guess about something like this, where millions formerly dependent on its population, its legislature, and its ex- of people stand to be killed? We assume there would have to be ecutive acting in concert for any act of defense—has now largely a huge problem for us to contemplate such a thing. Like, for ex- eliminated its population and its legislature from the sphere of ample, shooting down a reconnaissance plane? defense, and relies exclusively on its executive.” “It’s widely acknowledged that nuclear weapons are incredibly Nuclear weapons are monarchic. Along with other weapons of susceptible to accidental use or to seizure by a non-state actor or mass destruction, they are what Scarry calls “out-of-ratio” weap- terrorist,” Scarry continues. “But what has been insufficiently rec- ons: ones that give a very small number of people the power to ognized is the biggest danger of all: the belief that there is some annihilate very large numbers of people. “An out-of-ratio weapon ‘legitimate’ possession of these weapons, that we are safe as long makes the presence of the population at the authorization end [of as there’s government oversight of them. In fact, they are utterly an attack] a structural impossibility,” she writes. “New weapons incompatible with governance.” inevitably change the nature of warfare,” she says, “but out-of- In her new book, Thermonuclear Monarchy: Choosing Between Democ- ratio weapons have changed the nature of government.” racy and Doom (W.W. Norton), Scarry argues that the very exis- In a practical sense, the speed and scale of an incoming nuclear tence of nuclear arsenals is irreconcilable with the U.S. Constitu- attack make the notion of congressional authorization of war ri- tion and in fact betrays the basic purpose of the social contract diculous; such arms are fundamentally beyond democratic con- that governs any civil society: forestalling injurious behavior. trol. “We had a choice: get rid of nuclear weapons or get rid of “Nuclear weapons undo governments, and undo anything that Congress and the citizens,” Scarry explains. “We got rid of Con- could be meant by democracy,” she says. “They put the population gress and the citizens.” completely outside the realm of overseeing our entry into war— Since the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, Ameri- or having a say in their own survival or destruction. We have to can presidents have been well aware that having a finger on the choose between nuclear weapons and democracy.” nuclear trigger gives them monstrous power that dwarfs the pet-

48 March - April 2014 Photograph by Jim Harrison Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 “We had a choice: get rid of nuclear weapons, or get rid of Congress and the citizens,” Scarry says. “We got rid of Congress and the citizens.” ty squabbles of day-to-day political life. During the 1974 impeach- chised African-American men. It came on the heels of the Civil ment proceedings of Richard Nixon, he told the press, “I can go War, in which 180,000 black soldiers fought; given this, blacks into my office and pick up the telephone, and in 25 minutes 70 could hardly be denied the right to vote. Similarly, the Twenty- million people will be dead.” Sixth Amendment, lowering the voting age from 21 to 18, was The concentration of such outsized violent force in the hands ratified after many teenaged soldiers had fought and died in the of the American president (and of the leaders of the other eight Vietnam War. nuclear powers) has, Scarry argues, largely undermined the three- “It is tempting to think that a country with monarchic arrange- part design of government that the framers of the Constitution ments in the realm of nuclear war can maintain a more attractive created to separate legislative, judicial, and executive power. In- form of government throughout the rest of its civil fabric,” she stead, Washington has become like a three-handed poker game writes. “That would be a mistake. A country is its arrangements in which one player holds all the high cards and billions of chips. for national defense….” In Article I, Section 8:11, the Constitution insists on a congres- The Constitution and, more generally, the social contract, pur- sional declaration for war to take place, Scarry says, yet, “since posely make it difficult to go to war. Scarry’s book makes clear the invention of atomic weapons, there has not been a formal con- that the social contract arises from the need to prevent the inju- gressional declaration of war.” (The closest case was Congress’s ries that people living in groups so often cause one another. The conditional declaration for the Gulf War.) Thermonuclear Monarchy solution involves putting brakes on the concentration of power. describes the five cases of declared war in American history: the “The only way you can civilize force is to distribute it: give ev- War of 1812, the Mexican War of 1846, the Spanish-American War, eryone a small share,” she says, adding that the Second Amend- and the two World Wars. Scarry remarks on “how majestic Con- ment’s insistence on the citizens’ right to bear arms underlines gress was in those cases.” this principle. Urging that military powers be held within the so- cial contract, John Locke similarly warned, she notes, that anyone The awesome power that nuclear weapons invest in the ex- is “in a much worse condition, who is exposed to the arbitrary ecutive branch essentially disables the legislative one, she writes. power of one man, who has the command of 100,000, than he that “[O]nce Congress was stripped of its responsibility for oversee- is exposed to the arbitrary power of 100,000 single men.” Nuclear ing war—as happened the moment atomic weapons were invent- weapons eliminate individual soldiers; they condense the injur- ed—it was, in effect, infantilized….Now, six decades later, book ing power that formerly depended on thousands of soldiers into after book has appeared describing Congress as ‘dysfunctional’ a single weapon, and place it at the disposal of a solitary leader. or ‘dead.’ Once Congress regains its authority over war, however, “Actions that cause major injury, like going to war, require col- there is every reason to believe it will travel back along the reverse lective decisionmaking—which gives a great braking power,” she path, reacquiring the stature, intelligence, eloquence, and com- says. “You don’t want to put impediments in the way of the good mitment to the population it once had.” things in life—things like liberty, lovemaking, party-going, study- Civic stature and military stature are intimately linked. Scarry ing, helping others. The social contract puts impediments in the points to the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment, which enfran- way of one thing: injury.” War surely causes more injury and death than any other action arising from human in- Injury and Beauty tentions, and the Constitution (written in the wake of the Revolutionary War) puts a double This spring, Elaine Scarry is teaching two courses: a purely literary class on the brake on warfare. War must pass through two three Brontë sisters, and “The Problem of Consent,” drawing examples from lit- gates to become a reality. One is Congress, with erature, medicine, political philosophy, and the law, and enrolling students from its responsibility (now shirked) to declare war. the Law School as well as the College. Though her home base is Harvard’s Eng- The second brake is the general population. lish department, Scarry has never limited her scholarship to literature. “The mere fact that you required the citizens to From the beginning, she says, her work has focused on two areas: “the prob- fight meant that the citizenry could say yes or lem of injury, and why it is so hard to get people to care about it;” and “the great no,” she explains. “A war doesn’t get fought if pleasure of beauty and creation.” The first of Scarry’s 10 books,The Body In Pain the population doesn’t want it fought. (1985), offered a searching exploration of physical pain in medical, military, legal, “People like to say, ‘Soldiers obey—they do scientific, and literary contexts.Dreaming by the Book (1999) inquired into how po- what they’re told,’ ” she continues. “It’s not ets get readers to form vivid mental images. On Beauty and Being Just (1999) argued true. Soldiers do what they are told, but they that encounters with beauty “call us either to educate ourselves, or to try to re- do it thoughtfully—and sometimes they don’t. pair the injuries of the world.” Since 1987, she has been researching the issues The War of 1812 ended when it did because the involving consent to war expounded in Thermonuclear Monarchy; in recent years population, including soldiers and sailors, did she has lectured on its themes at law schools and humanities forums. not feel strong support for it. There were sol- dier strikes all over England and Canada at the

Harvard Magazine 49 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 A military aide to President George H.W. Bush carries the “nuclear brief- case,” cabled to his wrist, in 1991.

moments, seems all but incommuni- cado. Thermonuclear Monarchy builds on this: “…to say nuclear weapons are ‘ungovernable’ is to say that they are unreachable by the human will, the populations of the earth can have no access to them.… The membrane that separates us from their lethal corri- dors is one-directional: the weapons may suddenly unzip the barrier, erupt into our world, eliminate us; but we cannot, standing on the other side, un- zip the barrier, step into their world, and eliminate them.” She elaborates: “People say, ‘Once something is in- vented it can’t be un-invented.’ What are we talking about? These things we’ve invented can kill and destroy the whole earth, but we can’t get rid of them? Of course we can.” The Ohio class submarines nicely © Wally McN amee/CORBIS Wally © epitomize the furtiveness of the nucle- end of World War I; Winston Churchill wrote to Lloyd George ar world. Eight new ones were launched between 1989 and 1997, saying he wanted to go into Russia to support the Whites against during the years of the so-called “peace dividend.” Each of these the Reds, ‘but the soldiers won’t let me.’ A big reason the South subs carries nuclear weapons with eight times the total blast lost the Civil War was that 250,000 soldiers deserted; every time power expended by all Allied and Axis countries in World War Robert E. Lee looked over his shoulder, he saw a smaller army. II. The 14 Trident II SSBNs (ballistic-missile launching subma- Soldiers ratify a war.” rines) have, among them, the firepower to kill all life on 14 con- tinents. “There are only seven continents,” Scarry dryly remarks. The secrecy that cloaks nuclear policy and the technical aspects Even so, news reports did not cover the launching, christening, of nuclear arms—what happens in the private huddles between a and commissioning of any of these submarines, even in the states president and his advisers, for example—keeps these policies in- whose names they bore. sulated from any genuine, searching critique, she believes. Even The shroud of secrecy keeps the general citizenry ignorant of ba- the weapons themselves remain sequestered in deep-sea waters, sic facts about the nation’s nuclear arrangements. Most Americans high in the sky, or at remote land locations in Wyoming, Montana, do not realize that the country has a first-use policy. A 2004 poll or North Dakota, for example. It can be difficult even to communi- found that the majority estimated that the United States has 200 cate with the military personnel trusted to oversee them. nuclear weapons; the actual current figure is 7,700. Meanwhile, 73 The USS Rhode Island is one of 18 Ohio class submarines armed percent of Americans say they want the total elimination of nuclear with nuclear ballistic or guided missiles that patrol the world’s weapons, as do similar proportions of Russians and Canadians. waters. Its armaments can destroy all human, animal, and plant The United States and Russia are now reducing their stockpiles life on a continent. When deeply submerged, as in wartime or of nuclear warheads in accordance with negotiated agreements. any moment of high political tension, Scarry writes,“…it can o- This is a positive step, Scarry says, though she cautions that the n-l-y-r-e-c-e-i-v-e-t-i-n-y-a-m-o-u-n-t-s-o-f-i-n-f-o-r-m-a-t-i-o- reductions in forces “may simply be a way to retire obsolete n-v-e-r-y-v-e-r-y-s-l-o-w-l-y. In fact, the first three letters of the weapons to make way for newer ones.” (Twelve more Ohio class hyphenated message would have taken fifteen minutes to arrive, submarines are slated for construction between 2019 and 2035.) and the submarine would have had no way to confirm its receipt of the letters.” The information gets conveyed, she explains, “... Recent scientific work on the “nuclear winter” (the hypo- in Extremely Low Frequency (or ELF) waves, giant radio waves thetical climate change following a nuclear exchange), Scarry re- each 2500 miles in length that can (unlike any other band of the ports, indicates that any country launching a nuclear attack would electromagnetic spectrum) penetrate the ocean depths. Until be committing suicide—rendering the weapons, in effect, unusable. 2004, ELF waves were launched by a giant antenna in Michigan An exchange that exploded as little as 0.015 percent of the world’s and Wisconsin that is eighteen acres in size.” (The Navy has not nuclear arsenal—say, between lesser nuclear powers like India and disclosed the successor to ELF.) Pakistan—could leave 44 million dead immediately—and one bil- The nuclear-armed submarine, then, is an obscenely power- lion more people likely to perish in the following month, given the ful engine of destruction and death that, at the most critical effect on food supplies and the disruption of agriculture.

50 March - April 2014 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 “People say, ‘Once something is invented, it can’t be uninvented.’ What are we talking about? These things we’ve invented can kill and destroy the whole earth, but we can’t get rid of them? Of course we can.”

During the Cuban missile crisis, President John F. Kennedy sisting that these weapons be eliminated—rather than just leaving stated that the United States had no quarrel with the Cuban peo- it up to a handful of negotiators—that will help them as negotia- ple or the Soviet people. But, Scarry says, “These weapons are not tors. designed for a showdown of political leaders. They are going to “There is no transparency if you’re waiting 30 or 40 years to massacre the citizens. No weapon ever invented has remained un- get the information,” she continues. “Presidents ought to report used. Does anyone think that in the next 100 years, one of these about close calls, for example. Maybe each year in the State of the governments that has them, won’t use them?” Union address, the president should have to say how many times In a 2005 Foreign Policy essay, “Apocalypse Soon,” Robert McNa- a nuclear option was considered in the past year. And we ought to mara bluntly declared, “U.S. nuclear weapons policy [is] immoral, feel that it is our responsibility to ask about these things. History illegal, militarily unnecessary and dreadfully dangerous.” Scarry has to show that we tried.” agrees, and declares, “Nuclear weapons have to be gotten rid of, In an earlier book, Scarry analyzed the events of 9/11, showing worldwide. But this cannot be done if the United States is just how the citizens on Flight 93 were able to act effectively to disrupt sitting there with this huge arsenal, which dwarfs what any other the terrorists’ planned mission. “They deliberated, they actually vot- nation has. We worry about Iran and North Korea and the huge ed, and they acted to bring down that plane,” she says. “Whereas the existential threat if these countries get nuclear weapons. What Pentagon could not even defend the Pentagon, let alone the rest of is mysterious, though, is that we fail to see the huge existential the country: their habits and training were all directed toward this threat that we pose to the world with what is by far the most idea of war with a foreign country. The fighter jets at first flew off powerful nuclear arsenal anywhere.” away from the coast, in the wrong direction. But terrorists like the In 1995, 78 countries asked the International Court of Justice to shoe bomber—undone by fellow passengers. The so-called Christ- declare nuclear arms illegal. In response, the U.S. Departments of mas bomber in Detroit—undone by passengers. The Times Square Defense and State jointly argued that using, and even making first car bomb—an ordinary vendor noticed something wrong.” use of, nuclear weapons does not violate any treaty regarding hu- Perhaps millions of citizens will find something wrong with a man rights or the environment. Nor would the death of millions far greater bomb threat, and defuse it. Scarry ends the first chapter via a nuclear attack violate the 1948 UN convention on genocide; of Thermonuclear Monarchy with a challenge. “The two artifacts, the they asserted that “genocide” applies only to the annihilation of social contract and the nuclear array, are mutually exclusive,” she national, ethnic, racial, or religious groups. writes. “To exist each requires that the other be destroyed. Which Scarry instead suggests that the United States act in concert one will it be?” with other nuclear nations, all using their constitutions, to dis- mantle and permanently eliminate these weapons. The first step, Craig A. Lambert ’69, Ph.D. ’78, is deputy editor of this magazine. she says, is “reanimating our awareness that we are responsible—we are in control, or should be in control, of our self-defense.” Restoring the military draft would help return responsibility for decisions about war to the whole population, and make po- litical leaders far more accountable to the citizenry. “Little by little, the importance of the Constitution has been obscured,” she states. “We should require Congress to oversee our entry into war. A president who does not get a congressional declara- tion should no longer be president. That is absolutely an impeachable offense. The population has to see how important this provision is.” Furthermore, in negotiations for nuclear disarmament, “if those who are negotiating know that the population is in- d/U.S. N avy d/U.S. or ff The USS Wyoming, an Ohio-class i nuclear ballistic-missile armed ly Cl ly submarine, transits the Intracoastal r b e m i

Waterway in 2009. K

Harvard Magazine 51 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Montage Art, books, diverse creations

54 Off the Shelf 56 Design in Layers 56 Chapter and Verse 57 Open Book

that flies to business meetings over a city skyline, or place an older aircraft like an open-cockpit biplane above sand dunes. Ambats (www.jessicaambats.com) is a trained pilot herself, with instrument, multi-engine, and seaplane ratings. As Styled Blue Yonder a 12-year-old, she flew in a private plane with a family friend, and “during the Jessica Ambats’s spectacular air-to-air photographs flight, she let me make left and right turns with the yoke,” Ambats recalls. “It was by Craig Lambert my first exposure to the idea that regu- lar people can fly airplanes—I’d thought he images have so much air in maneuvering the planes. “Every detail is it was only for the military.” After col- them: high above the ground, planned,” she says. “Usually we end up fly- lege, she went up with a flight-instructor planes cavort in open space, ing in circles for the whole hour.” friend, spending the afternoon hopping T seemingly at play. They fly aston- What’s tricky about such pictures is around small airports in the New York and ishingly close to the viewer, at times only that both camera and subject are in mo- New Jersey area and discovering “general 20 feet away from the camera lens. Back- tion (typical airspeeds are around 150 aviation,” the term for non-commercial drops—bridges, cities, deserts, rivers, for- knots, or about 172 miles per hour), so civilian flying. Plane( & Pilot is one of the ests—fall away majestically, far below. This there’s not much wiggle room on timing three biggest general-aviation magazines.) is air-to-air photography, pictures that only the shutter release. Another element is Ambats began flying lessons at Andover someone flying in another plane could take. the setting. “I work very hard on back- Flight Academy in Andover, New Jersey, Many have appeared in Plane & Pilot maga- grounds,” Ambats explains. “I’m choosy— and finished in California, having moved zine; its editor, Jessica Ambats ’95, belongs I want clean, uncluttered backgrounds, no to Los Angeles in 2004 to work for Pilot to the small cadre of those who make such roads or telephone poles.” She also tries to Getaways magazine, where she took up air- pictures. Her airborne shoots typically last match a background with the featured to-air photography. Today she likes to fly about an hour, with specially trained pilots aircraft: she might position a private jet a Cirrus single-engine propeller plane for

52 March - April 2014 Photographs by Jessica Ambats Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Montage

Left to right: An Aero L-39 Albatros (foreground) and Dassault Falcon 2000 over the Golden Gate Bridge; a World War II-era North American P-51 Mustang over New York City; an Oracle Challenger (red) and Wolfpitts (yellow); Ambats shooting from a Beechcraft A36 Bonanza photoship h by david Farr david h by p pilots,” specialists trained to fly feet higher.” Even such a small change can

in close formation with other drastically alter the composition. Photogra planes: some are former Blue An- Ambats usually works from a Beech- gels or Thunderbirds. With ex- craft Bonanza with the rear doors re- posures from ranges as close as 20 moved. (She does not shoot through to 150 feet, this kind of expertise glass.) A harness holds her securely in is essential or it’s “too risky,” she place. Working with a handheld high-end says. “It takes finesse to move an digital camera, she exposes several hun- pleasure. (She rents these craft, which cost airplane exactly 10 feet.” During the shoot, dred images per flight. Lenses with image around $480,000 each; private jets fall in she constantly feeds both pilots directions stabilization can help, and at times she the $3-million to $10-million range.) to line up the planes properly with each deploys a gyroscopic camera stabilizer, “if For shoots, she hires only “formation other and the background: “Biplane, 15 it’s a bumpy flight.” Midlife Leading Man Breaking Bad’s Dean Norris, a prime-time stalwart

ean Norris ’85 is headed home on a Stephen King science by limousine after finishing a fiction novel, was anchored photo shoot with—he kids— by Norris as “Big Jim” Ren- D “a few underlings from the net- nie, a power-hungry lo- work”: CBS Entertainment president Nina cal politician in a town Tassler and CBS Television Studios presi- suddenly cut off from the dent David Stapf. The 50-year-old actor world by an invisible bar- la coyote/amc

seems to be taking the media attention he’s rier. Season two will begin u

receiving in stride. production in March. Urs “Under the Dome turned out to be a huge But Norris is perhaps best known for Dean Norris, at right, in the television summer success,” he explains matter-of- playing Drug Enforcement Administra- series Breaking Bad with Bryan Cranston factly. “And it was profitable from day one, tion agent Hank Schrader on AMC’s cable In an industry often criticized for em- so it was a big game changer from a busi- series Breaking Bad, which won 10 Emmy phasizing youth and good looks over tal- ness standpoint.” A rare summer triumph Awards during its seven-year run, includ- ent, Norris’s leap to leading man in middle for network television, CBS’s Dome, based ing Outstanding Drama Series in 2013. age sounds improbable. Yet his stardom

Harvard Magazine 53 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Montage

terious, about Gulliver’s creator. “minutely observed and unsparing” work Damrosch has previously written, is a “landmark” in Japanese fiction. Off the Shelf to acclaim, about Rousseau and Tocqueville. Old Fields: Photography, Glamour, Recent books with Harvard connections and Fantasy Landscape, by John R. The Call of Character: Living a Stilgoe, Orchard professor in the history Life Worth Living, by Mari Ruti, of landscape (University of Virginia Press, The Princeton Guide to Evolution, Ph.D. ’00 (Columbia University Press, $34.95). In another of his wide-ranging editor in chief Jonathan B. Losos, Lehner $25). The University of Toronto professor explorations—here, from I Dream of Jean- professor for the study of Latin America of critical theory addresses “what makes nie to voodoo—the author (profiled in and professor of organismic and evolution- each of us a unique and idiosyncratic char- “Safari on a City Street,” January-Febru- ary biology (Princeton, $99). A massive acter” without succumbing to New Age ary 1996, page 36) examines portrayals reference guide to what Losos, the Mu- sloganeering, resorting to “deliberately of glamour through photography, among seum of Comparative Zoology’s curator lucid prose” that she terms “my little act other queries. in herpetology (a lizards guy), describes as of defiance.” “a golden era of evolutionary study.” Too Making the American Body, by Jona- much to spend for the Intelligent Design The Problem of Slavery in the Age than Black ’65 (University of Nebraska, proponents on your birthday list. of Emancipation, by David Brion Da- $27.95). Glamour, of a different sort: vis, Ph.D. ’56 (Knopf, $30). The conclud- the icons of the fitness biz, from Atlas Jonathan Swift: His Life and His ing volume in the magisterial trilogy on (Charles) to Schwarzenegger, by a for- World, by Leo Damrosch, Bernbaum slavery in Western culture by the Sterling mer managing editor of Playboy. Complete research professor of literature (Yale, Professor of history emeritus at Yale. Da- with a Harvard Medical School anecdote $35). A big, but brisk, new biography, vis published the first installment in the on the “Roxbury Hercules.” with nearly 100 illustrations, exploring 1960s; it and the second volume between what is known, and what remains mys- them won a Pulitzer Prize, National Book The Heathen School: A Story of Award, and Bancroft Prize, and Hope and Betrayal in the Age of the set the parameters for studying Early Republic, by John P. Demos ’59, slavery across the academy. G ’68, RI ’07 (Knopf, $30). Another in a series of highly original works on early Light and Dark, by Natsue America—this time, about a Cornwall, Soseki, translated by John Connecticut, school to “civilize” young Nathan ’61, JF ’70, Ph.D. ’74 “heathens” from around the world—by (Columbia, $35). A meticulous the Knight professor of history emeritus version of the unfinished last at Yale. work by Soseki, who “endured the transformation of Japan” Romania’s Abandoned Children, by during his lifetime (1867-1916), Charles A. Nelson III, professor of pediat- according to Nathan, and so rics, Nathan A. Fox, Ed.D. ’75, and Charles rom the book f created the modern Japanese H. Zeanah (Harvard, $29.95). Nelson and novel. Nathan, a biogra- colleagues from the University of Maryland pher of Yukio Mishima and Tulane report—with scientific rigor and now Takashima and dismaying detail—on the devastating professor of Japanese effects institutionalized children suffered, cultural studies at the intellectually and emotionally, compared University of California, to peers in foster and home care. Santa Barbara, says the From the Great Blasket to America, Blasket Island home: by Michael Carney with Gerald Hayes, The National School Ed.M. ’70 (Collins Press, $22.95 paper). (left, upper image) and Aided by his son-in-law, the oldest living the Carneys’ home (middle structure), with native of the Blasket Islands (off Ireland’s father Seán Tom Ó Dingle Peninsula) recalls how its people Ceárna outside. Below, were resettled to the mainland, and, from Michael Carney (standing left) with friends, and the vantage of his present home in Amer- (seated) brothers Tom, ica, his memories of island life before Martin, and Paddy. World War II, and his life since.

54 March - April 2014 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Montage is well earned, especially considering his Notre Dame University production. There at 25, I was playing 35. It wasn’t until 35 or many credits for performing smaller film were other roles at the university and as 40 that I grew into my age.” and television roles as a character actor in a high-school student, but Norris says But television has evolved to his ben- the past quarter-century, in shows from it was his Harvard experience that truly efit. Norris creditsNYPD Blue and actor The Equalizer and NYPD Blue to CSI and The prepared him for the career that lay ahead. Dennis Franz in particular for bringing Mentalist. “I was slotted into [parts play- “I remember one day when I literally had more grit and intensity—not to mention ing] cops and military and CIA,” he re- three plays in my head at the same time,” better acting—to the small screen. The calls. “There was always plenty of that out he recalls. Typically the social-studies show welcomed actors he calls “real- there, so I was able to make a good living concentrator acted in five or six plays a looking people.” And today’s cable shows just going from show to show and movie year: on the Loeb main stage, in the Loeb have further exploded the strictures once to movie.” Ex’s black-box theater, and in House pro- imposed by the networks because, as Norris grew up in South Bend, Indiana. ductions. The professional American Rep- Norris says, “all of this talent moved [to “It was the Rust Belt,” he says. His grand- ertory Theater was freshly arrived in Cam- cable television] from independent mov- parents were Hungarian and Polish immi- bridge from Yale, so he also got the chance ies, which are very difficult to make any grants who worked in the factories that to understudy or take on small roles more.” Norris likens film to the short sto- fed Detroit auto plants and, luckily, retired there—superb training for the demands ry and serialized cable to the American before the oil embargo of the early 1970s he later faced. novel. “With Breaking Bad, for example, changed the industrial landscape. His fa- “You have to be able to get into differ- it’s like you have 62 chapters that tell this ther, who owned a furniture store, played ent characters quickly,” Norris says of his long and complicated story—and to then in a band on weekends, like many of his job. “Because if you’re guest-starring on a think I’m going to do a movie? It’s like a other relatives. By the age of nine, Dean show, you get one or two takes and that’s moment in time.” was sitting in on guitar and getting a taste it. And for me, so much of that came from As for being a “character actor” in the for performing. “When I got older,” he re- doing theater, where you don’t have takes.” future, Norris asserts, “I think if you members, “I realized I wasn’t good enough After attending the Royal Academy of act, you act,” adding, “Those lines have as a musician to make any money.” Dramatic Art in London, Norris moved to blurred. That’s a term left over from when His first performance was inRichard III; Los Angeles in 1988. “I always knew that you had good-looking Hollywood guys at age five, he played a young prince in a I’d be a middle-aged actor,” he says. “Even and everybody else.” vlara pellegrinelli

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The July-August 2014 Harvard Magazine will feature the —a special advertising section for authors (in Montage, adjacent to coverage of Calling All Harvardbooks and theAuthors!Harvard arts). CallAuthors’ Gretchen Bookshelf Bostrom at 617-496-6686 or e-mail [email protected] to find out about the special listing package that includes: a full-color book jacket or photo, book title or company name, and a description of up to 25 words—plus online coverage.

Harvard Magazine 55 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Montage Design in Layers Robert Pillsbury’s imaginative stacks of paper

uring his 40-plus years as an sized birds of prey architect, Robert Pillsbury ’61, from discarded M.Arch. ’65, devoted himself to cork sheets. It D the pleasures of creation and con- wasn’t until 2009, struction, often in the form of large-scale in- however, that he dustrial water and sewer systems he helped started to devote design. Now retired, his materials of choice more time to his have shifted to the lighter medium of pa- artwork. “I always per. Inspired by everything from the natu- felt that you need ral world and the elegant geometry of quilt to have something patterns and chair caning to Italian abstract to retire to—I artists such as Enrico Castellani and Piero couldn’t just re- Dorazio, Pillsbury employs an architectural tire,” says Pills- process and aesthetic to create cut-paper bury, who reports compositions that communicate a simul- to his home studio

taneous sense of delicate intricacy and sub- in Warren, Rhode Autumn piece from start to finish. First, he drafts a u ry

stantive dimension. Island, at 8 a.m. ev- design concept on paper freehand before illsb Pillsbury studied art at Harvard with ery weekday, breaking for lunch and a bike using a software program (SketchUp) to

painter and photographer T. Lux Feininger ride before returning for a few more hours create and manipulate a measured, hardline p robert and dabbled in different projects over the of work in the afternoon. drawing to print out as a template. Pills- years, at one point creating a series of life- It takes him about 40 hours to craft a bury places that template over a sheet of

form%20of%20stupidity&f=false. man (Cambridge University Press, 1996; c hapter 2. Next, using Google Books, I located ISBN 0-521567041) translates it on page this translation (unfortunately there’s 360 this way: ‘206. Forgetting our objec- & verse no internal search option): http://books. tives. – During the journey we commonly Correspondence on google.com/books?id=QhWsEiQFH_gC forget its goal. Almost every profession is &dq=marion+faber+human,+all+too+ chosen and commenced as a means to an not-so-famous lost words human&hl=en&sa=X&ei=S_vbUsbtE- end but continued as an end in itself. For- fJsQSHl4GgBQ&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAg. getting our objectives is the most frequent of “the commonest form of stupid- 3. You can also find this book as a 1994 all acts of stupidity.’ [My emphasis.]” ity” (January-February). Joseph Marcus Penguin Classic (again, there’s no ‘Look Separately, Kenneth Winston wrote: “I responded: “1. I plugged the Nietzsche Inside ...’ feature) at Amazon: http://www. have in front of me the German text of quotation into Google Scholar, which re- amazon.com/Human-All-Too-Paperback- Menschliches, Allzumenschliches: Ein Buch fur turns gazillions of citations. One occurs in Common/dp/B00FFBG1BG/ref=sr_1_3?s= freie Geister [Leipzig: Verlag von E. W. Frit- Kenneth Hart Green’s Leo Strauss and the books&ie=UTF8&qid=1390145718&sr=1- zsch, 1886], Zweiter Band). On page 118, Rediscovery of Maimonides (chapter 4, note 3&keywords=marion+faber+stephen. And paragraph 206 ends with the sentence: 2). Green cites the Marion Faber-Stephen as a 1996 Bison Books re-publication Das Vergessen der Absichten ist die haufigste Lehmann translation of Nietzsche’s Hu- [ISBN-13: 978-0803283688]: http://www. Dummheit, die gemacht wird. What’s curious man, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits, amazon.com/Human-All-Too-Spirits-Re- is that the English translation in my pos- specifically the second supplement, ‘The vised/dp/0803283687. session does not include this paragraph. Wanderer and His Shadow,’ aphorism 206: 4. Additional publishers have issued the Indeed it renumbers the paragraphs, so http://books.google.com/books?id=exAg0 translation in various editions. (Be careful that #206 is totally different. So, perhaps DL6n3IC&pg=PA186&lpg=PA186&dq=to+ with the format of your citation, though; the German version went through differ- forget+one’s+purpose+is+the+commone some versions only credit Faber as the ent editions and the one used by transla- st+form+of+stupidity&source=bl&ots=aY translator, with Lehmann as editor, etc.) tors does not include this paragraph.” if_r_ZfX&sig=5YxHQORP7Excu4-s_aAA 5. Finally, it’s interesting to compare oth- • • • xgeCq3I&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Ve7bUuj9NbO er translations, which phrase the aphorism Send inquiries and answers to “Chapter gsATRxoDACw&ved=0CEwQ6AEwBjgo# slightly differently—just one reason that and Verse,” Harvard Magazine, 7 Ware v=onepage&q=to%20forget%20one’s%20 it’s so difficult to unearth. For instance, R.J. Street, Cambridge 02138, or via e-mail to purpose%20is%20the%20commonest%20 Hollingdale’s version of Human, All Too Hu- [email protected].

56 March - April 2014 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Montage

heavy, textured paper (typically 80-pound stock) before using a pin to prick each point The late Arthur M. of the design. He then cuts from pinprick o p e n b o o k Schlesinger Jr. ’38, JF to pinprick with an X-Acto knife, produc- ’43, LL.D. ’01—his- ing one tier of a work that he may build torian, presidential up to have four or five layers. Next, he ro- “A Fighting Faith” adviser, Democratic tates each layer slightly and separates them Party leader—wrote with surgically placed, adhesive foam spac- a lot (President Neil ers (tweezers come into play here). When L. Rudenstine said he covered “a cast of characters as capacious as Aida’s without viewed head-on, the spacers are virtually the elephants”). It is no surprise that he was a prolific correspondent. Sons Andrew invisible, creating a vortex-like, three-di- ’70 and Stephen ’64, LL.B. ’68, have now edited The Letters of Arthur Schlesinger Jr. mensional effect that pulls the viewer in for (Random House, $35). From their introduction about this “inveterate letter writer” a closer look. Some works are monochro- and his myriad correspondents: matic; others add a second or third color as a compositional element (see www.rpills- For the most part, what brought him Party’s presidential nomination, pro- burycutpaperartist.com). together with these individuals were his claimed his liberalism in words Schlesing- “The order and craftsmanship of the political beliefs. The abiding theme of his er helped craft, saying: “If, by a ‘Liberal’ forms are important to me,” says Pillsbury, correspondence over a 60-year period they mean someone who looks ahead whose work has been featured in a num- is his preoccupation with liberalism and and not behind, someone who welcomes ber of juried shows in the past few years. its prospects. He was always in some new ideas without rigid reactions, some- “I enjoy the physical construction of the way promoting and advancing the liberal one who cares about the welfare of the pieces—it goes back to my early years as agenda; it was his mission, purpose, and people—their health, their housing, justification. their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, What did the liberal credo mean to and their civil liberties—someone who Schlesinger? As he wrote in his much believes we can break through the stale- acclaimed book, The Vital Center, pub- mate and suspicions that grip us in our lished in 1949: “The job of liberalism [is] policies abroad, if that is what they mean to devote itself to the maintenance of by a ‘Liberal,’ then I am proud to say I’m individual liberties and to the democratic a ‘Liberal.’ ” control of economic life—and to brook This is what liberalism meant to no compromise, at home or abroad, on Schlesinger. either of these two central te- nets.” For him, liberalism was “a fighting faith.” In The Cycles of American History (1986) he noted that liberals do not see the unfettered marketplace as an “infinitely sensitive, friction- less, impartial, self-equilibrat- ing mechanism.” Instead, he u ry Sun Swirls wrote, “The liberal believes illsb an architect. One of my first projects was that the mitigation of [eco- building a model of the new Boston City nomic] problems will require a robert p robert Hall.” Although his primary medium is renewal of affirmative govern- paper, he has also experimented with thin ment to redress the market’s strips of wood veneer to good effect and is distortion and compensate intrigued by the semi-translucent poten- for its failures—but affirma- tial of polypropylene. tive government chastened x Pillsbury is interested in moving into and reformed, one must hope, u ed R larger-scale commissions in mediums by stringent review of the ex- / other than paper, although he enjoys the cesses and errors of [past] cen- (relatively) immediate gratification and turies.” independence of his current work when On September 14, 1960, compared to the years-long timeline for in- Senator John F. Kennedy, ac- The New York Times

dustrial projects involving numerous par- cepting the New York Liberal ames/ ties. “I should be good for a while,” he says, On familiar ground: AMS Jr. at eorge T eorge G

“as long as my eyesight holds out.” the White House, 1965 © vjulia hanna

Harvard Magazine 57 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 alumni Alumni Shades of Justice “Evil is not all on one side.”

rowing up in Washington, juveniles in the most serious, complex 214-member staff includes a roster of pug- D.C., Avis E. Buchanan, J.D. ’81, felony cases. nacious, disciplined Ivy League lawyers read an article about two black The organization is widely considered and an appellate team that averages bet- women who claimed they were by legal advocates to be among the best ter than a 25 percent reversal rate. “They Gfired from jobs at the post office because of of its kind in the country. With a cur- are not shy, they have a lot of ego and are discrimination. Her father, who had also rent $40.6-million annual budget, PDS’s used to being the best,” Buchanan asserts, worked there, was sym- “and it takes a certain pathetic. “He was what personality go across people used to refer to the street and fight back as a ‘race man,’ ” she says. against judges and pros- “He could turn any con- ecutors and police offi- versation into one about cers every day.” racial politics: at home, The award-winning that was our dessert, and PDS has seven legal appetizer—and entrée.” units and, uncommon- So Buchanan wrote a ly, pulls from those to letter to the postmas- create practice groups ter protesting the ter- that focus, for example, mination. “I got a note on forensics and men- back, which surprised tal health, two chief me,” she recalls. “But, of aspects of defense and course, he was justifying sentence-mitigation his actions.” work. Specialists not That inherited “in- only assist in indi- dignation, a pushing vidual cases but push back against author- for reforms of federal ity,” she acknowledg­es, and state policies and is now a core job re- legislation nation- quirement. The former wide; they also run trial attorney and civil- training programs for rights litigator leads lawyers, social work- the District of Colum- ers, investigators,and bia’s Public Defender others working on the Service (PDS), which front lines of American represents adults and justice. The pioneer- The plate-glass windows ing forensic unit has in Buchanan’s down- helped expose deficien- town Washington, D.C., cies in techniques and office neatly frame the U.S. Archives building. procedures routinely “I get to see that relied on to obtain con- building every single victions. Notably, new day,” she says. “It’s the DNA testing of hair repository of our Constitution. The Sixth and other biological Amendment gives us evidence conducted by our existence and we PDS has led to three use the Fourth and Fifth and Sixth in our fight on exonerations, with a behalf of our clients fourth case pending in every day.” which the government

58 March - April 2014 Photograph by Brooks Kraft Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 alumni in January conceded flaws in its case that “Never mind investigations into facts, re- and a motive linking Muth to the killing, were revealed by DNA testing, and agreed searching the law, litigating pre-trial mo- a jury convicted him after only three hours to dismiss charges. In an effort to ensure tions, or anything like that. All they could of deliberation. more neutral analysis, PDS was also in- do is meet them and plead them.” Buchanan won’t discuss that case, or any strumental in establishing the District’s Unlike many peer organizations, PDS others, because of attorney-client privilege. Department of Forensic Sciences in 2011, has strict internal controls. “The court Some of its themes, she does allow, are typi- which took over the “functions, authority, doesn’t dictate our caseload, we do,” Bu- cal for PDS—“high profile, complex, men- personnel, and funds” related to evidence chanan says. Targets vary by practice level, tal-health issues.” But middle-aged, white, from the Metropolitan Police Department. work load, and experience, she adds, but German-born criminal defendants are not. Such rare clout is due, in part, to PDS’s even “25 to 30 pre-trial cases on a general Racial disparity in the courts is an acknowl- structure as a federally funded, indepen- felony attorney at PDS, for example, is on edged fact at PDS. “On any given day, more dent organization governed by a board of the high side.” Whatever court-appointed than 90 percent of the people who come trustees. It was created by an act of Con- cases the office cannot absorb are assigned through the system are black. And close gress in 1960 as an inspirational model to private defense attorneys or law stu- to that percentage are male and many are for top-quality, “conscientious legal as- dents, who work pro bono, or are paid young,” according to Buchanan. “Whether sistance”—even before the landmark 1963 through the district’s Criminal Justice Act. there is an influx of immigrants, whether case Gideon vs. Wainwright guaranteed poor Qualitatively, PDS is also the envied ex- there is gentrification, you will still see the people the right to counsel when facing ception. The office has historically fostered same population in the cell block in the criminal charges. a “culture of excellence” that emphasizes courthouse. That has not changed since the For Buchanan, PDS feels like home. “Peo- collaboration, according to former staff at- 1980s when I was practicing.” ple here are offended by the government’s torney Julia Leighton, who is now PDS’s overuse or arbitrary use of power,” she says. Buchanan has always been fascinated “Just because you say I should go to jail, just Many people who by criminal justice, which she studied, along because you say I did something wrong and with Spanish, at Michigan State University. have the capacity to deprive me of my free- don’t know Buchanan During school vacations, she sat in on D.C. dom,” she adds, “doesn’t mean you’re right.” trials, and in 1979, after her first year at Har- Her views are also influenced by her sense of well seem to find her vard, she spent the summer as a PDS investi- fairness and faith as a Seventh-Day Adven- gative intern, having been recruited by Cli- tist. “We are often a client’s last friend, the ethereal, regal pres- menko professor of law Charles J. Ogletree only one standing in his or her corner. This Jr. He was then a PDS trial attorney—and work is important because we help address ence intimidating. has been Buchanan’s mentor since. the imbalance of resources for poor people After graduation, she clerked for Theo- versus rich people.” general counsel. “We have high standards dore J. McMillian, the first black judge on Despite Gideon, indigent-defense sys- and are most critical of ourselves,” she the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth tems are inconsistent across the nation, adds. “But if you are smart, creative, listen Circuit (in St. Louis), but returned to PDS with many in a state of crisis. According to your colleagues, and are willing not to as a staff trial attorney in 1982. (Except for to Nancy Bennett, deputy chief counsel for take no for an answer—and if you work her schooling and clerkship, Buchanan has the private counsel division of Massachu- 12 hours a day, six days a week (or seven always lived within a three-mile radius setts’s Committee for Public Counsel Ser- 14-hour days, when in trial), then you can, of her current home, and been affiliated vices, “Most states provide so little fund- with case-load controls and resources, with Dupont Park Seventh-Day Adventist ing that even those that are well-organized provide top-notch representation.” Church in southeast D.C., where she was have attorneys with more than 500 to 600 PDS engages in near-constant battles baptized in high school.) cases a year.” In a 2012 speech at the Amer- with the powers that be: distrust and Buchanan represented children, then ican Bar Association’s National Summit emotions run high both ways. The system adults, until 1989, during the escalating on Indigent Defense, U.S. Attorney Gen- is stacked against them, Leighton says crack epidemic. “We went from having eral Eric H. Holder Jr. noted, “Millions of of the staff, “and you’re often dumped on one murder going through the court sys- Americans still struggle to access the legal by everyone because of the side you’re on.” tem a day to three or four a day,” she says services they need and deserve—and to This winter, for example, PDS represented of those early years. “It felt oppressive, not which they are constitutionally entitled. Albrecht Muth, the “German eccentric” just professionally, but personally. You just And far too many public-defender systems charged with strangling his wife, socialite felt this was our city, our community, our lack the basic tools they need to function and journalist Viola Drath, who, at 91, was people. Watching the results of that car- properly.” In New Orleans, the public- more than 40 years his senior. The sensa- nage was frustrating, sad, discouraging.” defender office at one point had more than tional case took two and a half years to go She left the office in the midst of that 2,000 cases per lawyer per year, reports to trial because of competency issues and chaos to work for the next 13 years at what Bennett, who works with Buchanan on na- hunger strikes that left Muth medically is now the Washington Lawyers’ Commit- tional policy and advocacy. “If you do the unable to attend his own trial. In court, tee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, first calculations, that means lawyers could not even though the defense emphasized the as a staff attorney, later as director of its even allocate one hour to a case,” she adds. absence of DNA evidence, eyewitnesses, equal employment opportunity project, and www.alumni.harvard.edu Harvard Magazine 59 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 alumni then of litigation. There, she won awards, wrongfully or disproportionately to what remember the Sabbath Day and keep it and even found herself on the team that he or she has done. It’s evil to put someone holy—but follow the other nine—you still represented a class in a lawsuit that alleged in jail, at least for reasons that are wrong.” can’t kill, you can’t worship false idols, and discriminatory promotion practices at the Has she witnessed evil in action? “Yes. I’ve cannot bear false witness?” Library of Congress (ultimately settled), seen the evil of people doing decades in jail She sits on her church’s board of trust- in which her mother, Anna Mae Buchanan, for crimes they were not guilty of.” ees, her former school’s board, and on was a class member. She also learned that Ideals are deeply attractive to her. Even the board that runs the local Adventist her father, Herbert C. Buchanan Sr., who as a kindergartener at the all-black Dupont Health Care system. She says she has never passed away in 1998, had been party to a Park Adventist School, Buchanan (whose smoked or drunk caffeine or alcohol, but separate case represented by the office. parents were not then Adventists or par- later adds, for “full disclosure...technically ticularly religious), was impressed by the I had a sip of beer once as a child, with my Buchanan’s conceptions of evil and “sense of this thing greater than you are parents’ permission, to see what all the wickedness stem from her parents’ values— that calls you to be more than what you fuss was about.” But she is not a full veg- essentially, “The world does not just consist are,” and the “logic” of Adventist teach- etarian, as the church urges. “The irony,” of you; don’t forget about the people less for- ings that the Scriptures are the sole source she says, is that Adventists “like to run a tunate”—and from her Adventist faith. “Evil of Protestant faith and practice. “The Bible truck through” their otherwise healthy is not all on one side, in the sense that if you says Christ rose on the first day of the week, diet restrictions. “You will see enormous are charged you must be guilty,” she asserts. Easter is on Sunday, so the seventh day is plates of desserts, and I am not sure all “Evilness can be someone who hates our cli- Saturday,” she says. “The Jews don’t have the meat substitutes are all that healthy,” ent so much, they are willing to lie and go any confusion about that. So why would reports Buchanan, who loves to eat—espe- to all kinds of lengths to harm our client you get rid of the fourth commandment— cially “bad food: French fries. Pound cake.

of them together, and closer to the Uni- Reardon to Retire versity,” says Reardon. “That’s been in- teresting work—and not that easy! But I’ve always just loved this place. And John P. “Jack” Reardon ’60, executive director of the Harvard there is a lot of stuff going well and good people in place. I’m 75 Alumni Association (HAA)—known for diplomacy, warmth, years old and there comes a point where I’d rather be doing things humor, and dedication throughout his long University career— on my own terms.” He plans to continue applying his institu- will step down at the end of June. Hired in 1965 by another re- tional memory and people skills on Harvard’s behalf—working nowned Harvard veteran administrator, Fred L. Glimp ’50, Ph.D. on fundraising, Ivy League athletic matters, with the Board of ’64, Reardon had earned an M.B.A. at Penn and was working at Overseers, and projects tied to alumni relations. And he remains the Boston Redevelopment Authority when, he reports, “Fred a Harvard Magazine Inc. board member. offered me [a College admissions] job for $9,000. And I have not been unhappy at Har- John P. “Jack” Reardon vard for a minute since.” In return, he has been respected and even beloved by under- graduates, alumni, and administrators across four presidencies. Reardon rose to become associate dean of admissions and financial aid before moving across the river in 1978 to become Harvard’s athletics director. The wholesale turnaround he managed included expanding the women’s programs; his tenure also saw the men’s heavyweight crew win the Grand Challenge Cup at Henley in 1985 and the men’s ice- hockey team beat Minnesota for the national championship in 1989. His skills in building relationships with alumni and other support- ers were readily apparent, and in 1990, Glimp and President Derek Bok persuaded him to become executive director of the HAA. “Alumni are so different from one another, and have different ideas, and it seems to me my job has been to figure out how to bring all

60 March - April 2014 Photograph by Jon Chase/Harvard Public Affairs and Communications Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 alumni

Ice cream. Cinnamon doughnuts.” On her Leighton admits: “Avis gets people like me out of the office until I change it.” office desk is a container of candy: Good to stop interrupting, shut up—and listen.” It’s almost as if, in operating in the nu- & Plenty, Jolly Ranchers, and Pixy Stix. “I Although one has to listen hard to hear anced, gray-zoned business of criminal don’t eat that, but I like to look at it,” she Buchanan speak, many people who don’t law, Buchanan has found power in pre- says. “They’re colorful and they remind know her well seem to find her ethereal, serving her own innocence. She has spent me of the fun of my childhood.” She does regal presence intimidating. “I just natu- most of her career grappling with the consume Nerds, those rocky nubs of sugar rally stay calm,” she reports. “Maybe it’s fickle, often enraging, and bureaucratic crystals often dressed in pink. legal system, while working for alleged She also loves roller skating, reading, ob- “This work is murderers, thieves, and drug addicts and sessively playing Scrabble on her iPad, and dealers—those most of society loves to the adventurous treats she allows herself important because we hate. Yet she seems to refuse to allow her- on birthdays: a white-water rafting trip, self to become jaded. helicopter rides, lessons in skydiving and help address the im- Beyond the exhilaration of winning a trapeze tricks. “I did a flip off the bar and trial, the best public defenders, those most a catch,” she says, “I like being in the air.” balance of resources innately dedicated to the ideal of equal She takes scary physical risks, but nev- justice, find intrinsic rewards. Leighton re- er emotional ones: “No way.” Even in the for poor people versus calls a client who was sentenced to life in courtroom, with the pressure of a client’s prison “in a case in which nobody was even fate “riding on me,” she says, she would get rich people.” physically hurt,” she says. “We had lost the headaches from concentrating so hard, but trial, lost the motion for a new trial, and never become emotional or agitated. “Avis part of my control-freak tendencies. I lost the appeal. The only possible claim emanates serenity,” says Nancy Bennett. need to control myself as well as what- that could be raised at that juncture was “She is an amazing facilitator. She listens to ever I can in my environment.” Legal that PDS had failed at trial or on appeal everyone, and keeps people on track, redi- documents, for example, are scrutinized: to provide him with effective assistance of recting them in a very polite but very effec- “When people cut and paste things and counsel,” she explains. “And he turned and tive way, and getting them to stop shouting the apostrophe is in a different font from looked at me and said, ‘I can’t do that, you at each other at meetings!” In short, as Julia the rest of the text, I feel like I can’t let it all have worked too hard for me.’” In every

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Harvard Magazine 61 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 alumni

case, Leighton says, is a moment that “sus- tains PDS lawyers, when we see all that is Alumni Learning, Online good in a client and the right moral com- pass that exists in everyone.” Graduates who crave continued ac- tion’s research, said Philip Lovejoy, deputy Buchanan knows that intimate connec- cess to teaching and faculty members will executive director. Alumni have already tion well. The work comes down to “find- have a new channel to (virtual) class- made use of HarvardX courses through ing something in common with a client, rooms through HarvardX for Alumni, a the edX platform, and of online versions of some insight into who they are as a per- spring experiment with the University’s Bass professor of government Michael San- son. Then they let their guard down and online learning partnership. Beginning on del’s “Justice.” (Earlier, before the techo- trust you and know you are really there to March 22, seven units will be released, logical advances that enabled the enriched help,” she says quietly. “If you don’t have one every two weeks, enabling alumni teaching tools embedded in edX, har- that, you’re just going through the assem- individually, or through gatherings at Har- vard@home [www.athome.harvard. bly line—and you don’t really care. That’s vard clubs or elsewhere, to sample cours- edu] made recordings of lecture courses when you know it’s time to leave.” es on the edX platform: and campus events available; it is instructive vnell porter brown • Poetry in America, with Elisa New, to compare those versions of the Nagy, Cabot professor of American literature; Sandel, and Ulrich classes with current on- • The Ancient Greek Hero, with Gregory line learning experiences.) Overseer and HAA Nagy, Jones professor of classical Greek This spring’s experiment consists of Director Candidates literature and professor of comparative hour-long segments combining new ma- This spring, alumni can vote for five new literature; terial with content from full-length cours- Harvard Overseers and six new elected di- • Computer Science, with David Malan, es. Each includes an introductory discus- rectors of the Harvard Alumni Association senior lecturer on com- (HAA). puter science; Ballots, mailed out by April 1, must be • Chinese History, with received back in Cambridge by noon on Peter Bol, Carswell pro- May 23 to be counted. Election results will fessor of East Asian lan- be announced at the HAA’s annual meet- guages and civilizations ing on May 29, on the afternoon of Com- and vice provost for ad- mencement day. All holders of Harvard vances in learning (who degrees, except Corporation members and oversees Harvard X and the Harvard sion between the professor and Robert officers of instruction and government, are Initiative for Learning and Teaching); Lue, faculty director of HarvardX and of entitled to vote for Overseer candidates. • Neuroscience, with David Cox, assis- the Bok Center for Teaching and Learn- The election for HAA directors is open to tant professor of molecular and cellular ing; a 5- to 15-minute activity or exercise all Harvard degree-holders. biology and of computer science; and two from the online course; and an online Candidates for Overseer may also be forthcoming courses: discussion forum prompted by a question nominated by petition by obtaining a pre- • The Einstein Revolution, with Peter derived from the contents. HAA’s hope scribed number of signatures from eligible Galison, Pellegrino University Professor, is that this brief format will efficiently up- degree holders. (The deadline for all peti- an historian of science; and date alumni about work on campus to tions was February 3.) • Tangible Things, with Laurel Ulrich, improve pedagogy, while whetting their 300th Anniversary appetite for continu- For Overseer (six-year term): University Professor, ing engagement with Nicole S. Arnaboldi ’80, M.B.A.-J.D. an American histori- their Harvard edu- ’84, New York City. Vice chairman, Credit an who focuses on cation—however Suisse Asset Management. material culture. far, in time and dis- Michael Brown ’83, J.D. ’88, Boston. “Access to intellec- tance, they may be CEO and co-founder, City Year. tual content, continu- from campus. The James E. K. Hildreth ’79, Davis, Califor- ing to learn, ranks response will guide nia. Dean, College of Biological Sciences, very high in what’s the HAA’s future University of California, Davis. important” to alumni, online learning pro- David W. Leebron ’77, J.D. ’79. Houston. according to the Har- grams. President, Rice University. vard Alumni Associa- Registration infor- Jane Lubchenco, Ph.D. ’75, Corvallis, mation is available at Oregon. Valley professor of marine biology In production: from alumni.harvard. and Distinguished Professor of zoology, the making of Elisa edu/x. Alumni learn- Oregon State University. New’s “Poetry in

rtesy harvard x harvard rtesy ers of the world, log Michael M. Lynton ’82, M.B.A. ’87, Los

America” online u

course co on. Angeles. CEO, Sony Entertainment. Sunshik Min, D.B.A. ’89, Seoul, Korea.

62 March - April 2014 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 alumni

President, YBM, Inc. members to Birmingham; raised money to that has increased membership, updated Lesley Friedman Rosenthal ’86, J.D. ’89, enable an inner-city high school to compete the club’s website, and restored the budget. New York City. Vice president, general at a Harvard tournament; and established Moreover, a series of diverse events, such counsel and secretary, Lincoln Center for the club’s Summer Community Service Fel- as a private tour of the Indiana Museum the Performing Arts. lowship, a largely alumni-funded program of Art, has drawn alumni from every de- that helps undergraduates work in the pub- cade since the 1950s, and club leaders have For elected director (three-year term): lic-interest sector. strengthened members’ ties to the Univer- Henry Parkman Biggs ’86, Saint Louis, Thomas P. Reardon ’68, of Plymouth, sity through hosting HAA-sponsored Glob- Missouri. Associate director, McDonnell Massachusetts. Reardon founded the Har- al Networking Night events, sponsoring International Academy, Washington Uni- vard Veterans Alumni Organization SIG dinners for Harvard’s swim-team members versity in St. Louis. in 2007, and since then has, almost single- when they were in town, and welcoming Raphael W. Bostic ’87, Los Angeles. handedly, ensured its success by creating newly admitted regional students at a din- Bedrosian chair in governance and the a board of directors, attracting more than ner and information session. public enterprise; director, Bedrosian Cen- 800 members, organizing social events, The Harvard Club of Japan holds nearly ter on Governance, Price School of Public such as football tailgate parties, and rais- 40 events a year, ranging from lectures on Policy, University of Southern California. ing the Harvard community’s awareness of international topics, to wine tastings, to Peter Andrew Boyce II ’13, New York veterans’ contributions. The SIG partnered monthly Zen meditation sessions. Its trea- City. Associate, General Catalyst Partners; with the Harvard Club of Washington, sury has doubled to $60,000 within the co-founder, Rough Draft Ventures. D.C., to establish the Memorial Church last five years, and it has also successfully Margaret Jay Braatz, Ed.M. ’93, Ed.D. plaque dedicated to Harvard’s Medal of connected with other local alumni groups ’99, Chicago. Vice president for planning Honor recipients. Reardon has also spent and clubs from graduate and professional and presidential administration, DePaul hours readying HVAO’s AlumniMagnet schools across the University. The club University. website to ensure that the group has a hosted a historic dinner for President Drew Leea Nash Bridgeman ’02, M.B.A. ’05. strong and welcoming online presence. Faust in Tokyo in 2010, and the HAA Asia- Louisville, Kentucky. Executive director and Founded in 1886, the Harvard Club of Pacific Club Leaders’ meeting in 2011. Club trustee, Bridgeman Family Foundation. Indiana has been revitalized within the members have also rallied in providing aid Jessica Gelman ’97, M.B.A. ’02, Welles- past year under a new board of directors to the Fukushima community. ley, Massachusetts. Vice president, cus- tomer marketing and strategy, The Kraft Sports Group (New England Patriots); Guidelines for Commencement Day co-founder, MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Thursday, May 29, 2014 Conference. Jay H. Hebert, J.D. ’86, Fort Worth, Tex- Morning Exercises as. General counsel, Keystone Group L.P. Degree candidates will receive a set number of tickets. Parents and guests must Vanessa W. Liu ’96, J.D. ’03, New York have tickets to enter Tercentenary Theatre. Seating is limited, not guaranteed, and City. COO, Trigger Media Group. cannot be reserved; there is standing room on the Widener steps and at the rear and Alvaro Rodriguez-Arregui, M.B.A. ’95, sides of the Theatre. The sale of Commencement tickets is prohibited. For details, Mexico City. Co-founder and managing visit http://commencement.harvard.edu. partner, IGNIA Partners, LLC; board vice • A limited supply of tickets will be made available to all other alumni/ae on a first- chairman, Banco Compartamos. come, first-served basis through the Harvard Alumni Association (HAA) at http:// alumni.harvard.edu/annualmeeting. HAA Clubs and SIGs Awards • Alumni/ae and guests are urged to view the Morning Exercises on large-screen The HAA Clubs and SIGs (Shared Interest televisions in the Science Center and at most of the undergraduate Houses and pro- Groups) Committee Awards honor both in- fessional schools. These locations have ample seating, and tickets are not required. dividuals who provide exemplary service to • Alumni/ae attending their College reunions (25th, 35th, 50th) will receive tickets those groups, and groups that have them- at their reunions. Alumni/ae in classes beyond the 50th may obtain tickets from the selves organized exceptional programming. HAA by calling 617-496-7001, or through the annual Tree Spread mailing sent out in The following recipients were to be honored March (RSVP by April 15). at the HAA Board of Directors’ winter meet- ing on February 6. Afternoon Program Rowena S. Frazer ’76, of Hoover, Ala- The HAA’s Annual Meeting, which includes remarks by the president of the HAA, bama. Officially the program chair of the Overseer and HAA election results, the presentation of the Harvard Medals, and re- Harvard Club of Birmingham, Frazer is marks by President Drew Gilpin Faust and the Commencement speaker, convenes in also known as “Bulldog” or “The Big Think- Tercentenary Theatre on Commencement afternoon at 2:30 p.m. For tickets (which are er” for transforming the club into a vibrant required, but free), visit http://alumni.harvard.edu/annualmeeting, or call 617-496-7001. social, educational, and philanthropic outlet for alumni. She created the E.O. Wilson Dis- vThe Commencement Office tinguished Lecture Series to bring faculty

Harvard Magazine 63 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 The College Pump Skull Walking

Street by Gordon Hall to a stag- ing area in the basement of the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine. It was accompa- nied by a 48-inch-long skeleton of a foot. Both were commissioned “Your wooden arm you hold outstretched by Thomas Dwight, A.B. 1866, to shake with passers-by.” M.D. 1867, when he became Parkman professor of anato- f you happened to be outdoors on my at the medical school in the Harvard Medical School campus 1883. Succeeding Oliver Wen- last November, you might have noticed dell Holmes, A.B. 1829, M.D. this 78-inch-tall model of a bisected 1836, he had big shoes to fill. Ihuman skull making its way down Shattuck Both skull and foot have been retired from classroom use, but

a second giant nog- thomas earle/harvard public affairs and communications gin, built in 1892 and sliced in Vesalius in the Renaissance, wax-injected half horizontally rather than ver- limbs from nineteenth-century dissection tically, is still being used to teach labs, and digital atlases of today. would-be physicians something of what goes on in there. The recently perambulating skull and foot have been loaned Down the hall in the Science Center, to the Collection of Historical incidentally, one can examine a recent Scientific Instruments, in the primitive thinking machine, the all-elec- Science Center on the Cam- tronic Harvard Mark IV computer. And out bridge side of the Harvard es- the east door is a monument of sorts to a tablishment, where they will be wise fellow, Winnie-the-Pooh. He, and oc- part of Body of Knowledge: A His- casionally some of his associates, were in tory of Anatomy (in Three Parts), on residence there for many years in a tree (lat- view from March 6 to December er its stump) and environs (see “In Pooh’s 5, 2014. The exhibit will explore Neighborhood,” September-October 1997, the roles of human anatomy “in page 77). Pooh left town for a quieter part of scientific discovery, public spec- the wood some months ago, when Harvard tacle, and medical education,” and the City of Cambridge undertook the says co-organizer David S. Jones, disruptive but successful construction of Ackerman professor of the cul- the Plaza, just outside the Science Center. ture of medicine at Harvard. Now Pooh has returned—triumphantly, Items displayed will include may we suggest. For more about this, you astonishing illustrated texts have only to Google “winnie the pooh house

jake miller/harvard medical school medical miller/harvard jake created by anatomist Andreas harvard.” vprimus v

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LETTERS (continued from page 6) tural and intellectual life; I submit that it is nosed harp prodigy who had gotten [sic] the tip of the spear of American culture, not into Yale”—and losing no opportunity to graduate, “Goodbye, L.A.,” January-Feb- some foreign outpost. disdain another top-notch university from ruary, page 31), I take issue with serving Russell Schmidt ’01 which he had transferred—may expect to reheated leftovers; namely, the dusty por- Los Angeles be referred to as a “Harvard twit.” trayal of Los Angeles as an intellectual and Some years ago, my LA-born wife (B.A. in cultural wasteland full of illiterates is trou- I almost choked on my gluten-free cronut history with Phi Beta Kappa at UCLA and bling. As a native Angeleno, I find that my when I read that yet another intellect had J.D. with Fulbright at UC, Berkeley) was fellow citizens do in fact read books and defected to Harvard College from our Left lecturing at the Kennedy School. On a visit engage in the world of ideas. This may come Coast. And not because of the traditional to WHRB we met a young announcer, who as a shock to many of your readers who base reasons—poor public transportation, no told us that she was at Harvard because she their judgments, as the writer does, on mid- seasons, general lotus-eating—but because had not been admitted to Berkeley. twentieth-century stereotypes of this fine too few people read. Though Pisner seems to Terry Murphy ’59, J.D. metropolis, but I ask my fellow alums to have absorbed a great deal about this “ter- Bethesda. Md. take a leap of faith. Surely the rocket scien- rifying” place during his year at USC and tists at CalTech and Jet Propulsion Labora- through the writings of Nick Hornby, I can Skiing Celebrated tory, or the folks at RAND, read books from assure your readers that many of us, film- “Cross-country by ski” (New England time to time, perhaps even doing so without makers included, do indeed read books. At Regional Section, November-December moving their lips. least the successful ones do; a lot of the oth- 2013, page 16F) wonderfully shares the joys Specifically, portraying Los Angeles as ers drop out of film school and we never re- of Nordic ski racing and Harvard’s role in “only a refraction of America brought gently ally hear from them again. But, happily, they the sport. To its account of cross-country down to Earth” is a curious choice. While do visit us on vacation. skiing at Harvard, I would like to add the undoubtedly not the author’s intent, mark- Daniel Steven Cooper ’95 contributions of Graham Taylor ’49. After ing a multiethnic city and specifically the Oak Park, Calif captaining the Harvard Nordic ski team as heavily Jewish entertainment industry as an undergraduate, Taylor returned as its ignorant and un-American, an unreal, di- A writer who acknowledges feelings head coach for several years in the fifties minutive Other in our nation’s midst, is up- of “inadequacy” at not being admitted to before devoting his life to coaching high- setting for obvious reasons. Los Angeles is a Harvard College on his first at-bat, while school skiers in the Boston suburbs—a task wonderful, challenging city with a rich cul- expressing jealous resentment of a “snotty- he continues to this day. Taylor’s dedication

72 March - April 2014 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Letters to the sport resonates in Harvard circles and Lathem’s edition.” Hall concludes by sug- choices will help anyone—and the Cana- beyond, and he ranks among the legends of gesting that a variorum edition of Frost’s dian crude will still get to market. New England ski coaches. poems be commissioned that would rein- Nolan Perreira, M.B.A. ’81 Chris Stock ’14 state the poet’s original intent before we all Chapel Hill, N.C. Captain, Harvard Nordic Ski Team become so accustomed to the altered po- ems that Frost’s own punctuation strikes Professor McElroy’s essay was disap- Fiscal Facts of Life us as a typo. Which is what compelled me pointing because of its narrow focus on Regarding the “Fiscal Portrait” (January- to write you a letter at three in the morning whether this pipeline would “significant- February, page 28): As I read of Harvard’s about a topic some might view as picayune. ly exacerbate the problem of carbon pol- “wider deficit of $34 million” in fiscal 2013, You can see a beautiful handwritten lution.” When the question is put in this and its loss of $1.255 billion, resulting from copy of the poem at www.loc.gov/exhib- manner, it is analogous to asking whether speculative interest-rate swaps, “following its/british/images/vc195c.jpg. a particular straw broke the camel’s back. the fiscal crisis in 2008,” my stomach is quea- Alethea Black ’91 The answer is a foregone conclusion. We sy. I contemplate my strategy for convincing Pawling, N.Y. cannot attribute significant carbon pollu- a classmate to part with a hundred bucks or tion to this pipeline any more than we can so for the Harvard College Fund. Invariably, Editor’s note: Another correspondent ob- say that global warming produced typhoon my list contains several prospects with less- serves that the 1923 Willa Cather novel Hayian. than-stellar records of contributing. cited in the article is titled A Lost Lady. The more relevant context for evaluat- Unlike the feds, Harvard can’t simply ing this pipeline arises from, as George W. turn on the printing presses. We cannot Keystone, Continued Bush put it, our addiction to oil. As any be all things to all people all the time. Of For those who want to ignore reality, the enlightened addict would put it, one more course, it’s exciting to create the frontiers Keystone pipeline is a bad thing (Letters, fix is one more step deeper into the mire of of learning and teaching, our role since January-February, page 4, commenting on addiction. What we need to do is reduce 1636. But how about a little fiscal restraint? “Forum: The Keystone XL Pipeline,” Novem- carbon pollution without waiting for the After all, we still owe $5.7 billion (per ber-December 2013, page 37). For the rest of last drop of oil to be wrung from the earth. that fiscal report). A billion here, a billion us, it just represents one of many options. When do we kick the habit? there. Pretty soon, it adds up. Prohibition did not result in eliminat- The XL pipeline has received a lot of Steve Susman ’57, J.D. ’60 ing drinking. Making alcohol, marijuana, attention because, among other matters, Denver opium, heroin, cocaine, speed, and other hydro-fracking has the appearance of pol- drugs illegal did not prevent their sale. It luting groundwater, and shale oil is par- Close-Reading Department just forced buyers and sellers to alterna- ticularly nasty. Ironically, while these fea- In Adam Kirsch’s wonderful story about tive and more expensive (and dangerous) tures draw attention to this project, they Robert Frost (“Extracting the Woodchuck,” choices. obscure the question of whether to extract January-February, page 44) there is a small What will happen if the pipeline is pre- more oil, regardless of immediate negative error that has been known to inflame the vented is the following: consequences, or start making the transi- passions of poets and proofreaders alike. 1. The oil will travel by rail to the Gulf tion to carbon-free energy. Resources that The final stanza of “Stopping by Woods on ports. It will cost three or four times as are put into the XL pipeline are lost op- a Snowy Evening” (written on a hot June much to ship it by rail. The likelihood of portunity costs; we could devote those morning) contains an insidious, incorrect environmental damage from spills will be resources to reducing our dependence on serial comma. The first line of that stanza higher. fossil fuels, sequestering carbon, develop- should read: “The woods are lovely, dark and 2. A Canadian pipeline, in Canada, run ing renewable sources of energy, and un- deep.” The Oxford comma was introduced by Canadians, will ship the oil to the Great dertaking other projects not yet invented. posthumously in 1969 by Edward Connery Lakes, where it will travel to whatever We have perhaps 250 more years of coal in Lathem. Frost—who meticulously edited point is appropriate. the ground. Should we burn it all up and his own proofs—never intended it; Lathem 3. Canadians may decide it is better for then shift to carbon-free energy? added it without justification even though them long term to build a pipeline net- James L. Weeks, S.D. ’80 it alters both the sound and the sense of the work to the west coast, aimed at selling to Potomac, Md. line. the Chinese. They might decide that ship- Donald Hall [’51]—who discusses this ping to the east coast of Canada might be Erratum topic brilliantly and at length in The Atlan­ better, because they can get higher Brent At page 72P, the January-February issue tic Monthly (“Robert Frost Corrupted,” re- Crude prices, instead of WestTexas Inter- contains an obituary of David Hubel, Enders printed at www.pnreview.co.uk/cgi-bin/ mediate prices. This would be environ- University Professor emeritus. He was my scribe?item_id=6740)—gets at the root of mentally positive, especially if the Chinese Ph.D. mentor at Harvard Medical School. why the error proliferates: “But Lathem’s burn less coal and use the Canadian crude The obituary erroneously states that “he corrupted text of Robert Frost is increas- instead. joined the Harvard Medical School faculty ingly taken as the true text. When a critic At present, the Keystone pipeline is the in 1954.” In fact, it was 1959. or anthologist writes Holt for permission best economic choice. I do not think that Jonathan C. Horton, M.D. ’80, Ph.D. ’84 now, permission is granted to reprint from forcing people to use inefficient economic University of California, San Francisco

Harvard Magazine 73 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 WHY “BIG DATA” IS A BIG DEAL gene sequences, health records, and envi- doctoral fellows work with scientists who (continued from page 35) ronmental influences? And how can hu- lack the data science skills they now need mans understand the results? to conduct their research. “Every collabo- changes that would be needed in microbial One of the most powerful tools for fa- ration pushes us into some new, unknown communities,” which can change on scales cilitating understanding of vast datasets territory in computer science,” he says. ranging from days to decades. is visualization. Hanspeter Pfister, Wang The flip side of Pfister’s work in creat- “Just think about the number of things professor of computer science and director ing visualizations is the automated analy- that have changed in the past 50 years that of the Institute for Applied Computational sis of images. For example, he works with affect microbes,” he continues. Commercial Science, works with scientists in genomics Knowles professor of molecular and cellular antibiotics didn’t exist until about 50 years and systems biology to help them visual- biology Jeff Lichtman, who is also Ramon ago; our locations have changed; and over ize what are called high-dimensional data y Cajal professor of arts and sciences, to a longer period, we have gone from 75 per- sets (with multiple categories of data being reconstruct and visualize neural connec- cent of the population working in agricul- compared). For example, members of his tions in the brain. Lichtman and his team ture to 2 percent; our exposure to animals group have created a visualization for use slice brain tissue very thinly, providing Pfis- has changed; our exposure to the environ- by oncologists that connects gene sequence ter’s group with stacks of high-resolution ment; our use of agricultural antibiotics and activation data with cancer types and images. “Our system then automatically has changed; what we eat has changed; the stages, treatments, and clinical outcomes. identifies individual cells and labels them availability of drugs has changed. There are That allows the data to be viewed in a way consistently,” such that each neuron can be so many things that are different over that that shows which particular gene expres- traced through a three-dimensional stack of timescale that would specifically affect mi- sion pattern is associated with high mortal- images, Pfister reports. Even working with crobes. That is why there is some weight ity regardless of cancer type, for example, only a few hundred neurons involves tens of given to the microbiome link to the hygiene giving an important, actionable insight for thousands of connections. One cubic milli- hypothesis”—the theory that lack of early how to devise new treatments. meter of mouse brain represents a thousand childhood exposure to a diverse microbi- Pfister teaches students how to turn terabytes (a petabyte) of image data. ota has led to widespread problems in the data into visualizations in Computer Sci- Pfister has also worked with radioas- establishment of healthy immune systems. ence 109, “Data Science,” which he co- tronomers. The head teaching fellow in Understanding the links between all teaches with Joseph K. Blitzstein, profes- his data science course, astronomer Chris these effects will involve data analysis that sor of the practice in statistics. “It is very Beaumont, has developed software (Glue) will dwarf the human genome project and important to make sure that what we will for linking and visualizing large telescope become the work of decades. Like Gary be presenting to the user is understand- datasets. Beaumont’s former doctoral ad- King, Huttenhower favors a good algo- able, which means Changes in the viser (for whom he rithm over a big computer when tackling we cannot show it now works as senior such problems. “We prefer to build mod- all,” says Pfister. “Ag- microbiome might be software developer els or methods that are efficient enough gregation, filtering, on Glue), professor to run on a[n entry-level] server. But even and clustering are linked to ailments of astronomy Alyssa when you are efficient, when you scale up hugely important that have become Goodman, teaches to populations of hundreds, thousands, or for us to reduce the her own course in vi- tens of thousands of people,” massive com- data so that it makes more prevalent sualization (Empiri- putational capability is needed. sense for a person to cal and Mathematical Recently, having realized that large pop- look at.” This is a dif- recently, such as Reasoning 19, “The ulations of people will need to be studied ferent method of sci- irritable bowel Art of Numbers”). to advance microbiome science, Hutten- entific inquiry that Goodman uses visual- hower has begun exploring how to deploy ultimately aims to disease, allergies, ization as an explor- and run his models to Amazon’s cloud— create systems that atory technique in her thousands of linked computers running in let humans combine and metabolic efforts to understand parallel. Amazon has teamed with the Na- what they are good syndrome (a precur- interstellar gas—the tional Institutes of Health to donate server at—asking the right stuff of which stars time for such studies. Says Huttenhower, questions and inter- sor to diabetes). are born. “The data “It’s an important way for getting manage- preting the results— volume is not a con- able big data democratized throughout the with what machines are good at: computa- cern,” she says; even though a big telescope research community.” tion, analysis, and statistics using large can capture a petabyte of data in a night, datasets. Student projects have run the astronomers have a long history of deal- Discerning Patterns gamut from the evolution of the American ing with large quantities of data. The trick, in Complexity presidency and the distribution of tweets she says, is making sense of it all. Data vi- Making sense of the relationships be- for competitive product analysis, to pre- sualizations can lead to new insights, she tween distinct kinds of information is an- dicting the stock market and analyzing the says, because “humans are much better at other challenge facing researchers. What performance of NHL hockey teams. pattern recognition” than computers. In insights can be gleaned from connecting Pfister’s advanced students and post- a recent presentation, she showed how a

74 March - April 2014 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 three-dimensional visualization of a cloud tions. Starting with a dataset of 17,000 might take an archivist half a day just to re- of gas in interstellar space had led to the photographs—trivial by big data stan- search a single one, Schnapp points out. But discovery of a previously unknown cloud dards—from the missing paintings of the the photographs are being digitized, and as structure. She will often work by mov- Italian Renaissance collection assembled they come on line, ordinary citizens with ing from a visualization back to math, and by Bernard Berenson (works that were local information and experience can con- then back to another visualization. photographed but have subsequently dis- tribute to making them intelligible in ways Many of the visualization tools that have appeared), Schnapp and colleagues have that add value to the collection as an aggre- been created for medical imaging and anal- created a way to explore the collection by gate. The Berenson photographs are mostly ysis can be adapted for use in astronomy, means of the existing descriptions of ob- of secondary works of art, and therefore not she says. A former undergraduate advisee jects, classifications, provenance data, me- necessarily as interesting individually as of Goodman’s, Michelle Borkin ’06, now a dia, materials, and subject tags. they are as a collection. They perhaps tell doctoral candidate in SEAS (Goodman and The traditional use of such inventory data stories about how works were produced in Pfister are her co-advisers), has explored was to locate and track individual objects, studios, or how they circulated. Visualiza- cross-disciplinary uses of data-visualiza- he continues. “We are instead creating a tions of the collection grouped by subject tion techniques, and conducted usability platform that you can use to make argu- are telling, if not surprising. Jesus repre- studies of these visualizations. In a partic- ments, and to study collections as aggre- sents the largest portion, then Mary, and so ularly successful example, she showed how gates from multiple angles. I can’t look at ev- on down to tiny outliers, such as a portrait different ways of displaying blood-flow erything in the Fogg Museum’s collections of a woman holding a book, that raise rich could dramatically change a cardiac phy- even if I am Tom Lentz [Cabot director of questions for the humanities, even though sician’s ability to diagnose heart disease. the Harvard Art Museums], because there a computer scientist might regard them as Collaborating with doctors and simulators are 250,000 objects. Even if I could assemble problems to fix. “We’re on the culture side in a project to model them all in a single of the divide,” Schnapp says, “so we some- blood flow called Physicians were room,” Schnapp says, times view big data from a slightly different “Multiscale Hemo- able to locate and “I couldn’t possibly angle, in that we are interested in the ability dynamics,” Borkin see them all.” But to zoom between the micro level of analysis first tested a color- successfully diag- with a well-struc- (an individual object), the macro level (a coded visual repre- tured dataset, “We collection), and the massively macro (multi- sentation of blood nose arterial block- can tell stories: about ple collections) to see what new knowledge flow in branched ar- ages only 39 percent place, time, distribu- allows you to expose, and the stories it lets teries built from bil- tion of media, shift- you tell.” lions of blood cells of the time. Using ing themes through • • • and millions of fluid history and on and Data, in the final analysis, are points. Physicians Borkin’s novel on.” In the case of evidence. The forward edge of science, were able to locate visualization—akin the Berenson photo whether it drives a business or marketing and successfully collection, one might decision, provides an insight into Renais- diagnose arterial to a linear side- ask, “What sorts of sance painting, or leads to a medical break- blockages only 39 stories does the col- through, is increasingly being driven by percent of the time. view of the lection tell us about quantities of information that humans can Using Borkin’s novel patient’s arteries— the market for Re- understand only with the help of math and visualization—akin naissance paintings machines. Those who possess the skills to to a linear side-view improved the rate of during Berenson’s parse this ever-growing trove of informa- of the patient’s ar- lifetime? Where are tion sense that they are making history in teries—improved successful diagnosis the originals now? Do many realms of inquiry. “The data them- the rate of successful to 62 percent. they still exist? Who selves, unless they are actionable, aren’t diagnosis to 62 per- took the photographs relevant or interesting,” is Nathan Eagle’s cent. Then, simply by changing the colors and why? How did the photo formats evolve view. “What is interesting,” he says, “is based on an understanding of the way the with progress in photographic techniques?” what we can now do with them to make human visual cortex works, Borkin found This type of little “big data” project people’s lives better.” John Quackenbush she could raise the rate of successful diag- makes the incomprehensible navigable and says simply: “From Copernicus using Tycho nosis to 91 percent. potentially understandable. “Finding imagi- Brahe’s data to build a heliocentric model of Visualization tools even have appli- native, innovative solutions for creating the solar system, to the birth of statistical cation in the study of collections, says qualitative experiences of collections is the quantum mechanics, to Darwin’s theory of Pfister. Professor of romance language key to making them count,” Schnapp says. evolution, to the modern theory of the gene, and literatures Jeffrey Schnapp, faculty Millions of photographs in the collections every major scientific revolution has been director of Harvard’s metaLAB, is cur- of institutions such as the Smithsonian, for driven by one thing, and that is data.” rently at work on a system for translating example, will probably never be catalogued, collections metadata into readily com- even though they represent the richest, Jonathan Shaw ’89 is managing editor of this prehensible, information-rich visualiza- most complete record of life in America. It magazine.

Harvard Magazine 75 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Treasure Boundary Issues A library loan—with latitude

Maritimes to Montréal, favored a southerly division, explains Garver, who has curated a 2012 exhibition of and lectured about the maps. The Americans imagined a line far north and east, close to the St. Law- rence (see Carington Bowles’s “new pocket map” of 1784, left, with its many other boundary eccentricities, to the modern eye). The king’s 1831 compromise dissatisfied the young (1820) state of Maine and its par- ent, Massachusetts (which still had vast landholdings there). The United States withheld assent. After repeated threats of renewed belligerence, Secretary of State Dan- iel Webster, LL.D. 1824, and Lord Ashburton, facing the District of Columbia’s wilting summer heat, negotiated a resolution in 1842. (The he Canada-United States bor- fully points out. But what was that angle? rhetoric had also become hot: a British sur- der, the longest shared by two Where were the highlands? Did the Atlan- veyor denounced an American’s work as countries (5,525 miles, including tic Ocean include the Bay of Fundy? Survey- “the most inflated hum- Alaska), is uniquely calm. But es- ing availed little; the issues were political. bug that ever flourished in Ttablishing it was a protracted, unpeaceful In 1828, the two countries submitted the region of bombast.”) Visit harvardmag. pursuit, ultimately aided by one of the lon- their claims to an arbiter, King William In 1843, President Josiah com/extras to see gest Harvard library loans on record. of the Netherlands. As evidence, the U.S. Quincy wrote Webster other maps from the collection. The Treaty of Paris (1783), recognizing negotiators borrowed 22 maps and books for the loaned maps; nine U.S. independence, defined the boundary from Harvard, more from the Boston Ath- were returned. President Edward Everett ambiguously: “From the North West Angle enaeum and Massachusetts Historical So- inquired again in 1848, and nine more re- of Nova Scotia, viz., That Angle which is ciety, and shipped them off to The Hague. appeared, including Bell’s. President Jared formed by a Line drawn due North from Each Harvard document bore an exhibit Sparks secured the rest, after U.S. president the Source of the St. Croix River to the number and was inscribed with the terms Millard Fillmore ordered a search of the Highlands,” and so on, as the Map Collec- of the loan (see the inset from the Peter Bell State Department files (Everett was then tion’s Joseph Garver, librarian for research map of 1772). The British, seeking access secretary)—in 1853, a quarter-century after services and collection development, help- to the interior via a military road from the they were checked out. vj.s.r.

76 March - April 2014 Maps courtesy of the Harvard Map Collection Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 MEET RAJA GHAWI, HARVARD INNOVATOR

RAJA GHAWI ’15, an engineering sciences BENEFITS FROM YOUR GIFT INCLUDE: concentrator from Syria, attends Harvard College • Annual income to you with the support of financial aid. He recently helped design a machine that streamlines the • Income, capital gain, and estate tax savings production of stem cells used in the treatment of • Harvard Management Company services at cancer patients. After graduation, Raja hopes to no fee attend law school to focus on science policy, Let’s make a difference together. intellectual property, and ethics. YOU CAN SUPPORT outstanding students like To learn more, email [email protected] Raja and receive lifetime income from Harvard or call 800-446-1277. by making a planned gift. ALUMNI.HARVARD.EDU/PGO/HM

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