Brevia

Business Dean’s Calling

In response to a May 25 call from President Gordon B. Hinckley of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the dean of Harvard Business School, Kim B. Clark, announced on June 6, just before Commencement, that he would resign on July 31 to become president of Brigham Young University-Idaho. Clark, dean since 1995, said that he had been contemplating stepping down, but would not have done so at this point had he not been called. He came to Harvard as an undergraduate in 1967, and met a fellow student, Lawrence H. Summers, in 1976, during their doctoral studies in economics. President Summers offered warm praise for Clark, and said he would appoint an acting dean soon. More complete coverage will appear in the next issue.

Worth Thousands of Words

A portrait of the late Eileen Jackson Southern, professor of Afro-American studies and of music, was one of six unveiled on May 6 by the Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations (www.fas.harvard.edu/~harvfoun). The foundation’s continuing student-faculty portraiture project to recognize distinguished, long-time teachers and administrators also honored the late Archie C. Epps III, the College’s former dean of students; senior admissions officer David L. Evans; the late Kiyo Morimoto, former director of the Bureau of Study Counsel; Rulan Pian, professor of East Asian languages and civilizations and of music emerita; and Rabb Research Professor of anthropology Stanley J. Tambiah. Present at the ceremony were (from left) the artist, Stephen Coit ’71, M.B.A. ’77, President Lawrence H. Summers, who praised the project for helping ensure that Harvard’s walls reflect the many individuals and groups who have made profound contributions to the University, and Foundation director S. Allen Counter.

Sean T. Buffington
Jon Chase / Harvard News Office

Arts Officer

Sean T. Buffington ’91, who has been assistant provost, assumes a new portfolio as associate provost, charged with formulating what he calls “the first comprehensive arts plan for the University,” effective July 1. Assisted by a new advisory committee of faculty members and leaders of Harvard cultural organizations that will be convened this fall, Buffington will be responsible for planning cultural components of the campus development in Allston and setting fundraising priorities. President Lawrence H. Summers said that the initiative would “turn a bright light on some of Harvard’s most precious treasures and talented individuals.” Buffington will continue as the provost’s liaison to the American Repertory Theatre, Harvard University Art Museums, and Villa I Tatti.

DEAS Dean Departs
Venkatesh Narayanamurti
Jon Chase / Harvard News Office

Venkatesh Narayanamurti, dean of the Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences and dean for physical sciences in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, will leave those posts next June. Since coming to Harvard in 1998, Narayanamurti has presided over rapid faculty growth and planning for expansion in engineering and related fields. He will return to full-time teaching and research.

Education Leader

Lesser professor in early childhood development Kathleen McCartney was appointed acting dean of Harvard Graduate School of Education on June 6. A search is being conducted for the permanent successor to Ellen Condliffe Lagemann, who left the deanship on June 30. McCartney joined the faculty in 2000 and has been academic dean. She is principal investigator for the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development study of early child care and youth development.

Tribe’s Tribulation

As was reported last fall, a 1985 book by Loeb University Professor Laurence H. Tribe, God Save This Honorable Court, contained language from Henry J. Abraham’s earlier work, Justices and Presidents (see “Brevia,” November-December 2004, page 62). Although Tribe cited Abraham’s book, his own work was not footnoted, and the passages in question were not identified as quoted material. Tribe acknowledged the failure to attribute the material and apologized to Abraham. President Lawrence H. Summers and Law School dean Elena Kagan asked president emeritus Derek Bok, former Faculty of Arts and Sciences dean Jeremy R. Knowles, and Pforzheimer University Professor Sidney Verba to investigate. In a statement issued on April 13, Summers and Kagan announced that the “unattributed material related more to matters of phrasing than to fundamental ideas” and was included as “the product of inadvertence rather than intentionality.” Even so, they found the error to be “a significant lapse in proper academic practice,” and having so informed Tribe of that finding, “now consider the matter closed.” In a statement, Tribe reiterated his apology and acceptance of responsibility from last fall. No further official statement has been issued about the separate use of another author’s work by Climenko professor of law Charles J. Ogletree Jr. in his book, All Deliberate Speed. In late April, Ogletree was the main speaker at a University staff luncheon briefing, complete with book signing, at the faculty club.

Public-Private Partnership

The Kennedy School’s Center for Business and Government will be supported by a $15-million endowment gift from Sharmin Mossavar-Rahmani, a managing director at Goldman Sachs, and Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani, M.P.A. ’82, chair of the private Mondoil Enterprises. Current center programs include research into and conferences on social responsibility, environmental economics, energy policy, trade, AIDS, and regulation.

Protest Permission

“Deans May Not Allow Protest,” the Crimson highlighted on April 12, reporting that the Harvard Social Forum had not filled out the paperwork required to demonstrate outside the Science Center when Central Intelligence Agency and Department of Homeland Security recruiters appeared on campus. Explained associate dean of the College Judith H. Kidd, the organizers had failed to register properly for a rally. The students responded that the event was publicized only the weekend before. In the event, a small protest went off, Kidd in the meantime having rescinded her refusal to permit it. Meanwhile, inside the Science Center briefing, where a crowd of students appeared to hear the recruiters, a separate disruptive protest was conducted, complete with mock hoodings and deportations. That action met with sharp condemnation from a Crimson columnist and editorialists.

Nota Bene

Economics oracles. Baker professor of economics Martin S. Feldstein, who began teaching Social Analysis 10 (“Principles of Economics”) in 1984, after chairing the Council of Economic Advisers under President Ronald Reagan, is handing the reins off to Freed professor of economics N. Gregory Mankiw next fall. Mankiw, whose text is used in the huge course, just completed his service as chair of the council under President George W. Bush.

Attacking AIDs. As part of an initiative announced in April by the William J. Clinton Presidential Foundation to get AIDS drugs and clinical services to poor children in Africa and Asia, $5 million will support the work of Presley professor of social medicine Paul E. Farmer. He has run a renowned clinic in rural Haiti, work profiled in Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder ’67 (see November-December 2003, page 38). Farmer will begin work in a rural Rwanda hospital abandoned since the 1994 genocide.

Amy Dockser-Marcus
Schram

Prize scribes. Amy Dockser-Marcus ’87 won a Pulitzer Prize for her Wall Street Journal series describing the lives of cancer patients. Kennedy School lecturer Samantha Power, J.D. ’99—winner in 2003 of a Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle prize for her book on genocide, A Problem from Hell—this April won a National Magazine Award for her New Yorker reporting from Darfur.

MAC makeover. Peter S. Malkin ’55, J.D. ’58, has established an $8-million challenge fund to spur additional renovation of Malkin Athletic Center, the principal University fitness venue located within Cambridge. The 100,000-square-foot building was partially renovated 20 years ago. More fitness equipment was added last summer.

Lan Samantha Chang
Marion Ettlinger

PR and press. The Nieman Foundation, which provides fellowships to working journalists, on May 12 withdrew an offer to co-host an effort to train Chinese media-relations officials for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Current fellows and alumni had objected to curator Robert H. Giles about Chinese constraints on the press and stressed the organization’s service to news professionals. The training program, organized by Ezra F. Vogel, Ford research professor of the social sciences, will likely proceed under the auspices of Harvard’s Asia Center and Fairbank Center for East Asian Research.

Miscellany. Briggs-Copeland lecturer on English and American literature and language Lan Samantha Chang, M.P.A. ’91, a 2000-01 Radcliffe Institute Fellow, has been appointed the new director of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.…Jason Kamras, Ed.M. ’00, was named National Teacher of the Year; he teaches mathematics at John Philip Sousa Middle School in Washington, D.C.

 

Washing Widener

The library’s Tercententary Theatre side having been carefully cleansed and repointed last year (see “Face-Lift,” September-October 2004, page 60), the Mass. Ave. face was veiled, and the entryway replanted, this spring in the weeks preceding Commencement. As soon as the graduation exercises concluded on June 9, the east and west sides were scaffolded, screened, and subjected to the same restorative treatment, completing Widener’s restoration, inside and out.

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