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Century MarkCelebration, with a purpose |
In a series of autumn events, Harvard Magazine celebrated 100 years of serving its readers. Joined by alumni, professors, administrators, and the contributors whose work appears in these pages, the magazine's staff also reaffirmed our commitment to bring you journalism of the highest quality we can manage on the lives and work of Harvard people, and the challenges facing this special community.
Festival Rites
At a November 4 reception for alumni, writers, artists, and others, Dudley Herschbach, Ph.D. '58, Jf '59, Baird professor of science, updated his November-December 1995 cover story ("Ben Franklin's 'Scientific Amusements'") by reading one of the young Franklin's pseudonymous newspaper columns that poked fun at Harvard and "Academical Learning." Contributing editor Edward Tenner, Jf '72, reminded us that the magazine, founded as a thin newspaper in an era when many journals spoke to society's educated class, is now among the few modern media hewing to that same purpose.
The principal celebratory occasion--a dinner at the Fogg Museum on November 7--mixed warm sentiments with serious reflections on Harvard Magazine's unusual role: as an editorially independent, alumni-controlled publication reporting on alma mater--skeptically, where warranted--on its readers' behalf. Because their remarks are an important assessment of what the magazine is today, you will find excerpts from the speeches by Daniel Steiner '54, LL.B. '58, president of Harvard Magazine Inc.; University president Neil L. Rudenstine, Ph.D. '64; Jeremy R. Knowles, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences; and the guest speaker, Derek Brewer, LL.D. '84, master emeritus of Emmanuel College, Cambridge--John Harvard's alma mater. Excerpts from the rollicking readings from issues past by John T. Bethell '54, editor from 1966 to 1994, and Anne Fadiman '74, a former "Undergraduate" columnist for the magazine, also appear there.
New Leadership
We began our centennial celebration by convening a substantive gathering of Harvard alumni and faculty experts to address a very real problem as the century ends. Given understandable concerns about the quality of modern leadership worldwide, on October 20 the magazine conducted a day-long symposium in New York City with the Conference Board on "The New Leadership: Visions for the Twenty-First Century."
How does one lead a global enterprise? Raymond V. Gilmartin, M.B.A. '68, focused on the core values and ethical precepts that animate Merck & Co. Inc.'s pharmaceuticals business. Gilmartin, chairman, president, and chief executive officer, recalled his second day on the job, when he read a speech given decades earlier by George W. Merck, who insisted that "medicine is for the people, not for the profits" (which follow in due course). He then explained how Merck applies that principle today to problems ranging from pricing an AIDS medicine to operating in countries where bribery is the norm.
Subsequent speakers addressed running a public agency with a sense of mission (Mark Gearan '78, director of the Peace Corps), and the struggle to lead in the face of an "investigative culture" (Walter Isaacson '74, managing editor of Time). Education professor Howard Gardner '65, Ph.D. '71, analyzed how leaders like Gearan and Gilmartin embody their organizations' principles by the stories they tell. Laura Nash, Ph.D. '76, director of the Divinity School's program on business, values, and leadership, explored how difficult it is to embody such values in an era that recognizes neither superpowers nor superheroes.
How then to proceed? Bruce A. Pasternack of Booz*Allen & Hamilton, co-sponsor of the conference, outlined leadership in the "centerless corporation." Robert B. Shapiro '59, chairman, president, and chief executive officer, explained how he restructured Monsanto Company along those lines, doing away with traditional hierarchies in search of an organic system modeled on the company's new life-sciences business. The Kennedy School's Ronald Heifetz, M.D. '77, M.P.A. '83, author of Leadership without Easy Answers (and the subject of this magazine's March-April 1995 cover story), suggested that such "adaptive" work involves leadership separate from conventional notions of authority. In this context, he said, leaders must find "anchors" so they can maintain perspective on themselves and their professional roles.
Doing so becomes imperative in an ever-faster-moving environment powered by high-speed communications. William T. Esrey, M.B.A. '64, chairman and chief executive officer of Sprint Corporation, sketched a not-distant future where communications technologies will enable leaders to cut across space, time, and cultures almost effortlessly. In which spirit, we urge readers interested in the full proceedings, including the comments of moderator James Fallows '70, to visit our website.
 
Adam Goodheart '92 (top) and Andrew Tobias '68, M.B.A. '72. BRIAN SMITH/ OUTLINE SALAMON/ ABRAMS
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Prizes and Prospects
Turning to the magazine's immediate past, the editors are pleased to reinstate two prizes--each carrying a $1,000 award--that are intended to recognize the best work appearing in these pages each year, and to encourage excellent contributions to future issues.
The McCord Writing Prize, named for the inimitable David T.W. McCord '21, A.M. '22, L.H.D. '56, whose stewardship made this a much broader, better magazine during World War II, honors the superb writing he brought to Harvardians for decades. It is a fitting pleasure to confer the 1998 prize on Adam Goodheart '92, author of "Freshman plus 10" in the centennial issue. The Smith-Weld Prize honors the memories of A. Calvert Smith '14, a former associate editor of the magazine; and of Philip S. Weld '36, former president, who especially advocated thought-provoking articles pertaining to Harvard. The 1998 prize certainly goes to Andrew Tobias '68, M.B.A. '72, for "Gay Like Me," the January-February cover story, which elicited passionate correspondence from readers of all ages and persuasions.
We begin our second century with journalism on another emotionally charged subject: the use of animals in medical research. After the magazine twice ran advertisements by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (most recently in May-June 1997) assailing such research, medical scientists and animal-rights advocates debated the issue in our letters columns. We then asked contributing editor John Lauerman to go into Harvard's laboratories and the animal-rights community. His report will not still the central moral and philosophical controversies. But it illuminates a serious dispute, and suggests a middle ground where regulation is reducing abuse and inadequate care of laboratory animals, and where researchers are searching for better, less consumptive techniques.
On issues like these, we believe, Harvard Magazine readers, as always, want information and the opportunity to think for themselves.
~ John S. Rosenberg