Daniel Aaron • Max Beckmann’s Modernity • Sexual Assault November-December 2015 • $4.95 Consummate Coach Tim Murphy’s formidable game S:7” Invest In What Lasts How do you pass down what you’ve spent your life building up? A Morgan Stanley Financial Advisor can help you create a legacy plan based on the values you live by. So future generations can benefit from not just your money, but also your example. Let’s have that conversation. morganstanley.com/legacy S:9.25” © 2015 Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC. Member SIPC. CRC 1134840 04/15 151112_MorganStanley_Ivy.indd 1 9/21/15 1:59 PM NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2015 VOLUME 118, NUMBER 2 FEATURES 35 Murphy Time | by Dick Friedman The recruiter, tactician, and educator who has become one of the best coaches in football 44 Making Modernity | by Joseph Koerner On the meanings and history of Max Beckmann’s iconic self-portrait p. 33 48 Vita: Joseph T. Walker | by Thomas W. Walker Brief life of a scientific sleuth: 1908-1952 50 Chronicler of Two Americas | by Christoph Irmscher An appreciation of Daniel Aaron, with excerpts from his new Commonplace Book JOHN HARVard’s JournAL 41.37. 41.37. R 17 Smith Campus Center under wraps, disturbing sexual-assault ULL IMAGE F findings, a law professor plumbs social problems, the campaign OR F NIVERSITY crosses $6 billion, cutting class for Christmas, lesser gains U and new directions for the endowment, fall themes and a SSOCIATION FUND, B A ARVARD H brain-drain of economists, Allston science complex, the Under- USEUM, RARY, RARY, B M graduate on newfangled reading, early-season football, and I L a three-point shooter recovers her stroke after surgery DETAIL, PLEASE 44 SEE PAGE EISINGER R OUGHTON H p. 44 DEPARTMENTS OLLEGE; C 2 Cambridge 02138 | Letters from our readers—and the case USEUMS/BUSCH- M for borrowing building costs ARVARD RT H A F 3 The View from Mass Hall ARVARD H 12 Right Now | Data-driven analysis of Broadway plays and musicals, deciphering termites’ “cathedral” mounds, social progress beyond prosperity IL ON CANVAS. O RESIDENT AND FELLOWS O P 2 1927. 1927. 16A Harvard | A calendar of autumn events, juxtaposed identities, professional HOTO: © puppetry, Arboretum outings, dining in (relative) quiet, and toothpick art P UXEDO, T 60 Montage | Printmaking informed by linguistics, Milton’s poetry, a coming-to-terms UNST, BONN.UNST, K musical, the American academy’s ailments, Frederick Douglass portrayed, and more SELF-PORTRAIT IN BILD- VG 72 Alumni | Publishing children’s classics in translation, Aloian Scholars, Alumni ORK / Y Association honorands, and Hiram Hunn Award winners EW N AX BECKMANN, ), ), M 76 The College Pump | A long run in The Nutcracker, and the anniversary ARS of a memorable blackout p. 92 OCIETY ( S 92 Treasure | When Americans occupied Cuba, 1898-1902 IGHTS R On the cover: Harvard football coach Tim Murphy. 77 Crimson Classifieds RTISTS Photograph by Jim Harrison A © TOP TO BOTTOM: JIM HARRISON; www.harvardmagazine.com Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 LETTERS EDITOR: John S. Rosenberg SENIOR EDITOR: Jean Martin MANAGING EDITOR: Jonathan S. Shaw Cambridge ART DIRECTOR: Jennifer Carling “Cowboy doctors,” Gen Ed, Corita Kent ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Sophia Nguyen ASSISTANT EDITOR-ONLINE: Laura Levis ASSISTANT EDITOR: Nell Porter Brown BERTA GREENWALD LEDECKY BASE OF THE PYRAMID of such entrepreneurial ventures: in one, pu- UNDERGRADUATE FELLOWS Thank you for the important article about rified water can be obtained at low cost by Jenny Gathright, Bailey Trela impact investing (“Business for the Oth- running an electric current though salt water er Billions,” September-October, page 31), (electrochlorination), and then distributed EDITORIAL INTERN which offers perhaps the best hope for allevi- to rural villagers for a few pennies per gal- Olivia Campbell ating poverty, and should appeal to anyone at lon, generating a profit and solving a per- CONTRIBUTING EDITORS any point along the political and ideological vasive problem. Other enterprises provide John T. Bethell, John de Cuevas, Dick spectrum. A friend involved and influential low-cost solar-powered light and power Friedman, Adam Goodheart, in impact investing gave me further examples products for people without access to reli- Elizabeth Gudrais, Jim Harrison, 7 WARE STREET Courtney Humphries, Christopher S. end of the decade (see page 27). Fundrais- Johnson, Adam Kirsch, Colleen Lannon, ers are soliciting for gift support, but ab- A Borrower Be Christopher Reed, Stu Rosner, Deborah sent some deus ex machina (and the campaign In late 2008, at the depths of the financial has already produced several), debt will be Smullyan, Mark Steele crisis, the University borrowed $2.5 billion, needed to get the job done. The Faculty of HARVARD MAGAZINE INC. expensively (at tax-exempt and taxable in- Arts and Sciences is redoubling appeals to PRESIDENT: Henry Rosovsky, JF ’57, terest rates of 5.4 percent and 5.8 percent) to pay for House renewal; but according to its Ph.D. ’59, LL.D. ’98. DIRECTORS: Suzanne shore up its liquidity and provide flexibility financial statements, it continues to decapi- Blier, Peter K. Bol, Jonathan L.S. Byrnes, within the endowment, and for other defen- talize endowment appreciation, to the tune sive purposes. Interest expense, about 4.2 of some hundreds of millions of dollars, to D.B.A. ’80, Thomas F. Kelly, Ph.D. ’73, percent of the budget in fiscal year 2008, shot fund that and other priorities—perhaps a Lars Peter Knoth Madsen, Margaret H. painfully up to 7.1 percent of constrained significant reason its endowment is still a Marshall, Ed.M. ’69, John P. Reardon Jr. spending two years later. Harvard retained half-billion dollars below the 2008 level. Its ’60, Bryan E. Simmons ’83 its top-tier AAA/Aaa credit rating—impor- House renewal plan explicitly envisions use tant for some endowment-management of endowment funds, gifts, reserves, cash strategies, and useful for restraining future from operations, and “incremental” long- BOARD OF INCORPORATORS This magazine, at first called the Harvard Bulletin, was borrowing costs. Administrators made it term debt to finish the job. And there are founded in 1898. Its Board of Incorporators was char- clear that they were henceforth debt-averse, other high priorities for gifts. tered in 1924 and remains active in the magazine’s and that deans bent on building something Borrowing funds might complicate the governance. The membership is as follows: Stephen J. Bailey, AMP ’94; Jeffrey S. Behrens ’89, William I. should secure donations to do so. fundraisers’ story somewhat. But many of Bennett ’62, M.D. ’69; John T. Bethell ’54; Peter K. Bol; Fast-forward to 2015. The Harvard Cam- Harvard’s most significant donors are fi- Fox Butterfield ’61, A.M. ’64; Sewell Chan ’98; Jona- than S. Cohn ’91; Philip M. Cronin ’53, J.D. ’56; John paign has already secured more than $6 nancially sophisticated investors who use de Cuevas ’52; James F. Dwinell III ’62; Anne Fadiman billion (see page 20), and will be the larg- debt to achieve returns; they will under- ’74; Benjamin M. Friedman ’66, Ph.D. ’71; Robert H. Giles, NF ’66; Richard H. Gilman, M.B.A. ’83; Owen est of its kind in higher-education history. stand. Rates for Harvard to borrow long Gingerich, Ph.D. ’62; Adam K. Goodheart ’92; Phil- The endowment has exceeded its pre-crisis term are in the range of 4 percent—below ip C. Haughey ’57; Brian R. Hecht ’92; Sarah Blaffer Hrdy ’68, Ph.D. ’75; Ellen Hume ’68; Alex S. Jones, NF peak (at least nominally; see page 22). So it endowment returns. It would be unfor- ’82; Bill Kovach, NF ’89; Florence Ladd, BI ’72; Jen- may seem counterintuitive to borrow again, tunate to pay top dollar in 2008 and then nifer 8 Lee ’99; Randolph C. Lindel ’66; Ann Marie but the logic suggests that the University miss the low point for loan costs today. And Lipinski, NF ’90; Scott Malkin ’80, J.D.-M.B.A. ’83; Margaret H. Marshall, Ed.M. ’69, Ed ’77, L ’78; Lisa L. can, and will, for academic purposes— the rating agencies have indicated they are Martin, Ph.D. ’90; David McClintick ’62; Winthrop sooner rather than later. in a tolerant mood, given the University’s L. McCormack ’67; M. Lee Pelton, Ph.D. ’84; John P. Reardon Jr. ’60; Christopher Reed; Harriet Ritvo ’68, Plans have been unveiled for the huge strengthened balance sheet and financial Ph.D. ’75; Henry Rosovsky, JF ’57, Ph.D. ’59, LL.D. ’98; science and engineering center in Allston, disciplines. The fundraising success en- Barbara Rudolph ’77; Robert N. Shapiro ’72, J.D. ’78; Theda Skocpol, Ph.D. ’75; Peter A. Spiers ’76; Scott where much of the engineering and applied ables borrowing, rather than precluding it. H. Stossel ’91; Sherry Turkle ’69, Ph.D. ’76; Robert H. sciences faculty is to be housed before the v john s. rosenberg, Editor Weiss ’54; Jan Ziolkowski. 2 November - December 2015 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 THE VIEW FROM MASS HALL Vigorous Immortality ne of the best descriptions of the promise of endowments is just two words long: vigorous immortality. This suc- cinct phrase, from John Campbell, Morton L. and Carole S. Olshan Professor of Economics in Harvard’s Faculty of OArts and Sciences, communicates especially well the significant— and frequently misunderstood—tension at the heart of an impor- tant source of funding and stability for hundreds of colleges and universities. Individuals make contributions to endowments with the understanding that their philanthropy will have an effect on both the present and the future, supporting activities and driving progress forever.