70S Integrated, He Had a Call from the Then Drugs, Sex, and Hot Breakfasts Master at 6 A.M

Home , Dunster House, James Vorenberg, Lowell House

the Grand Old Party at Harvard, and Gus- about [the class],” Shoemaker remarked. Chinese restaurant, the Hong Kong, for a morino, former president of the Under- Following the ﬁnal exam in May, he and celebratory luncheon with the class. The graduate Council, traced the evolution of Gomes headed to the Square’s lowbrow o∞cial CUE Guide rating on the course will student government at the Col- not be out until September, but lege, beginning with the ﬁrst the course was popular enough student council in 1908. Other that some of its students are students researched the Society talking about auditing it again of Fellows, the Schlesinger Li- next spring. “Gomes himself brary’s world-renowned cook- noted that we were somewhat book collection, and the history odd for taking the class, and that of student uprisings at the Col- he was somewhat odd for giving lege, beginning with the Great it—but we all love Harvard his- Butter Rebellion in 1766 and the tory,” Ganeshananthan said. Rotten Cabbage Rebellion of garrett m. graff 1807. “We were very surprised by Garrett M. Gra≠ ’03, one of this maga- how serious the students were zine’s new Berta Greenwald Ledecky The Faculty Room as it appeared at Undergraduate Fellows (see page 79),

the end of the nineteenth century HARVARD UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES received an A in Religion 1513.

too many years before the Houses were Mastering in the ’70s integrated, he had a call from the then Drugs, sex, and hot breakfasts master at 6 a.m. saying “There’s a woman betty vorenberg in the Dunster yard; what are you going by to do about it?” He also recalled that one frequently voiced objection to admitting In the spring of 1973 Harvard presi- had no closets because the valet for Low- women to the Houses had been that the dent Derek Bok asked my husband, Jim ell’s first master kept the master’s clothes “level of conversation in the dining hall Vorenberg, to be master of Dunster in a room down the hall. But in the sum- will drop.” House. We had been married three years mer of 1973, Harvard traditions did not ap- The Houses were simply a microcosm and had five kids between us. Jim was the pear so quaint. One afternoon a senior of the outside world and, like the outside first law-school professor to be a master. buildings and grounds administrator said world, Harvard was sexist. When I at- We moved into the House in June. Jim to me, “We’re not used to dealing with the tended a masters’ meeting in Jim’s place had already left for Washington to help masters’ wives, Betty.” He later became that first spring it was awkward. But his law-school colleague Archie Cox set one of my dear friends, but the Houses within a year some of the masters’ wives up the Watergate special prosecutor’s of- were changing and more than one admin- were petitioning President Bok for o∞cial fice, leaving me surrounded by boxes. All istrator was bewildered. status. His response was equivocal: we that summer I worked to get the master’s could be “assistant masters” or “associate residence in order for the opening of the Although some of the houses, in- masters.” I told the Crimson that women school year. I was able to borrow art and cluding Dunster, had already had under- were always the “a’s”—associates, assis- furniture from the Fogg, and many won- graduate women in residence on an ex- tants, administrative this or that—and derful people from the buildings and perimental basis, the that wasn’t good grounds department cooperated by paint- decision that women enough. Derek re- ing and installing lights and especially by and men would live lented and let us call making major changes in the kitchen, together in all the ourselves anything which had been designed for an age when Harvard and Rad- we wished. That vic- servants did all the work. Since we were a cli≠e Houses repre- tory came with a family who liked food and liked to cook sented a major shift. small stipend. The and eat together, changes were imperative. Our first senior newer masters’ wives Later, I learned to relax and laugh at the tutor, who had lived called themselves co- “olden days.” I was amused to find out in Dunster since master; the wives that the master bedroom in Lowell House 1969, told us that not who had been there before 1973 chose as- At diploma ceremonies at Dunster House, Master Vorenberg hands a degree to John T. Day Jr., Ph.D. ’77, now an administrator at Saint Olaf sociate master.

College in Northfield, Minnesota. Day holds his son, Nathaniel. COURTESY BETTY VORENBERG By the end of the

68 September - October 2002 95-5746. print information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-4 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For copyright and re Malkin Renewal Nothing exceeds like success. Last summer, the Malkin Ath- letic Center (MAC) installed some new exercise equipment, completely refurbishing its weightlifting rooms. “We’ve gotten great feedback on it,” says director of athletics Bob Scalise, M.B.A. ’89.“And, of course, now the lines to use equipment are longer.” With its convenient location between Kirkland and Lowell Houses, the MAC—the former Indoor Athletic Building, renamed in 1985 when a gift from the Malkin family made possible a major renovation—is a heavily trafficked facility. Perhaps a thousand faculty and staff members and students hoist dumb- bells, sweat on treadmills, and swim laps there daily, straining it to capacity. Harvard hopes to rehab the structure again some time in the next few years. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) and the athletic department are jointly pursuing this project.They hired the archi- The indoor swimming pool at Malkin. Future renovations will likely tectural firm HNTB to do a space study for all of Harvard’s ath- remove the rarely used spectator galleries at the sides. letic facilities and received the report this spring. “It’s a needs The MAC’s heavily used swimming pool is likely to remain, al- analysis, a report on what we have and what we may need,” says though the spectator galleries flanking it will probably disappear, Scalise.“It did not provide plans or detailed options.” because intercollegiate swim meets now take place at Blodgett Currently, the MAC, which houses both recreational and in- Pool. “We want to take [underutilized] space and create more tercollegiate programs, is home to three of Harvard’s 41 varsity usable space,” Scalise says. After soliciting proposals from archi- sports: wrestling, volleyball, and fencing.The ultimate goal, Scalise tects during the summer, Harvard expects to choose a firm this says, is “dedicating as much of the MAC as possible to recre- fall to produce a detailed proposal with drawings. ational use, and relocating some of the intercollegiate programs One tricky aspect of renovating the MAC may be finding ways to other facilities,” probably in the Soldiers Field area. (Housing to keep its exercise facilities available while the work goes on. the migrant teams will create another design challenge, but the The basketball court, for example, might become temporarily a players should eventually gain benefits like improved locker cardiovascular workout room.“That’s one thing we will ask the space.) Within the MAC, a key goal is to generate “space that is architects: how do we phase in the plans to cause minimal dis- flexible enough to be used for different activities,” says Mike ruption?” Scalise says. “The degree of disruption depends on Lichten, assistant dean for physical resources in FAS. what needs to be done.We won’t know that for awhile.”

first summer we were very comfortable in field. Jim was quite strict about their re- house sections of the large survey courses, the House, Jim was commuting only one sponsibilities and their obligation to the so although tutors and students were day a week to Washington, and we were students. No tutor was guaranteed a friends, there was also a teacher-student looking forward to the students’ arrival. chance to stay on if he or she failed to meet relationship and the inherent danger of They were earnest, energetic, and eager to those standards. Very few flunked out. favors being traded: sex for grades. But meet us. Each fall we invited the tutors for a sexual harassment was not even a phrase supper at which Jim delivered his annual in use, much less an issue, in those days, Hiring really good tutors—to advise on admonition, what came to be known as and there was no universal policy for the professional and graduate schools and to the “no sex or drugs” rule: tutors were Houses; the Vorenberg policy may have cover the major concentrations—was the not to have sex with the undergraduates been the first. After one orientation din- single most important job of the masters, nor were they to “do” drugs with them. ner, a nonresident tutor was heard—un- in our opinion. We had to turn down The senior tutor had informed us that at fortunately for him by the most militantly many fine candidates, including (as he re- least 90 percent of the students smoked feminist tutor in the House—asking what cently reminded me) a graduate student marijuana, and Jim felt it was too much of the use was of being a tutor if you could- in economics named Larry Summers. a challenge to put a stop to that, so he n’t sleep with the girls. Within hours, this It was well known by tutors in the other compromised. The tutors did not have to was reported to Jim, who told the fellow Houses that there was no free lunch at leave parties if drugs were being used, but he could not remain part of the House. Dunster: in exchange for a suite of rooms they were not to participate. He was fly- (I was not immune from poor judgment and meals, the tutors were expected to ing a little bit by the seat of his pants and a bit of sexism. I interviewed a female know the students who lived in their entry here, for it was a new experience. candidate for a job in the House o∞ce and as well as those who concentrated in their Many of the tutors taught and graded asked if she planned to have a baby any

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time soon. She reported me to the central University People administration and I was admonished, rightly so. It never happened again.) Bridging a Graduate Gap orary member of the The sex-and-drugs policy led to the A scientist follows an historian of science, Order of Australia for ﬁrst big protest by the students, many of as James M. Hogle and Doreen Hogle her services coordinat- whom had been “revolutionaries” in high succeed Everett I. Mendelsohn and Mary ing Harvard’s Australian school and still thought of themselves

B. Anderson as master and co-master of studies program. In that COURTESY JANET HATCH that way. They demanded a meeting. Stu- Dudley House, the Harvard Yard center role, she is now busily Janet Hatch dents, tutors, Jim, and I gathered in the for students enrolled in the Graduate arranging a conference junior common room. Curiously, drugs School of Arts and Sciences (see “Univer- on Australian literature, organized by were more of a concern than sexual re- sity People,” July-August, page 82). James Judith L. Ryan, Harvard College Profes- strictions. One student announced, “We Hogle, an expert on the structure and sor and Weary professor of German and have an absolute right to get high with function of viruses, is Harkness professor comparative literature, scheduled for our tutors!” And the conversation took o≠ of biological chemistry and molecular October 31 to November 2. from there. pharmacology at the medical school and Jim and Bob Ferguson, our senior tutor, chair of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Ex-publisher were temperate and reasonable. But after committee on higher degrees in bio- Continuing the remaking of Harvard an hour I was so angry that I blew up. physics; Doreen Hogle is an intellectual- Business School Publishing and its ﬂag- “We’re so good to you,” I said. “We’ve had property attorney. As master, Hogle said, ship Harvard Business Review (see July-Au- ice-cream parties and open houses, we he hopes to reach out to the large contin- gust, page 85), the resignation of the worry about your well-being…how can gent of graduate students in the medical magazine’s publisher since 1999, Pene- you be so nasty and ungrateful?” I even school’s division of medical sciences—a lope Muse Abernathy, was announced sputtered that, after a recent open house, step toward building community among in early July. The change came during a I found a paper napkin with a note that faculties and students in GSAS and medi- reorganization by new CEO David A. said, “Next time get more pizza!” The cine whose research increasingly overlaps. Wan, M.B.A. ’81, and follows the resigna- meeting broke up and I thought that Jim tion of former Review editor Suzanne R. and Bob would never talk to me again. Latin America Leader Wetlaufer ’81, M.B.A. ’88. Cathryn At our next open house, the students Carola Suárez-Orozco, an immigration Cronin Cranston ’77, formerly associate were on their best behavior: “Oh Betty, researcher at the Graduate School of Edu- publisher, based in California, succeeds this is so nice,” “The food is delicious,” and cation, has moved to the Abernathy. other appreciative remarks. I felt vindi- Rockefeller Center for cated, the sex-and-drugs rule stuck, and «

AREZ OROZCO Latin American Studies, Medicine Men there were no more complaints. where she will serve as Three of the dozen new Howard Hughes executive director. She Medical Institute investigators chosen One year a terrible ﬁre broke out in the succeeds Stephen J. for their work at the boundaries of lab middle of the night in an entry. The Cam-

COURTESY CAROLA SU Reifenberg, who will science and clinical care of patients are bridge ﬁre department came, all the resi- Carola Suárez- direct the center’s new a∞liated with the medical school. Each dents were evacuated safely, and the Orozco o∞ce in Chile. will receive up to $1 million annually for ﬁremen put out the blaze (which ap- research funding. They are Todd R. peared to have started from a bedspread Star Scientist Golub, associate professor of pediatrics arranged over a ceiling light). About 2 a.m. Timken University Pro- at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, a spe- we were sitting in the residence with the fessor Irwin I. Shapiro, cialist in childhood leukemia; Bruce D. senior tutor, his wife, and a couple of director of the Harvard- Walker, professor of medicine at Massa- other tutors, when the doorbell rang. It Smithsonian Center for chusetts General Hospital and director of was a Cambridge policeman with a water Astrophysics, has been the medical school’s division of AIDS, pipe (for the uninitiated: a hookah-style named acting director of who works on HIV and viral pathogene- contraption used for smoking marijuana). all science programs for sis; and Christopher Walsh, Bullard pro- The policeman clearly wanted to make the Smithsonian Institu- fessor of neurology at Beth Israel Dea- an arrest, and Jim and the senior tutor en- tion. coness Medical Center, who studies the couraged him to walk out to Memorial genetic bases of mental retardation and Drive. The three of them talked with the On High, Down Under epilepsy in children.…Separately, the in- others in the patrol car. I have no idea History department ad- stitute granted $1.6 million to the Univer- what argument Jim, a professor of crimi- JON CHASE/HARVARD NEWS OFFICE Irwin I. ministrator Janet Hatch sity to support the undergraduate biol- nal law, put forth, but I imagine it was a Shapiro has been made an hon- ogy program. complicated presentation of search and seizure rules and precedents, and he pre-

70 September - October 2002 95-5746. print information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-4 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For copyright and re vailed. The cops left. Jim and the senior administration tried to place tutor crossed Memorial Drive and threw as many as possible in their the incriminating evidence in the Charles. first choice. (This was the pre- The first toss did not make it in, so they cursor to the current random- had to search the ground in the dark, find ized system.) Black students the water pipe, and finally get it into the found the high-rise towers of river. We all ended up sitting in our Leverett and Mather Houses kitchen drinking whiskey, happy that and Currier, the newest Rad- everyone was safe and wondering what cli≠e Quad House, more to would happen next. their liking than the tradi- Looking back, I see that we were naïve tional Houses. Perhaps naively, about drugs. One year the student drama Jim and I hoped that our in- group produced The Wizard of Oz. We went volvement in the civil-rights to all of the performances, not out of obli- movement and in diversity gation but because it was so much fun. At e≠orts before and after our the closing performance, when Dorothy marriage would make Dunster returned to Kansas, the student playing an attractive place for some Uncle Henry said, “Dorothy, have you black students. By 1976 we had been smoking any of that marriage-ah- hired a number of black tutors wanna?” The audience broke up. Neither and felt we had an advising Jim nor I had recognized that the funny system that could be helpful to smell that evening was indeed marijuana. all students. But when the sophomores moved in that fall,

How to assign so-called “rising sopho- there were very few new black COURTESY BETTY VORENBERG mores” to the Houses has always stirred students. We were disappointed. Above: A cartoon by Robert P. Young Jr. ’74, controversy. For many years students We began to realize that, in order to J.D. ’77, then a law tutor in Dunster, now a justice of the Michigan Supreme Court. With were admitted under an elitist system change the perception that Dunster was the Vorenbergs, from left: Jerome Culp, J.D. known as “master’s choice.” Masters and not a place for black students, we needed ’77, G ’80, then assistant senior tutor, now tutors interviewed freshmen and chose to do more than be welcoming. Students professor of law at Duke; Michael Roberts, those who appeared to fit the House had to be convinced that Dunster was in- J.D. ’79, Ph.D. ’80, then assistant senior tutor, now executive director of the PEN American “image.” When the House system began, deed a comfortable environment, so Jim Center, New York City; and Jeremy A. Sabloff, there were not enough rooms for all fresh- told the administration that he would not Ph.D. ’69, then senior tutor and assistant pro- men; those who weren’t chosen had to live stick to the procedures used by students fessor of anthropology, now the Williams di- elsewhere. After Jim was appointed mas- requesting a transfer into a House in the rector of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. ter, I happened to chat with a prominent middle of the year, and that we would Below, left: Betty and James Vorenberg professor who told me that when he was a take only black students. That spring our tutor, he had recommended Theodore assistant senior tutor wrote every one of filled with raunchy and often funny lines. White ’38, the future journalist, as a good the African-American freshmen, urging After a while, we required that the script candidate. The master responded, “White them to apply to the House and, as a grad- be submitted in advance so we could rule is a Jew; we can’t have him.” uate of the College and a black man, ex- out jokes that might seriously hurt the By the time we came to Dunster, mas- plaining why he thought it made sense. feelings of particular tutors or students. ter’s choice had been replaced by a system The next fall a substantial number of At the twenty-fifth reunion lunch in Dun- in which roommate groups ranked the black students moved to Dunster. We ster House a year ago, one alumnus re- Houses where they wanted to live and the were able to realize one of our most im- membered that—which was a bit morti- portant goals—making Dun- fying, because in the interim I had been ster a more inclusive and di- president of the ACLU of Massachusetts. verse House. The tension persisted between respect- ing privacy and making sure we knew Although civil rights and what was going on that might be harmful. civil liberties were major inter- It was clear that each tutor was expected ests and concerns of ours, it to know what was happening in his or her wasn’t always easy to follow entry. It wasn’t necessary to tell us every- our principles, particularly on thing, but we wanted to know who was in issues of privacy and censor- trouble. The tutors took their responsibil- ship. Every year the students ities seriously and it seemed to work.

COURTESY BETTY VORENBERG produced a Christmas play I believe the students liked our worry-

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ing about them, and sometimes they came In the late 1960s, SDS—Students for a dents showed up, Jim and I remarked that directly to Jim for advice. Quite often the Democratic Society—had its headquarters at the small colleges our own children problem related to sleeping arrange- in the basement of Dunster House. But by went to, several hundred students would ments. One woman complained that her 1978, our last year, what little countercul- probably have paid for tickets. roommate slept with her boyfriend in the tural spirit was left surfaced, perhaps be- On the other hand, there were some lower level of their bunk bed. Jim asked cause some students felt they had missed star attractions. When Jim invited Archie to see the roommate, who asserted, “But the excitement. That spring, when the din- Cox to speak one evening, the junior com- we don’t do anything.” Jim gently said the ing halls decided to save money by o≠ering mon room was filled. The same was true arrangement had to stop. hot breakfasts only in some Houses, the when Tom Lehrer came over to play some One evening, after a dance in the dining Dunster House president organized an of his songs. Probably the most extraordi- hall, a student knocked on our door quite early morning march to protest our loss nary turnout was our reception for Mar- late to report that another student had and asked if we would join the group. got St. James, president of COYOTE (Call been talking about killing himself. Jim Although we supported the students’ O≠ Your Old Tired Ethics), a union of hurried over to find the student and bring right to march, they had to do it without prostitutes. We had been investigating him back to the residence, where they us. However, we tried to respond to other how prostitution was handled by the talked much of the night. We both had requests, in particular the perennial com- criminal justice systems in places like turns at walking students up to the plaint that there was not enough faculty Nevada and Amsterdam, and interviewed health services for counseling. And al- contact. The tutors organized dinners Margot after a worldwide convention of though I had no objection to students’ with faculty guests, and sometimes we in- prostitutes in Brussels; she gave us intro- having access to their files in the House vited interested students for supper in the ductions to prostitutes in other European o∞ce (the result of Congressional passage master’s residence with our friends from cities. (Our research formed the basis for of privacy legislation known as the Buck- the faculty and community. But I always an Atlantic Monthly article.) When she was ley Amendment), I was never comfortable felt the students were so busy that they in Boston the next year, we invited Mar- —perhaps because I was a parent of col- didn’t take advantage of these opportuni- got to the House. I can still see her sitting lege-age students—with constraints that ties. When our pre-law tutor arranged for in our living room, the women clustered kept us from telling parents when their the great Constitutional scholar Paul Fre- close by asking questions and the men children were in serious trouble. und to come to dinner and barely six stu- (boys, actually) sitting with their jaws agape, not saying a word.

HOLLIS Improved I came to believe that one of the best—if not the best—things about Har- Choosing the relative peace of July, when the inevitable bugs could be dealt with vard is the House system. I still have many calmly, the University Library released a greatly improved version of the Harvard On- friends among the former students and tu- line Library Information System (HOLLIS). “The new system is a major advance for tors, and I feel great warmth and nostalgia both library staff and the public,” says Tracey Robinson, head of the Office for Informa- for our years in Dunster. The most touch- tion Systems in the University Library, who oversaw the overhaul.“The former system ing annual event was the tea for seniors originated in 1985, and so the architecture was old and the functionality pretty limited. and their families in the master’s residence This is a much more powerful tool.” the evening before Commencement. Some Visitors see at once that the new system is more user-friendly than the old, offering of the seniors were the first in their fami- a point-and-click-based interface instead of requiring typed commands.The catalog has lies to go to college, and they would come a new look, gives a choice of many refined and expanded search features, and lets pa- in the door not only with their parents and trons interact with the library on clerical matters. siblings, but with cousins and aunts and One can limit a search, which can be a critical timesaver given the vast size of the uncles as well. I found it incredibly moving collection. One can search an individual library, for instance, or search by publisher or and often had to hide my tears. date of publication, or search only among journals or e-resources. Foreign-language It was a privilege. records can be displayed in the original script, instead of in transliterated Roman char- acters. One can return to previous searches and modify them. Betty Vorenberg and her husband, James Voren- Students, faculty members, and others actively engaged with the library can use the berg ’49, LL.B. ’51, the late dean of Harvard Law new HOLLIS, and their PINs, to interact with the system from home or office for such School and Pound professor of law, left Dunster business as to remind themselves what books they’ve checked out; to renew books House after five years, a year after she began about to be due; to have books taken out by others recalled; or to see how much working full time at the state department of public they’ve been billed in overdue fines (for HOLLIS is a large financial system along with welfare. In a letter to the students, the Vorenbergs everything else). wrote: “We are finding it di∞cult to get enough To explore HOLLIS, approach through the libraries’ portal (http://lib.harvard.edu) time for our work and enough time for ourselves, or directly, at http://holliscatalog.harvard.edu. while being involved in the life of the House in the way we believe the masters should be.”

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