Military Message
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| General Richard B. Myers |
| Photograph by Jon Chase / Harvard News Office |
"Never before has there been a time when you can be more proud to be in public service, where you can make the biggest difference," General Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told an audience (male by a margin of six to one) at a packed ARCO Forum speech at the Kennedy School of Government on April 4. "Imperatives of the Global War on Terrorism" include long-term commitment and international cooperation and the formation of coalitions, the general said. "Defense is important, but we can't build walls high enough" to protect civilians from potential suicide bombers on American turf, he explained. "This is why we go on the offensive."
Wages Reworked, Part II
Round two of renegotiating service-workers' wages, stimulated by the report of the Harvard Committee on Employment and Contracting Policies, concluded May 7. This session concerned only wages for the Harvard University Security, Parking, and Museum Guards Union, not the full range of contract terms covered in the earlier talks between the University and janitors (see "Brevia," May-June, page 61). The new terms include starting wages of at least $11.15 per hour, retroactive to July 1, 2001, and rising to $11.35 per hour this July; depending on seniority and job class, those figures rise as high as $12.25 and $12.70, respectively. The entry-level wage had been as low as $8.75. Negotiations with dining-service employees, the third group of affected workers, were also underway. An in-house report on the University's compliance with the committee's recommendations is available at the Office of Human Resources website, www.hr.harvard.edu.
West Goes Southwest
In a final burst of publicity (complete with interviews on National Public Radio and copies of a forthcoming Vanity Fair article faxed to newspaper reporters), Fletcher University Professor Cornel West accepted Princeton's invitation to return as Class of 1943 University Professor of Religion. West, whose disagreements with President Lawrence H. Summers became the stuff of national headlines in December and January (see "War of Words," March-April, page 60), was quoted in Princeton's April 12 news release on the appointment as looking forward "to being a part of President Tilghman's vision that promotes high quality intellectual conversation mediated with respect." In interviews separately, he called Summers "the Ariel Sharon of American higher education" and assailed him as "a bully, in a very delicate and dangerous situation." Summers formally expressed gratitude to West "for his significant contributions to Harvard's academic life," especially for "the great inspiration he provided to so many students" (more than 1,000 of whom had signed petitions urging West to remain). Henry Louis Gates Jr., DuBois professor of the humanities and chairman of Afro-American studies, more mournfully cited West's roles as teacher, scholar, and citizen of the department "without parallel," and extended him best wishes personally and on behalf of his faculty colleagues.
Decamping for a Deanship
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| Anne-Marie Slaughter |
| ©Gerard Uferas / Harvard Law Bulletin |
Also headed to Princeton is Anne-Marie Slaughter, Armstrong professor of international, foreign, and comparative law, to become dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, from which she received her undergraduate degree in 1980; she joins the department of politics as well. Slaughter earned master's and doctoral degrees at Oxford, and a J.D. at Harvard in 1985. Appointed to the law school faculty in 1994, she assumed her present chair two years later, and became director of graduate and international legal studies in 1998. Her research has focused on global governance and on international tribunals (see "Conflict, Abroad and at Home," January-February, page 45).
On the World Stage
Jeffrey D. Sachs '76, Ph.D. '80, Jf '81, Stone professor of international trade and director of the Center for International Development, has ended his Harvard career. Known for recommending "shock" therapy to reform the ailing economies of Eastern European and Latin American nations, Sachs has recently focused on problems of poverty, development, and health in nonindustrial countries. In that capacity, he is now a senior adviser to the United Nations. To be closer to that work, on July 1 Sachs joined Columbia's faculty and became director of its multidisciplinary Earth Institute. The CID will be managed by Richard Pagett, special assistant to the provost, who ran the beleaguered Harvard Institute for International Development after Sachs moved his operations to CID in May 1999 (see "Preview of a Review," November-December 1999, page 80).
Rise of the West
The U.S. News & World Report rankings of graduate and professional schools, published April 15, continue the editors' recent enthusiasm for Stanford. Top rankings went to Stanford's schools of business (Harvard second) and education (ditto, tied with UCLA); Stanford placed second in engineering (after MIT, with Harvard seventeenth) and law (behind Yale, Harvard third). In medicine, Harvard retained its traditional top ranking.
Politics Pilot
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| Daniel R. Glickman |
| Kennedy School of Government |
The Institute of Politics at the Kennedy School has a new director: he is Daniel R. Glickman, former congressman from Kansas and the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture from 1995 to 2001. He succeeds former Arkansas governor and U.S. senator David H. Pryor.
Research Reforms
The federal Office for Human Research Protections has made public its detailed complaints to the Harvard School of Public Health (SPH) and two affiliated institutions about inappropriately conducted genetic studies in China. The office found misleading consent forms and failure to determine the relative risks and benefits for participants. The investigation, launched in 1999, prompted SPH to reprimand two researchers involved; suspend the studies; and change its procedures for overseeing such research. It also retained an outside firm to review other genetic studies in foreign countries. Although critical of procedures, the federal investigation found no actual harm to the research subjects, and no sanctions were imposed on the institutions. During a visit to China, President Lawrence H. Summers responded to a question about the study posed from the audience following his address at Peking University on May 14; he declared the violations of research protocols "badly wrong" and stressed that they would not recur.
Nota Bene
Small classes, large numbers. The roster of freshman seminars to be offered in the next academic year, outgoing Faculty of Arts and Sciences dean Jeremy R. Knowles delightedly told his colleagues on May 21, has expanded to 92 courses. Two years ago, when efforts began to expand first-year students' interaction with senior professors in small-class settings, there were fewer than three dozen seminars. In the academic year just ended, more than 60 classes were listed.
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| Vincent M. Dessain |
| Photo by Aaron Washington |
Pied-à-terre. Harvard Business School has opened a European research center in Paris, joining the outposts established previously in Buenos Aires, Palo Alto, and Hong Kong. Each center provides on-site support for faculty research and case development. Vincent M. Dessain, M.B.A. '87, directs the Paris center.
Publishing CEO. Harvard Business School Publishing parent to the Harvard Business Review, newsletters, conferences, case materials, and other productshas appointed David A. Wan, M.B.A. '81, president and chief executive officer. Wan, who had been president of the trade publisher Penguin Group and of educational publishing at Simon & Schuster, succeeds Linda S. Doyle, who is moving to a faculty position at the business school.
Review Redux. Suzanne R. Wetlaufer '81, M.B.A. '88, whose romantic involvement with an interview subject led her to step down from the editorship of Harvard Business Review to a nonexecutive position (see "Brevia," May-June, page 63), resigned April 24, saying the magazine "will never again be a place where I will be able to work to my full potential." She left with an undisclosed financial settlement.
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| Susan E. Carey | Bruce M. Spiegelman |
Academicians in the Academy. Among the 72 new members of the National Academy of Sciences are faculty members Harvey I. Cantor, Constance L. Cepko, and Bruce M. Spiegelman (medicine); Susan E. Carey (psychology and education); William C. Clark (Kennedy School); Laurie H. Glimcher (medicine and public health); Yum-Tong Siu (mathematics); and President Lawrence H. Summers (economics).
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| Pingtin Thum |
One more. The Rhodes Scholarship Committee of Singapore has chosen its newest scholar: Pingtjin Thum '00 will begin his studies for a second bachelor's degree, in modern history and politics, in October at Hertford College, Oxford. The East Asian studies concentrator joins six members of the class of 2002 whose scholarships were announced earlier in the year. One of those scholars, Stephen E. Sachs, is from Clayton, Missourinot Montana, as first reported (see March-April, page 80).
Top lawyer leaves. Vice president and general counsel Anne Taylor announced June 5 that she would relinquish the position, which she has held since 1997, by early fall.
