HARVARDgazette03-16 FEBRUARY 2011VOL. CVI NO. 9

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Game changers

Harvard’s questing minds are producing real-worldbreakthroughs, innovative companies. Page 4

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�OH, THE HUMANITYUsing digitized books as a “culturalgenome,” a team of researchers fromHarvard, Google, Encyclopaedia Bri-tannica, and the American HeritageDictionary unveils a quantitative ap-proach to centuries of trends.�http://hvd.gs/69134

EIGHT WEEKS TO A BETTER BRAINHarvard researchers find that partici-pating in an eight-week mindfulnessmeditation program appears to makemeasurable changes in brain regionsassociated with memory, sense ofself, empathy, and stress.�http://hvd.gs/71172

Photos: (top and center) by Kris Snibbe, (right) by Jon Chase, (bottom) by Stephanie Mitchell | Harvard Staff Photographers

�THE MOORE’S THE MERRIERIt snowed on Julianne Moore’s pa-rade, but the acclaimed actress and2011 Woman of the Year didn’t letweather stop her from visiting Harvardfor a tour, a roast, and the covetedPudding Pot on Jan. 27. Man of theYear Jay Leno hits Harvard tomorrow(Feb. 5).�http://hvd.gs/71784

�‘BLACK IN LATIN AMERICA’In what many participants called a“historic moment,” scholars fromaround the world gathered for threedays at Harvard to explore issues ofrace, racial identity, and racism inLatin America.�http://hvd.gs/71927

RECORD APPLICATIONS TO HARVARD COLLEGENearly 35,000 students applied for admis-sion to Harvard College’s Class of 2015 forentry in August, an increase of nearly 15 per-cent over last year, and of more than 50 per-cent from four years ago. Financial aidprogram proves a major attraction.�http://hvd.gs/70394

�INSIDE DUMBARTON OAKSMore people are enjoying the treas-ures of Harvard-owned DumbartonOaks in Washington, D.C., in part be-cause of the opening of new libraryand museum facilities, and becauseof fresh efforts to increase connec-tions with Harvard’s Cambridge cam-pus and reach out to political,educational, and cultural leaders.�http://hvd.gs/69985

GAME CHANGERSOut-of-the-box thinking is a key drivingforce in Harvard’s many Schools andinstitutes. Increasingly, practical inno-vations produced at the University aremaking their way into the wider world,creating companies and jobs in theprocess. Below, a “lung on a chip,”which mimics the human organ.Page 4

SCHOLARSHIP BEYOND WORDSHarvard classes and a new journalembrace an emerging wave of doc-toral learning beyond the written wordthat uses film, photo, audio, andother communication channels.Page 7

ART BY DEGREESThree Harvard graduates, now practic-ing artists, bring home lessonslearned, along with a quirky exhibit.Page 8

GLIMPSES OF SCREENWRITINGRoland Tec, a filmmaker, writer, direc-tor, producer, and Harvard graduate,explored the inner workings of hiscraft during an intensive workshop.Page 9

TROUBLED YOUTHLinda Schlossberg’s debut novel,“Life in Miniature,” depicts a mother’smental illness and a daughter’s com-ing of age. Page 10

HARVARD BOUNDWhat’s black and white and read allover? This week’s Harvard Bound! Anexploration of mental illness, researchinto France’s poetry via topography,and essays on evolution comprisethis edition’s field guide to Harvardfaculty books. Page 10

TURNING ON THE LIGHTSLike much of Africa, Liberia relies onineffective, dirty sources of energy.Coming off a fellowship at Harvard’sAdvanced Leadership Initiative,Richard Fahey has one big goal: totransform the country’s electrical gridfrom the bottom up. Page 11

CHANGING HOW TEACHERS IMPROVEA new initiative headed by a Harvardscholar aims to transform the wayteachers improve their performance,and to overhaul the nation’s publicschools in the process. Page 12

SHOCK AMID THE SERVICEA winter break trip to the Southwest’sNavajo Nation brings the reality ofpoverty to a group of undergraduates.Page 13

A BREAK WITH THE PASTUndergrads and College administra-tors are looking back on winter break2011 to evaluate the many new pro-grams, and to ponder changes. Onething is already clear: Winter breakprovided experiences not usuallyavailable to students during the se-mester. Page 14

STUDENT VOICE/JOHNNY BOWMANA Harvard student leader travels toMoscow for a firsthand look at howthe government there works. Page 15

MEDICAL SCHOOL MENDS ITS WAYSIn going green, HMS finds its chal-lenges in the labs. With a little inge-nuity, the healthier environment winsout. Page 16

FACULTY PROFILE/MARY LEWISWhen the Berlin Wall fell, studentMary Lewis knew she should studythe past. Now a professor, she is anauthority on how France evolved.Page 17

HELP ON THE HOME FRONTHarvard programs assist employeestrying to juggle careers and families,while bridging coverage gaps.Page 18

STAFF PROFILE/KEVIN BRYANTPolice Sgt. Kevin Bryant has studiedeverything from the Bible to Bud-dhism to kenpo karate, bringing anappreciation for Harvard’s many cul-tures to his work. Page 19

ATHLETICS/WRESTLINGHarvard wrestlers work toward a turn-around after an early-season losingstreak. Page 22

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SCIENCE & HEALTH

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ARTS & CULTURE

13

CAMPUS & COMMUNITY

Cover & inset image by Felice Frankel | Wyss Institute; graphic: (top left) by Cole Latimer | Harvard Staff; photos: (center) by Kris Snibbe | Harvard Staff Photographer; (right) by Sesheta Mwanza ’13

COVER STORY

HARVARD UNIVERSITY gazette | 03-16 FEBRUARY 2011

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NATIONAL & WORLD AFFAIRS

HOT JOBS, PAGE 19

NEWSMAKERS, PAGES 20-21

OBITUARIES, PAGE 21

CALENDAR, PAGE 23

HARVARD HOUSES, PAGE 24

HARVARD UNIVERSITY gazette | 03-16 FEBRUARY 2011SCIENCE & HEALTH4

Photo by Rose Lincoln | Harvard Staff Photographer

Innovate, createFrom oddities like breathable chocolate to history-making devices withprofound societal effects, like the heart pacemaker, Harvard’s combinationof questingminds, restless spirits, and intellectual seekers fosters creativityand innovation that’s finding an outlet in new inventions and companies.

By Alvin Powell | Harvard Staff Writer

The heart pacemaker. Surgical anesthesia. Facebook. Evenbreathable chocolate.

Harvard’s combination of questingminds, passionate spir-its, and intellectual seekers tackling society’s toughestproblems fosters a creativity that has produced a stream ofinnovations, fromnovel inventions to history-making de-vices that provide profound benefits to the public.

Creative thinking is a key component of Harvard’s Schools,centers, and institutes.Many innovations have come from

looking at old problems in newways,from recognizing the importance ofserendipitous results, and fromunder-

standing that failures are steps to success. That innovativespirit has long been part of Harvard’s DNA, leading to thefirst use of anesthesia atMassachusetts General Hospitalin 1846 and the development of the pacemaker by Paul Zollin the 1950s.

President DrewFaust highlighted this University rolewhen she took office, noting that an institution of highereducation has an “accountability to the future.”

“One of themost significant things about our research uni-versities,” she told a gathering of civic and higher educationleaders in Boston, “is that they are engines that also pro-duce the fuel — the scientists, physicians, and engineers,the thinkers and ideas … that spur the new products, newjobs, and new companies that will help renew our econ-omy.”

Increasingly, Harvard fosters not just innovative thinking,but also development of the University’s big ideas intoproducts and companies that create jobs. TheWyss Insti-tute for Biologically Inspired Engineering focuses onmov-ing cutting-edge breakthroughs from the lab into the handsof private industry. Harvard Business School’s (HBS)planned Innovation Lab aims to foster creativity and entre-preneurship for undergraduates and graduate studentsalike.

TheOffice of Technology Development (OTD) plays a vitalrole in the University’s public servicemission, helping topropel emergingHarvard technologies out of the lab andinto themarketplace where they can be put to use. OTD’sAccelerator Fund provides resources to develop new tech-nologies after traditional research funding ends until thediscoveries become attractive to private industry. Inven-

Researchers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering are developinga technology that can get test results for sepsis in an hour. Researchers often haveto pursue their riskiest projects on the fringes of more mainstream work, says WyssDirector Don Ingber. But the Wyss puts that risky work front and center, giving re-searchers the freedom to pursue ideas that would not make the cut for traditionalgrants from funders such as the National Institutes of Health.

COVER STORY

SCIENCE & HEALTH 5

Graphics by Cole Latimer | Harvard Staff

tions that have been licensed to industry and arenow in commercial development include everythingfromnanotechnology used in computermemoryandDNA sequencing to a feline leukemia vaccine al-ready on themarket; from a cholera vaccine in clini-cal testing tomicrofluidics technology used incosmetics.

Companies with names like RainDance Technolo-gies, SiOnyx, even LeWhif, whichmarkets Biomed-ical Engineering Professor David Edwards’breathable food technology, resulted from discover-ies inHarvard’s labs. Chemist GeorgeWhitesideshas had a hand in starting several companies, in-cluding Surface Logix, which creates diabetes andobesity drugs; the nanotech companyNano Terra;andDiagnostics For All, a nonprofit dedicated to en-suring thatmedical diagnostic devices are availablein resource-poor settings.

Administrators and facultymembers whose workhas led to new companies and products said that,even though theUniversitymay sometimes beviewed as a staid institution, academic freedom ac-tually catalyzes problem solving by curious, smart,highlymotivated people, creating an innovativeecosystem atHarvard.

“I seemuchmore innovation here than I did in in-dustry,” said DavidWeitz,Mallinckrodt Professor ofPhysics and of Applied Physics at Harvard’s Schoolof Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS).Weitzworked at a private company for 17 years beforecoming toHarvard. “You have clever students, aclever environment. Harvard is a wonderful place inthe sense that, more so thanmost universities, [youcan] do anything youwant as long as you do it well.”

Several ideas fromWeitz’s lab were identified ashaving commercial potential, which led to the for-mation of spin-off companies. In these tough eco-nomic times,Weitz said, he ismost proud of helpingto generate about 100 jobs. The largest companyspawned from this group, Lexington-based Rain-Dance Technologies, employs 75 people and an-nounced on Jan. 25 a $37.5million round offinancing from investors. RainDance developsmed-ical technologies that create chemical reactions indroplets. Each droplet functions as a tiny test tube,uses fewer chemicals than othermethods, andspeeds the testing process.

Since 2006, Harvard facultymembers have had ahand in starting 39 companies. The number of newinventions reported by facultymembers has risenfrom 180 in 2006 to 301 in 2010. Hundreds ofpatents have been issued in that period, and 134 li-censes have been negotiatedwith companies cover-ing new technologies that were invented at Harvardand that have brought in $77million to the Univer-sity, much of which is reinvested in further research.One 2009 estimate indicated companies that werebegun byHarvard facultymembers or that commer-cialized technology developed here provide 7,500jobs in Greater Boston alone.

Innovation often starts withHarvard’s students,who put imaginative twists on class projects that

can result in products like VertiGrow, amodularplanter that can be stacked vertically in crowdedurban spaces, providing a way to improve nutritionin developing world slums. VertiGrow, whichwonan Innovator Award from theHarvard Initiative forGlobal Health, has taken its inventor, ElizabethNowak ’10, to Africa for product research. The ven-ture serves as a reminder of other exciting ideas thathave emerged from thework of Harvard students inthe past. Think ofMicrosoft and Facebook.

As counterintuitive as it may seem, innovation canbe taught. It had better be teachable, said Peter Tu-fano, the Sylvan Coleman Professor of FinancialManagement at HBS and soon-to-be dean of OxfordUniversity’s Saïd Business School, because it is a keyto success in the business world. SEASDean CherryMurray, who has a couple of patents of her own andexperience at the renowned Bell Laboratories, saidinnovation’s roots lie in creativity. She learned longago, watching hermother teach art, that every childis creative in someway. The goal of Harvard facultyis to nurture such inventiveness.

“Normal children are innovative. They’re very cre-ative,”Murray said. “I don’t think you have to teachthem. You need to reach in and let it loose.”

Among SEAS’ courses are “Innovation in Scienceand Engineering,” “Social Entrepreneurship,” and“How to Create Things andHave ThemMatter.”

The newTechnology and Entrepreneurship Centerat Harvard (TECH) supports student projects andadvises innovation-minded student groups. A newemphasis on design-based teaching,Murray said,will give students hands-on experience that teachesin ways that lectures and readings cannot.

And then there’s CS 50. Offered for 27 years, CS 50 isa perennially popular introductory computer sci-ence course that not only teaches basic computerprogramming, but it forces students to program ontheir own, with sometimes transformative results.The annual semester-end fair, held in December intheNorthwest Science Building, drew hundreds offaculty, students, staff, and industry representativesto look over student projects. The course so ener-gizes students that some continue their work evenafter class ends.

“This is literally one of those classes that changedmy life,” said instructor DavidMalan, who took CS50 as an undergraduate in 1996 and switched from aconcentration in government to computer science.“After CS 50, I knewwhat I wanted to study. … It’sreally gratifying what you can do by immersingyourself in a newworld and realizing what’s possi-ble.”

EricMazur, the Balkanski Professor of Physics andApplied Physics and area dean for applied physics,thinks science teaching should be reformed.Muchtraditional instruction requires students tomemo-rize facts and solve problems, butMazur believesthat problem solving taught in school is unlike prob-lem solving in the real world.

(see Innovation next page)

All data collected 2006-present.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY gazette | 03-16 FEBRUARY 2011SCIENCE & HEALTH6

“In the classroom, all thatmatters is whether yougot the right answer. In any real-life problem, you al-ready know the answer. All thatmatters is how youget there,” saidMazur, whose discovery of light-ab-sorbing black silicon led to the creation of SiOnyx,whichmarkets a process that improves the sensitiv-ity of optical detectors used in imaging systems.“How can it be that we still manage to have quite abit of innovationwhenwe don’t know how to trainfor it?”

Creativity and innovation come from being able toapply fresh insights to different contexts. To teachthat, classes have to take students out of their com-fort zones,Mazur said. He encourages his graduatestudents to try new approaches without worryingabout results — at least at first. Such experiences, hesaid, can be disconcerting for goal-oriented individ-uals, but the exploration often generates new ideasthat point in a unique research direction.

“Real creativity is not a straight path. Real creativitygoes left and right and runs into walls,”Mazur said.“In an optimal world, wewant our students not to beable to reproduce what we did, but to stand on ourshoulders and push the envelope further.”

Seeking fresh insights to existing problemswas be-hind a novel effort last fall to generate new projectsin diabetes research. Associate Professor of Pedi-atrics Eva Guinan, director of theHarvard CatalystLinkages Program, and a partner, HBS AssistantProfessor KarimLakhani, sent out a call for ideas tothe entire Harvard community. In December, adozenwinners were selected from 190 submissions.Thewinners— and funding— are being handed offfor further exploration.

Though such “crowdsourcing”may seem a new ap-proach, Guinan said the concept traces its roots tothe centuries-old prizes offered for solutions toknotty problems. Themethod’s advantage, Guinansaid, is that it garners ideas from people with differ-ent backgrounds and fresh perspectives.

“ ‘You just never know’ is the point,” Guinan said.“We have an incredibly rich community that canthink creatively. Not to use it would be tomiss anopportunity.”

Another way to spur innovation is to encouragehigh-risk, high-reward research that is often pushedto themargins bymoremainstream projects. TheWyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineeringtakes such a tack as it tries to improvemedical careand environmental sustainability by applying les-sons learned fromnature. It has rapidly grown sincebeing established two years agowith the largest sin-gle gift inHarvard’s history— $125million from en-trepreneurHansjörgWyss. It has 230 staff membersfrom laboratories acrossHarvard’s Schools, affili-ated hospitals, and other academic institutions, allworking together at the institute site. Integratedwithin this group are product-development expertsrecruited from industry who helpWyss researchersbring new technologies rapidly to a stage where theyattract private industry.

“It is very different,” saidWyss Director Don Ingber,the Judah Folkman Professor of Vascular Biology atHarvardMedical School (HMS) and professor ofbioengineering at SEAS. “We’re not a research insti-tute.We’remore about technology innovation andtranslation.”

Projects are developed at theWyss in shared labora-tory space that Ingber calls “collaboratories,” de-signed to encourage staff frommany facultylaboratories and diverse disciplines towork together.Their projects span an array of fields. There’s Ing-ber’s “lung on a chip,” whichmakes lung tissue thatcould be used for testingwithout turning to humansand lab animals. There is also a stabilizing shoe in-sole that, through electrical signals to thewearer,helps to restore normal balance in the elderly.

Researchers often have to pursue their riskiest proj-ects on the fringes ofmoremainstreamwork, Ing-ber said. But theWyss puts that risky work front andcenter, giving researchers the freedom to pursueideas that would notmake the cut for traditionalgrants from funders such as theNational Institutesof Health.

Once an innovative idea is conceived, it often re-quires a different kind of support than is typicallyavailable in a classroom. One solution to that con-cern is the Innovation Lab, a University-wide facil-ity designed to capture the power of creativity atHarvard’s diverse Schools, centers, and depart-ments. It is scheduled to open in Allston later thisyear.

“We can teach students about innovation and entre-preneurship, but at the end of the day the teaching isnot only through courses, but through hands-onpractice,” said Tufano of HBS. “We expect a lot of ac-

tivity in the evenings and earlymornings. Thereseems to be an extraordinary level of interest.”

The lab will support innovation and entrepreneur-ship by students and faculty acrossHarvard’smanySchools, as well as from the community. The facilitywill have workspace in the back, “pitch rooms”where groups canmeet with potential funders, and alarger space for public events in front. It will hostdiscussions on entrepreneurship and intellectualproperty rights, and it will offer counseling to stu-dent groups and small businesses in the community,with the goal of supporting the creation of new busi-nesses and nonprofits.

And as it evolves, the lab will help the University tobe accountable to the future.

“Education, research, teaching are always aboutchange,” Faust said in her inaugural address, “trans-forming individuals as they learn, transforming theworld as our inquiries alter our understanding of it,transforming societies as we see our knowledgetranslated into policies … or translated into thera-pies.”

Innovation(continued from previous page)

Photo by Rose Lincoln | Harvard Staff Photographer

Wyss Institute research assistantSam Workman wears glasses thatallow the user to overlap the realworld with virtual images.

Harvard’s Office of Tech-nology Development triesto ensure that the publicsees the benefits of Har-vard’s research by licens-ing new technology tocompanies. To learnmore, visit http://hvd.gs/71731.

GUIDING DISCOVERIES TO THE PUBLIC

ARTS & CULTURE 7

As part of their research in “Media Archaeology of Place,”students used old and new media that revealed regionalportraits not seen before. This is a still from PhilipCartelli’s presentation “Broken Time.” For a look at all theprojects, go to www.mediaarchaeologyofplace.org.

Photo by Stephanie Mitchell | Harvard Staff Photographer

We all know the look of a doctoral dissertation: thick, heavy, and tightly bound. Inside itare phalanxes of paragraphs.Wordsmarch past by the thousands.

Text-heavy dissertations, after all, are artifacts of amedieval university culture thatgave the printedword scholastic pre-eminence.

ButHarvard anticipates scholarship that goes beyond the writtenword. It welcomesfilm, photo, audio, and othermeans of cultural expression, without abandoning the tra-ditional rigor of academic investigation.

One sign of this newwave came last fall, when the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences(GSAS) approved a secondary Ph.D. field in “critical media practice,” proposed byHar-vard anthropologist Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Joseph PellegrinoUniversity Profes-sor Peter Galison. For the first time, doctoral students can now incorporate video, film,photography, exhibition, hypermedia, the Internet, and other sources of nontextual in-formation into their academic work. Students can apply starting this semester.

They are required to take two core courses, two electives, and do a “capstone”mediaproject that complements the written dissertation. In a few years, Harvardwill gradu-ate its first Ph.D.s who create these scholarly hybrids.

One of the new secondary field’s required core courses was offered last fall at theHar-vard Graduate School of Design (GSD). GSD 3418, “Media Archaeology of Place”( jointly offered as ANTH2837 and VES 162), was an experiment in breaking bound-aries and blending disciplines. The course website told its students, “Nothing like thishas been done here before.”

Amix of graduates and undergraduates signed up from anthropology, design, music,and film. Their task was to “excavate” learning in a newway, by searching for “themedia archaeology” of Boston. They used old and newmedia that revealed regionalportraits not seen before.

In part, the course was the latest flowering of experimentalmedia archaeology workdone over the past 10 years by Jesse Shapins, a GSD instructor in architecture. He and

others developed collaborations that used digital mediato capture street-level, multisensory portraits of citylife and history.

Among the interactive database projects createdwereThe Colors of Berlin, YellowArrow, Capitol of Punk,and The Secret NewYork.

Themedia archaeology course was offeredwithHar-vard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab, a collaboration be-tween the Department of Anthropology and the Visualand Environmental Studies program (VES).

It also arose naturally from “Media Archaeology ofBoston,” a Cambridge Talks III exhibit that Shapins co-curated in 2009with Castaing-Taylor, GSDPh.D. stu-dent Olga Touloumi, Sensory Ethnography Labmanager Ernst Karel, and Boston documentary film-maker JulieMallozzi.

In the spring, the exhibit will be released as a “DVDpublication” funded by the Provostial Fund for Arts andHumanities. It will be distributed to libraries, just like abook or a journal. “The idea is to experiment with newforms ofmultimedia scholarly publications,” said Shap-ins.

Around the same time, in April, the first issue of Sen-sate will appear. The online journal will be the first atHarvard that invites scholars to use audio, video, andother nontraditionalmedia. Sensate is a graduate stu-dent collaboration betweenHarvard and theMassa-chusetts Institute of Technology.

Last year, Shapins also co-createdMappingMain Streetwith economics Ph.D. candidate James Burns and pub-lic radio producers Kara Oehler and AnnHeppermann.This collaboration—withHarvard’s BerkmanCenterfor Internet and Society and others— laid the ground-work for the open source software that supports theconcept ofmedia archaeology. It’s called Zeega, anhomage to Russian newsreel pioneer Dziga Vertov,whose work influenced cinema verite.

Scholarship beyond wordsHarvard classes and a new journal embrace anemerging wave of doctoral learning beyond thewrittenword that uses film, photo, audio, andother communication channels.

By Corydon Ireland | Harvard Staff Writer

(see Course next page)

Ernst Karel (below left) of the Department of Anthropology andJesse Shapins of the Harvard Graduate School of Designreview students’ final projects.

ARTS & CULTURE8 HARVARD UNIVERSITY gazette | 03-16 FEBRUARY 2011

Course(continued from previous page)

Is there life afterHarvard?One sort of answercomes today (Feb. 3)when three artists, all gradu-ates of theVisual andEnvironmental Studies(VES) program, revisit their almamater for a dis-cussion of lessons learned and art done beyondcollege.

The panel is part of “Object Lessons,” an exhibit ofwork by the artists LizGlynn ’03 of LosAngeles;Meredith James ’04 ofNewYorkCity; andXiaoweiWang ’08, nowa landscape architecture student attheHarvardGraduate School ofDesign.

The show,which iswry and quirky, runs throughFeb. 20 atHarvard’s CarpenterCenter for theVi-sual Arts. Among themixedmedia, video, and in-stallationwork is a short 2009 video byGlynn, thetitle ofwhich is a kind of anthem for artists: “NoResistance Is Futile.”

Sixmilling figures, recorded fromabove, struggleto control a tall bundle of lumber tied at themid-dle. Their resistance is not futile; itmakes art. Thelinear stack collapses into a gorgeous, starlike pilethat illustrateswhat futurist Buckminster Fullerwould call “tensegrity,” the beauty-making balanceof tension and compression that undergirds na-ture.

“Object Lessons” also includes awork aboutwhatmost artists seek and seldomget. “Applause”

(2010) is a contraption (pictured left)composed of a chair, amotor-drivenbicycle chain, and rubber hands thatclap.

“As an artist, you enduphaving to beyour own audience a lot, becauseyou’re alone somuch of the time,” saidJames. “So I did that to havemyownaudience.”

“Object Lessons” includes two videosby James,which in partwork out herobsessionwith the built environment.(“I grewup in aNewYorkCity apart-ment,” she said, which fueled her fasci-nationwith old houses out of scalewith those of her childhood.)

“Present Time” (2009) features or-nate doors, highmirrors, spaciousrooms, and building facades that theartist climbs up anddown as if shewere on a jungle gym.

“Day Shift” (2008) features a crampedoffice the size of a coffin. The set is partof the exhibit: tinywindows,miniaturevenetian blinds, a tiny chair, and achild-sized desk. “When I started

building thingswith house parts,” said James,whoplays a security guard in the video, “it had some-thing to dowithwanting to twist up space.”

Twisting up spacemay be the soul of video. “Youcan playwith reality just slightly,” she said, “andpeoples’ imaginations fill it in.”

Art has away of twisting up time too. Ondisplay isGlynn’s “The 24HourRomanReconstructionProject” (2008). In the video,workers at cartoon-ish speed construct a replica of Rome in a day, andthen destroy it.

Wang is not out towreck theCarpenterCenterwith her share of the exhibit. But she at leastwantsto arguewith it. Her banners, frames, and lichen-smeared bricks are all set up outside the iconic1963 structure, the only building inNorthAmericadesigned byLeCorbusier.

“Why should he be so important?” saidWang of LeCorbusier (1887-1965), a designerwith amonu-mental reputation.Her part of the exhibit addshints of nature to “a difficult building for anythingto growon,” she said. The hangingTyvek bannerswaver likewater in thewind, and in justweeksWang’s brickswill sprout lichen.

Wang said theVESprogramprepared her to be anartist, but also to be anything else. James, whowasonceGlynn’s roommate atHarvard, saidVESwas aplace tomake lifelong friends, who at first “werethe only peoplewhowould look atmywork.”

James remembered beingwowed years ago by heraccomplished freshmanpeers. But no one arrivedon campus knowing everything about drawing, an-imation, or film, she said. “Artwas one of the onlyplaces you could start from scratch.”

Art by degreesThreeHarvard graduates, nowpracticing artists, bring homelessons learned, along with aquirky exhibit.

By Corydon Ireland | Harvard Staff Writer

Online� “Object Lessons”: www.ves.fas.harvard.edu/VES_AlumExhibition.html

Photo by © Cary Whittier

As the first “Media Archaeology” class unfoldedlast fall, each student became an authority on anundiscovered corner of the Boston area. Theirfinal projects were presented in December atGundHall before a battery of critics.

Julia Rooney ’11, a VES concentrator, studiedSomerville by exploring the facades of its houses.Her impressionistic stills, set against streetsounds, were lush and intimate: rooflines, siding,gables, fencing, and foundations.

“I abandonedmyself to looking,” said painter andproject criticMatt Saunders ’97, a visiting lecturerat VES.

Overlaying Rooney’s painterly images wereschematic fire insurancemaps from a 1933-50Somerville catalog. Once into the project, she said,“I became interested inmaking a deeper annota-tion of these residential structures.”

In the end, said Eve Blau, a GSD adjunct professorof architectural history, Rooney’s offbeat look atSomerville houses imparts “an incredible sense ofdiscovery.”

In another instance, Robert Pietrusko, a GSDmas-ter’s student in architecture, used old videofootage, archival interviews, maps, old posters,and a trove of zines to excavate a “BostonMusicalUndercommons”— “rich historicalmoments,” hesaid, of a long-vanished Boston punk rock scenethat was “sweaty, active, and aggressive.”

PeterMcMurray, a graduate student in ethnomu-sicology, usedmaps, photos, interviews, streetvideo, vintage film, and a videotaped car ride to ex-plore BlueHill Avenue andDudley Street, whichtraverse racial fault lines betweenMattapan andMilton.

McMurray invited everyone to “pile in otherdata,” a collaborative, interactive notion that in-formsmedia archaeology. It’s still scholarship, butit has some of the restlessness of the road.

This semester, the same course themeswill be ex-panded in GSD 3448, “TheMixed Reality City,”co-taught by Shapins and Burns, the economicsstudent. Students will “excavate”Harvard Square,seeking how it has been recorded and representedin film, pictures, and othermedia. “The emphasisthis time,” said Shapins, “will be on producingprojects that usemobile devices such as iPhonesto layer stories in physical space.”

Other signs of the same awakening tomultimediascholarship are evident on campus. On Feb. 10, theHumanities Center at Harvardwill present “Digi-tal Humanities 2.0,” a public conversation on thearts and humanities in the information age.

Listeners are invited to read amanifesto of thesame name beforehand. “Print is no longer the ex-clusive or the normativemedium inwhich knowl-edge is produced,” the document said.“Knowledge assumesmultiple forms.”

ARTS & CULTURE 9

Glimpses of screenwritingRoland Tec, a filmmaker, writer, director, producer, andHarvard graduate,explored the inner workings of his craft during an intensive workshop.

By Colleen Walsh | Harvard Staff Writer

WhenRolandTecwas atHarvard, he used to swimattheAdamsHouse pool. Lastmonth, hewas back inthe pool, which has since been converted into a the-ater, to discuss his artistic career.

Itwas an appropriate venue for him. An establishedNewYork-basedwriter, producer, director, and com-poser, Tec ’88 used themyriad characters imaginedby a group of 10Harvard students to explore how tocraft a compelling story for film. The discussionwaspart of a January intensiveworkshop in screenwrit-

ing for undergraduates, sponsored byHarvard’sOf-fice for theArts (OFA).

For the course, seniorRivaNathans examined the lifeof 19th century philosopher SørenKierkegaard.Based onhis journals, Nathans, aDunsterHouse resi-dent, developed a play aroundKierkegaard’s relation-shipwith his family. She took the two-day seminar tohelp improve herwriting.

“I figured I should go for every dramaticwriting op-portunity I can get atHarvard, so Iwent for it,” saidNathans, a neuroscience concentratorwhohopes topursue a career in theater and film andpossibly in

science aswell after graduation. “J-termallows peo-ple to experiment,” she added.

Tec helped the students to explore amore realisticformof dialogue, examining subtleways of havingtheir characters communicatewith one another.Heurged the students tomake their characters hint attheir feelings or agendas, instead of speaking theirminds directly.

He also encouraged the students to have their charac-ters periodically say nothing.

“Pauses are a really important tool. Every time thereis a pause on stage, it belongs to someone.Whatwemeanwhenwe say that… is that [one of the actors]puts the pause in the conversation,” saidTec, whoadded that a gap in dialogue canheighten a scene’stension or emotion.

Later, he examined the “descriptive act,” a dramatictechnique used to reveal aspects of a character in theabsence ofwords.

“Jack and Jill were in a relationship, theywere a cou-ple, andnow they are brokenup,” saidTec. “Youwantto comeupwith some visual clues… a sentence or two

that tells us that in purely visual terms.”

The students let their imaginations roam.

“Jack throws Jill’s clothes out thewindow,” one stu-dent offered. “Jill changes her Facebook status,” saidanother. “Jill uses her key to get into Jack’s house, andshe burns downhis bed,” quipped another.

Tec’s own journey fromHarvard to stage and filmcamebyway ofmusic. Amusic concentratorwhile atHarvard, he founded an experimental opera companyinBoston after graduation and caught themovie bugwhenhewas asked to score a film.His films include“WePedalUphill,” a look at the life of various charac-ters after the 9/11 attacks, and “All theRage,” about agay lawyerwho finds romancewith anunlikely part-ner.

Tec said a top-notch producer is able to “break downthe script,” or determine howmany locations thescript calls for andhowmanydays of shootingwill berequired.

Wearing hiswriter’s hat, he said he never considershis scripts truly finished, because he continually tin-kerswith hiswork. The trick, he said, “is learning toforce yourself to stop.”

Above all, Tec urged the students to take advantage ofopportunities atHarvard to get involvedwith theaterprojects and to connectwith peoplewho share theirartistic visions.

“If you find a person that you enjoy collaboratingwith,” saidTec, “hold onto them.”

Harvard’s January intensives are brief courses andseminars that offer students a chance to experimentwith the arts and interactwith professionalswithoutthe challenge of juggling a full academic schedule.

OFA students also could take a ceramics seminar, aworkshop onwatercolors, and a course on the fashionindustry. Therewere other arts intensives in January,supported byHarvard’sOffice of Career Services, theOffice of theAssociate Provost for Arts andCulture,theAmericanRepertoryTheater, theDepartment ofMusic, theOffice of theDean of Arts andHumanities,andArts@29Garden.

“It’swonderful to seeHarvard offering intensives inall of these arts,” saidMadeleineBennett, a senior atAdamsHousewho is active in theater atHarvard andtook part inTec’s seminar. “It’s something thatwasn’tavailablewhen Iwas an incoming freshman.”

During his workshop, Roland Tec ’88 (above right) urged students to take advantage of opportunities at Harvard to get in-volved with theater projects and to connect with people who share their artistic visions. Joining in the discussion was (topfrom left) Madeleine Bennett ’11, Daniel Gross ’13, Sonia Coman ’11, and Michelle Ju ’14 (back row).

Photos by Kris Snibbe | Harvard Staff Photographer

ARTS & CULTURE10 HARVARD UNIVERSITY gazette | 03-16 FEBRUARY 2011

WHAT IS MENTAL ILLNESS?(Harvard University Press,January 2011)By Richard J. McNally

Richard McNally, a professor ofpsychology, explores the many con-temporary attempts to define whatmental disorder really is, and of-fers questions for patients and pro-fessionals alike to help understandand cope with the sorrows and psy-chopathologies of everyday life.

AN ERRANT EYE: POETRY ANDTOPOGRAPHY IN EARLY MODERNFRANCE(University of Minnesota Press,January 2011)By Tom Conley

Tom Conley, Abbott Lawrence Low-ell Professor of Romance Lan-guages and Literatures and ofVisual and Environmental Studies,studies how topography, the art ofdescribing local space and place,developed literary and visual formin early modern France.

IN THE LIGHT OF EVOLUTION: ESSAYSFROM THE LABORATORY AND FIELD(Roberts and Company Publishers,January 2011)Edited by Jonathan Losos

Jonathan Losos, Monique andPhilip Lehner Professor for theStudy of Latin America, edits thiscollection of essays by leading sci-entists, including Harvard’s DanielLieberman and Hopi Hoekstra, Har-vard historian Janet Browne, andmany others.

Harvard Bound“Mymother hasn’t gone to the grocery store for a fewweeks— it just keeps slippinghermind, she told us— so for the last fewnightswe’ve been putting togethermealsbased onwhateverwe can find in the cabinets and the back of the refrigerator,” saysAdie, the narrator of Linda Schlossberg’s affecting debut novel, “Life inMiniature.”

Born threemonths premature, Adie is smaller thanmost girls her age.Whenher sin-glemother,Mindy, suffers a nervous breakdown, a neighbor cares for the 12-year-oldAdie andher teenage sister,Miriam, untilMiriam runs offwith a boyfriend to pursuea better life. The novel then tracesAdie’s coming of age under thewing of an increas-ingly unhingedMindy,who takes her on the run frommotel tomotel, trying to shakethe drug dealerswho she insists are closing in.

“I grewup inCalifornia, first in SanFrancisco’sHaight-Ashbury district and then in anearby suburbmuch like the one inwhich ‘Life inMiniature’ is set,” said Schlossberg,a lecturer in theCommittee onDegrees in Studies ofWomen,Gender, and Sexuality.

“Iwas one of those kidswhowas always reading, which I think gaveme a goodunder-standing froman early age of howvoice and characterwork. I really love coming-of-age novels, particularlywhen they arewritten from the point of viewof the child, andthat’swhat I set out to dowithmynovel.”

Schlossberg said sheworked on “Life inMiniature” “on and off formany years.”

“Many ofmy courses inWGSexplore issues ofmental health and illness, particularlyas they pertain towomen,” she said. “I knew Iwas interested in telling a story aboutmental illness, and Iwanted to explore theway inwhich a paranoid personalitymightdrawupon the larger cultural paranoia of her time— in this case, the cultural anxi-eties surrounding drug use and thewhole ‘Just SayNo’ culture of the early 1980s.”

Funny andperceptive, Adie buoys the novelwith the insight hermother lacks. On atrip to the store, Adie says, “I think the fact thatwe’re shopping, out in public,makesmymother feel like our lives aren’t that unusual. After all, in a store, everyone looksnormal.”

Said Schlossberg: “At first Iwanted to tell the story from themother’s perspective, butthen I realized that Iwasmost interested in figuring out howa child—with her lim-ited diagnostic vocabulary and cloudy understanding of the issues at hand—wouldtry tomake sense out of a confusing andnecessarily unstable situation.”

When she rereads the novel, Schlossberg said, she’s “struck by how surprised I still amby certain parts of it. One of themost pleasurable things aboutwriting is that sense ofnot fully controlling it.”

“Youwould think that after spending somuch time revising the novel Iwould re-member every line, but someof them still sneak up onme,” she said. “But I do re-member that Iwrote the final chapter very quickly and liked it right away that Iimmediately thought, ‘OK, that’s it, that’s how the story ends.’”

Photo by Kris Snibbe | Harvard Staff Photographer

Troubled youthLinda Schlossberg’s debut novel,

“Life inMiniature,” depicts amother’smental illness and a

daughter’s coming of age.

By Sarah Sweeney | Harvard Staff Writer

NATIONAL & WORLD AFFAIRS 11

Despite the economic strides thatmany of its nationshavemade in recent years, Africa is still, in a literalsense, a dark continent. No country there representsthismore clearly thanLiberia, where only 2,000homes in the nation of 4million are hookedup to theelectrical grid.

Butwhere others see a problem too big to solve,RichardFahey sees a hopeful future, and a burgeon-ing commercialmarket for solar energy.

“Liberia certainly is dark in terms of light, but not inhuman capital,” said Fahey, a 2010 fellowofHar-vard’s AdvancedLeadership Initiative.

This spring, Faheywill launch theLiberia EnergyNetwork, a large-scale solar power project. If hereaches his goal of putting sun-powered lanterns inthe hands of amillionLiberians by next year, hewillhave proven, he said, that socially conscious industrycan thrive in the impoverishednation.

Fahey, a retired environmental lawyer fromOhio andaPeaceCorps volunteer in Liberia in the 1960s, had achance to return to the fragile country in 2009. Itwasthe first timehe had visited since a 14-year civil warbroke out in 1989.

“One of the things that struckmewas how shatteredthe social and cultural institutions are,” Fahey said.“Thewar did serious damage to the social order.”

He did notice, however, that a surprising number ofLiberians had cell phones. Estimates of the averageLiberian’s annual incomehover around $220, buttherewas clearly a thrivingmarket for first-worldtechnology.

After thewar, Fahey said, “somany people had toleave their traditional homelands andmove to thecities. Youhave extended families now that are verydistant fromone another.” Cell phones became awayto stay connected to the village community.

The cell phone is so valuable, in fact, that the averageLiberian spends 25 percent of his or her income(roughly $48 a year) to charge it, according toFahey’sresearch. Because the vastmajority of the country’shomes lack electricity, Liberians travel to “electricitycenters” that exact a high price in exchange forcharging a phone.

That figure could be greatly reduced if Liberians hadindividual solar-powered lanterns capable of charg-ing a phone, Fahey said. Luckily, severalmanufactur-ers produce combination lantern-phone chargersthat cost roughly $45.

It’swhat Fahey calls “just-good-enough technology,”away to circumvent the expensive andunrealisticprocess of building a traditional energy grid. “Thatkind of investment is a very longway away,” Faheysaid. “Plus it’s very old technology.”With solar power,he reasoned, “the people could build their own grid.”

Currently, the country’s poor inhabitants use ineffi-cient and environmentally unfriendly kerosenelamps to light their homes.

“Their lives effectively end at sundown,” Fahey said.“And that has impacts for everyone.” It’s not uncom-mon, he said, to see children on sidewalks congre-gated around streetlights in the evening, trying tofinish their homework by lamplight.Women andgirls in particular are at a disadvantage, because theyare often required to gather firewood or other fuelduring the day andhave noway to study at night,Fahey said.

In addition, dirty energy takes a toll on health. TheWorldHealthOrganization estimates that 2millionpeople—85percent of themwomen and children—die annually from the air pollution caused bykerosene lamps and indoor cooking fires.

“Electricity is such a fundamental need that somanyother things are built on top of,” Fahey said.

While Liberia, in Fahey’swords, “practically existsoff foreign aid,” themicrofinance industry has justbegun to penetrate the country. Fahey isworkingwith an anthropologist in Liberia to research tradi-tional savings groups, whichmanyLiberians use tofinance cell phone purchases, as away to help con-sumers purchase solar lanterns.Hehas also hiredLiberians to lead focus groups that are testing differ-ent styles of solar generators.

“We’ve been trying to tell otherswhatwe think theLiberians need rather than askingwhat they need,”Fahey said. “This is giving themchoices and thinkingof themas consumers.”

That attitude is crucial to any business’s success, ac-cording toMichael Chu, a senior lecturer atHarvardBusiness School (HBS)who specializes in social en-terprise and emergingmarkets, known in theB-school lexicon as “business at the base of thepyramid.”

Chu emphasized the role a successful, self-sustainingbusiness can play in anuntestedmarket like Liberia.Good businesses attract competitors, which can inturn bring long-termeconomic growth to a region.

“The big impact of applying commercial solutions [topoverty] is not that one successful firm that comesout of it,” Chu said. “The big social payoff is that onegreat, successful businesswill create an industry.”

Chu’s ideaswere among thoseFahey absorbed atHarvard. TheAdvancedLeadership Initiative, now inits third year, offers late-career professionals thechance to audit courses across theUniversity andprepare for new roles as leaders in the public sector,tackling social problems.

Harvardwas “a good place to come retool and recali-brate,” Fahey said. “I cameherewith a vague ideathatwould have looked a lotmore like a traditionalaid or developmentmodel.My thoughts havemovedprobably 180 degrees from that.”

Likemany of the initiative’s fellows, Fahey is showingthat “public good can also be carried out by for-profitcompanies,” saidRosabethMossKanter,HBS’sErnest L. Arbuckle Professor of BusinessAdminis-tration and the chair and director of the initiative.

“It’s not a question of nonprofit or for-profit, privatesector or public sector,” she added. “Weneedmoreand better leaders in every sector, because the chal-lenges andproblems seem to be getting bigger andharder to solve.”

Faheywill return to Liberia later thismonth to con-tinue raising capital for the project. After a long ca-reer in law, he’s energized by the thought of returningto the country he first tried to help as a newlymintedcollege graduate.

“There are a lot of uswho still have some tread left onthe tires and reallywant to do something,” he said ofhis generation. “You just can’t play enough golf.”

Turning on the lightsLikemuch of Africa, Liberia relies onineffective, dirty sources of energy. Coming offa fellowship at Harvard’s AdvancedLeadership Initiative, Richard Fahey has onebig goal: to transform the country’s electricalgrid from the bottom up.

By Katie Koch | Harvard Staff Writer

Photo by Kris Snibbe | Harvard Staff Photographer

Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative fellow Richard Fahey (seenhere among the solar panels on the Science Center rooftop) is workingon a project to bring individual solar-powered generators to a countrywhere only 4,000 of 4 million people have electricity in their homes.

It can be a lonely journey, learning to become a bet-ter teacher.

“Imagine that youwere getting essentially no feed-back on the work youwere doing. And now imaginethat you had one of themost important jobs in theworld. No, I’m not talking about President Obama,because even he had themidterm elections. That’swhat it is like to be a teacher.”

Despite that grim assessment, Harvard’s TomKanehopes to radically change that public school para-digm as a head of a national initiative funded by theBill &Melinda Gates Foundation.

Launched in the fall of 2009, theMeasures of Effec-tive Teaching Project is the largest effort of its kindto collect video, student perceptions, and assess-ments of student achievement and teacher knowl-edge. The project’s goal is to learnwhat effectiveteaching looks like.

The early findings, whichwere released recently, in-dicate students are verymuch in tunewith who iseffective at the front of their classrooms.

“The study shows that kids perceive big differencesin teachers, and those differences are related to stu-dent achievement gains,” said Kane.

In addition tomeasuring student achievement onstate tests, the project uses supplemental tests thatevaluate students’ conceptual understanding, aswell as classroom observations done through video-taping and student questionnaires to identify effec-tive teaching techniques.

Working withHarvard’s Center for Education PolicyResearch, Kane and his team of project collabora-tors found that the feedback from student percep-tion surveys offered important insights.

“In the classroomswhere 75 percent ormore of kidsare saying things like ‘we use timewell in this class,’and ‘we don’t waste time,’ or ‘we learn a lot in thisclass every day,’ or ‘the teacher expectsmy best ef-fort,’ that’s where you tend to see larger studentachievement gains,” said Kane.

The program, implemented during the 2009-10 and2010-11 school years, includes teachers and theirstudents inmath and English language arts ingrades 4 through 8, algebra I at the high school level,biology or its equivalent at the high school level, andEnglish in grade 9.

The questionnaires were created by Ronald Fergu-

son, a senior lecturer in education and public policyat theHarvard Graduate School of Education(HGSE) and theHarvardKennedy School.

Kane, HGSE professor of education and economics,and his colleagues also examined the connection be-tween the teachers whose students performedwellon the state’s achievement tests and those pupilswho scored high on the project’s tests designed togauge conceptual comprehension.

“We have seen there is considerable overlap,” saidKane. “Teachers whowere successful in promotingachievement on state tests did so with the concep-tual tests as well.”

For Kane, video is also a key to the project’s success.

“Improving teaching requires adult behaviorchange. Imagine trying to get someone to quit smok-ing by showing them a video of a bunch of happynonsmokers … and yet that is the waywe do profes-sional development for teachers, by showing themsome third person teaching instead of showing themtheir ownwork.”

According to Kane, teachers need to see and analyzetheir own efforts, and then discuss with their super-visors what they are doing well, andwhat they coulddo differently to improve.

This can be done by showing teachers their ownvideos and by providing feedback that is related tostudent achievement. HeatherHill, an associateprofessor of education at theHarvard GraduateSchool of Education, developed a rubric for guidingclassroom observations that will be used to help

score the videos. Project organiz-ers hope the effort will help lead toa new approach to professional de-velopment.

“We are trying, said Kane, “to getpeople to quit smoking by takingthem into their closet to smelltheir own clothes.”

The report’s video findings will bereleased this spring.

Authorities agree that better feed-back is paramount to improvingteacher performance. Under cur-rent systems, themajority of pri-mary and secondary public schoolteachers typically rely on class-room visits from principals to gainfeedback, said Kane, who arguedthat such visits are largely inade-quate.

“It’s common to have 98 or 99 per-cent of teachers in a district re-ceive the same ‘satisfactory’ ratingfrom such visits, so it’s clearly aperfunctory exercise.”

The project includes 3,000 teach-ers andmore than 100,000 students from sevenurban school districts, including Charlotte, N.C.;Dallas; Denver;Memphis, Tenn.; NewYork City;Pittsburgh; andHillsborough County, Fla., which in-cludes Tampa.

Although the education sector has been slow toadapt to the push for performancemanagementcommon in other professions, the process began togain traction in 2002when the Bush administra-tion’s No Child Left Behind Act was signed into law,said Kane. The legislation calls for states to developstandardized tests tomeasure and track studentachievement.

“There has been an explosion of research over thelast nine years linking teaching certifications andteacher experience to student achievement gains. It’sa byproduct of school districts just starting to trackstudent achievement and to link it to teachers.”

Kane’s research also coincides with the Obama ad-ministration’s newRace to the Top program, a com-petitive grant initiative that rewards states fordeveloping effective education reforms. The initia-tive has inspired school districts to create freshteacher evaluationmethods.

“If we can get the results out quickly,” said Kane,“we can have a huge impact on the way this work isdone in 3million classrooms around the country.”

“If you are going to have any hope of having an effecton how teachers are doing their job,” he added, “youhave to have some feedback that is specifically re-lated to what they are doing.”

“Improving teaching requires adult be-havior change. Imagine trying to getsomeone to quit smoking by showingthem a video of a bunch of happy non-smokers ...” says Tom Kane.

NATIONAL & WORLD AFFAIRS12

Changing howteachers improveAnew initiative headed by aHarvardscholar aims to transform thewayteachers improve their performance,and to overhaul the nation’s publicschools in the process.

By Colleen Walsh | Harvard Staff Writer

Photo by Rose Lincoln | Harvard Staff Photographer

CAMPUS & COMMUNITY 13

Grants, N.M., is a small city just east of theContinen-talDivide. Its population is roughly equal to that ofHarvardCollege and its per capita income—about$14,000—would buy two semesters of roomandboard.

Lastmonth, Grantswas homebase for 10 undergrad-uates on a service trip sponsored by thePhillipsBrooksHouseAssociation.

The students, workingwith twoOhiomedical volun-teers, did child health surveys atHead Start Programoperations in one corner of the vastNavajoNationtribal area. Taking yearlymeasures of vision, hearing,blood pressure, height, weight, and other factors isrequired tomaintain federal funding.

During the 10-day trip, students also delivered fire-wood and food to elderlyNavajo in remote parts ofthe reservation. (One of themwas JoeVandever, oneof the last survivingNavajoCodeTalkers fromWorldWar II.) The deliveries, guided by employees of theSt. Bonaventure IndianMission and School inThoreau,N.M,meant navigating unpavedmuddyroads in two borrowedFordExpeditions.

The vehicles turned into unmarked canyons andskidded upmountain heights to reach homes thatwere often just battered trailers or hoganswithslumping roofs and brokenwindows.

“Itwas very tough to see, “ said Shalini Pammal ’13,whose only other experiencewith poverty had beenas a high school volunteer at a charity hospital inIndia. “It’s something you really can’t prepare your-self for. AtHarvard, we are so blessed.”

She helped deliver firewood to an elderlywomanon

dialysis, and to an oldmanwho spent his days sittingin his truck reading theBible. “His faithwas all hehad left,” said Pammal, who plans on a career com-biningmedicine and social justice.

Friendswere shocked to hear of ThirdWorld povertyin a corner of America, said SeshetaMwanza ’13.“They don’t have to go abroad to see social injustice.”

The trip inspired the film and video concentrator intheVisual andEnvironmental Studies program tomake a documentary. TheNavajoNation is a place noone ever really sees, saidMwanza, and its poverty(and dignity) is seldomportrayed in themedia.

Before going, the students underwent training at theHarvardUniversityNativeAmericanProgram. It in-cluded an overviewof the federal IndianHealth Serv-ice, the current state ofNativeAmerican health,Navajo culture and language (“ya-at-eeh” is “hello”),and a look atweather in that dry corner ofNewMex-

ico, wherewinter temperatures can dip belowzero.

ExecutiveDirector Shelly Lowe, aNavajo, saidknowledge and cultural respect are vital beforetaking such trips. “They canhave practicalvalue if the students are adequately prepared.”

Undergraduates also remarked on the dra-matic desert landscape ofmesas andmoun-tains— “amaze thatwas created by a divinepower,” saidMwanza.

“Peoplewho live in this region get towitness thisbeauty,” she said, but at the same time find it hard toobtain enough food andpotablewater, or a good edu-cation.

“There’s a lot of hard stuff to see there,” saidAmandaGokee ’14, aNativeAmericanwho grewup inVer-mont, butwho beforeNewMexico hadneverwit-nessed reservation poverty. She called it her “firstexperiencewith theThirdWorld.”

That included someof the fourHead Start locationstheHarvard teamvisited. Somewere “pretty bare,”saidGokee— littlemore than “a small room, a bath-room, and a hallway.”

But at the same time, shewasmoved by the resilienceand dignity of theNavajo and by the energy andhap-piness of the children. “They’re still kids… still run-ning around and smiling,” saidGokee. “It gaveme alot of hope.”

Shock amid the serviceAwinter break trip to the Southwest’s Navajo Nation bringsthe reality of poverty to a group of undergraduates.

By Corydon Ireland | Harvard Staff Writer

“People who live in this region get to witness thisbeauty,” but at the same time find it hard to obtainenough food and potable water, or a good educa-tion, said Sesheta Mwanza ’13 (left), who workedwith Head Start students in Red Rock, N.M.

Photos (top) by Sesheta Mwanza ’13, (inset) by Shalini Pammal ’13

CAMPUS & COMMUNITY14

Photo by Kris Snibbe | Harvard Staff Photographer

HARVARD UNIVERSITY gazette | 03-16 FEBRUARY 2011

DISASTER RELIEFThe Rapid DeploymentDisaster Relief Shelter isone of a dozen initiativesfunded by the new Presi-dent’s January InnovationFund for winter break.http://hvd.gs/71459

DO YOU SPEAK CHEESE?Students use four days of win-ter break to explore the com-forting universe of cheese,soup, bread, chocolate, cof-fee, and desserts.http://hvd.gs/71131

THE SPACE IN BETWEENScores of Harvard under-graduates will participatein nearly 100 activities —from stand-up comedy topublic service — duringHarvard’s inaugural Op-tional Winter ActivitiesWeek (OWAW), Jan. 16-23.http://hvd.gs/70885

LizMoroney’s winter break experience left her witha lot to digest.

“I wanted to participate in the food andwine trek inNewYork City because I come from a family of food-ies and I was interested to see the breadth of careersin the food andwine industries,” said the LeverettHouse junior. “I love exploring new restaurants anddishes, but I could never seemyself going to culi-nary school, so I wanted to see what other opportu-nities there were. The trek really changedmyperception of the food industry. It's not all just chefsandwaiters.”

LikeMoroney, Harvard undergraduates and Collegeadministrators are looking back onwinter break2011 to evaluate the plethora of new programmingthat was offered, and to think about where to gofromhere. One thing is already clear, however: Thebreak provided an opportunity for experiences notusually available to students during the semester.

“Winter break programmingwas designed in part togive students a chance to get out of the classroomand explore,” saidHarvard College Dean EvelynnHammonds. “Hundreds of students took advantageof the time to find out about career options, learn anew skill, and engage in public service.”

Moroneywas one of dozens of students who tookpart in the new January Treks— short trips thatprovide students with knowledge of careers, intro-duce them to important contacts, and allow them toask questions of industry representatives. RobinMount, director of career, research, and interna-tional opportunities at Harvard’s Office of CareerServices (OCS), credited the new academic calendarformaking treks possible and said the programs letstudents see what a job is really like on a day-to day-basis.

“When the new calendar came into effect, we knewit was time to start offering this programming,” shesaid. “It’s one thing to have someone come to cam-pus and speak. It’s another to see and hear theNewYork Philharmonic rehearsing at Lincoln Center.You can’t get that kind of knowledge from listeningto a panel discussion.”

Treks were held inNewYork City andWashington,D.C., on Jan. 13 and 14. Students visited the disasterroom at the American Red Cross, the kitchen of therestaurant at the Gramercy ParkHotel, the CentralIntelligence Agency, and theWorld Bank, amongother locations. Gé Zhangwent on the fashion trekinNewYork City. The sophomore, who visited thebackrooms of Bloomingdale’s and the headquarters

Will Burke ’13 participates in one of the initiativesfunded by the President’s January Fund: The Rapid De-ployment Disaster Relief Shelter project at the HarvardSchool of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

of designer Ralph Lauren, says he now has an un-derstanding of themainstream career path in thefashion industry.

“You spend one year as an assistant buyer, one totwo years as senior assistant buyer, a year of plan-ning, and, finally, promotion to a buyermanagingmillions of dollars,” hewrote on theOCSTumblrblog. “The executives look for school, work experi-ence, and extracurricular activities on resumes.”

Many of the January experienceswere offered byHarvard alumniwho volunteered tomake them-selves available. Robert Kraft ’76, president of 20thCentury FoxMusic in Los Angeles, offered to allowstudents to shadowhim atwork for a day, but got somany requests that he combined his offeringwiththe yearlyHarvardwood trek.

“Students responded quite late, only a few days be-fore the Christmasweek,” he said. “Suddenly, the re-quests tumbled in. I couldn’t accommodate them all,so I set up a group visit. Students came to Fox Stu-dios, then tomy officewhere I led them to a record-ing session for the animated show “Family Guy.” Itmade it possible for 25Harvard undergraduates tohave a January experience at amovie studio.”

Kraft called the time spentwith students “reward-ing” and said itmade him feel energized. PhilipLovejoy, deputy executive director of theHarvardAlumni Association, says that Kraft’s sentimentswere echoed bymany of the 231 alumniwho offeredJanuary experiences.

“Alumni really want to stay connected to the Col-lege, and there’s no betterway to do that than to en-gagewith students,” he said.

While OCS andHarvard alumni offered program-ming across the country, therewas plenty going oninCambridge aswell. January saw the launch ofHarvard’s first OptionalWinter ActivitiesWeek, aperiod ofmostly student-led sessions on and aroundcampus that featuredworkshops on stand-up com-edy, accounting, the history of bluesmusic, andmuchmore. Senior EricHysen, leader of theHackHarvard incubator for student life web applications,said the entire undergraduate communitymay enjoythe fruits of his group’s labors.

“HackHarvardwent great!” he said. “A few projectshave launched already, and others are launching inthe next few days. Students can find a list— from anapp that helps them reserve space on campus to onethat sets themupwith a friendly lunch date—on ourwebsite: http://www.hackharvard.org/apps/.”

To readmore OWAW

coverage,scan the

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A break with the pastUndergrads and College administrators are looking back onwinter break2011 to evaluate themany new programs, and to ponder changes. One thingis already clear:Winter break provided experiences not usually available tostudents during the semester.

By Paul Massari | Harvard Staff Writer

CAMPUS & COMMUNITY 15

Photo by Kris Snibbe | Harvard Staff Photographer

InNovember I spent a week away from classes to par-ticipate in the first official American student govern-ment delegation to Russia since the fall of the IronCurtain. TheU.S. Congress brings about 700 youngemerging Russian leaders to the United States everyyear to explore American culture, civil society, andpolitics. But there hadn’t been a reciprocal program.The trip, in short, was extraordinary.

The point of the trip was to bring 15 American collegestudent body presidents toMoscow tomeet Russianleaders as part of a new diplomatic “reset” in U.S.-Rus-sia relations. It was organized by the OpenWorldLeadership Center of Congress and the Russian Fed-eral Agency on Youth Affairs. The organizers put to-gether an ambitious agenda. According to schedule wewere tomeet with John Beyrle, the U.S. ambassador toRussia; Svetlana Zhurova, the vice speaker of theDuma, or assembly; ArkadyDvorkovich, RussianPresident DmitryMedvedev’s top economic adviser;Viktor Vekselberg, one of Russia’ wealthiest billion-aires; and Vladislav Surkov, who is first deputy chief ofstaff toMedvedev and is considered the Kremlin’sleading ideologist.

The highlight of the trip camewith ourmeeting withSurkov and Vasily Yakemenko, the head of the FederalAgency on Youth Affairs and the former head ofNashi, a state-sponsored youthmovement. OlegKashin, a prominent journalist for Kommersant, hadrepeatedly criticizedNashi protests where demon-strators violently stomped on portraits of “enemies”of the Russian state. Twoweeks before our tripstarted, a surveillance videowas released of twomenbeating Kashin with steel rods, resulting in the ampu-tation of one of his fingers, a broken leg and jaw, andseveral cranial wounds.We asked Yakemenko aboutit. I can sumup his reaction by saying hewas visiblyirritated and denied anywrongdoing.While nothinghas come from a government investigation, Kashinhas since written that he believes Nashi was behindthe attack.

Then Surkov, an evenmore controversial figure inRussian politics, entered the room. That very dayBoris Nemtsov, a leader of a Russian oppositionmove-ment named Solidarity, was speaking at the U.S.House on imposing an American travel ban on Surkov,whomhe deems responsible for Russia’s compromis-

From Russia, with loveAHarvard student leader travels toMoscow for a firsthand look at how thegovernment there works.

By Johnny Bowman ’11 | Sociology

Johnny Bowman: The point of the trip wasto bring 15 American college student bodypresidents to Moscow to meet Russianleaders as part of a new diplomatic“reset” in U.S.-Russia relations.

ing of elections and intolerance for dissidentjournalists. Nevertheless, Surkov spoke verythoughtfully on political theory and revealedRussia’s leaders’ mixed feelings toward politicalreform.

On one hand, Surkov stated that he wants Rus-sia to “become one of theWestern democraticcountries” through a strengthened Liberal Partyto oppose the ruling United Russia party. On theother hand, Surkov emphasized that themostimportant reforms in the short term are bestdone under single-party rule. Hementionedthat in Germany, one political party ruled for 18years afterWorldWar II, and that Harvard his-torian Samuel Huntington said this was ideal forbuilding nation states.While Surkov recognizedthat the ’90s are seen as the heyday for democ-racy in Russia, he said it was a “paralyzeddemocracy” because of the lack of effective leg-islation.

My favorite aspect of Surkov, however, was hisbluntness. In his opening remarks, he suggestedthat one of us will rise to becomeU.S. presidentandwill remember howwe sat in front ofSurkov and asked “stupid questions.” Far laterin the discussion, we asked himwhat his andRussia’s concept of failure was and if that wouldaffectMoscow’s ability to be an innovation hub.As if to prove his point, Surkov’s immediate an-swer was, “Failure is failure. It's whenwe fail.”

But if I took away one thing from the trip it wasthis: Russia’s government leaders are extremelyeager to welcomeAmerican students to theircountry. Not only did politicians and businessleaders who have far better things to do than totalk to a group of 22-year-oldsmeet with us, buttheymade us their priority. TheDuma officials,Dvorkovich, and Surkov all either rescheduledor extended theirmeeting times with us tomakesure our questions were answered.

When I thankedDvorkovich via Twitter weekslater formeeting with us, he tweetedme back“:)”. I cannot wait to get back to Russia.

If you’re an undergraduate or graduate studentand have an essay to share about life at Harvard,please email your ideas to JimConcannon, theGazette’s news editor, at Jim_Concannon@har-vard.edu.

Student Voice

�Though the temperatures are stillfreezing, interested undergradsshould begin planning for summerinternships. Last year, Isabel Carey’12 landed on the London stage.http://hvd.gs/71244

Tomer Rosner is an accom-plished Israeli civil servant and amidcareer student on a fellow-ship at the Harvard KennedySchool. He’s also blind.http://hvd.gs/69905

More Campus & Community Onlinenews.harvard.edu/gazette/

section/campus-n-community/

CAMPUS & COMMUNITY16

Photos by Jon Chase | Harvard Staff Photographer

HARVARD UNIVERSITY gazette | 03-16 FEBRUARY 2011

This is one of a series of occasional stories on the meas-ures that Schools at Harvard are taking to reduce green-house gas emissions.

Going green atHarvardMedical School (HMS)means implementing sustainabilitymeasures inclassrooms, offices, and—perhapsmost challenging— laboratories.

In 2008,Harvard PresidentDrewFaust announcedtheUniversity's goal to reduce greenhouse gas emis-sions 30 percent by 2016 (from2006 levels, includ-ing growth). In response to this goal, HMShasdeveloped and is implementing aGreenhouseGasReduction Plan.

Optimizing the performance ofmechanical, electri-cal, and other systems in buildings, a process calledrecommissioning, will help the School to reach itsgreenhouse gas goal. In theWarrenAlpert building,the first atHMS to undergo formal recommissioning,laboratories present unique obstacles.

“In a normal environment, you can recirculate airand introduce a percentage of fresh, outside air,” saidPeter Stroup, director of facilities andmaintenanceoperations atHMS. “In the laboratories, you alwaysneed 100percent fresh air. That’s extremely intensivebecause youhave to take all of that outdoor air andcondition it—whether youhumidify, dehumidify,cool, or heat it—before it gets into the lab. It’s a hugechallenge for us in terms of reducing energy usage be-causewe’re not reusing any portion of that air. Thequestion for us then is howbest dowemanage tem-perature, andhowbest dowemanage the number oftimeswe change the air in a roomper hour?”

In addition to recommissioning efforts,HMShas in-vested in green renovations. TheDePaceLab, reno-vated in 2008,was the firstwet lab atHarvard toachieve LEEDcertification. The School has also re-examined itswaste stream.Reusable biohazard boxesand sharps containers (for the disposal of needles, sy-ringes, etc.) are the latest in a series ofwaste-savingmeasures.

“The previous sharps containersweremade of plas-tic, and the entire container needed to be disposed ofafter each use. The biohazardouswaste boxeswerebig cardboard boxes that needed to be double-bagged, and the entire box and the bagswere dis-posed of,” said Longwood sustainability programmanager Claire Berezowitz.

In thewake of a successful pilot program,whichstarted in 2009, the entire campus has converted toreusable plastic containersmade by Stericycle.

“The boxes are picked up by Stericycle, emptied,

sterilized, and returned, sowe’ve eliminated theneed to buy cardboard and have it destroyed,” saysRobert Christiano, associate director of CampusOp-erations, whowas instrumental in establishing andmanaging the reusable sharps and the reusable bio-hazardouswaste box programs.

“With the biohazard boxes alone, we’ve saved over21,000 cardboard boxes from going into thewastestream,” said Berezowitz.

Last year, HMS facilities completed an evaluation ofwater-saving units for autoclaves, devices that usesteam to sterilize laboratory equipment.

“When the autoclave discharges its wastewater, thewater is too hot to be returned to the city system, soit has to be quenchedwith coolerwater in order toget it to the right temperature for discharge, about100 degrees,” said Stroup.

“The old systemwould continuously dump tapwaterinto something that looks like a funnel beneath theautoclave,” saidAllenHebert,HMSenergy specialist.“The newwater saver collects thewater that’s beingdispensed at 200degrees and quenches itwith do-mesticwater, but only to the extent that it needs— itdoesn’t dumpwater down the drain constantly. If youhave five gallons that need to be quenched, it willdump in a gallon to cool it down. …The savings arevery substantial.”

HMS is proceedingwith the installation of thewater-saving units inmore than 50 remaining autoclaves oncampus. These units are expected to save $200,000worth ofwater per year.

Additionally,HMSexpects to install electric steamgenerators in the autoclaves, with a projected savingsofmore than $500,000worth of steamper year.These portable steamgeneratorswill produce 200-

degree clean steam for autoclave units on an as-needed basis, eliminating the need to remain con-nected to a constant supply of gas-fired central steam.

“The difference is that the steamwebuy ismuchmore greenhouse gas intensive than electricity is,”said Stroup. “We’re experimentingwith this so thatwe can reduce our footprint.”

As part of the School’s greenhouse gas reduction plan,HMS facilities created an energymeteringwebsite

(https://facilities.med.harvard.edu/ENERGY/),which tracks the School’s energy usage. The in-teractive tool updates every 15minuteswithreal-time data collected bymeters located inbuildings throughout the campus. The tool canalso be used to compare historical energy usagepatterns by hour, day, week, ormonth.

“You can look at total campususage, individualbuildingusage, or byutility,” said Stroup. “Wehadthat information available onourwebsite previ-ously, but not in such concise a format, andnow ithas been translated intomoreunderstandableunits, likenumber of trees or barrels of oil con-sumed,which eachof us canbetter relate to.”

Thedashboard is displayedona touch-screenmonitor in the office building at 641Huntington

Ave. (recently certifiedLEEDGold), and four addi-tionalmonitorswill soonbedeployed in other com-monareas across the campus.

HMSfacilities andoperations staffwork closelywiththe student groupSEAM(Students forEnvironmentalAwareness inMedicine).A tapwater filtration system,thedirect result of collaborationbetweenSEAMmem-bers andstaff,was installedoff the second-floor atriumin theTostesonMedicalEducationCenter (TMEC) inMay2010.Developedas analternative toPolandSpringsbubblers (whichcarry a significant carbonfootprint), the systemhas twocoldwaterdispensers,onehotwaterdispenser, aswell as a sink, andhasbe-comeapopular spot for socializingbetweenclasses.

“I saw thewater project as intersecting a lot of differ-ent concerns—public health, environmental, and eco-nomic,” saidDevanDarby, a student leader of SEAMwho received aGreenCarpetAward from theOfficefor Sustainability for herworkon thehydration sta-tion. “It’s a very tangible thing that hasmade adiffer-ence.”

“In a graduate school of this size,wehave a compactcommunity,” said SEAMmember JanaJarolimova.“We’remaking relatively small changes, but bybeingconnected to the rest of theHMScommunity and get-ting enoughpeople tomake those changes too,we canactually have an impact.”

Medical School mends its waysIn going green, HMS finds its challenges in the labs.With alittle ingenuity, the healthier environment wins out.

By Krysten A. Keches | Harvard Staff Correspondent

Allen Hebert (left),HMS energy spe-cialist, demon-strates the “Shutthe Sash” in a labat the New Re-search Building.The use of biohaz-ard boxes (below)has saved 21,000cardboard boxesfrom going into thewaste stream.

The seeds ofMary Lewis’ fascinationwith Francewere planted early. Her fatherspent a few years there as a youngman, working in the offices of theMarshallPlan, so she grewup hearing a steady streamof stories about that country.

“I had never been out of North America,” said the newly tenured professor ofhis-tory, “butwhenmy fatherwould talk about France’s history, it sparked an in-terest that is still withme.”

The geopolitically tense Reagan administration yearswere her political coming-of-age, and the native Californianwent to collegewanting to understand theColdWar, studying international relationswhen she attended theUniversity ofCalifornia, Davis. She spent her junior year abroad in France, becoming increas-ingly interested in the diversity of its society.

The final seed that would eventually bear Lewis’ intellectual fruit was planteddur-ing a political science class she took upon her return from studying abroad.It wasNovember 1989, themonth the BerlinWall fell.

“Wewere discussing the theory ofmutually assured destruction,” she said. “Ayoungman raised his hand and asked the professor, ‘Canwe talk about Berlin?’The professorwas completely thrown. The real worldwas confronting his theo-reticalmodel, and he didn’t knowwhat to do.”

Lewis remembers the professor dismissing the question by telling the student toreadTheNewYorkTimes. That, she said, was themoment she knew shewantedto study history.

“At that point, history had suddenly caught up to political science,” she said. “Irealized you really needed history to understand politics.”

After graduating from theUniversity of California, Davis, and before beginning aPh.D. program in history atNewYorkUniversity, Lewis spent two yearsworking

Photo by Rose Lincoln | Harvard Staff Photographer

CAMPUS & COMMUNITY 17

Faculty Profile

History in the makingWhen the BerlinWall fell, studentMary Lewis knew sheshould study the past. Now a professor, she is anauthority on howFrance evolved.

By Maya Shwayder ’11 | Harvard Correspondent

for theU.S. Department of Education in its Office forCivil Rights, an experience she said greatly affectedhow she studies and thinks about history today.

“I learned a lot about bureaucracy and the layers ofbureaucracy,” she said. “If I wrote a letter, it wouldgo through six different levels of editing and end upwith someone else’s signature on it.”

“I got a sense of howpolicy and decisions are lay-ered. It helpedme become the kind of historian thatI am today.”

Lewis’ improbable interest in bureaucracy informedher first book, “The Boundaries of the Republic:Mi-grant Rights and the Limits of Universalism inFrance, 1918-1940” (StanfordUniversity Press,2007), recently translated into French as “Les Fron-tières de la République” (Éditions Agone, 2010). Thebook demonstrates how local actions— far removedfromParisian edicts— redefined the boundaries be-tweenFrench citizens and outsiders in the earlydecades of the 20th century. By focusing on the lim-its of legislation in a pluralistic society, the bookchallenges the common vision of France as a highlycentralized nation.

“We tend to think of France as a centralized countrywith uniform rights decreed in Paris,” Lewis said.“But the actions of immigrants themselves in theprovinces, by forcing officials to recognize that theywere going to stay in the country, instigated an ex-pansion of those rights. In a sense, today’s diverseFrench society is a product of that history.”

Today, Lewis’ studies are intersecting anewwithcurrent events: She is working on a book aboutTunisia, using the case of the little-studied Frenchprotectorate there to study how imperial rivalry af-fected French colonial governance from the 1880s tothe 1930s. Pent-up public unrest in theNorthAfrican country exploded and brought down its gov-ernment lastmonth.

“Having researchedmy forthcoming book there, Iwas surprised that the protests would lead so sud-denly to a change in regime,” she said of Tunisia’soverthrow of its president. “It’s a police state. Peo-ple have conditioned themselves to be very guardedin conversationwhen speaking about politics be-cause they know they’re beingwatched, so the factthat theywould have the nerve to protest as they didis remarkable.”

Lewis is also planning a new research project on in-tercolonialmovement by studying colonial pass-ports.

“We think of these societies as being hermeticallysealed, becausewe tend to study them from an im-perialist point of view, but in fact peoplewere on themove, andwe can see challenges to imperial controlbased on these variedmovements.”

One of Lewis’ favorite parts of working atHarvard isinteractingwith students.

“Theymake you think,” she said. “Even if you’vetaught a class before, you’ll get something new out ofit because of the student participation. This is posi-tive feedback on awhole other level.”

Today, Mary Lewis’ studiesare intersecting anew withcurrent events: She isworking on a book aboutTunisia, using the case ofthe little-studied Frenchprotectorate there to studyhow imperial rivalry af-fected French colonial gov-ernance from the 1880s tothe 1930s.

CAMPUS & COMMUNITY18

Photo by Stephanie Mitchell | Harvard Staff Photographer

“It’s important to understand the role child careplays in supportingHarvard’smission,” said SarahBennett-Astesano, assistant director of the Office ofWork/Life. “When I get a phone call from a re-searcher who is, I don’t know, trying to cure cancer,and I can help that person secure reliable child care,it means she can get onwith her workwithout hav-ing to worry about it. It lets us attract andmaintainamore diverse work force.”

Bennett-Astesano’s words are echoed time andagain byHarvard employees trying to juggle careersand families.

“Having somuch support for child caremakes itpossible for a wider range of people to be here, orstay here,” said Ian Stokes-Rees, a research associ-ate in biological chemistry andmolecular pharma-cology at HarvardMedical School (HMS) and thefather of 3- and 6-year-old daughters. “How are wegoing to have future scientists if our current scien-tists are denied the opportunity to have children be-cause they can’t afford it? How canwe bridge thatgap between scientists and the rest of the commu-nity, when becoming a top-rated scientist excludeshaving kids?”

Stokes-Rees and his wife, an anthropology postdoc-

toral scholar at BrownUniversity, moved here fromFrance a few years ago, and quickly learned thatevery penny of their higher salaries would be neces-sary in the United States.Massachusetts is themostexpensive state for child care, according to a recentBostonGlobe article, with an average yearly cost of$25,272. And that, as the writer pointed out, is justthe average.

“Our child-care expenses are something like$40,000 a year,” said Laura Anne Lowery, a researchfellow in cell biology at the Van Vactor Labwho isthemother of a 4-year-old and a 1-year-old. “So the$1,000we get from ourHarvard scholarship isn’thuge, but it gives us a littlemoremoney for otherthings.”

The scholarship she is talking about is just one ofseveral ways in which the University is working tohelp its working parents. Scholarships are adminis-tered by employee group— ladder faculty, non-tenure track faculty, and administrative andprofessional — and aremeans-tested. They pay forday care and after-school care for children ages 6 to13, and, though each individual familymight getonly a few thousand dollars, the total cost for theUniversity is about $3million annually.

HARVIE CHAT FEB. 3: CHILD CARE FUNDINGThe Ladder Access Program provides child carefunding for ladder faculty with children under 6 yearsof age. Applications for those who did not apply fora scholarship in summer 2010 are being acceptedthrough Feb. 9. Applications are accessed throughPeopleSoft. Ladder faculty and others are invited tojoin a live, online HARVie chat on Feb. 3, noon-1p.m., with staff from the Office of Work/Life to learnmore about the funding and the applicationprocess. Log onto HARVie at noon to join this chat.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY gazette | 03-16 FEBRUARY 2011

Most parents in the University community knowabout the six independently operated child-carecenters that serve about 400 children, 90 percent ofwhom areHarvard-affiliated. Having her 4-year-oldson in the Radcliffe Child Care Center onDeWolfeStreetmakes her work life “a lot easier,” said LiliaHalpern-Smith, assistant director of the Center forAmerican Political Studies. “I’m able to stop by forlunch or have a parentmeeting and not have it takea huge chunk out ofmy day,” she said, noting thather office is just a few blocks from the center.

Other popular programs focus on “gap care,” ortimes when parents need help outside their regularchildcare routine. The first type involves the schoolvacation camps provided on the Cambridge, Long-wood, and Business School campuses in February,April, and August, when public schools are closedbutHarvard is not. “Each one has a theme,” saidBennett-Astesano. “One year it was Olympics, an-other it was space exploration.” The camps are inex-pensive comparedwith community programs, atroughly $40 a day.

The second gap-care program is provided through acontract with the private agency Parents in a Pinch.It allowsmost Harvard-affiliated parents to call foran emergency caregiver and pay just $15 an hour,without having to worry about administrative feesthat can add up to something like $65 a day. “Itcould cover a snow day, a day when your nanny issick, when you have to work at a time you don’t usu-ally have to,” said Bennett-Astesano. It can also beused for adult or elder care. “It should really becalled People in a Pinch,” she said.

Finally, there’s Just in TimeCare, where the Uni-versity reimburses those who earn less than$70,000 a year up to $350 a year in expenses paidout of pocket for backup or emergency care.

Signing up for the programs is easy. “I just had to goon theHarvie website,” said JaimeMcAllister-Grande,manager of user services and direct accessprocessing at theHarvard College Library. “I didn’thave to ask anyone,make an appointment withHR,or anything. It was so easy to access, and it was allspelled out for you. In general, the child-care serv-ices here justmakeme feel supported, like they getthatmy life is not just work at Harvard, but alsoraising a child.”

Help on the home frontHarvard programs assist employees trying to juggle careers and families,while bridging coverage gaps.

By Elizabeth Gehrman | Harvard Correspondent

Lilia Halpern-Smith can easily pop in on her son — her office is just a few blocks from the Radcliffe Child Care Center.

CAMPUS & COMMUNITY 19

Finding a campus rhythmPoliceSgt.KevinBryanthas studiedeverything fromtheBible toBuddhismtokenpokarate, bringing anappreciation forHarvard’smanycultures tohiswork.

Sgt. KevinBryant peered down froma sunny perchinside the ScienceCenter. Just outside the floor-to-ceilingwindow, the lawnbuzzedwith themorning ac-tivity of students, canvassers, and tourists. “That rightthere,” he said, “is the rhythm.”

A20-year veteran of theHarvardUniversity PoliceDepartment (HUPD), Bryant is trained to pick up onthe natural ebbs and flows of daily life at theUniver-sity. And likemany seasoned police officers, he has asixth sense forwhen something just seems off: ashady character idling in theYard, a suspicious bagleft unattended.

Bryant takes that approach one step further. Inmanyways, his entire life revolves around searching forrhythmwhere he can find it and creating harmonywhenhe can— throughBuddhistmeditation, Baptistworship, andmartial arts, or in theworld aroundhim,asHUPD’s diversity and community liaison, andcommunity policing and safety officers’ team supervi-sor.

It’s Bryant’s job tomake sure themany disparatevoices at theUniversity are being heard and re-spected.His role takesmany forms.One dayBryantcould be organizing anHUPDbasketball gameagainst theHarvardBlackMen’s Forum.Thenext, hemight host a discussion at theBusiness School in re-sponse to an uptick in street crime.

“We can’t just stay in our cruisers,” he said. “You’vegot to get out there and talk to people.”

ABaltimore native, Bryantmoved toMassachusettswith his parents as a boy.He eventually joined theSomervilleHousing PoliceDepartment, and then theHarvard force. TheUniversity job offered him “a to-tally different type of policing.”

“Where elsewould I get tomeetNelsonMandela orHisHoliness theDalai Lama?” he said of his twodecades atHarvard. “At the same time,we still havecrimes herewehave to solve. It’s a pretty goodmix.”

Three years ago, the department createdBryant’scurrent position,with the goal of improving commu-nication between the force’s 85 officers and the peo-ple they serve.

Bryant is easy-going, the kind of guywhoputs down aquadruple-espresso everymorning andmakes itseem like anherbal tea.He credits Zenmeditationwith helping him to keep a level head.

Bryant took up karate at 12 and discovered a passionformartial arts.He has studied aikido, taekwondo,and jujitsu. At age 56, hewields a fifth-degree blackbelt.

“Karate focuses you, keeps youhumble,” he said. “Itteaches you that true power is like an iceberg—mostof it is underneath the surface.”

That same emphasis onhumility and reflection en-deared him toBuddhism,which he practiced formany years before returning to his Baptist roots at hiswife’s urging. Last year, Bryantwas ordained as a dea-con at his church, andhewill soon begin training tobecome aminister.

SENIOR ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF UNIVERSITYSTEWARDSHIP AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, REQ.21200BR, GR. 059Alumni Affairs and Development, FT

ART DIRECTOR, REQ. 22131BR, GR. 057Harvard Art Museums, FT

ORACLE APPLICATIONS DEVELOPER, REQ. 22323,GR. 057Office of the University CIO (UCIO), FT

CTFS PROGRAM MANAGER, REQ. 23201, GR. 056Arnold Arboretum, FT

SPECIAL LISTINGPART-TIME LECTURERS ON SOCIAL STUDIES.More information at http://www.socialstud-ies.fas.harvard.edu. Deadline February 25,2011.

Online� See complete opportunity listingsat www.employment.harvard.edu or contactEmployment Services at 617.495.2772.

Staff News

Hot jobs

HOW TO APPLYTo apply for an advertised position or for more infor-mation on these and other listings, please connectto our new system, ASPIRE, at www.employment.har-vard.edu/. Through ASPIRE, you may complete acandidate profile and continue your career searchwith Harvard University. Harvard is strongly commit-ted to its policy of equal opportunity and affirmativeaction.

JOB SEARCH INFO SESSIONSHarvard University offers information sessions thatare designed to enhance a job-seeker's search suc-cess. These sessions may cover topics ranging frompreparing effective resumes and cover letters to tar-geting the right opportunities to successful inter-viewing techniques. Sessions are held monthly from5:30 to 7 p.m. at the Harvard Events and Informa-tion Center in Holyoke Center, 1350 MassachusettsAve., in Cambridge. More specific information isavailable online at employment.harvard.edu/ca-reers/findingajob/.

Staff Profile

PRE-RETIREMENT PLANNING PROGRAM WORKSHOP:TRANSITIONING TO THE NEXT PHASEThe average American spends 83,000 hoursworking and less than 10 hours planning for re-tirement. This is a daylong workshop for thoseexpecting to retire within the next five years;spouses/partners are welcome to attend. Top-ics include University benefits at retirement,Social Security, financial planning, lifestylechanges, and legal matters. Note that ses-sions fill quickly. Visit http://ohrdb.harvard.edu/seminars/description.php?recordID=3 for de-tails.

Next sessions: Thursday, March 31, 8:45 a.m.-4 p.m. and Wednesday, June 29, 8:45 a.m.-4p.m.

Photo by Kris Snibbe | Harvard Staff Photographer

By Katie Koch | Harvard Staff Writer

CAMPUS & COMMUNITY20 HARVARD UNIVERSITY gazette | 03-16 FEBRUARY 2011

NewsmakersHKS RECEIVES $600,000 FROM WILLIAMAND FLORA HEWLETT FOUNDATIONThe Harvard Decision Science Laboratory (HDSL), across-faculty research facility based at the HarvardKennedy School (HKS), has received a three-year,$600,000 grant from the William and Flora HewlettFoundation to support the lab’s scientific research inhuman judgment and decision making.

HDSL is a world-class biobehavioral research facilityfeaturing an innovative combination of approachesfrom psychology, economics, and neuroscience. Itprovides a model for a new type of research center,serving as a cross-disciplinary home for Harvard stu-dents and faculty to collaborate on studies examiningjudgment and choice.

“I see terrific potential in the Decision Science Lab’sunique approach and University-wide focus,” saysDavid T. Ellwood, HKS dean and Scott Black Profes-sor of Political Economy. “Through a better under-standing of the factors behind decision-makingprocesses, we can help ensure that leaders makethe most reasonable decisions in day-to-day and cri-sis situations.”

To read the full release, visit http://www.hks.har-vard.edu/news-events/news/press-releases/hdsl-hewlett-gift.

FARMER APPOINTEDUNIVERSITY PROFESSORPaul Farmer, an anthropolo-gist and physician whose re-search has helped torevolutionize the strategies fortreating infectious disease insome of the poorest cornersof the world, has been nameda University Professor, Har-vard’s highest distinction for afaculty member.

To read the full story, visit http://hvd.gs/69311.

AAAS ANNOUNCES 15 HARVARD FELLOWSThe American Association for the Advancement ofScience (AAAS) on Jan. 11 awarded 15 Harvard fac-ulty members the distinction of being named anAAAS Fellow.

To read about the fellows and their projects, visithttp://hvd.gs/70217.

FIRST EXECUTIVE DIRECTOROF NEW HARVARDLIBRARY NAMEDThe Harvard LibraryBoard named Helen Shen-ton as the first executivedirector of the new Har-vard Library, turning to aveteran of the British Li-brary to develop a morecoordinated managementstructure for the oldest li-brary in the WesternHemisphere.

The decision came at the first meeting (Dec. 20) of thenew board, which will oversee the work of the executivedirector as it reviews strategic plans for the new sys-tem and establishes a funding model to support it.

To read the full story, visit http://hvd.gs/69692.

NARSAD AWARDS $720,000 TO HARVARD RESEARCHERSTwelve from Harvard are among 214 researchersnamed NARSAD Young Investigators.

Young Investigators represent a new generation of re-searchers who will pioneer breakthroughs in mentalhealth research. Young Investigator grants are cata-lysts for additional funding, providing researcherswith “proof of concept” for their work. On average,NARSAD Young Investigators have used their grantsto leverage an additional 19 times their original grantamount and some have gone on to receive muchmore than that after proving initial hypotheses withthe first NARSAD grant support. Receiving up to$60,000 over two years, Young Investigators pursuebrain and behavior research related to schizophrenia,depression, bipolar disorder, autism, attention-deficithyperactivity disorder, and anxiety disorders, such asobsessive-compulsive disorder and post-traumaticstress disorder.

For more on the winners and their projects, visithttp://hvd.gs/70661.

NOMINATIONS OPEN FOR HARVARDCORPORATION MEMBERSAs announced in December, the Harvard Corporationwill expand from seven to 13 members, as part of abroader set of changes involving the Corporation’scomposition and work.

All members of the extended Harvard community areinvited to send advice on the search and nominate in-dividuals who would be strong candidates for the Cor-poration. Email advice and nominations tocorporationsearch@harvard.edu or mail them to theCorporation Search Committee, Harvard University,Loeb House, 17 Quincy St., Cambridge, MA 02138.Communications will be held in strict confidence.

ELECTIONS OPEN FOR OVERSEERSAND HAA DIRECTORSThis spring, Harvard University alumni can vote for anew group of Harvard Overseers and elected direc-tors for the Harvard Alumni Association (HAA) board.

Ballots will be mailed no later than April 1 and mustbe received back in Cambridge by noon on May 20 tobe counted. Results of the election will be an-nounced at the HAA’s annual meeting on May 26, onthe afternoon of Commencement day. All holders ofHarvard degrees, except Corporation members andofficers of instruction and government, are entitled tovote for Overseer candidates. The election for HAA di-rectors is open to all Harvard degree holders.

For HAA’s list of proposed candidates, visithttp://hvd.gs/70775.

HRES ESTABLISHES 2011-12 RENTSFOR HARVARD UNIVERSITY HOUSINGIn accordance with the University’s fair market rentpolicy, Harvard Real Estate Services charges marketrents for Harvard University Housing. On average,across the 3,000-unit portfolio, the proposed 2011-12 market rents will increase one percent relative tolast year. Most current Harvard University Housingtenants who choose to extend their lease for anotheryear will receive either a one percent increase or willbe charged the new market rent for their apartment,whichever rent is lower.

A pedestrian passes through a gate from Memorial Drive toHarvard University on a snowy day. Heavy snow is also whatkept walkers from attending the first Harvard on the Moveevent that was scheduled for Feb. 1. The new initiative, whichwill bring together walkers and runners from Harvard and sur-rounding communities, is slated to have twice-weekly walks(Tuesdays and Thursdays) and twice-weekly runs (Wednesdaysand Sundays). To stay abreast of what’s happening, visit Har-vard on the Move’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/Harvard.on.the.Move.

Photos: (above) by Rose Lincoln, (inset, top) by Justin Ide,(inset, bottom) by Stephanie Mitchell | Harvard Staff Photographers

CAMPUS & COMMUNITY 21

To view the proposed new market rents, which willtake effect July 1, 2011 for a term of one year, go tohttp://www.huhousing.harvard.edu orhttp://hvd.gs/71057.

ASTRONOMERS HONORED FOR EXCELLENCE, RESEARCHAt its 217th semiannual meeting in Seattle, theAmerican Astronomical Society named the recipi-ents of its 2011 prizes for achievements in re-search, instrument development, education, andwriting.

Robert P. Kirshner, Clowes Professor of Science inthe Department of Astronomy, was awarded the Dan-nie Heineman Prize in Astrophysics, given in part-nership with the American Institute of Physics,which recognizes outstanding work by midcareer as-tronomers. The Newton Lacy Pierce Prize for out-standing achievement in observational research byan early-career astronomer went to Gaspar Bakos ofthe Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

For a complete list of all the awards and winners,visit http://aas.org/press/pr2011Jan18.

INSTITUTE OF POLITICS DIRECTOR NAMEDTrey Grayson, who is completing his second term assecretary of state in Kentucky, has been named di-rector of the Institute of Politics (IOP) at Harvard Uni-versity. Grayson assumed his post on Jan. 31.

To read the full announcement, visithttp://www.iop.harvard.edu/News-Press/Press-Re-leases/Kentucky-Secretary-of-State-Trey-Grayson-Named-Director-of-Harvard%E2%80%99s-Institute-of-Politics.

GREGORY VERDINE WINS PRIZE FOR CANCER RESEARCHGregory Verdine has won the 2011 American Asso-ciation for Cancer Research (AACR) Award for Out-

standing Achievement inChemistry in Cancer Re-search. Verdine is the ErvingProfessor of Chemistry in theDepartment of Stem Cell andRegenerative Biology.

Verdine will receive $10,000and will deliver a lecture atthe AACR 102nd annual meet-ing held April 2-6, in Orlando,Fla.

For more information, visit http://www.aacr.org.

HBS FACULTY-AUTHORED BOOK GARNERS ACCLAIM“Rethinking the MBA: Business Education at a Cross-roads,” by Srikant M. Datar, the Arthur Lowes Dick-inson Professor of Accounting, and David A. Garvin,the C. Roland Christensen Professor of Business Ad-ministration, both at Harvard Business School (HBS),along with former HBS research associate Patrick G.Cullen, has been named one of the best businessbooks of 2010 by Strategy + Business magazine.

HKS ESTABLISHES KENNETH I. JUSTER FELLOWSHIP FUNDThe Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) is establishingthe Kenneth I. Juster Fellowship Fund to supportthe research of outstanding master in public policy(M.P.P.) students specializing in international andglobal affairs. The fund is endowed through a$500,000 gift from Kenneth I. Juster ’76, J.D. ’79,M.P.P. ’79, who has devoted much of his education,professional activities, and nonprofit endeavors to in-

ternational affairs.

To read the full release, visitwww.hks.harvard.edu/news-events/news/press-re-leases/juster-fellowship-fund.

HGLC SEEKS APPLICATIONS FORPUBLIC SERVICE FELLOWSHIPThe Harvard Gay & Lesbian Caucus is seeking cur-rent full-time Harvard student applicants for its 2011Public Service Fellowship.

The fellowship is a one-time grant of $5,000 madeto an individual to educate, organize, or otherwisebenefit the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendercommunity during the summer of 2011. Work can beindependent or within an existing nonprofit organiza-tion. Thesis research projects will not be funded. Par-tisan campaign activity may not be eligible.

For more information on how to apply, visithttp://hglc.org/about/fellowship.html.

IOP WELCOMES SPRING FELLOWSHarvard’s Institute of Politics (IOP) at the John F.Kennedy School of Government announced on Jan.13 the selection of an experienced group of individu-als for resident fellowships this spring. Over thecourse of an academic semester, resident fellows in-teract with students, participate in the intellectuallife of the Harvard community, and lead weekly studygroups on a range of topics.

To view the fellows and their bios, visithttp://www.iop.harvard.edu/News-Press/Press-Re-leases/.

KAFADAR NABS TURKISH HONORSTurkish President Abdullah Gül presented in Decem-ber the 2010 Presidential Grand Awards in Cultureand Arts to Cemal Kafadar for history. Kafadar isHarvard’s Vehbi Koc Professor of Turkish Studies.

To read more, visit http://hvd.gs/70670.

SHORENSTEIN CENTER ANNOUNCES SPRING FELLOWSThe Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politicsand Public Policy, located at the John F. KennedySchool of Government, has announced five springfellows.

The five Shorenstein Fellows will spend the semesterresearching and writing a paper, and interacting withstudents and members of the Harvard community.Fellows include Bob Calo, senior lecturer at the Grad-uate School of Journalism at the University of Califor-nia, Berkeley; Alexis Gelber, Shorenstein CenterGoldsmith Fellow and former editor of Newsweek;Wajahat S. Khan, journalist for the English-baseddaily, Dawn, as well as the monthly Herald, in Pak-istan; Neil Lewis, Shorenstein Center Goldsmith Fel-low; and Sandra Rowe, Shorenstein Center KnightFellow and former editor of The Oregonian in Port-land.

E.O. WILSON TO RECEIVE THOREAU PRIZEPEN New England will present this year’s HenryDavid Thoreau Prize for Literary Excellence in Na-ture Writing on Feb. 8 to author Edward O. Wilson inrecognition of his exceptional talents. Wilson is Pelle-grino University Professor Emeritus at Harvard Uni-versity. The event is free and open to the public andwill take place at 7 p.m. inside the Geological Lec-ture Hall at the Harvard Museum of Natural History.

— Compiled by Sarah Sweeney

Daniel BellSocial scientist, 91

Daniel Bell, the HenryFord II Professor of SocialSciences Emeritus at Har-vard University and one ofAmerica’s most dynamicthinkers, died on Jan. 25.He was 91. His most fa-mous books include “TheEnd of Ideology,” “TheComing of Post-Industrial

Society,” and “The Cultural Contradictions ofCapitalism” — the first and latter books werelisted by the Times Literary Supplement asamong the 100 most important books in thesecond half of the 20th century.

To read the full obituary, visithttp://hvd.gs/71762.

Max R. HallWriter and editor, 100

Max R. Hall, a formerjournalist, writer,teacher of writing, andscholarly book editor,died in Cambridge onJan. 12 at 100 yearsof age. Until his retire-ment, Hall was editorat Harvard’s Weather-head Center for Inter-

national Affairs, social sciences editor atHarvard University Press, and editorial ad-viser at Harvard Business School. He wrotenumerous articles for Harvard Magazine asone of its contributing editors.

To read the full obituary, visithttp://hvd.gs/71048.

Walter H. AbelmannProfessor of medicine, 89

Walter H. Abelmann, pro-fessor of medicine emeri-tus at Harvard MedicalSchool (HMS) and mem-ber of the faculty of theHarvard-MIT Division ofHealth Sciences Technol-ogy (HST), died on Jan. 6.He was 89. Abelmann re-ceived an A.B. from Har-

vard in 1943 and an M.D. from the Universityof Rochester in 1946.

To read the full obituary, visithttp://hvd.gs/71419.

Obituaries

HARVARD UNIVERSITY gazette | 03-16 FEBRUARY 2011CAMPUS & COMMUNITY22

Photos by Rose Lincoln | Harvard Staff Photographer

Therearenobronzedmuscles.No fakebloodor grand-standingbody slams.

But there is panting— lots of it. Andbeneath thecheers inside theMalkinAthleticCenter, soft shoestapping thematbelie thepretzel-tiedarmsandwrithing struggleof bodies atwar.

This isnot arena schmaltz.Harvardwrestlers aredoing theunthinkable—they’re actuallywrestling.

PittedagainstRutgersUniversity onJan. 7, theCrim-son showedhowunafraid—andundeterred—theywereafter three early-season losses.Of the threevicto-ries of the afternoon, lightweightStevenKeith’s ’13(125 lbs.) takedownofRutgers’ JoeLangewasoneofthemost exciting.

“I think thatmysize is aboonbecause I ammoreagile.I amquickeronmy feet andmore flexible and fluid inmywrestling,” saidKeith, aneconomics concentrator.“I knowthat I cancompetewithany 125-pounder inthenation.”

ShayWarren ’13 (133 lbs.) andnationally rankedWal-

terPeppelman ’12 (157 lbs.) alsopickedupwins againstRutgers, and, later the sameday,when theCrimsontookon theUniversity ofMaryland,Keith andPeppel-mandefeated theirmid-Atlantic opponents. IanRoy’14 (174 lbs.) alsowonhisbout againstAlexPagnotta.

CoachJayWeiss is assuredwithhiswrestlers, butstresses that it is a young team.

“When they realizehowgood theyare, itwill be fun,”he said, noting thatKeith,Peppelman,CoreyJantzen’12, andAndrewKnapp ’11 arekeywrestlers this sea-son.

“Corey is oneof thebestwrestlers Ihavebeenaround.He is so good in somanypositions.He’s very strongandworksharder thananyone Ihaveever seen.Walteris a tremendous leader.He’s verypassionate abouthisteammates andshows it.He’s finally got somebigwinsthis year andnow is ranked in the top 10 inhisweightclass, sohis confidence is veryhigh rightnow,” saidWeiss.

“Andrew is theheart and soul of this team.He’s comingoff a knee injury that sidelinedhimduringhis senioryear.Hecameback foronemore semester to accom-plishhis goals and tobewithhis teammates. Stevenhadabig year last yearqualifying for theNCAACham-pionships as a freshman;he’s got a strongdesire andhe’s a great leader.”

Weisshas amonth left topreparehis teamfor theEIWAChampionships inMarch, andafter that, theNCAAtournament.

“At thebeginningof theyearwe talkedabout ‘cutting itinhalf,’” saidWeiss. “Thepast fewyearswehavebeendevastatedwith injuries and finished 11th in the2010EIWAChampionships.We feelwecando somuchbet-ter this year sowewant to cut that inhalf.”

SaidKeith: “I’ve lost closematches to someof the topwrestlers in the countrywithoutwrestlingmybest, soI’mconfident that come theEIWA, I canwin. I amtry-ing to improvemany things technically, butmost im-portantly I amworking to improvemyselfmentally.

“I like thatwrestling is an individual sport and that Iam incontrol of everything. I determinehowhard Iworkand it ismealone thatwinsor loses. I amsolelyresponsible forhowIperform—there isnooneelse toblame.”

Wrestling ismore thana sport, stressedWeiss. It’sabout thebiggerpicture.

“Whatwedo inwrestlingwill teachus life lessons. Iconstantly tell our athletes thatwhat theyare goingthrough isnothing likewhat lifewill throwtheirway—butwewill bebetterprepared,”he said.

“We try to getbetter each timewe’reon themat,whether it bepracticeor competition. I’malways con-fident thingswill turn for thebetter.Whynot? Ihaveasayingonmydesk that reads, ‘Mundi ex igne factusest,’whichmeans ‘theworld ismadeof fire.’

“It’s a reminder that suffering andstruggle are theways to truth, tounderstanding…We learn thebestthroughadverse situations. Soyes, I knowwewill turnthings around. I trulybelieve ineachandeveryoneofthem. It’s part of theprocess, andwewill all bebetterbecauseof it.”

Wrestling: The bigger pictureHarvardwrestlers work toward a turnaroundafter an early-season losing streak.

By Sarah Sweeney | Harvard Staff Writer

Athletics

Shay Warren (left) picked up a win against Rutgers. Wrestlingcoach Jay Weiss describes his team as young. “When theyrealize how good they are, it will be fun,” he said.

Calendar

FEB. 5Play It As It Lays: The Films ofHong Sangsoo.“Oki’s Movie (Ok-hu ui yeonghwa)”screens at 7 p.m. Director in person.Special event tickets are $12. In Koreanwith English subtitles. Series runsthrough Feb. 7. hcl.harvard.edu/hfa/.

FEB. 9The Anti-Immigrant Right & the Future ofPolitical Polling.Pop Center, 9 Bow Street, 4:10-5:30p.m. Matt A. Barreto. Free. bruce_jackan@hks.harvard.edu, 617.495.7548, ash.harvard.edu/Home/News-Events/Events/The-Anti-Immigrant-Right-the-Future-of-Political-Polling.

FEB. 12-MARCH 13AJAX.Loeb Drama Center, 64 Brattle St.American Repertory Theater presentsSophocles’ tragedy, in a new translationby Charles Connaghan and directed bySarah Benson. Tuesdays through Sun-days at 7:30 p.m., matinees on Satur-days and Sundays at 2 p.m. Tickets

begin at $25. 617.547.8300, ameri-canrepertorytheater.org/membership.

FEB. 13Valentine’s Day in the Animal Kingdom.Harvard Museum of Natural History,26 Oxford St., 2 p.m. Family programwith Alexis Harrison and Emily Kay ex-ploring unusual and bizarre ways thatanimals search for and win over com-panions. We’ll learn why peacocks dis-play their colorful tails, bighorn sheepfight with their horns, and frogs singsongs to express their romantic inter-est. Free with museum admission.617.495.3045, hmnh.harvard.edu.

FEB. 16Artist Talk with Dan Sousa.

Room B-04, Carpenter Center, 24Quincy St., 6-7 p.m. Dan Sousa, filmanimator. 617.495.3251, ves.fas.har-vard.edu/sousa.html.

ONGOING THROUGH MAY 29Exhibition: Tangible Things.Featuring nearly 200 intriguing objectsfrom across the University that chal-lenge classification. Visitors begin inthe Collection of Historical Scientific In-struments, Room 251, Science Center,One Oxford St., and then can take partin a University-wide scavenger hunt todiscover the many guest objects care-fully inserted into exhibitions at sevenof Harvard’s public museums. fas.har-vard.edu/~hsdept/chsi-tangible_things.html.

HIGHLIGHTS FOR FEBRUARY 2011

See complete Calendar online�news.harvard.edu/gazette/section/calendar

The deadline for Calendar submissions isWednesday by 5 p.m., unless otherwisenoted. Calendar events are listed in fullonline. All events need to be submittedvia the online form at news.harvard.edu/gazette/calendar-submission. Emailcalendar@harvard.edu with questions.

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HARVARD gazetteHolyoke Center 1060Cambridge, MA 02138

Photos and text by Rose Lincoln | Harvard Staff Photographer

Online� View photo gallery: hvd.gs/70483

Unlike the other undergraduate residences at Har-vard, Currier House on the Radcliffe Quadrangle isnamed solely for a woman.

Audrey Bruce Currier House opened in 1970, namedafter a Radcliffe alumna who had died in a planecrash. The architects, Harrison and Abramovitz, sur-veyed students about their desires for housing, andso pioneered small clusters of dorm units, each withupstairs bedrooms and a downstairs living room.Currier also was planned to include freshmen, tobenefit from a mix of ages.

Shaped like an E with sloping, green courtyards be-tween the arms, it was the first Harvard undergradu-ate dorm to house faculty members, and even had achild-care center. Other unusual features includedsewing rooms and a laundry in the solarium, a pho-tography studio, a music-dance facility, and a skat-ing court. It now houses men as well as women.

But all of Currier’s four pavilions are named forwomen graduates. Resident Nadia Farjood ’13 said,“It is inspiring walking through the doors of Currierand seeing the faces of five women, all distin-guished alumnae of Radcliffe College, to my left.Much wall space at Harvard is devoted to images of

men, and I am proud to live in the only Housenamed exclusively after a woman.” Farjood is a co-director of the Athena Program, a gender-empower-ment program associated with Harvard’s PhillipsBrooks House Association.

Inside Currier, common spaces have offbeat namessuch as “the Fishbowl,” “the Treehouse,” and “theMousehole.” Four groups of 10 single bedrooms sur-round the largest in-suite common rooms at the Col-lege. One suite, less aptly named at Currier, isknown as “the Ten Man.”

Where women set the tone

A look inside: Currier House