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Kennedy Quartet
Kennedy School of Government dean Joseph Nye announced four significant faculty appointments in February. Sociologist William Julius Wilson, a specialist on poverty and race relations, comes to Harvard from the University of Chicago. His books include The Truly Disadvantaged and The Declining Significance of Race. (Wilson will also be affiliated with the departments of Afro-American studies and sociology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.) Labor economist George Borjas, who specializes in regulation and immigration, arrives from the University of California, San Diego. Sociologist Chris-topher Jencks '58, Ed.M. '59, author of Inequality, returns to Harvard (where he taught from 1969 to 1980) from Northwestern University. And Katherine Newman, an anthropologist who focuses on downward mobility in the middle class and the urban working poor, comes from Columbia. All four join the school's Wiener Center for Social Policy for the fall term.

What's in a Name?
Recognizing new disciplines and missions, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences recently approved name changes for two academic units. Paul C. Martin '52, Ph.D. '54, Van Vleck professor of pure and applied physics and dean of the division of applied sciences, told the faculty that the division has "strengthened and expanded its engineering programs" over the past decade and that "students can receive an excellent engineering education at Harvard." Accordingly, the University now has a division of engineering and applied sciences.

Across Oxford Street, the chemists have been cooking up new syntheses as well, in the emerging discipline named "chemical biology" by professor emeritus Konrad E. Bloch, a 1964 Nobel Prize-winner. The new field, not to be confused with biochemistry, examines how molecules are made and how they operate in cells. To the relief of Harvard administrators, Lawrence professor of chemistry David A. Evans proposed that the department he chairs be renamed the department of chemistry and chemical biology, rather than have the new field spun off and housed separately.

Both christenings take effect July 1.

Tuition Trend
Undergraduates will pay Harvard $28,896 in the 1996-97 academic year. The increase over the current-year tuition, room, and board bill ($27,575) amounts to 4.8 percent-the smallest such increase in College costs since 1969. Unhappily, the rate of growth still handily exceeds the general rate of inflation. Unless the increase in costs for 1997-1998 is held below 3.8 percent, that year at Harvard will cost more than $30,000. The $10,000 barrier fell in the 1982 fiscal year, the $20,000 mark in fiscal 1991. University administrators cite information technology and library expenses as factors driving the higher bills.

The Millenial Class
Applicants for the Harvard-Radcliffe class of 2000 numbered 18,190, a 2 percent increase from the prior year. Offers of admission were made to 1,985 applicants, or 10.9 percent, "by far the lowest rate ever," according to William R. Fitzsimmons '67, dean of admissions and financial aid. One intriguing note: for the second consecutive year, the number of prospective Harvardians who say they intend to concentrate in the humanities rose, this year to nearly 27 percent.

Moves West, Sprouts Big Ears
Michael P. Berry, who left the University of California, Irvine, to become director of Harvard Dining Services in 1991, has returned to the west. But the omnipresent and hyperactive Berry, popularly known as the "Mealtime Messiah" for his improvements in campus food (Harvard Magazine, September-October 1991, page 67), will still be working with food, and with young people: effective April 1, he was appointed vice president for food services at Disneyland. He leaves behind a record of awards for industry leadership-and students grateful for everything from cookouts to surprise presentations of their favorite recipes from home, submitted by their solicitous parents.

Regional Resources
With emphasis increasing throughout the University on international studies, the Russian Research Center has received a $10 million gift from the Shelby Cullom Davis Foundation. Beyond endowing the work of the center, which has been renamed the Kathryn W. and Shelby Cul-lom Davis Center for Russian Studies, the funds will bring residents of the former Soviet Union to Harvard-up to five graduate students each year, plus one prominent citizen who will join the center as a resident scholar. This is the second such gift to the University Campaign designated for international studies; the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies was created in 1994.

In the Public Interest
With a $2.3 million gift from the family of Morris Wasserstein, of New York City, the Law School has established the Morris Wasserstein public interest professorship. Previous contributions by the family, whose members include investment banker Bruce Wasserstein, J.D. '70, M.B.A. '71, established the Law School's public interest summer fellowships and a program that brings public-interest law practitioners to Cambridge to speak to law students.

Nota Bene
New Chair: At the Medical School, Judith Palfrey becomes the first holder of a professorship honoring T. Berry Brazelton, the nationally known pediatrician. Palfrey joined the medical faculty as clinical instructor in pediatrics in 1975 and has subsequently held a number of other positions, including, since 1986, chief of general pediatrics at Children's Hospital.

Moving On
Richard Pipes, Ph.D. '50, Baird professor of history and teacher of Historical Study B-56, "The Russian Revolution," plans to retire at the end of this academic year. A member of the faculty since 1958, Pipes last autumn published A Concise History of the Russian Revolution, a precis of his earlier works, The Russian Revolution and Russia under the Bolshevik Regime.

J. Woodward ("Woody") Hastings and Hanna Hastings will retire as co-masters of Pforzheimer (formerly North) House this June after 20 years in residence. Woody Hastings, Mangelsdorf professor of natural sciences, plans to focus anew on research and teaching. The Hastings's Quad neighbors, Cabot House co-masters Jurij Striedter and Emanuela Striedter, will also step down; Jurij Striedter, Reisinger professor of Slavic languages and literatures, will retire at year's end.

Moving Up
Anne Margulies has become the University's assistant provost for information systems. While continuing to oversee the remaking of Harvard's data-processing systems, she also assumes responsibility for the office of information technology, which installs and maintains the University's computers and communications networks.

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