Brevia

Robert E. Rubin

U.S. Treasury

Coming Attraction

The Harvard Alumni Association's guest speaker on Commencement afternoon will be former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Robert E. Rubin '60, earlier of Goldman, Sachs and now chairman of the ex-ecutive committee of Cit-igroup Inc. The location and some of those present will be familiar to Rubin: his two sons, James '89 and Philip '93, collected their degrees fairly recently; his classmate, John P. Reardon Jr., will be on the stage in his capacity as executive director of the HAA; and Harvard president-elect Lawrence H. Summers, Ph.D. '82, served as understudy and successor to Rubin at the Treasury. That Summers and Rubin should cross paths June 7 nicely illustrates Harvard's tubs proceeding on their own bottoms: the honorary-degree recipients and Commencement speaker were chosen months before the presidential search process concluded.

Senior Master Steps Down

Michael Shinagel

Jane Reed/Harvardd

Michael Shinagel, master of Quincy House, and his wife, co-master Marjorie L. North, announced in March that they would step down in June after 15 years of service, a decision North described as tinged with "bittersweetness." Shinagel, currently the longest-serving master, will continue as dean of the Division of Continuing Education and University Extension; North expects to continue teaching at Northeastern University and in the Extension School. A search for their successors, led by the dean of the College, Harry R. Lew-is, is now under way.

Fresh Direction for the ART?

President Neil L. Rudenstine is leading the search for a new artistic director of the American Repertory Theatre (ART), the professional company housed at the Loeb Drama Center. Longtime director Robert S. Brustein, whose position as director of the Loeb went to former managing director Robert J. Orchard last year, is expected to stay at Harvard in some as yet undetermined capacity. Undergraduates involved in the dramatic arts, faced with the loss of Agassiz Theatre to the Radcliffe Institute, hope student productions will get more time on the Loeb mainstage under a new ART director. Administrators would like to see more direct pedagogical contact between the ART professionals and Harvard undergraduates as well.

Peter M. Sellars

Courtesy Arts First

Nota Bene

Crimson cachet. The number of applicants for admission to the College class of 2005 rose by slightly more than 300 compared to last year, reaching a new record total of 19,010.

History, music, the world. Sugata Bose, now at Tufts, becomes the Gardiner professor of oceanic history and affairs next fall, filling a long vacancy in South Asian studies...Ingrid T. Monson of Washington University has been named the first Quincy Jones pro-fessor in African-American music...Trading down to a smaller stage, but focusing on similar concerns, John G. Ruggie, assistant secretary-general of the United Nations, will become Kirkpatrick professor of International affairs at the Kennedy School.

Artist honored. This year's Harvard Arts Medalist is Peter M. Sellars '80, professor at UCLA (where he teaches "Art as Moral Action"), and a director of opera, theater, and film. He was artistic director of the Los Angeles Festival and the Boston Shakespeare Company, and has collaborated with composer John Adams and librettist June Jordan on an "earthquake/romance," I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky. He will be recognized at Arts First, held May 3-6 this year.

Art scholars honored. Reinhold Brinkmann, Ditson professor of music, receives the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize from the Bavarian Academy of fine Arts on May 31, in recognition of his scholarship on modern music. The College Art Association conferred its Alfred H. Barr Jr. Award for museum scholarship on Yve-Alain Bois, Pulitzer professor of modern art, for his 1999 exhibition catalogue, Matisse and Picasso.

 

BUT WILL HE SING? Harvard seniors picked Bono, of the rock group U2, for Class Day speaker. He performs on Wednesday afternoon, June 6, in Tercentenary Theatre.