Energy Policy • Commencement • Colleges in Crisis july-august 2011 • $4.95 Home Cooking Kitchen meals vs. dining out Mollie Katzen in her kitchen Job # 0000044673 Filename 44356_44673_M03.indd Last Modifi ed 6-3-2011 5:47 PM User / Pre- ehegdahl / Joseph Craypa Client CREDIT SUISSE Art Director C. SERNA Bleed 8.625” x 11.375” Path Premedia:Volumes:Premedia:P CMYK repress:44356_44673:PREPRE Create 6-3-2011 4:45 PM Artist Kerry Trim 8.375” x 10.875” SS:44356_44673_M03.indd Proof 2_Final Traffi c P. 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CREDIT SUISSE, PROUD TO BE GLOBAL SPONSOR. credit-suisse.com/lesamis Untitled-2 1 6/7/11 8:26 AM JULY-AUGUST 2011 VOLUME 113, NUMBER 6 FEATURES 24 Restaurants Rampant The economic, health, and social costs of turning away from home cooking OSNER R by C!"#$ L"%&'!( TU S page 44 30 Vita: Mary Costelloe Berenson DEPARTMENTS Brief life of a Renaissance scholar: 1864-1945 2 Cambridge 02138 by D#")' E. B**(*) Communications from our readers 32 Reefs at Risk 8 Right Now Fragile coral ecosystems face “death by a thousand How Lucretius made modernity, women cuts” as ocean ecosystems are altered and alcohol addiction, fighting fire with by D"+#, A!)*-, and J*)"(.") S."/ electricity 12A New England Regional Section 3 Time to Electrify Harvard farmers’ markets and other 6 Reducing oil imports—and lessening the seasonal events, summer forays, and an herbal dining destination threat of climate change by M#0."'- B. M0E-!*1 13 Montage A multitalented teacher of the basics, Colleges in Crisis 4 DAVIDARNOLD ROBERT NEUBECKER confecting Shakespeare, a conductor 0 of Prokofiev—and the Police, on the page !" Higher education faces disruptive change page 32 political meanings of “common sense,” by C-"1(*) M. C.!#2(')2') and M#0."'- B. H*!) Americans’ devotion to debt, Winslow Homer’s Civil War, and more 44 John Harvard’s Journal 67 The Alumni Witchcraft delivers a picture-perfect, if serious, 360th Commencement, replete The beauty of the brain, senior Crimson with beginnings and endings. Also, the multidisciplinary new provost, in-house citizens, Graduate School greats, election Egyptologist, a trio of new Corporation mem- results, Harvard Medalists, and more bers, lessons from engaging with Libya, Cam- 72 The College Pump bridge’s centennial concert, Marc Hauser’s Harvard’s (unactivated) Guerrilla Unit, ambiguous status, University people in the and more sports tie stories news, ant studies through the centuries, ERF 80 Treasure Radcli3e Institute’s dean steps down, C A sink sculpture a graduate student’s moral mentor, the HRISTOPHER HRISTOPHER 73 Crimson Classifieds Undergraduate faces messy life ques- C On the cover: Photograph by tions, and the oarsmen really rowed Lisa Keating Photography.com their boats OF COURTESY page 13 www.harvardmagazine.com LETTERS E$+;0%: John S. Rosenberg S&#+0% E$+;0%: Jean Martin M"#"<+#< E$+;0%: Jonathan S. Shaw Cambridge D&=);9 E$+;0%: Craig Lambert A((0>+";& E$+;0%: Elizabeth Gudrais The meaning of life, diabetes, Gandhi, burlesque P%0$)>;+0# "#$ N&' M&$+" M"#"<&%: Mark Felton A((+(;"#; E$+;0%: Nell Porter Brown W&? A((+(;"#;: Stephen Geinosky A%; D+%&>;0%: Jennifer Carling BOTHERED BY A BLOGGER I! "#$%&' ()**+,"# can be regarded B&%;" G%&&#'"*$ L&$&>@9 as even possibly the “World’s Best Blog- U#$&%<%"$)";& F&**0'( ger?” (May-June, page -.), my imagination Madeleine Schwartz, Sarah Zhang boggles at how awful the rest must be. His E$+;0%+"* I#;&%#: hagiographical profiler writes, “Sullivan’s Maya E. Shwayder Catholicism didn’t allow for situational C0#;%+?);+#< E$+;0%( morality.” But Sullivan has been—to be eu- John T. Bethell, John de Cuevas, Adam phemistic—selective in his Catholicism in Goodheart, Jim Harrison, Courtney his personal life. Why should anyone take Humphries, Christopher S. Johnson, seriously a self-anointed pundit whose Adam Kirsch, Colleen Lannon, “views are ever-changing and all over the Christopher Reed, Stu Rosner, map,” who “often goes from one extreme Deborah Smullyan, Mark Steele to another,” and whose “reasoning” is “as E$+;0%+"* "#$ B)(+#&(( OA>& much psychological as political”? 7 Ware Street, You would have improved the aesthetic Cambridge, Mass. 02138-4037 quality of the magazine by putting Elise dent discussions about Tel. 617-495-5746; fax: 617-495-0324 Paschen’s picture [“Poetic Paschen,” page what was important in life and how to live Website: www.harvardmagazine.com 22] on your cover. Nothing will improve its it. It seems that was all we talked about Reader services: intellectual quality beyond the pu/-sheet when I was in college in the early 6758s. 617-495-5746 or 800-648-4499 level except a total editorial overhaul. We’d meet in cafés, drink black co/ee, H"%,"%$ M"<"B+#& I#>. J01# B%"&2"# 34. smoke cigarettes, alas, and no doubt pre- P%&(+$&#;: Henry Rosovsky, JF ’57, Champaign, Ill. tended we were Left Bank intellectuals. Ph.D. ’59, LL.D. ’98. D+%&>;0%(: Getting an education rather than a career Suzanne Blier, Robert Giles, NF ’66, THE MEANING OF LIFE was, at that time, considered the purpose Leslie E. Greis ’80, Alex S. Jones, NF ’82, I '"( ("$$&#&$ to read “The Most of college. Sad to think these discussions Thomas F. Kelly, Ph.D. ’73, Important Course?” (The Undergradu- have gone the way of parietals. Randolph C. Lindel ’66, Tamara Elliott ate, May-June, page 45) by Madeleine C"%0* D&*"#&9, M.T.S. 3:5 Rogers ’74, A. Clayton Spencer, A.M. ’82 Schwartz, who decried the dearth of stu- Providence, R.I. Harvard Magazine (ISSN 0095-2427) is published bimonthly by Harvard Magazine Inc., a nonprofit corporation, 7 Ware Street, Cambridge, Mass. 02138-4037, phone 617-495-5746; fax 617-495-0324. The magazine is supported by reader contribu- tions and subscriptions, advertising revenue, and a subven- A Note to Readers tion from Harvard University. Its editorial content is the re- sponsibility of the editors. Periodicals postage paid at Boston, Mass., and additional mailing oCces. Postmaster: Send ad- I# ;1+( +(()&, atypically, there are two Forum essays written by faculty members, dress changes to Circulation Department, Harvard Magazine, drawing on their research and addressing public issues of the day: American en- 7 Ware Street, Cambridge, Mass. 02138-4037. Subscription rate $30 a year in U.S. and possessions, $55 Canada and Mexico, $75 ergy policy (page 36), and the pressures facing the U.S. higher-education system other foreign. (Allow up to 10 weeks for first delivery.) S)?- (>%+=;+0# 0%$&%( "#$ >)(;02&% (&%,+>& +#D)+%+&( should be (page 40). Both seem timely, when the future of the nation—and of many other sent to the Circulation Department, Harvard Magazine, 7 Ware countries—depends not only on near-term economic issues and longer-term fiscal Street, Cambridge, Mass. 02138-4037, or call 617-495-5746 or 800-648-4499, or e-mail [email protected]. Single threats but also on suitable schooling and a sustainable environment. Illuminat- copies $4.95, plus $2.50 for postage and handling. M"#)(>%+=; ()?2+((+0#( are welcome, but we cannot assume responsibil- ing the latter priority is the photographic essay by David Arnold ’71 that shows the ity for safekeeping. Include stamped, self-addressed envelope decline of the world’s corals as the climate changes (page 32), complementing his for manuscript return. Persons wishing to reprint any por- tion of Harvard Magazine’s contents are required to “A Melting World,” on the shrinkage of glaciers (May-June 2006, page 36); Jonathan write in advance for permission. Address inquiries to Irina Kuksin, publisher, at the address given above. Shaw wrote the texts for both articles. We welcome your comments. !The Editors Copyright © 2011 Harvard Magazine Inc. 2 J)*9 - A)<)(; 2011 LETTERS J)(; %&"$ the excellent article by Mad- ly discussion among a cadre of devotees. lifelong struggle. The thought that a con- eleine Schwartz. Her description of stu- The issues of reconnection of habitat stant weight simply reflects equal caloric dents too busy to reflect on the meaning and the safe passage of wildlife—surely intake and expenditure over days, weeks, of what they are doing, and their deeper measures of global health—were often or years is simplistic, and we know that goals in life, is quite troubling. It seems topics of intense discussion and debate, metabolic expenditure varies in response student society has changed a lot since our seeking to elevate landscape ecology from to caloric intake. Professor Lewis points day, when all-night “bull sessions” about the deep, dark morass of artsy design that out that some people quickly lose weight the meaning of life and social issues like too often seemed to inform both process when they exercise while others cannot, civil rights and war were the norm. It’s no and solution, while almost trivializing es- and it has also been shown that an in- accident that it turned into a time of po- sential ecological tenets. The work of For- crease in caloric intake over steady-state litical action and rebellion against the sta- man and Steinitz in landscape ecology and levels (F,488 calories per day) resulted in tus quo. landscape planning would be a wonderful weight gain for only some of the study par- It seems to me that college has tradi- topic for a future article.