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July-August 2007
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< previous | 1 | 2 Nota BeneAesthetics and economics. The little-used ground-floor economics library in Littauer Center closed in June, and will emerge as the (long-term) temporary home of the fine-arts library. That collection is being displaced as part of the preparations to renovate the Fogg Art Museum-Busch-Reisinger complex, a multiyear project scheduled to begin in 2008. 
Photograph by Tony Rinaldo James R. Houghton 
Photograph by Tony Rinaldo Maisie Kinnicutt Houghton Pro arte. James R. Houghton 58, M.B.A. 62, Senior Fellow of the Harvard Corporation, and his wife, Maisie Kinnicutt Houghton ’62, have endowed the Harvard University Art Museum’s curatorship of contemporary art; James Houghton is chair of the Metropolitan Museum of Art board, and a trustee of the Pierpont Morgan Library. Separately, David Rockefeller, S.B. ’36, LL.D. ’69, established the new Abby Aldrich Rockefeller curatorship of Asian art, reflecting appreciation in the endowment he created 50 years ago to create a professorship in honor of his mother, who was deeply involved in the Museum of Modern Art from its inception—a tradition that he has continued. Strike season. Perhaps emulating hunger strikers at Stanford and the University of Vermont, Harvard students conducted a nine-day end-of-term hunger strike in support of security guards, represented by the Service Employees International Union, who were in contract negotiations with AlliedBarton, an outside contractor. Two students were hospitalized for low sodium levels. The University restated its policy that contractors must satisfy compensation parity standards established in 2001, and agreed to audit the company’s compliance, but declined to weigh in on the negotiations. Other protests during the spring resulted in the arrest by Harvard police of four students who interrupted a speech by FBI director Robert S. Mueller III at the Kennedy School—charges were dropped at the University’s request—and a show of opposition to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, J.D. ’82, during his twenty-fifth Harvard Law School reunion. It was followed by a letter critical of his administration signed by 56 classmates and published in the Washington Post. Literary link, mind measure. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences voted on April 10 to discontinue the standing committee on degrees in literature and to merge it into the department of comparative literature, under the new name of literature and comparative literature. Undergraduate degrees will continue to be awarded in literature, and graduate degrees in comparative literature. On May 1, the faculty approved changing the Mind/Brain/Behavior program from an interdisciplinary committee to a full-fledged instructional committee offering its own courses. Miscellany. Enel, an Italian energy company, has endowed the environmental economics program at the Kennedy School of Government with a $5-million gift.…As of mid May, nearly 80 percent of applicants offered admission to the College class of 2011 had accepted, comparable to the prior year’s result; women continue to outnumber men, 826 to 804.…Final agreement has been reached to return to the Danilov Monastery in Moscow the bells now hanging in the Lowell House tower, in return for newly cast replicas (see “Bell Swap,” November-December 2006, page 88); the exchange is expected to be effected in the summer of 2008.…Bass professor of English and American literature and language Louis Menand will be one of 15 fellows at the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers during the 2007-2008 academic year.…U.S. News & World Report ranked Harvard Business School the best graduate business program; Harvard Medical School the best research institution in its field; Harvard Law School tied with Stanford for second (behind Yale); and Harvard Graduate School of Education third (behind Columbia’s Teachers College and Stanford). Installation: Save the Date
Drew Gilpin Faust will be formally installed as president on Friday, October 12, in Tercentenary Theatre. The academic procession is scheduled to begin at 2:00 P.M., and the ceremony at 2:30.  
 
 
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