JHJ-60-78.final 12/5/03 4:06 PM Page 64 JOHN HARVARD'S JOURNAL titled Health Systems Performance Assessment. toral study would be augmented, too. Bohen, who will take on the grittier Second is a selection of research priori- details, is a veteran of multidisciplinary ties. Murray envisions comparative work, projects at Harvard. She helped organize possibly including American healthcare the medical school’s division of addic- and systems in other developed nations, as tions and substance abuse and then the well as those in the industrializing world, University’s interfaculty program on and scholarship on problems of inequality. mind, brain, and behavior, both launched Based on his meetings with colleagues by Hyman during his professorial days. thus far, he can readily imagine involving Her most recent assignment was manag- professors from SPH, the Medical School, ing the Hauser Center for Nonprofit FAS, the Kennedy School, the Business Organizations at the Kennedy School. School, and the Law School, to “harness Murray expects that the health initia- the enormous advances that have come tive will have refined its initial subjects of and are coming” in biomedical research, inquiry by the end of the academic year. and more sophisticated social-science and In the meantime, he anticipates three ethical analyses. modes of action. The first is education. As Finally, the initiative expects to pro- President Summers told an SPH gather- mote large doses of international travel ing in October, “I hope and I expect that and study abroad—for students and fac- we will provide instruction to our under- ulty members based in Massachusetts, graduates in issues relating to global and for experts from other nations com- health that will bring together in an in- ing to Harvard to collaborate. Bohen terdisciplinary way their thinking in the terms this two-way process “engage- Christopher Murray social sciences and in the sciences in ment.” She sees it as an important pilot much the same way that we do with issues for the globalization of the University en- journ, Murray began studies of the most like environmental sciences.” (Discussion visioned in the undergraduate curriculum e­ective organization of healthcare, within FAS is only exploratory so far, given review—and so an initiative that crosses the first fruits of which have just been the current work on revising the College Harvard boundaries and international published in a massive coedited volume curriculum overall.) Graduate and postdoc- ones as well. Creating Community, “The issue of the place of gays in our soci- classes, all Harvard-hosted blogs can be ety is going to be the hot-button culture- read by anybody on the Web. On-line and Off wars issue of 2004.” Harvard’s blogging project stems from Meanwhile, one particularly prolific a November 2002 conference, sponsored The weeks leading up to Thanksgiving commentator, known on-line only as The by the Berkman Center, to examine the were especially busy for Harvard bloggers. Redhead, waxed wistful about single life. University’s “digital identity.” Provost Robert John Bennett ’68, who’s writing a “How is it that some people find their Steven E. Hyman challenged those pre- novel on-line, posted chapters 4 through 12 soulmates (if there is such a thing) at 16?” sent to use the Internet to unify their fa- of Part V (“Harvard—The Fourth Year”) she mused one bleak November afternoon. mously decentralized institution, build- on his blog—short for Weblog, or on-line “Where are all the beautiful souls in this ing bridges among isolated departments journal. Another blogger, Cynthia Rock- city (they’re too young, or they’re married, and schools. “The question became how well, a sociology department sta­ member or they’re smokers, or they’re in love with we could set up the di­erent parts of and freelance movie reviewer, debated the someone else)? There’s no justice in the Harvard to talk to each other better,” says value of scholarly film criticism: “Does this universe.” center director John Palfrey ’94, J.D. ’01. kind of criticism illuminate, or does it Welcome to Weblogs at Harvard Law, Participants also hoped to create exciting bleach raw? I don’t know. Do artists need an experimental community where more new on-line communities and fresh ways critics? I don’t know.” Harvard Law School than 350 students, faculty and sta­ mem- to use technology in teaching. (HLS) librarian Vernica Downey used her bers, and alumni have signed up to pub- With their grassroots appeal, blogs blog to remind readers about National licly express their thoughts about every- seemed like a good first step. Shortly after Children’s Book Week (“The theme this thing from social issues to software, from the conference, the center recruited a new year is ‘Free to Read’”). And in his blog, literature to love. Based at the Berkman fellow, blogging pioneer Dave Winer, to Nathan Paxton cheered that month’s land- Center for Internet and Society, the initia- spearhead the on-line community. Winer’s mark state-court decision lifting the ban tive is free and available to anyone with a own tech-talk journal, DaveNet, was among on same-sex marriages. “This is great,” the Harvard.edu e-mail address. And except the Internet’s first blogs; founded in 1994, it Ph.D. candidate in government wrote. for a few private blogs limited to specific predated the term identifying it by several 64 January - February 2004 Photograph by Stu Rosner JHJ-60-78.final 12/5/03 4:06 PM Page 65 years. “I found this way of telling stories that didn’t have a filter, and it worked,” says Recruiting vs. Rights Winer, who went on to found UserLand Software Inc. of Los Altos, California, which Caught between its nondiscrimination policies and a federal law governing military makes Web-publishing products, and to recruiting on campus, Harvard has decided not to file suit challenging the Solomon launch an even better-known blog, Script- Amendment.The amendment, enacted in 1996, has since 2001 been aggressively en- ing News. After arriving at Harvard in early forced at law schools around the country: military recruiters insist on the right to in- 2003, Winer quickly adapted his blogging terview applicants on campus (most had been accommodated at locations off cam- software, Manila, for the University’s pus), even though the armed services' ban against homosexuals conflicts with schools' Weblog community and launched the pro- policies prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.The government gram in March. wields a blunt enforcement tool: the ability to withhold research fundingÐfor the University, $416 million in fiscal year 2003, little of which supports work at Harvard Blogs are public on-line journals, writ- Law School (HLS). ten in reverse chronological order, with In October, 47 of 81 HLS professors signed a letter to President Lawrence H. Sum- the most recent entries at the top. Unlike mers urging Harvard to join a lawsuit by a consortium of 15 law schools styled the most graphic-rich Web sites, they consist Forum of Academic and Institutional Rights (FAIR). FAIR contests the amendment's primarily of unadorned text and links to constitutionality, arguing that the Defense Department's ªdon't ask, don't tellº policy other sites, although serious bloggers also violates the schools' commitment to nondiscrimination. upload photographs, audio, and video. In a late November letter to members of HLS Lambda, a student group, Summers Blogs usually present a single author’s called the recent use of the amendment ªunsound and corrosive public policy.º He voice, but increasingly groups and organi- wrote that the underlying policy on military service ªoffends ideals of nondiscrimina- zations are using the format as well: the tion and individual dignityº and deprives the armed forces of talented personnel, and law school’s LL.M. class of ’04, the library that threatened enforcement against universities which are ªproviding military re- at Harvard’s Rowland Institute, and the cruiters with effective access to studentsº is ªdraconian.º Considering all factors, how- Berkman Center itself, among others, ever, he determined that Harvard would not confront the government ªthrough the maintain Weblogs. quintessentially adversarial act of filing a lawsuit.º All are part of a fast-growing world- Although Harvard will not litigate, faculty members may do so on behalf of the stu- wide community dubbed the “blogo- dents involved. Summers wrote of his full support of ªthe prerogative of interested in- sphere.” About five million blogs now dividuals in the Law School community to pursue their argumentsº as they see fit. The exist, according to Perseus Development University, meanwhile, will pursue political ways of making its case to the government. Corporation; the Braintree, Massachu- setts-based market-research firm expects that number to double before 2005. computers. And from a user’s perspective, as well. By late 2003, nearly every presi- What draws people to blogging? First, of it’s wonderfully liberated from editorial dential candidate had one, though most course, they have something to say. “I blog interference. “You know that old saying real blogging was being done by campaign to talk, to let it out, to experiment with that freedom of the press belongs to who- sta­ members. words, to Be Heard,” The Redhead writes. ever has the press?” Winer asks. “Now At Harvard, as elsewhere, blog styles “I miss standing onstage in plays I believed everybody has the press.” are as di­erent as the people behind in; I miss projecting my voice across a thou- As Harvard’s diverse blogger popula- them. Many are on-line diaries, often fea- sand seats. I’m loud for a reason.