Poetic Voices • Commencement • Liberal-Arts MakeoverMakeover JULY-AUGUST 2017 • $4.95 Untangling Schizophrenia The genetics of mental illness Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 S:7” S:9.25” MERCK INVENTS TO KEEP JOY ALIVE So today, on Claudia’s wedding day, her grandfather Eduardo is there for the milestone event. Creating another special memory for the both of them. For more than a century, Merck has been inventing medicines and vaccines for many of the world’s most challenging diseases. Today, we’re exploring entirely new approaches in our search to prevent Alzheimer’s. So people remain healthy and present, able to share every precious moment with the ones they love. Learn more at Merck.com/InventingForLife Keep Joy Alive Copyright ©2017 Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp., a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc., Kenilworth, NJ USA. All Rights Reserved. CORP-1210605-0005 06/17 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 170701_Merck.indd 1 5/17/17 3:31 PM JULY-AUGUST 2017, VOLUME 119, NUMBER 6 FEATURES 32 Poetry, Voiced | by Sophia Nguyen Preserving the treasures of the Woodberry Poetry Room 38 Vita: Blanche Ames | by Laura J. Snyder Brief life of an intrepid botanical illustrator: 1878-1969 p. 32 40 Probing Psychoses | by Courtney Humphries Genetic and genomic clues to understanding schizophrenia p. 15 47 An Educated Core | by John S. Rosenberg Three bold attempts to redesign the liberal arts JOHN HARVARD’S JOURNAL 14 Abdi, Biden…Zuckerberg: the 366th Commencement, animated, academic—and political. Plus graduate-student unionization, photography professor, the 1932 eclipse, faculty diversity, top teachers, maths, more on single-gender p. 14 social clubs, new House and Harvard Law leaders, online learning, the College meme culture, and a wrap-up of spring sports p. 76 DEPARTMENTS 2 Cambridge 02138 | Letters from our readers—and how Washington misunderstands research 3 The View from Mass Hall VIA GETTY IMAGES; GETTYVIA IMAGES; 8 Right Now | The rise of veganism, U.S. companies versus U.S. jobs, big names in the voting booth 56 Montage | Creating Master of None, a Bengali trilogy, 1760s extracurriculars, THE BOSTON GLOBE the elite’s “class cluelessness,” children’s gardens, and more 63 Alumni | A better pipeline to college, Graduate School honorees, Harvard Medalists, senior alumni, election winners, and more p. 8 68 The College Pump | Overhauling “Fair Harvard,” a Soviet schooling, quiet campus corners On the cover: Imaging of human neurons implicates the gene C4 (in green) in excess pruning 76 Treasure | Jun ceramics—and their secrets—on display of synapses, a process linked to schizophrenia. Image courtesy of Heather de Rivera/Steven 69 Crimson Classifieds McCarroll Laboratory CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: STU ROSNER; KEITH BEDFORD/ JUNGYEON ROH; COURTESY OF HARVARD ART MUSEUMS; ©PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE 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 Cambridge MANAGING EDITOR: Jonathan S. Shaw ART DIRECTOR: Jennifer Carling Academic class gaps, “Fair Harvard,” final clubs ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Marina Bolotnikova, Sophia Nguyen STAFF WRITER/EDITOR: Lydialyle Gibson DIGITAL MEDIA MANAGER: Oset Babür ASSISTANT EDITOR: Nell Porter Brown LINGUISTIC SIGNS wide, she was shouting BERTA GREENWALD LEDECKY I read “A Language Out of with joy. When they pulled UNDERGRADUATE FELLOWS Nothing” (by Marina Bolot- in tight, she was whispering Matthew Browne, Lily Scherlis nikova, May-June, page 50) furtively. I didn’t hear what with great interest. I was happened as the story un- DANIEL STEINER UNDERGRADUATE thrilled to see that ASL has folded, I lived through it. EDITORIAL INTERN: Alisha Ukani returned to Harvard, and The fact that ASL is en- CONTRIBUTING EDITORS that the University embraces tirely visual certainly distin- John T. Bethell, Lincoln Caplan, John what has always been obvi- guishes it from spoken lan- de Cuevas, Dick Friedman, Adam ous to me: ASL is a language. guages, but does not make it Goodheart, Elizabeth Gudrais, Jim That idea was once treated any less a language. ASL’s dif- Harrison, Courtney Humphries, with hostility. While an ferences should be studied, Christopher S. Johnson, Adam Kirsch, undergraduate student at the University not denigrated. I’m glad Professor Davidson, Colleen Lannon, Spencer Lenfield, Stu of Maryland in the late 1970s, I debated my with Harvard’s support, has chosen to do so. Rosner, Deborah Smullyan, Mark Steele linguistics professor over the validity of Andy Shipley, J.D. ’84 her pronouncement that hearing children Vienna, Va. HARVARD MAGAZINE INC. of Deaf parents “suffer from retarded lan- PRESIDENT: Margaret H. Marshall, Ed.M. guage development.” As none of the CODAs I read with interest about the emergence ’69. DIRECTORS: Peter K. Bol, Jonathan (Children of Deaf Adults) I knew (including of Nicaraguan Sign Language, but I question L.S. Byrnes, D.B.A. ’80, Scott V. Edwards, my sister, my three cousins, and numerous one passage: “[R]esearchers from linguistics Thomas F. Kelly, Ph.D. ’73, Ann Marie friends) suffered from “retarded language and other fields have come to doubt that a Lipinski, NF ’90, Lars Peter Knoth development,” I pressed for the empirical language instinct even exists, pointing out, Madsen, John P. Reardon Jr. ’60, evidence in support of her statement. She for example, that it takes children years to Bryan E. Simmons ’83 admitted she had none; she had deduced it successfully acquire a language, and they must be so because, in her mind, ASL was pick up the rules piecemeal, not system- BOARD OF INCORPORATORS not an actual language. To some, her state- atically.” That ran counter to what I wrote This magazine, at first called the Harvard Bulletin, was ment could be viewed as one born of sloppy about [then Lindsley professor of psychol- founded in 1898. Its Board of Incorporators was char- scholarship. To me, it reflected the same un- ogy] Roger Brown for the magazine in the tered in 1924 and remains active in the magazine’s governance. The membership is as follows: Stephen J. fortunate and uninformed bias against and September-October 1990 issue. Bailey, AMP ’94; Jeffrey S. Behrens ’89, William I. Ben- condescension toward Deaf people I had Brown was the first to study in a system- nett ’62, M.D. ’69; John T. Bethell ’54; Peter K. Bol; Fox witnessed my entire life. atic way how children learn language. He Butterfield ’61, A.M. ’64; Sewell Chan ’98; Jonathan S. I have tried on occasion to explain the and a group of his graduate students record- Cohn ’91; Philip M. Cronin ’53, J.D. ’56; John de Cuevas ’52; James F. Dwinell III ’62; Anne Fadiman ’74; Benja- beauty of ASL to those who see only hands ed the speech of three children ranging in min M. Friedman ’66, Ph.D. ’71; Robert H. Giles, NF waving aimlessly in midair, but it is as diffi- age from 18 to 27 months, one of them for 11 ’66; Richard H. Gilman, M.B.A. ’83; Owen Gingerich, cult as explaining to my mother what Celine months, the other two for several years. The Ph.D. ’62; Adam K. Goodheart ’92; Philip C. Haughey ’57; Brian R. Hecht ’92; Sarah Blaffer Hrdy ’68, Ph.D. Dion sounds like. ASL conveys the sublime three children, from different social and eco- ’75; Ellen Hume ’68; Alex S. Jones, NF ’82; Bill Kovach, in ways the written and spoken word can- nomic backgrounds, exhibited a similarity in NF ’89; Florence Ladd, BI ’72; Jennifer 8 Lee ’99; Ran- not. My mother could not read aloud to me, the way they acquired language that Brown dolph C. Lindel ’66; Ann Marie Lipinski, NF ’90; Scott but her hands, her facial expressions and likened to the biological development of an Malkin ’80, J.D.-M.B.A. ’83; Margaret H. Marshall, Ed.M. ’69, Ed ’77, L ’78; Lisa L. Martin, Ph.D. ’90; David her body movements wove a moving tap- embryo. In a book titled A First Language he McClintick ’62; Winthrop L. McCormack ’67; M. Lee estry that none of my less fortunate child- described and explained what the recordings Pelton, Ph.D. ’84; John P. Reardon Jr. ’60; Harriet Ritvo hood friends (those with hearing parents) revealed. I quote from the article: ’68, Ph.D. ’75; Henry Rosovsky, JF ’57, Ph.D. ’59, LL.D. could understand. When her hands flung He identified fourteen morphemes ’98; Barbara Rudolph ’77; Robert N. Shapiro ’72, J.D. ’78; Theda Skocpol, Ph.D. ’75; Peter A. Spiers ’76; Scott H. Stossel ’91; Sherry Turkle ’69, Ph.D. ’76; Robert H. Weiss ’54; Jan Ziolkowski. 2 July - August 2017 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 THE VIEW FROM MASS HALL The March for Science arly on a chilly Saturday morning in April, I gathered in Cambridge with a hearty band of Harvard scientists and supporters of science to help launch the March for Science, an international demonstration of support for scientific Ediscovery and its extraordinary potential to better our lives. Col- leagues in Longwood were assembling at the same time, and our students, faculty, and staff joined more than a million people at hundreds of sites around the world—some 70,000 of them on Bos- ton Common—to celebrate research that provides a foundation for our health, our prosperity, and our possibilities. The event was, for me, a very powerful reminder of the scope and scale of work that happens every day across our campus, of efforts that drive economic growth, improve human lives, and protect the planet.