University People

Masters in the House(s)

Jay and Cheryl Harris

Rose Lincoln / Harvard News Service

Dean of Harvard College Harry R. Lewis announced on April 16 the appointment of new masters and co-masters for three residential Houses. Jay M. Harris, Wolfson professor of Jewish studies and a Harvard College Professor, and Cheryl Harris, a school counselor and psychologist, will take up the reins at Cabot House. Harris will be in an unusually strategic—and busy—position during his first year as master: he cochairs the committee examining students’ overall academic experience as part of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences review of the undergraduate curriculum (see "Undergraduate Education Overseers," March-April, page 49). On the other side of the Quadrangle lawn, the Shad professor of business ethics at Harvard Business School, Joseph L. Badaracco Jr., M.B.A. ’78, D.B.A. ’81, and Patricia A. O’Brien, D.B.A. ’86—dean of the Simmons College School of Management, and formerly a junior faculty member at Harvard Business School—will become the leaders of Currier House; they are joined by their daughter Gabriella, age 10. Down by the Charles River, Stephen Peter Rosen ’74, Ph.D. ’79, Kaneb professor of national security and military affairs and director of the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies, who is also a Harvard College Professor, and Mandana Sassanfar, a tutor in biochemical sciences, become master and co-master of Winthrop House. They will be assisted by their sons Guive, 13, and Kamran, 11.

Patricia O’Brien and Joseph L. Badaracco with Gabriella		Mandana Sassanfar and Stephen Rosen with Kamran and Guive
Kris Snibbe / Harvard News Office		Stephanie Mitchell / Harvard News Office

Transatlantic Architects

Experienced diplomat Henry A. Kissinger ’50, Ph.D. ’54, the former secretary of state, and Harvard president Lawrence H. Summers, the former secretary of the treasury, are cochairing a Council on Foreign Relations task force seeking ways to mend the relationship between the United States and Europe following the United Nations debate about war against Iraq. The task force will report this fall.

Gene Corbin

Kris Snibbe / Harvard News Office

Public Servant

Phillips Brooks House Association, the student public-service organization, has appointed Gene Corbin, M.P.A. ’01, its executive director. The Kennedy School researcher and teaching fellow in government has been a community organizer in Texas and Mississippi, served in a Haitian development organization, and taught at an inner-city school in Fort Worth. He will work with PBHA’s 70 student-led programs, supervise the professional staff, oversee the finances, and represent the association externally.

Consummate Critic

Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney, Litt.D. ’98, formerly Boylston professor and now Ralph Waldo Emerson poet in residence, won the 2003 Capote Award for literary criticism for Finders Keepers: Selected Prose 1971-2001. The prize, administered by the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, is the leading annual recognition for literary criticism in the English language.

Archivist’s Adieu

University Archivist Harley P. Holden, who joined the staff in 1960 and assumed his current position in 1971 (only the third incumbent since the office was formally created in 1938), retires August 31. Holden (see November-December 1998, page 97) is a legendary gardener and chronicler of New England roads, almost every mile of which he has traveled.