The Harvard Crimson - Volume CL, No. 28

THE HARVARD CRIMSON THE UNIVERSITY DAILY, EST. 1873

| VOLUME CL, NO. 28 | CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS

EDITORIAL

HKS

Winter is Coming. So Is Course Registration.

SPORTS

THEATER

Comedian Josh Caven With Ivy Title, Field ’24 is Bad at Sports, Hockey Begins NCAA Good on Teams Tournament Run PAGE 13

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PAGE 13

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2023

For Some, ‘Crown Jewel’ HKS Class Leaves Scars

REGISTERING ASAP. Despite the benefits of early course registration, we take issue with the current implementation. We think course registration over winter break is more favorable timeline.

‘THE RAZOR’S EDGE.’ The Harvard Kennedy School’s Adaptive Leadership courses are internationally renowned as “life-changing.”. But some students said the class goes too far, leaving lasting emotional damage. SEE PAGE 6

SEE PAGE 10

PROTESTS

HBS Die-In Viral Video Prompts Backlash ALUMNI SPEAK OUT. Prominent Harvard affiliates condemned University leadership in two open letters alleging rising campus antisemitism, both citing a viral video from an Oct. 18 protest at HBS. SEE PAGE 8 TOBY R. MA — CRIMSON DESIGNER

CLAUDINE GAY

President Condemns Chant ‘HURTFUL PHRASES.’ In an emailed statement Thursday, University President Claudine Gay condemned the phrase ‘from the river to the sea’ as harmful and announced antisemitism training.

SEE PAGE 4

STUDENT LIFE

College Ends ‘Linking’ for Housing Lottery MISSING LINKS. Harvard College will no longer allow “linking,” which let groups of students to guarantee upperclassman housing in the same campus neighborhood, as of the Class of 2027.

SEE PAGE 5

ELECTION

CRIMSON LEADERSHIP

Cambridge Elects Nine Hill to Lead The City Councilors Crimson’s 151st Guard

BY MUSKAAN ARSHAD, JINA H. CHOE, AND JACK R. TRAPANICK CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

T

he City of Cambridge released preliminary election results showing the election of all six incumbents in the running and three challengers to the Cambridge City Council at approximately 12:11 a.m. Wednesday morning.

Former Councilor Jivan G. Sobrinho-Wheeler reclaimed his spot on the city’s legislative body after a narrow 2021 loss, while School Committee member Ayesha M. Wilson and Cambridge transit activist Joan F. Pickett won in their first bids for the office.

The six incumbents reelected — in order of number-one ranked votes — are Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui and councilors Burhan Azeem, Marc C. McGovern, Patricia M. “Patty” Nolan ’80, Paul F. Toner, and E. Denise Simmons. All won by healthy margins, securing their spots prior to the final round of the ranked-choice count.

The preliminary results do not include write-in, provisional, auxiliary, and overseas absentee ballots. The official results will not be declared until Nov. 17 per Massachusetts state law, after provisional and overseas absentee ballots are counted.

The additional ballots are not likely to change the outcome of the race. The ninth-elected candidate, Pickett, prevailed over recent Harvard graduate Ayah A. Al-Zubi ’23, the next-closest candidate, by more than 500 votes before the city announced that Al-Zubi was defeated.

If they hold, the results mark a centrist shift for the Council, which saw two of its

most progressive members, Quinton Y. Zondervan and Dennis J. Carlone, decline to seek reelection this year.

Siddiqui again received the most first-ranked votes of any candidate in the preliminary count — which she accomplished in both 2019 and 2021 — despite late-breaking allegations of workplace toxicity and retaliation in Siddiqui’s office published in the Boston Globe.

The 2023 Council election saw a slight increase in turnout from the 2019 and 2021 elections with 21,177 votes this year from roughly 20,000 votes in the previous two races.

Across the city Tuesday, Cambridge voters turned out to the polls from Cambridge Rindge and Latin School to the Harvard Graduate School of Design’s Gund Hall, MIT’s Kresge Auditorium, and Cambridge City Hall itself.

At the City Hall polling station, canvassers and candidates alike engaged passersby as voters filed in to vote. Dawn Feaster, who held a sign for Wilson, said she enjoyed being part of the election day excitement.

“It’s my first time ever out here doing this, and it feels really good to help support the candidates that’s running,” she said.

Vernon K. Walker, one of the candidates who ultimately did not win a seat, expressed excitement about the race early in the afternoon.

“I’m ecstatic and jubilant about the direction that the Council could go in if we get progressives elected, and the energy on the ground is contagious,” Walker said as he approached Cambridge City Hall from Central Square.

Dan Totten, who sought to fill the seat

SEE PAGE 12

BY CRIMSON NEWS STAFF

J. Sellers Hill ’25 will lead The Harvard Crimson’s 151st Guard, the newspaper’s president announced Sunday, kicking off the next 150 years of America’s oldest continuously published daily collegiate newspaper.

Hill, an Integrative Biology concentrator on the pre-medical track from Wilmington, North Carolina, currently covers the Harvard College administration and co-leads The Crimson’s Audience Engagement Team. As a reporter, Hill chronicled a monthslong $30,000 dispute following a contentious leadership transition in a student group.

Hill also covered the College’s student government, closely following the fall of the Undergraduate Council and the inaugural semester of its replacement, the Harvard Undergraduate Association.

This semester, Hill has covered campus turmoil, including doxxing attacks against students following the onset of the Israel-Hamas war.

A resident of Lowell House and member of The Crimson’s Multimedia Board, Hill will begin his tenure as The Crimson’s president on Jan. 1, 2024, following the conclusion of the paper’s sesquicenennial year.

“The 151st Guard will take The Crimson to new heights,” Crimson President Cara J. Chang ’24 wrote in a statement.

“They are uniquely qualified and positioned to take the newspaper into a digital-first future while preserving all that has made 14 Plympton St. special for 150 years.”

Central administration reporter Miles J. Herszenhorn ’25 will oversee The Crim-

son’s coverage as its next managing editor, leading its newsroom and steering its magazine, arts, and sports sections as well as its blog.

Herszenhorn, a joint concentrator in History and Literature and Slavic Languages and Literatures, hails from New York with stops in Washington, Moscow, and Brussels. Herszenhorn has reported on Harvard President Claudine Gay’s first semester in office, including early challenges from Washington and alumni. A Mets fan, he also covers baseball for the sports section and writes for the magazine.

Herszenhorn, a resident of Pforzheimer House, has produced extensive reporting on the Harvard Kennedy School, breaking misinformation researcher Joan Donovan’s forced exit, investigating the school’s financial aid woes, and providing detailed coverage of the HKS student Rodrigo Ventocilla Ventosilla’s death in police custody while abroad in Indonesia.

Dunster House resident Matthew M. Doctoroff ’25 will serve as The Crimson’s

SEE PAGE 9

J. Sellers Hill ’25 will serve as president of The Crimson’s 151st Guard.

JOEY HUANG — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

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THE HARVARD CRIMSON

LAST WEEK

NOVEMBER 10, 2023

CLAUDINE GAY

STUDENT GROUPS

CHABAD

Gay Defends Academic Freedom

Feminist Activist Group Rebrands

Chabad Installs Shabbat Table in Yard

CAMPUS TURMOIL. Harvard President Claudine Gay defended academic freedom and warned affiliates against violence, harassment, and other violations of conduct rules in a University-wide email Friday evening — her latest attempt to subdue weeks of sustained criticism from affiliates. “While free inquiry remains a bedrock academic value, Harvard will not tolerate any activity that violates the safety of our community members, and we will not hesitate to enforce our policies and hold those who engage in such conduct accountable,” Gay wrote. BY

FEMINIST COALITION. Our Harvard Can Do Better, an undergraduate campus group advocating against rape culture at Harvard, has rebranded as the Harvard Feminist Coalition, the organization announced. The shift follows group members’ desire to expand their focus beyond direct action and address a wider set of gender-based issues. Our Harvard Can Do Better was founded in 2012 to “dismantle rape culture at Harvard” and to advocate for “a policy under which survivors are supported and abusers face commensurate sanctions.” BY

MILES J. HERSZENHORN AND CLAIRE YUAN — CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

CHARLOTTE P. RITZ-JACK AND HANA ROSTAMI — CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

HARVARD YARD. Students from Harvard Hillel and Harvard Chabad assembled a roughly 200-foot Shabbat table in Tercentenary Theatre Friday as a tribute to the more than 240 civilians, soldiers, and foreigners held captive by Hamas.

After a gathering Friday morning, more than 100 Harvard affiliates assembled at the installation at 4 p.m. to offer calls for solidarity, sing the Israeli national anthem, and condemn antisemitism. Organizers taped posters displaying the photo, name, and biographical information of each hostage to the back of each seat at the table. BY FRANK S. ZHOU — CONTRIBUTING WRITER

AROUND THE IVIES COMMITTEE SUGGESTS BAN ON ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN PROFS. AND GRADUATE STUDENTS WITHIN DEPARTMENT

In Photos: A Trip to Mount Auburn Cemetery

BY SOPHIA C. SCOTT — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

Yale’s FAS-SEAS Senate Diversity Committee published a report last week recommending a ban on romantic relationships between professors and graduate students within the same department. Currently, university policy prohibits relationships between professors and undergraduate students, and professors and any graduate students they directly advise or teach.

AUBURN AUTUMN.

Consecrated in 1831 as America’s first landscape cemetery, Mount Auburn Cemetery is a national historic landmark the burial site of many prominent figures — including Dorothea Dix, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Charles Sumner.

THE YALE DAILY NEWS

A STATUE looks out from atop a hill, surrounded by trees.

CORNELL HILLEL HOSTS COMMUNITY GATHERING IN RESPONSE TO ANTISEMITIC THREATS Cornell Hillel affiliates gathered Wednesday evening to celebrate “community and shared faith” in response to a series of antisemitic threats against students. On Oct. 28 and 29, several threats to Jewish Cornell students were posted to a GreekRank forum by Patrick Dai, a senior at the college. One such post threatened a shooting at 104West!, a building that houses a kosher dining hall and Cornell’s Center for Jewish Living.

THE CORNELL DAILY SUN

STUDENTS OCCUPY UNIVERSITY HALL TO CALL FOR CEASEFIRE IN ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR Approximately 20 Jewish students began a sit-in at Brown’s University Hall this afternoon, with more than 150 students accompanying them outside. Demanding the university president “include and support a divestment resolution in the next meeting of the Brown Corporation,” the students said they were prepared to occupy the building for multiple days or weeks. Police began arresting students shortly before 6 p.m. after the issuance of multiple trespass warnings.

THREE TOMBSTONES for members of the 19th-century Reed family lie side-by-side beneath the sunlight.

BINOCULARS. Standing at 62-feet tall, Washington Tower offers a 360-degree-view of the grounds and the Boston skyline.

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

POLITICOS CRITICIZE PENN RESPONSE TO ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR 26 Republican legislators sent a letter to President Liz Magill critiquing the university’s response to the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas.

Sent on Nov. 1, the letter denounced the perceived untimeliness of the university statement on the attack. The university faced additional criticism for allowing a literary festival to happen on campus in late September. The letter from legislators follows several letters from major donors announcing the withdrawal of financial support to University of Pennsylvania.

THE SPHINX — built in 1872 as a Civil War Memorial — was sculpted by Martin Milmore as a gift to the Cemetery from Dr. Jacob Bigelow.

BRANCHES spiral upwards into the crisp autumn air. Yellow and brown leaves fall from the tree and settle onto the ground below.

BIGELOW CHAPEL was built in the 1840’s and functions as a venue for funeral and memorial services, along with public programs at the Cemetery.

THE DAILY PENNSYLVANIAN

THE ARREST OF TWO STUDENTS PROTESTING ON CAMPUS SPARKS MIXED RESPONSES Two students were arrested for violating Dartmouth College’s campus rules on grounds and buildings policy. Controversy followed as the protestors were expressing support for Palestine, and a demonstration followed the arrest with students chanting, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, resulting in some the acts “hate speech” and “violent speech.”

THE DARTMOUTH

RAYS OF SUN pierce the clouds over Greater Boston in a view from the top of the Washington Tower.

THE CAMBIRDGE SKYLINE, including the Harvard Stadium, Annenberg Hall, and the Science and Engineering Complex, can be seen from atop the tower.

NEXT WEEK

THE HARVARD CRIMSON NOVEMBER 10, 2023

What’s Next

IN THE REAL WORLD HOLLYWOOD ACTORS AGREE TO A DEAL WITH STUDIOS TO END STRIKE SAG-AFTRA, the union representing tens of thousands of actors, reached a tentative deal with Hollywood studios on Wednesday. After nearly four months, the deal brings one of the longest labor crises in Hollywood history to a close. The deal includes increases in short-term compensation, royalty payments, improved health care funding, and promises that artificial intelligence won’t replicate actors’ work without payment and approval. In the following days, SAG-AFTRA members will vote on whether to accept the terms of the agreement.

DEMOCRATS CELEBRATE ELECTION VICTORIES ON TUESDAY Democrats won several elections across the country on Tuesday by centering abortion rights, spending tens of millions on ads highlighting the issue. Andy Beshear, the incumbent Democratic governor in Kentucky was reelected, Democrats won control of both chambers of the Virginia legislature, and a ballot measure enshrining abortion access in the Ohio State Constitution passed with wide support. These victories come despite low support for President Joe Biden, global unrest, and the persistent effects of inflation.

Start every week with a preview of what’s on the agenda around Harvard University

Friday 11/10

Monday 11/13

Wednesday 11/15

GLOWELL

HARVARD STATE FAIR

JAPAN DAY

Lowell House Dining Hall, 10 p.m.-2 a.m.

Presented by Lowell’s House Committee, Glowell is an annual glow-in-the-dark rave free and open to all Harvard Undergraduates. Dance the night away in the Lowell Dining Hall, with pizza, drinks for students 21+, and plenty of neon decorations

Saturday 11/11 NCAA FIRST ROUND WOMEN’S SOCCER GAME VS. MAINE

Jordan Field, 5 p.m.

Head to Jordon Field on Saturday afternoon to watch Harvard Women’s Soccer take on the University of Maine. 2023 marks the second cosecutive year that the team has advanced to the tournament. As champions of the inaugural Ivy League Tournament, the team received an autmatic bid to the national tournament.

Harvard Yard, 5-7 p.m.

Start off Harvard-Yale Spirit Week by heading to the first ever Harvard State Fair. The event will feature carnival games, student performances, free merch, and complementary Zinneken’s There will be special performances from the Harvard Cheer Team, Crimson Dance Team, Dexter, and Harvard University Band.

Science Center, 4-9:30 p.m.

The Harvard Undergraduate Japan Initiative will host Japan Day, featuring panels on Japan’s economy, venture capital, and global political influence. Speakers include Harvard professors and experts in transportation and technology.

Thursday 11/16

Tuesday 11/14

YALE BULLDOG ROAST

A CONVERSATION WITH RUTH J. SIMMONS

Knafel Center, 4-5 p.m.

Ruth J. Simmons, who delivered the 2023 Commencement address for the Harvard Graduate School of Education, will return to campus on Tuesday for a conversation with Radcliffe Dean Tomiko Brown-Nagin. The pair will discuss the future of higher education in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action.

Sunday 11/12

Sanders Theater, 7-8:30 p.m.

Jointly hosted by the Harvard University Stand Up Club and Professor Andrew Berry, attend the annual Harvard-Yale Bulldog Roast. With performances from the Harvard University Band, Harvard Dance team, and Professor Berry, the event promises good laughs and a solid dose of school spirit.

Friday 11/17 LEADING WITH EMPATHY: A CONVERSATION WITH FORMER NEW ZEALAND PRIME MINISTER JACINDA ARDERN

HIP HOP EXPERIENCE WORKSHOP

Harvard Art Museum, 1-3 p.m.

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of hip-hop, Harvard Art Museums and artist and singer Jazzmyn RED will offer a hip-hop experience workshop on Sunday afternoon. Participants will have the opportunity to write and perform up to 16 bars of music.

Kresge Building and Online, 1-1:50 p.m.

Join Jane Kim, interim dean of faculty at Harvard’s Chan School of Public Health for a conversation about Ardern’s leadership through Covid-19 and efforts to tighten gun laws.

IVANKA TRUMP TESTIFIES IN FATHER’S CIVIL FRAUD TRIAL Ivanka Trump, former President Donald Trump’s eldest daughter, appeared on the witness stand on Wednesday to testify in the $250 million civil fraud trial threatening the family business. After repeated attempts to avoid testifying, Ivanka was questioned for five hours about her involvement with loans for the Trump Organization. Despite evidence suggesting she dealt with the financial statements that lie at the heart of the case, Ivanka said she wasn’t involved in preparing them. Ivanka’s testimony comes after Donald Trump and his two sons, Eric and Donald Jr., already appeared in court.

DEMOCRACY DAY

HOUSE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE SUBPOENAS MEMBERS OF PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN’S FAMILY Representative James Comer, Chair of the House Oversight Committee, issued subpoenas on Wednesday from Hunter and James Biden. In the most aggressive move since the impeachment inquiry began in September, the demand represents a renewed attempt to gain ground on the almost yearlong investigation which has yet to uncover any evidence suggesting the President committed high crimes or misdemeanors. The move is bitterly opposed by house Democrats and anticipates a high-stake showdown. James Biden will appear for a deposition on Dec. 6, with Hunter Biden following a week later.

JACK R. TRAPANICK — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

THE HARVARD CRIMSON Cara J. Chang ’24 President

STAFF FOR THIS ISSUE Brandon L. Kingdollar ’24

Cynthia V. Lu ’24

Managing Editor

Business Manager

Magazine Chairs Io Y. Gilman ’25 Amber H. Levis ’25

Design Chairs Sophia Salamanca ’25 Sami E. Turner ’25

Eleanor V. Wikstrom ’24 Christina M. Xiao ’24

Blog Chairs Tina Chen ’24 Hana Rehman ’25

Multimedia Chairs Joey Huang ’24 Julian J. Giordano ’25

Arts Chairs Anya L. Henry ’24 Alisa S. Regassa ’24

Sports Chairs Mairead B. Baker ’24 Aaron B. Shuchman ’25

Technology Chairs Kevin Luo ’24 Justin Y. Ye ’24

Associate Managing Editors Leah J. Teichholtz ’24 Meimei Xu ’24 Editorial Chairs

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Associate Business Manager Derek S. Chang ’24 Copyright 2023, The Harvard Crimson (USPS 236-560). No articles, editorials, cartoons or any part thereof appearing in The Crimson may be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the President. The Associated Press holds the right to reprint any materials published in The Crimson. The Crimson is a non-profit, independent corporation, founded in 1873 and incorporated in 1967. Second-class postage paid in Boston, Massachusetts. Published Monday through Friday except holidays and during vacations, three times weekly during reading and exam periods by The Harvard Crimson Inc., 14 Plympton St., Cambridge, Mass. 02138

Night Editors Ariel H. Kim ’24 Vivi E. Lu ’24 Mayesha R. Soshi ’24 Eric Yan ’24 Assistant Night Editors Elise D. Hawkins ’25 Paton D. Roberts ’25 Tyler J.H. Ory ’26 Hana Rostami ’26 Jack R. Trapanick ’26 Story Editors Ryan H. Doan-Nguyen ’24 Brandon L. Kingdollar ’24

Vivi E. Lu ’24 Paton D. Roberts ’24 Leah J. Teichholtz ’24 Meimei Xu ’24 Design Editors Toby R. Ma ’24 Nayeli Cardozo ’25 Julian J. Giordano ’25 Sami E. Turner ’25 Laurinne P. Eugenio ’26 Photo Editors Cory K. Gorczycki ’24 Joey Huang ’24 Julian J. Giordano ’25

CORRECTIONS The Harvard Crimson is committed to accuracy in its reporting. Factual errors are corrected promptly on this page. Readers with information about errors are asked to e-mail the managing editor at managingeditor@thecrimson.com.

Nathanael Tjandra ’26 Editorial Editors Cara J. Chang ’24 Joshua Ochieng ’24 Arts Editor Zachary J. Lech ’24 Sports Editors Mairead B. Baker ’24 Bridget Sands ’24 Aaron B. Shuchman ’25

Cafe Disco

4

THE HARVARD CRIMSON

NEWS

NOVEMBER 10, 2023

UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT

Gay Condemns Use of Pro-Palestine Phrase EMAIL STATEMENT. Harvard President Claudine Gay announced antisemitism training and condemned the phrase ‘From the river to the sea.’

BY MILES J. HERSZENHORN AND CLAIRE YUAN CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

­H

arvard will work with its newly established antisemitism advisory group to implement an antisemitism education and training for affiliates, University President Claudine Gay announced in an email Thursday afternoon.

“I affirm our commitment to protecting all members of our community from harassment and marginalization, and our commitment to meeting antisemitism head-on, with the determination it demands,” Gay wrote.

“Antisemitism has no place at Harvard,” Gay added. “We are committed to doing the hard work to address this scourge.”

Gay announced the establishment of the advisory group to combat antisemitism late last month during a speech she delivered at Harvard Hillel’s Shabbat dinner for the relatives of College freshmen and juniors over Family Weekend.

The new efforts to combat antisemitism announced by Gay came following enormous

President Claudine Gay announced plans to implement training around antisemitism in a Thursday email FRANK S. ZHOU — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

backlash against the University over its initial statement about Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

Critics condemned the statement for failing to explicitly denounce Hamas and respond to a controversial joint letter by Harvard

student groups in support of Palestine that called Israel “entirely responsible” for the violence.

Gay has also faced intense pressure from powerful Harvard alumni — including several major donors and former Harvard

Gino Research Collaborators Start Project to Check Her Work

BY ADELAIDE E. PARKER AND JENNIFER Y. SONG CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

Harvard Business School professor Francesca Gino, an academic known for her studies on dishonesty, is at risk of losing her position at the University over allegations of data fraud. Now, Gino’s former co-authors are working to keep the rest of her research honest.

This Monday, six of Gino’s co-authors — professors Max H. Bazerman, Julia A. Minson ’99, Don Moore, Juliana Schroeder, Maurice Schweitzer, and Uri Simonsohn — released the “Many Co-Authors Project,” a compilation of raw data from all of Gino’s past studies. By providing an avenue for academics to review Gino’s work, they hope to correct the scientific record and protect Gino’s co-authors from allegations of misconduct.

“We see it as our professional and moral obligation to provide information about the data provenance and data custody for those papers,” the project’s mission states.

This past spring, the data analysis blog Data Colada alleged there was fraudulent data in four of Gino’s studies. Simonsohn, one of the organizers behind the Many Co-Authors Project, is also a writer for Data Colada. The site’s findings prompted an HBS investigation into Gino’s work, which culminated in Gino being placed on unpaid administrative leave earlier this year.

After she was placed on leave, Gino leveled a $25 million lawsuit against the Business School, Data Colada, and HBS Dean Srikant M. Datar. Gino maintained that she was innocent and accused the defendants of conspiring to damage her reputation, alleging gender discrimination in the school’s handling of her case.

In a public statement following the release of the Many Co-Authors Project, Gino’s team voiced concerns that the project could interfere with the lawsuit.

“Instead of enhancing research practices of the field at large, the project is a witch hunt for one woman, instigated by the very people and groups involved in the lawsuit,” said Andrew T. Miltenberg, an attorney for Gino.

The six researchers emailed 143 academics across 138 published papers co-authored by Gino, asking whether Gino had

been involved in the data collection of each paper. If the co-authors confirmed or were unsure of Gino’s involvement, the Many Co-Authors team requested access to the papers’ raw data. The project’s website catalogs Gino’s involvement in each of these studies and links the raw data when available.

The project also emailed Gino a spreadsheet with questions on the 138 publications, which they said they would publish if Gino provides a response. In the spreadsheet, the six researchers asked about Gino’s involvement in data collection, whether the data was collected on Qualtrics, and for collaborators with authorization to Qualtrics for each study.

Gino criticized the Many Co-Authors Project for a lack of transparency, claiming the group kept her “in the dark” and only invited her to participate two weeks before it went public.

“I have deep reservations with the way the project was structured,” Gino wrote. “For months, I was kept in the dark about the details of the MCAP.” According to the website, the Many Co-Authors Project will make all information it receives publicly available, and studies’ authors are encouraged to caption their articles with updates on the presence or absence of apparent data manipulation.

These “living documents” can be changed as academics reexamine the validity of the studies they co-authored with Gino.

Per the project’s website, its living format means Gino is able to participate in the project at any time, noting that “if she sends relevant information back we will post an updated spreadsheet.”

The site’s living documents have encouraged some co-authors to reflect on the importance of transparency in academia.

In reflections included in one such document, Michael Yeomans, a professor at Imperial College London, described feeling “shocked and saddened” when he became aware of the fraud allegations against Gino. He said the Many Co-Authors Project is a much-needed effort to set the scientific record straight.

“We think our work comes to important conclusions, and it is important to be sure those conclusions are based on sound evidence,” Yeomans wrote. “This

is also a good opportunity to improve and reflect on the processes by which we add to our field’s body of knowledge, individually and collectively.”

The allegations against Gino have led some to question the larger research practices of her field — behavioral science, the study of human behavior and decision-making.

Even before the fraud allegations against Gino, behavioral science had been criticized for utilizing gimmicky research methods. Recently, several prominent behavioral scientists’ work has been cast into doubt, including Gino.

Some participants said the Many Co-Authors Project could help restore perceptions of the field’s data collection and peer review standards.

“As a field, we are still engaged in discussions about best practices for how to handle publications for which co-authors don’t currently have the data,” wrote Kathleen D. Vohs, a professor at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management, in her living document. “This author team would like to learn from these discussions.”

However, not all participants view the Many Co-Authors Project as strictly positive — some have voiced concerns the project could contribute to a culture of over-policing in academia.

One co-author recalls feeling reservations about submitting their data to the Many Co-Authors project but believed refusing to participate “would be perceived as an admission of guilt” because the Many Co-Authors website explicitly displays which co-authors chose to submit data and which did not.

“The framing basically made it feel like people who are not going to participate have something to hide,” they said.

“It feels to me that they were bullying people into participating.”

The Many Co-Authors Project did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Out of the 143 authors whom the researchers emailed, 111 had fully completed the questionnaire as of Tuesday. Over the next few months, the Many Co-Authors Project intends to continue updating its website with additional data. adelaide.parker@thecrimson.com jennifer.song@thecrimson.com

President Lawrence H. Summers — to more forcefully condemn antisemitism on campus.

In her email, Gay explicitly condemned the use of the phrase “from the river to the sea” — a pro-Palestine slogan that prominent alumni have called “eliminationist” and antisemitic.

“Our community must understand that phrases such as ‘from the river to the sea’ bear specific historical meanings that to a great many people imply the eradication of Jews from Israel and engender both pain and existential fears within our Jewish community,” Gay wrote. “I condemn this phrase and any similarly hurtful phrases.”

The Thursday message stated that the antisemitism advisory group will be responsible for “examining how antisemitism manifests within our community and crafting a plan that addresses its complex history” at Harvard and developing training for students, faculty, and staff.

“As part of this program, we will provide education about the roots of certain rhetoric that has been heard on our campus in recent weeks, and its impact on Jewish members of our community, to help us all better recognize antisemitism in daily life and interrupt its harmful influence,” Gay wrote.

Gay pointed to anonymous hotlines for reporting bias and the continued presence of the Harvard University Police De-

partment in monitoring “threats made against any members of our community.”

Gay also confirmed that the FBI and HUPD are investigating a video taken during the Oct. 18 pro-Palestine “die-in” protest at Harvard Business School depicting several protesters confronting a man and escorting him away after he filmed protester’s faces. The protesters shouted “shame” after the man, who other media outlets later identified as an Israeli student.

In addition to the broader efforts of the advisory group, some of Harvard’s individual schools will also be taking their own steps toward combating antisemitism, Gay wrote.

Gay also acknowledged “concerns from some about how this important work relating to antisemitism will bear on Harvard’s vital commitment to free expression.”

Brandeis University revoked the school’s recognition of a pro-Palestine student organization on Tuesday, prompting calls from some Harvard affiliates, including Harvard Chabad President Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi, for Gay to de-recognize the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee.

“Combating antisemitism and fostering free expression are mutually consistent goals,” Gay wrote. “We are at our strongest when we commit to open inquiry and freedom of expression as foundational values of our aca-

demic community.”

Gay’s decision to single out the phrase “from the river to the sea” — which is frequently chanted by the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee and other pro-Palestine student groups — almost immediately received backlash from some Harvard affiliates.

Mo Torres — an assistant professor at the University of Michigan who obtained his Ph.D. from Harvard’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in 2023 — wrote in an email replying to Gay that “Harvard is on the wrong side of this issue.”

Torres, who shared a screenshot of his email to Gay in a post on X, wrote that “the expression ‘from the river to the sea’ is not a call for the ‘eradication’ of Jews from Israel.”

“Jewish Palestinians formed a crucial part of the cultural fabric of Historic Palestine before the 1948 Nakba and Jewish Israelis will play an important role in a liberated Palestine free of apartheid,” Torres added.

Gay wrote at the end of her email that Harvard “was founded to advance human dignity through education.”

“We inherited a faith in reason to overcome ignorance, in truth to surmount hate,” she added.

“Antisemitism is destructive to our mission.” miles. herszenhorn@thecrimson.com claire.yuan@thecrimson.com

Chabad President Calls on University to De-Recognize PSC

BY J. SELLERS HILL AND JOYCE E. KIM CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

Harvard Chabad President Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi called on the University to de-recognize the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee Wednesday afternoon after the group criticized him in a Tuesday night post on the social media platform X. Zarchi, who founded Harvard Chabad, also serves as a Jewish Chaplain at the University.

In a Wednesday email update to Chabad affiliates, Zarchi called for Harvard to disavow the PSC and said the University had “been taken hostage by its hateful bullies on campus.”

“Considering that there is ample publicly available evidence of the PSC and its members repeatedly breaking campus rules, not to mention supporting terrorism, I think it’s time for the Harvard Jewish community, and good people everywhere, to demand that, at the minimum, Harvard revoke the organizational recognition of the Harvard PSC,” he wrote in the email.

The Tuesday post by the PSC characterized a portion of a speech delivered by Zarchi last Friday as “anti-Palestinian racism.” Zarchi spoke at an installation in Harvard Yard assembled by two Jewish student organizations on campus, Harvard Hillel and Chabad, to pay tribute to those held captive by the Islamist militant group Hamas.

In the video clip of the speech, Zarchi condemned “animalistic” and “monstrous” behavior, though it was unclear whether he was referring exclusively to Hamas or also to individuals he viewed as justifying the group’s actions.

“When you reduce or hijack your mind to fulfill your impulses, to connive, and to be philosophical, to justify murder and torture — you’re not just an animal. You’re below an animal.

You’re a monster,” Zarchi said.

The PSC’s post called on the University to establish a committee “to investigate anti-Palestinian racism” on campus.

“President Gay and Dean Khurana, we hold you liable for the comments made by university employees, and we demand accountability,” the statement reads.

University spokesperson Jason A. Newton declined to com-

ment on the post, as did Harvard College spokesperson Jonathan Palumbo, who cited a policy against commenting on personnel matters.

University and College administrators have previously condemned hateful language and personal attacks. Last month, Harvard formed an advisory group to combat antisemitism on campus. In an interview with The Crimson last week, Dean of the College Rakesh Khurana reiterated his position.

“Antisemitism, Islamophobia, xenophobia, and discrimination of any type will not be tolerated,” he said.

Over the past month, the PSC has received national criticism for a controversial joint statement signed by more than 30 other student groups holding “the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence” after Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

Since publication, at least 10 of the original co-signatory organizations have retracted their endorsements of the statement. The PSC later wrote that it “staunchly opposes violence against civilians.”

Harvard groups have not been the only campus organizations to receive widespread backlash.

In his Wednesday email, Zarchi called on Harvard to follow in the steps of Brandeis University, which pulled funding and permits for activities from the campus chapter of National Students for Justice in Palestine.

Harvard President Claudine Gay appeared to disavow the PSC’s letter in a video address last month but said the University would not take action against the co-signatory organizations.

“We do not punish or sanction people for expressing such views, but that is a far cry from endorsing them,” she said.

In his Wednesday email to Chabad affiliates, Zarchi described PSC’s criticisms of his Friday speech as “lies and conspiracies,” highlighting safety concerns and urging members to demand action from the University.

Zarchi also demanded the removal of a proctor from their position due to their involvement in the Oct. 18 pro-Palestine protest at Harvard Business School, which has drawn criticism from prominent alumni after a confrontation between a Jewish student and PSC marshals went viral on X. The student, whose private

Instagram story was shared by Zarchi in the email, declined to comment on the criticism.

The PSC’s post Tuesday called Zarchi “an active part of the doxxing problem,” making reference to instances of doxxing attacks against some students allegedly affiliated with organizations that signed onto the PSC statement.

Last month, the College established a task force out of the Dean of Students Office to support doxxed students.

In a follow-up statement to The Crimson, Zarchi declined to provide further comment on the PSC’s post.

“I will not dignify utter slander with a response,” he wrote in an emailed statement.

The same email also contained a statement attributed to the student leadership of Harvard Chabad, which labeled the PSC “an antisemitic group.”

“The PSC’s slander of the spiritual leader of Harvard’s Jewish community, is another expression of their hate against the Jewish people,” the statement reads.

“If the University is serious about ensuring that antisemitism has no place at Harvard, they should ban the PSC from our campus.”

A spokesperson for the PSC, who The Crimson granted anonymity due to safety concerns, wrote that the organization is “disappointed” that Zarchi “has failed to address, clarify, or retract” what it views as Zarchi’s comparison between pro-Palestinian students and those “below animals.”

“PSC condemns bigotry in all forms including antisemitism and racism and understands these forms of discrimination to be interconnected,” the spokesperson wrote. “Harvard must resist nation-wide efforts to silence those who speak up for Palestine, and continue to affirm its students’ right to free speech.” sellers.hill@thecrimson.com joyce.kim@thecrimson.com

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NEWS

THE HARVARD CRIMSON NOVEMBER 10, 2023

5

COLLEGE

College to Cut ‘Linking’ from House Lottery DISCONTINUED. Harvard College will no longer allow ‘linking’ for blocking groups in the housing lottery.

dents in the Class

BY JOHN N. PEÑA CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

­H

arvard College will no longer allow “linking,” a process that enabled groups of students to guarantee upperclassman housing in the same campus neighborhood, a spokesperson confirmed Tuesday.

Since 1995, Harvard has run a random lottery each spring to assign freshmen to the upperclassman Houses. Ahead of the lottery, students form blocking groups, whose members are guaranteed to live in the same House. These groups previously had the option to “link” with another group and be placed in nearby houses.

The change was first made

LAURINNE JAMIE P. EUGENIO— CRIMSON DESIGNER

public in a recent update to a 2016 blog post on the College’s website.

Harvard spokesperson Jonathan Palumbo wrote in an emailed statement that the change was intended to create a “more fair and equitable” lottery system.

“This shift in policy is in response to recent increases in our population and as part of our desire to preserve the broader purpose of the random lottery assignment system while allowing students to continue to be housed within their Blocking Groups,” Palumbo wrote.

Dean Kelsey To Step Down At End of Year

BY RAHEM D. HAMID AND ELIAS J. SCHISGALL CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

Robin E. Kelsey, Harvard’s dean of Arts and Humanities, will step down from his post at the end of the 2023-24 academic year, according to a Monday afternoon email to divisional faculty from Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra obtained by The Crimson.

In a phone interview Monday night, Kelsey confirmed he was stepping down, saying the decision was “a complicated one with many factors involved.”

“The bottom line is, the timing just feels right to pass the baton,” he said.

Since 2022, Kelsey has helmed a committee reevaluating the structure and organization of the division, part of a larger three-year strategic planning effort launched by then-FAS Dean Claudine Gay. One of the committee’s preliminary proposals — to consolidate three language concentrations and one secondary into a broader concentration called “Languages, Literatures, and Cultures” — drew backlash from professors in the language departments.

Though the proposal was later scrapped, according to a committee member, some professors said they feared it was a first step to a broader restructuring of the division that could eliminate small departments.

Kelsey said the negative feedback surrounding the divisional strategic planning process was not a factor in his decision to step down.

“I always expected there to be some very difficult and contentious conversations in the course of the strategic planning process,” he said. “So encountering disagreements was no surprise.”

In her email, Hoekstra said Kelsey would continue to oversee the strategic planning process as it concludes at the end of the academic year.

Kelsey said it was too

early to say what the conclusion of the process would bring.

“I have been doing my best to lead an initial round of those conversations,” Kelsey said.

“And I’m looking forward to delivering the results of that to Dean Hoekstra.”

He said that with the conclusion of the process, he was “close to completing my main aspiration during the latter part of my deanship.”

Kelsey, a professor in the History of Art and Architecture department, has served as dean of the division since 2016.

“I think that people can stay too long in these positions,” Kelsey said. “This is my eighth year. I think eight years is an ample span.”

“It’s what we allot as the maximum for our U.S. presidents, and it strikes me also as a good run for a divisional dean,” he added.

In her email, Hoekstra called Kelsey “an inspiring leader and a tireless proponent for the Arts and Humanities division.”

“Robin has dedicated himself to attracting, supporting, and retaining faculty in the Arts and Humanities,” Hoekstra wrote. “During his time as Dean, the Division of Arts and Humanities has reached into new areas of scholarship and creative practice, strengthening and diversifying its faculty in the process.”

The selection of Kelsey’s successor will be just the second major academic appointment of Hoekstra’s tenure, following School of Engineering and Applied Sciences Dean David C. Parkes. Kelsey said he did not know what the timeline for selecting a new dean would be, but that he would not be formally involved in the selection process.

He said he did not have another administrative position — at Harvard or elsewhere — in his sights.

“Right now, I’m just looking to return to my regular duties as a member of the faculty,” he said. “It’s a fantastic job.”

“Prior to implementation, the policy was reviewed by various stakeholders, including Faculty Deans and the Committee on Student Life,” he added.

According to Common Data Set numbers, Harvard’s undergraduate class sizes have remained roughly the same size since 2007, with approximately 1,660 enrolled freshmen per year.

This trend was interrupted during the Covid-19 pandemic, which saw a high number of stu-

discontinued, Palumbo wrote in his statement.

The changes leave fewer options for students in different blocking groups to be housed close to each other. The four neighborhoods are River West, River East, River Central, and the often maligned Radcliffe Quadrangle, which is located roughly a mile from the other nine houses.

Harvard’s housing lottery has evolved since the controversial change to randomization in 1995. In 1999, the College reduced the maximum size of blocking groups from 16 to eight. Harvard first implemented linking in 2006, with 87 blocking groups taking advantage of the opportunity in its inaugural year.

Upperclassmen storm freshman dorms to share housing assignments on Housing Day, a festive annual celebration held in March for the Class of 2027. john.pena@thecrimson.com

Harvard Students Give Mixed Reviews of Previous-Term Course Registration

BY NATALIE K. BANDURA AND J. SELLERS HIL CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

Harvard undergraduate course registration opened for the spring semester last week— more than two months earlier than in years past — and drew mixed reviews from students.

The change comes from a May 2022 vote by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences to move course registration up by two months and end shopping week — a system in which students could “shop,” or attend an unlimited number of different classes before settling on their semester schedule.

Before the measure was passed, it faced scrutiny from students and professors alike and has continued to divide Harvard faculty and staff amid its implementation. Proponents of previous-term course enrollment say the system is logistically smoother and preserves instructional time at the beginning of the semester.

Several students interviewed

by The Crimson said they were disappointed by the change, citing a conflict between the new registration timeline and their fall coursework.

Lucy M. Hurlbut ’25 said she feared the change would leave students less time to “dig deep in the Q Guide,” Harvard’s course evaluation database, to find the best classes for their interests.

“I feel like I have a lot of other things going on with my classes and extracurriculars, and to have to deal with course registration on top of that is really annoying,” Hurlbut said.

“Because of that, I might end up taking more generic, larger, some would say ‘boring’ classes,”

she added.

Jordan A. Sanchez ’24-’25 said the new timeline left her feeling “really bad” for her peers who she said were occupied with studying for midterm exams and enjoying their time on campus during the current semester to plan their courses for the spring.

“We’re supposed to be encouraged to take more risks, especially academically, and forcing students to choose their classes ahead of time just limits that exploration,” Sanchez said.

Sanchez said she had wanted to take a creative writing workshop since her freshman year, a class that requires an application consisting of a statement of interest and a writing sample. The application would have been open throughout winter break under the former registration timeline.

“A class that I was really, really interested in, I couldn’t take because I’m too busy working on the homework now, instead of preparing for next semester,” Sanchez said.

Some students said they preferred the change, however, and claimed the new timeline granted them more opportunity to get acquainted with their schedules.

“I really like it,” Faith M. Schmidt ’25 said. “Having the courses earlier for me to register gives me time right before I start classes to understand what classes I’m taking and organize my schedule better.”

Schmidt also said the old timeline had conflicted with her move back into college and pre-season athletic commitments.

Though Ru W. Perry-Mize ’25 finds the earlier course registration deadline personally inconvenient, they said they feel that early registration may be “administratively necessary” to plan out

courses and professor teaching slots on time.

“I’m sure that people changing their schedules last minute creates a mess for whoever is doing the actual scheduling at the administrative level,” Perry-Mize said.

In an interview with The Crimson last week, Harvard College Dean Rakesh Khurana defended the new timeline but said the University would work to improve the system in response to student feedback.

“We want to continue to en-

courage exploration and intellectual exploration. It is a core value,” Khurana said. “Like any change, there are adjustments that we will be making.”

“One of the things I really would encourage is for folks to reach out to the Committee on Course Registration, which is at the FAS Registrar’s Office, if there are ideas and thoughts about how to improve what we’re doing,” he added. natalie.bandura@thecrimson.com sellers.hill@thecrimson.com

Previous-term course registration started this semester for spring 2024 classes. CLAIRE YUAN — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

Harvard Dean of Science Christopher Stubbs to Step Down at End of Academic Year

BY RAHEM D. HAMID CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

rahem.hamid@thecrimson.com elias.schisgall@thecrimson.com

Dean of Arts and Humanities Robin E. Kelsey will step down at the end of this academic year. FRANK S. ZHOU— CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

of 2024 defer their enrollment by a year, leading to an oversized Class of 2025. In 2022, The Crimson reported that some students in 11 of 12 Houses would be pushed into overflow housing because of capacity con-

straints posed by the large class.

House Renewal, which broke ground in 2011, cost more than $1 billion and aims to renovate and modernize all 12 undergraduate houses. According to Palumbo, the changes to t h e l o t tery were a l s o related to the ongoing renewal project.

“This evaluative p r o c e s s incorporates an array of factors, such as housing modifications due to house renewals and the availability of accommodations year over year, for example,” Palumbo wrote.

Blocking groups will not be

Harvard Dean of Science Christopher W. Stubbs is stepping down at the end of the academic year, Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra announced at a faculty meeting Tuesday.

The announcement comes hours after The Crimson reported that Dean of Arts and Humanities Robin E. Kelsey will step down at the end of the academic year.

Hoekstra had emailed Science faculty announcing Stubbs’ departure yesterday afternoon, according to an email obtained by The Crimson.

“Chris’s tenure as Dean has been marked by his clear vision, thoughtful leadership, and staunch advocacy for Science, and I am grateful for all that he has ac-

complished,” Hoekstra wrote.

Hoekstra also shared Kelsey’s departure during the faculty meeting Tuesday after announcing it over email to divisional faculty Monday.

“I have already benefited greatly from their partnership and feel very lucky to have them both until the end of the year,” Hoekstra said at the meeting.

With Stubbs and Kelsey both departing, Hoekstra will have to appoint two divisional deans in the coming months — the second and third academic appointments that Hoekstra will make during her tenure.

Then-FAS Dean Michael D. Smith appointed Stubbs as an interim dean in June 2018 before Smith’s successor — now-University President Claudine Gay — appointed Stubbs permanently in November of that year. Stubbs is the second person ever to hold the

role of Dean of Science.

A professor in Physics and Astronomy, Stubbs will continue to advise Hoekstra on issues regarding artificial intelligence, according to Hoekstra. Stubbs has made the incorporation of AI at Harvard a priority in recent months and will be teaching a course on generative AI in the spring.

Faculty in Stubbs’ division hailed his leadership, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Richard T. Lee ’79, a professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, wrote in an email that Stubbs “did a terrific job during the daunting Covid pandemic, and he did it through great communication and transparency.”

Mark C. Fishman, a professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, wrote that Stubbs “embodies the ideal academic-to-Dean phenotype.”

“He thinks in grand sweeps while being willing to dive into the daily grind to get programs going, as he did for the superb response to Covid,” Fishman wrote in a statement. “His will be very hard shoes to fill.” rahem.hamid@thecrimson.com

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THE HARVARD CRIMSON

COVER STORY

6

NOVEMBER 10, 2023

The ‘Destabilizing’ Kennedy School Course LARA R. BERLINER — CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

LEADERSHIP COURSE. A Harvard Kennedy School adaptive leadership course has garnered criticism for its unusual pedagogy.

BY ASHER J. MONTGOMERY CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

­W

hen Susana Orrego Villegas took “Exercising Leadership: The Politics of Change” at the Harvard Kennedy School in the fall of 2022, she did so despite a series of personal alarm bells.

The first came from the course’s Canvas page, which promised a “transformative experience,” but one that could “generate unpleasant or painful emotions.” The second was a confidentiality agreement students were required to sign, pledging that they would not share what other students had discussed during class sessions. And the third was the opening lecture.

Lectures were not a place for the instructor to deliver the material, as in a typical course. Instead, instructors made provocative statements, which Orrego Villegas felt were designed to challenge and elicit defensive reactions from students. Students were prompted to discuss failure cases — instances in which they failed as leaders — which would then be intensely scrutinized by their peers.

About three weeks in, she contemplated dropping the course.

She had begun calling the Mondays and Wednesdays she had class her “overwhelming days.”

Orrego Villegas decided to stick with the class but took a step back from participating. Still, her experience worsened as the course progressed — the angry reactions and arguments during the class deeply troubled her, to the point that she wrote in her final paper that she’d had a nightmare about a classmate bringing a gun to class.

“Exercising Leadership” is part of a set of internationally renowned courses at the Kennedy School known collectively as the school’s Adaptive Leadership courses. The majority of alumni recalled positive experiences, citing the course’s transformative effect on their lives, but some have said the stresses of the course have had a lasting negative impact on them.

The Crimson spoke with 23 students who participated in

the curriculum over the last two years to discuss their experiences with the course.

HKS spokesperson James F. Smith declined to address specific criticisms about the Adaptive Leadership courses, but commended them for a “40year track record of appreciation” from alumni, noting that some have described it as having a “life-changing positive impact.”

“Our faculty have designed these innovative courses in line with the School’s mission to prepare leaders for the world’s most difficult challenges,” Smith wrote.

Smith noted that the course syllabus contains a “cautionary explanation” about the class experience, adding that faculty and staff provide additional support to students when needed.

“In all courses at Harvard Kennedy School, protecting student well-being is a core goal for faculty and staff,” Smith added. “Any concerns raised by students in those courses are reviewed by the School, as is true for all our courses.”

‘The Crown Jewel’ The Harvard Kennedy School hosts a wide range of courses, but the policy school is best known for its courses on leadership.

Public servants, military leaders, and government officials come from around the world to the Kennedy School, many of them drawn in by the most storied class at the Kennedy School, Adaptive Leadership, a series of

students in degree and executive programs has been the highlight of their education at Harvard.”

“Ron likes to tell the story of how a bold young dean took what some criticized as a reckless chance in giving him the opportunity to show what he could do,” added Allison, who first hired Heifetz to the Kennedy School.

“It was a big bet — but it has paid off handsomely for students and HKS.” The course admits 102 students per section out of hundreds of applicants, making it one of the most selective courses at the Kennedy School. Some students come to HKS out of the sole desire to take Heifetz’s class, which is internationally renowned.

“The leadership classes are like the crown jewel for HKS,” said Shady T. ElGhazaly Harb, who took the class in 2022. “This is a framework that you cannot find anywhere else.”

“It teaches us how to engage, and not just escape away from the challenges that we face, but engage with it and have the courage to face our fears,” he added.

The class pioneered a teaching style called the case-in-point method, centered on real-time reflection and adaptation prompted by direct challenges from the professor. The process is geared toward learning from failure through experience and observation.

A lecturer will call out, for example, when a student asks a rhetorical question instead of a unique perspective or conforms

“

I can say that, for me, it was like ‘The Hunger Games.’ People attack each other or people try to support others.

Susana Orrego Villegas Student attendee

classes developed and taught by HKS professor Ronald A. Heifetz.

“For decades of students at HKS, Ron Heifetz is revered as a legend,” Graham T. Allison ’62, the founding dean of the Kennedy School, wrote in an emailed statement. “In his unconventional, indeed unique, style he has created a course that for thousands of

to popular opinion to avoid a potential confrontation.

This draws out reactions and defenses that otherwise would not be observed in the classroom setting. A lecturer may also stop speaking for a significant period of class time to provoke students’ honest reactions and create a learning experience.

Heifetz developed the “adaptive leadership” concept in the mid-1980s alongside former Massachusetts State Rep. Marty A. Linsky, a fellow lecturer at HKS. Alexander Grashow and Riley M. Sinder also assisted in developing the class.

The course is a product of an identity crisis at the Kennedy School: Should the school continue to produce sturdy, effective middle managers and bureaucrats, or would it be a forge for dynamic and assertive leaders?

came to a solution that rested on three principles: that students learn best from experience, that they must be given tools to analyze those experiences, and that the form of teaching must create those experiences.

“During this process, the instructor walks the razor’s edge between generating overwhelming stress and allowing comfortable passivity,” the study read.

During “leadership failure analysis,” for example, students present a time they failed as a

“

During this process, the instructor walks the razor’s edge between generating overwhelming stress and allowing comfortable passivity.

Ronald A. Heifetz, Riley M. Sinder, Alice Jones, Lynn M. Hodge, and Keith A. Rowley.

Heifetz fell squarely in the latter camp.

In 1983, Heifetz completed the mid-career master’s in public administration program at the Kennedy School, beginning his focus on transformative methods of leadership education and development the following year.

Allison said his initial decision to hire Heifetz was criticized by “almost everybody.”

“Who would let a recent MPA with a degree in psychiatry and a violin try to teach leadership to adults in HKS Ex programs?” he wrote in an email.

According to a 1989 study by Heifetz, Sinder, and several other colleagues on the newly developed pedagogy, adaptive leadership was an attempt to teach the “unteachable.”

“From our experience, the perceived ‘unteachability’ of these areas results from two problems,” the authors wrote.

“The first is confusion in the general society over what ought to be taught about leadership, essential values, or creativity. The challenge is to clarify what students need to know.”

“The second problem is pedagogical,” they added. “How do we select the appropriate teaching strategy to get across the material effectively?”

Heifetz and his colleagues

leader and faced severe consequences. Their classmates are asked to analyze their behaviors — both in the example provided and during the reflection itself — all while a teaching assistant seeks to challenge and provoke them to produce a defensive reaction.

Today, Heifetz’s seminal class is divided into two courses. The first part, MLD-201: “Exercising Leadership,” is taught by lecturers Farayi S. Chipungu and Timothy O’Brien in the fall and Hugh O’Doherty in the spring — all of whom were directly trained in the pedagogy by Heifetz.

The second component of the class, MLD-202: “Leadership from the Inside Out: The Capacity to Lead and Stay Alive — Self, Identity, and Freedom,” is taught

by Heifetz himself.

“Leadership from the Inside Out” is taught for 10 days during the winter term, from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The same methods are applied in this course — but in a more intimate and intense setting.

Ana Rocío Castillo Romero, an MPA student from Peru who took both courses in 2022, said she wanted to take Heifetz’s course on leadership for six years before she applied to the Kennedy School.

“It was a unique experience,”

she said. “A unique experience that’s something that you will not have again, probably, in your life.”

HKS declined The Crimson’s request to observe “Exercising Leadership.”

‘Potentially Destabilizing’ In the class’ early years, Heifetz and his research partners characterized the nature of the course as “risky.”

Near the end of his 1989 study, Heifetz wrote that the class’ pedagogy “causes personal distress for some students” — finding that 3 to 4 percent of students “remain upset” more than a year after concluding their time in the class.

This warning is still applied to the class today — the course description of MLD-202 cautions a “potentially destabilizing exploration” for students who choose to enroll.

“Interested students should note that this course will be an intensely emotional experience.

We explore students’ own cases of failure and success and their experiences of trauma and its impact on identity,” the description reads, with the caveat that “no one will be pushed to share more than they wish.”

According to the 1989 study, the class may cause distress by provoking intergroup conflict, by destabilizing students through discussion and analysis of their failure, and by having course staff make mistakes and mismanage conflict.

In addition, the teaching method, which is designed to develop leadership through conflict, can often sow division by race, gender, nationality, and status.

ElGhazaly Harb, who took both segments of the course, recalled contentious discussions on the Russia-Ukraine war that intensified through the participation of Ukrainian and Russian students enrolled in the class.

“We were not expecting a safe space in terms of if you say something, people will tiptoe around it, no,” ElGhazaly Harb said. “And that was good — everything was challenged.”

For Orrego Villegas, the tense conversations in the class at times felt threatening.

“I can say that, for me, it was like ‘The Hunger Games,’” she said. “People attack each other or people try to support others.”

Students’ “failure cases” are examined weekly through small

COVER STORY

THE HARVARD CRIMSON NOVEMBER 10, 2023

Ronald A. Heifetz’s class on adaptive leadership is one of the most popular and selective courses at Harvard Kennedy School. LARA R. BERLINER — CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

group exercises, the class’ final paper, and at times, class-wide discussion.

“Students uncover personally painful events and subject them to scrutiny,” the 1989 study reads. “This technique can open old professional wounds that, for some, may require added attention to resolve.”

Akira Shimabukuro, a physician who took both MLD-201 and 202 in 2022, said his failure case concerned a severe medical error he made early in his career — one he had never previously shared with his colleagues.

After he presented his case on the third day of MLD-202, Shimabukuro’s section analyzed the role his environment played in the mistake as well as his own skills and experience, coming to the conclusion that he was given “too much responsibility” in making the “very tough decision” in this case.

“I became very emotional,” Shimabukuro said. “Because I couldn’t share it for years, I felt a little bit better after I shared it.

But at the same time, I think go-

In an interview with The Crimson in May, Elmendorf acknowledged the emotional weight of some of the leadership courses and said the school provides information for students to decide whether or not they are ready to take the course.

“What we try to do for all of our students is make sure they get enough information about courses before they sign up so they can make the choices that suit them best,” he said. “I think for some of our students that Adaptive Leadership is the best course they could take and for others it isn’t, and that’s a matter of personal choice.”

William Jensen Diaz, who took MLD-201 with Villegas, recalled Chipungu telling students not to take the course if they had recently experienced a divorce or an event causing similar levels of emotional distress.

Castillo Romero said in her experience with the course, instructors gave clear warnings not to take the class if in an emotionally vulnerable state.

“It’s published in every possi-

have to face the possibility that teaching deeply will always uncover or induce personal pain,” Heifetz and his co-authors wrote.

‘That Could Be Me’ Villegas, who signed up for MLD201, is among the students still shaken by taking the class.

She had joined seeking to learn leadership techniques and build her management capabilities, but soon became uncomfortable with her experience in the class — so uncomfortable that

she helped form a support group with other Latinx students in the course.

One of the students she met through this support group was Mateo Gomez, a 32-year-old gay Colombian student who was rising through the ranks at the FBI. He, too, had been telling family members that he was struggling with the class.

As was typical of support groups that emerged during the course, though, the group stopped meeting soon after the class’ conclusion on Dec. 9, 2022.

On Dec. 17, Gomez died by suicide in his Boston apartment.

In the year since, the Kennedy School has undergone a reckoning over its approach to student mental health.

In January, the school hired Jimmy Kane as senior associate director of student support services at the Kennedy School as part of a series of reforms aimed at improving mental and emotional health and well-being among the school’s students.

Villegas and others said they wonder if the Kennedy School could have done a better job supporting students through a course designed to induce personal pain.

Kennedy School Student Government President NanaEfua Afoh-Manin said that she decided to run for the position because the school did not mention Gomez during her summer orientation or during new mental health training requirement modules.

Afoh-Manin said she only learned about Gomez’s death from a friend — and was “livid.”

“We’ve had a whole mental health seminar,” Afoh-Manin said.

“Why wasn’t this on day one?”

The Soul Keepers group was also moved to action by Gomez’s death. Several members of the group said they struggled with MLD-201 and 202 — even those who said they ultimately grew and benefited from that struggle — and called for greater mental health support in the courses.

Thomas E. Guadamuz, who took MLD-201 alongside Gomez, said when he left messages with Harvard’s Counseling and Mental Health Service over his emotional struggles in the course, he was never contacted back.

“It was awful,” Guadamuz said. “At least I had my friends to talk with and stuff, but what if I was in a worse state?”

Harvard University Health Services declined to comment for this article, citing patient confidentiality.

Two months after Gomez’s

7

death, his sister Andrea Gomez told The Crimson that in the weeks prior to Mateo’s death, she spoke with him several times about distress from MLD-201.

“I thought about this many times, but he told me there was a class that really affected him. And I was like, ‘What do you mean?’ because he was always so good in school and everything was fine. So he’s like, yeah, ‘I shouldn’t have taken that class,’” Andrea Gomez said.

“He said that it really affected him.”

Heifetz told The Crimson in an email in September that he was distressed by Gomez’s death and “did some investigation,” but declined to provide further details.

Andrea Gomez said her brother told her that in the class, “people come at you really aggressive.”

“He was a very kind and thoughtful person, so who knows what kind of arguments and stuff was coming at him,” she said.

Luis C. Herrera Favela, Gomez’s partner of six months, said Mateo Gomez expressed similar concerns to him about the effect of this class on his mental health.

“Technically he told me twice, and I quote, ‘I don’t know if this class is contributing to my state,’” Herrera Favela said. “This was a big thing because usually he was very, very diplomatic and never said anything negative about anything or anyone.”

Herrera Favela said he believes the challenging part of the class for Mateo Gomez was the leadership failure analysis.

“When you see the things in retrospect, going back to a space and a time when you fail, it definitely didn’t contribute to his positive state of mind,” Herrera Favela said.

Guadamuz, who joined the Soul Keepers in the spring prior to graduating, said he saw himself in Gomez.

“That could be me, you know, I’m also queer and a person of color,” Guadamuz said. “It’s heartbreaking.” asher.montgomery@thecrimson.com

“

Because I couldn’t share it for years, I felt a little bit better after I shared it. But at the same time, I think going through this very emotional moment in the class was pretty tough for me, so I felt very heavy for the whole first week.

Akira Shimabukuro Student attendee

ing through this very emotional moment in the class was pretty tough for me, so I felt very heavy for the whole first week.”

According to Shimabukuro, during a reunion event three months after the course ended, some of his peers recalled experiencing a “crisis” because of the leadership failure cases.

Months after finishing the course, Shimabukuro helped organize the Soul Keepers, a mental health advocacy group for Kennedy School students.

In an open letter to HKS Dean Douglas W. Elmendorf in April, the Soul Keepers requested training sessions on emotional well-being for teaching fellows of MLD courses. This proposal, according to Shimabukuro, was directly inspired by members’ experiences in MLD-201 and 202.

The Kennedy School announced plans the following month to implement emotional well-being training for teaching fellows and course assistants of all classes.

In their effort to push students to their limits, course faculty can sometimes go too far, the 1989 study suggests.

“We — the teacher and teaching assistants — make mistakes,” the authors wrote. “We mismanage conflict, we misunderstand individuals, and we occasionally challenge students insensitively.”

ble way,” she said.

Some students disagreed. Liza Maharjan, who took MLD-201 in fall 2022, said she believes the course’s disclaimer was insufficient, explaining that the traumatic and sensitive stories people told in the course touched “very deep nerves” and without the professor’s guidance the class at times became “violent.”

“They don’t focus it enough,” Maharjan said of warnings about the class. “Even when we do get those disclaimers, it’s not sufficient, the resources that are available don’t sufficiently provide,” Maharjan said.

“If you choose not to engage in the sense that you just switch yourself off, then there’s no learning, but if you want to engage you’re encouraged to get your walls down,” she added.

According to the 1989 study, teaching assistants in the course are instructed to mitigate risk by actively intervening, debriefing the lecturer on class dynamics, and “helping those students in distress reflect and learn from the experience,” the authors write.

The paper also suggests instructors ask colleagues to notify them if they “see someone in trouble.”

The study acknowledges the possibility that these protective measures may not be sufficient.

“In spite of our procedures, we

Ronald A. Heifetz’s course at the Kennedy School has two components: MLD-201: “Exercising Leadership” and MLD-202: “Leadership from the Inside Out: The Capacity to Lead and Stay Alive — Self, Identity, and Freedom.” LARA R. BERLINER — CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

8

THE HARVARD CRIMSON

NEWS

NOVEMBER 10, 2023

HLS Groups Allege LGBTQ+ Hate Speech ALLEGED HATE SPEECH. Harvard Law School LGBTQ+ student groups demand stronger response from administration to alleged hate speech.

BY JO B. LEMANN AND NEIL H. SHAH CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

­L

GBTQ+ student groups at Harvard Law School criticized the school’s response to an instance of alleged homophobic and transphobic speech at an orientation event for second-year law students.

Lambda — an LGBTQ+ affinity group at the Law School — and HLS Queer Trans People of Color condemned the incident in a joint statement published on Oct. 6 in the Harvard Law Record.

They urged the HLS administration “to defend the rights of LGBTQ+ people at Harvard Law and beyond.”

One student attending a Sept.

28 orientation session on cultural competency criticized the con-

cept as contradictory to “natural law” and made homophobic and transphobic remarks, according to attendees. Other publications have previously reported this student’s views against same-sex marriage and transgender identity.

According to attendees, University of Maryland Law School professor Russell McClain, who led the Sept. 28 session, apologized for the impact of the incident the next day.

One attendee asked if any HLS administrators present wanted to address the matter. Monica E. Monroe, the assistant dean for community, engagement, equity, and belonging, then said the school had contacted LGBTQ+ groups on campus about the incident but did not directly address the statements made the previous day.

In the Oct. 6 statement, the student groups affirmed their commitment to free speech, but added that “for free speech to be adequately protected, hate speech can not be tolerated.”

The letter also called on the

school to train faculty and administrators to handle “hateful rhetoric” in the classroom, create ways for students and faculty to easily report it, and communicate more clearly with students when such incidents occur.

Harvard Law School spokesperson Jeff Neal did not comment on either the student groups’ statement or the events during the orientation sessions.

Hours after the student groups’ statements, Monroe sent an email to HLS students reminding them of the school’s policies on “community norms for engagement in shared spaces.”

“A classroom environment conducive to learning requires students to be able to engage with one another in an atmosphere that encourages experimentation, trying on arguments for size, and making mistakes,” Monroe wrote.

Victoria Abut, one of Lambda’s co-presidents, criticized Monroe’s email for failing to address the allegedly discriminatory remarks and for not mentioning that the school permits

Alumni Condemn University Following Viral Protest Video

BY JOYCE E. KIM AND NIA L. ORAKWUE CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

Prominent alumni condemned University leadership in recent weeks in the form of two open letters, both of which criticized administrators for failing to confront what one described as a “meteoric rise in antisemitism” on Harvard’s campus.

Both letters — one authored by Harvard Business School alumni William W. Helman IV, Joanna M. Jacobson, Seth A. Klarman, Mark E. Nunnelly, and Mitt Romney and the other written by Bill A. Ackman ’88 — cited a viral video of an Oct. 18 pro-Palestine “die-in” protest at HBS posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

The video depicts several organizers confronting a man, who was identified as an Israeli student in other outlets, and escorting him away after he began walking around the die-in and filming protesters’ faces. Organizers repeatedly told him to “exit” and blocked his camera with their security vests and keffiyehs — traditional Palestinian scarves.

The Jewish student, who can be heard saying “Don’t touch me,” came into physical contact with the protesters as he dodged their keffiyehs. As the student left, demonstrators shouted “shame” after him.

A version of the video posted with the caption “Harvard students attacking a Jewish student on campus during an anti-Israel protest” received more than 15,000 likes and more than 6,000 reposts and sparked severe criticism from Harvard affiliates.

“How are these students not immediately suspended? How does this not violate Harvard’s code of conduct for students?”

Ackman wrote in a Nov. 1 post on X. “How would Harvard respond if the affected student were Black, Latino or LGBTQIA?” In a post on X Sunday, the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee addressed the viral video, writing that the organizers who directed the student to leave were trained “student marshals” in place to ensure protest safety. According to the post, marshals used the “non-violent, de-escalatory practice” of public pressure to deter the man, who had been recording demonstrators’ faces.

“Widely circulated footage has been contorted to suggest that the individual was harassed due to his identity,” the PSC wrote in the statement. “Nothing could be further from the truth. We simply wanted to prevent him from putting more students at risk.”

The man filming the viral video, according to the PSC statement, eyewitness accounts, and aerial news footage, had been stepping over demonstrators and recording their faces as they

lay on the ground — a sequence of events corroborated by The Crimson’s initial reporting.

According to University spokesperson Jason A. Newton, the incident is being investigated by the FBI and the Harvard University Police Department.

“In line with its standard practice, once law enforcement’s inquiry is complete, the University will address the incident through its student disciplinary procedures to determine if University policies or codes of conduct have been violated, and if so, take appropriate action,” Newton wrote in an emailed statement.

In a statement to school affiliates on Oct. 24, HBS Dean Srikant M. Datar condemned antisemitism and doxxing and detailed additional steps the administration was taking to ensure “the safety and well-being” of students.

“The pro-Palestinian demonstration that crossed from Cambridge onto our campus last Wednesday, which included a troubling confrontation between one of our MBA students and a subset of the protestors, has left many of our students shaken,” Datar wrote. “The facts are being evaluated, and it will be some time before we learn the results of an investigation.”

Corinne Shanahan, a student at the Law School who attended the protest, said she believed the man was filming demonstrators “in bad faith, either to intimidate or dox them.”

Tigs Louis-Puttick, another protester who participated in the die-in, said she felt “pretty unsafe” as the man stepped over her body.

“He was walking over people, making them feel quite uncomfortable and in danger,” Louis Puttick said.

Shanahan said she “wholeheartedly” rejects criticism of the PSC marshals’ actions as violent.

One of the safety marshals, Ibrahim I. Bharmal — a student at the Law School and an editor at the Harvard Law Review — was singled out online after he was identified in the viral video.

“How does this man remain Editor of the Harvard Law Review?”

Ackman wrote in his Nov. 1 post.

Bharmal declined to comment for this article.

The HBS alumni letter, which was originally released on Oct. 23, described the interaction between protesters and the student as a “violent assault” and urged University leadership to take action to manage campus protests.

The letter urged the University to restate and enforce its moral code of conduct, require all protesters be enrolled Harvard students, only permit scheduled protests, and mandate all students enroll in a “semester-long course that teaches productive discourse, critical thinking and the interrogation of facts.”

“The expressions of hate and vitriol against Jews have continued and strengthened over

the last week on Harvard’s campuses,” the letter reads. “The threatening, violent protests by pro-Palestinian groups on Harvard campuses become more heinous with each passing day.”

“Given that Harvard has been vocal in its advocacy for the rights of students from other religious, racial and ethnic groups, this silence, amidst the meteoric rise in antisemitism, is deafening,” it continues.

Newton declined to comment further, citing a Friday message from University President Claudine Gay reaffirming Harvard’s Vietnam-era code of conduct, which was originally issued in response to fiery anti-war protests that swept campus. Newton also referenced campus closures in recent weeks.

Ackman, a billionaire hedge fund manager, wrote in his Nov. 4 letter to the University that he had “lost confidence” in Gay and her administration. He specifically mentioned Gay’s video address where she stated that Harvard “embraces a commitment to free expression” and rejected calls to punish student activists.

“You sent a clear message that the eliminationist and antisemitic statements of the protesters are permissible on campus,” Ackman wrote to Gay. “Unfortunately, Harvard has not embraced a serious commitment to free speech, particularly so in recent years.”

Newton declined to comment on Ackman’s statement.

After an uptick in student doxxing, Harvard last month established a task force to support students who were doxxed or dealing with online harassment. On Oct. 27, Harvard also announced the establishment of an advisory group to combat antisemitism on campus.

In his letter, Ackman wrote that he believes the creation of the doxxing task force communicated “that the University was not just ignoring the antisemitic incidents and threats to Jewish student safety on campus, but rather it was taking sides in the conflict by only supporting students who held Israel responsible for Hamas’ vile acts.”

Ackman’s letter called for seven specific actions from the University, which he outlined in his letter — including the suspension of students involved in the HBS confrontation and disciplinary actions taken towards students chanting “eliminationist” statements, specifically referencing the phrase “from the river to the sea.”

“Successfully addressing antisemitism at Harvard and creating an environment with true freedom of expression will become a critically important part of your legacy as the Harvard community works together to address these challenges at a difficult time in world history,” Ackman wrote. joyce.kim@thecrimson.com nia.orakwue@thecrimson.com

Harvard Law School students criticized administrators’ response to alleged homophobic and transphobic comments at the second-year orientation. JULIAN J. GIORDANO — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

students to report misconduct despite its classroom non-attribution policy.

“They’re like, ‘Why haven’t students come up to us and talked to us about this student if they’ve been having issues?’ and it’s like, ‘A. Because you don’t tell them

how to and B. You don’t tell them that they can,’” Abut said.

Neal did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding the criticism of Monroe’s emails.

“It really would absolutely send such a fundamentally af-

firming message if the administration stood behind us, if the administration said, ‘The wellbeing of our marginalized students matters to us,’” Abut said. jo.lemann@thecrimson.com neil.shah@thecrimson.com

Khurana Stresses Intellectual Vitality, Condemns Doxxings

BY J. SELLERS HILL AND NIA L. ORAKWUE CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

Dean of Harvard College Rakesh Khurana condemned student doxxings and stressed the importance of free idea exchange amid a period of campus turmoil around the ongoing violence in Israel and Gaza in a Friday interview with The Crimson.

Khurana also addressed criticisms of Harvard’s response to the conflict and stressed the value of higher education in the face of national backlash.

In recent weeks, the University has been a subject of national attention after the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee published a statement saying they “hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence” after Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel. The PSC later wrote that it “staunchly opposes violence against civilians.”

The statement, which was originally co-signed by 33 other Harvard student groups, was widely criticized by students, alumni, faculty, and prominent public figures, including former Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers.

In the weeks following the statement’s publication, some

students allegedly affiliated with signatory organizations faced online doxxing, with identifying information and photographs posted on websites and social media. A truck circled campus, calling some students “Harvard’s Leading Antisemites” and displaying their names and faces.

Khurana called the attacks “deplorable and despicable” and expressed his concerns about the “chilling effect” that retaliation has on campus discourse.

“We already have challenges in which people are self-censoring, or avoiding talking about complex topics,” Khurana said.

“We need to make sure that our classrooms, our research spaces are places where we can tackle complex issues, and people can thoughtfully raise questions.”

Khurana also reiterated that the College is prioritizing student safety and had reached out to those targeted by the doxxing attacks.

“We have taken a number of steps working in coordination with the University to ensure their safety,” Khurana said of doxxed students.

“We also want to make it very clear that antisemitism, Islamophobia, xenophobia, and discrimination of any type will not be tolerated,” he added. “Hate has no place on this campus.”

Last month, The Crimson reported that the College had established a task force out of the Dean of Students Office to support doxxed students. Harvard also formed an advisory group of administrators and scholars to combat antisemitism on campus.

“We are finding that, often, the best way to respond to students is through a highly individualized approach,” Khurana said.

Khurana said he believes the task of higher education institutions to be an environment for open dialogue on sensitive topics is a “moral position.” Earlier this year, The Crimson reported that Khurana facilitated an “Intellectual Vitality Committee” composed of Harvard undergraduates, faculty, and alumni to discuss a perceived lack of free idea exchange at the College.

“Having a commitment to the search for truth — to recognizing that different facts and perspectives and points of view help us get a more accurate picture and can also point to ways forward — is a unique position that we occupy,” Khurana said.

“We have to hold fast to those values.”

“Those values are under pressure right now,” he added. sellers.hill@thecrimson.com nia.orakwue@thecrimson.com

Dean of the College Rakesh Khurana speaks at an October interview. MARINA QU — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

NEWS

THE HARVARD CRIMSON NOVEMBER 10, 2023

9

UNIVERSITY

Garber Regrets Initial Israel Statement STATEMENT. Provost Alan M. Garber ’76 said he has regrets over the University’s initial statement on the invasion of Israel by Hamas.

BY MILES J. HERSZENHORN AND CLAIRE YUAN CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

­H

arvard Provost Alan M. Garber ’76 said in an interview on Thursday that he has regrets about the University’s initial statement on the war in Israel and Gaza and called the bitter divisions on campus the most serious crisis Harvard has faced over his 12year tenure.

“I certainly have regrets about the first statement,” he said. “Our goal is to ensure that our community is safe, secure, and feels well supported — and that first statement did not succeed in that regard.”

Affiliates slammed the University over its initial statement on Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which critics condemned for failing to denounce Hamas and respond to a controversial letter signed by more than 30 Harvard student groups that called Israel “entirely responsible” for the violence.

The criticism prompted Harvard President Claudine Gay to release a second statement less

than 16 hours later, in which she explicitly condemned Hamas and distanced the University from the statement signed by the student organizations.

“President Gay’s follow-up statement was important in rectifying some of the misimpressions that we created with that first statement,” Garber said.

During the interview, Garber said the backlash against the University — which started just as Gay reached the 100th day of her presidency — and the heightened tensions on campus constitute the most serious challenge he has faced since joining Harvard’s top ranks.

“I’ve been provost for over 12 years, and in that time, we’ve confronted many crises,” Garber said. “But in my view, none has been as serious for the University as this one — and I’m even including Covid in that.”

The unprecedented nature of this crisis, Garber said, stems from the deep divisions it provoked on campus.

“The community was immediately divided, and that is not true of every crisis that we face,” he said. “It is a combustible situation, and one in which many people are grieving.”

The past month has also been an exercise in damage control for Gay’s administration, as senior Harvard officials released more than six statements about

CRIMSON LEADERSHIP FROM PAGE 1

Hill to Lead The Crimson’s 151st Guard

University Provost Alan M. Garber ’76 spoke at the opening ceremony of the Hate Ends Now touring exhibit. CLAIRE YUAN — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

News Elias J. Schisgall ’25, Associate Managing Editor Claire Yuan ’25, Associate Managing Editor

Business Mathias Melucci ’26, Associate Business Manager Meredith W.B. Zielonka ’25, Associate Business Manager Editorial Tommy Barone ’25, Editorial Chair Jacob M. Miller ’25, Editorial Chair Diversity & Inclusivity Lauren A. Kirkpatrick ’26, D&I Chair Hailey E. Krasnikov ’25, D&I Chair Historian Rahem D. Hamid ’25, Historian Arts Anna Moiseieva ’25, Arts Chair Allison S. Park ’25, Arts Chair Blog Eve S. Jones ’25, Blog Chair Hayeon Ok ’25, Blog Chair Design Laurinne J.P. Eugenio ’26, Design Chair Sami E. Turner ’25, Design Chair Magazine Hewson Duffy ’25, Magazine Chair Kaitlyn Tsai ’25, Magazine Chair Multimedia Julian J. Giordano ’25, Multimedia Chair Addison Y. Liu ’25, Multimedia Chair Sports Katharine A. Forst ’25, Sports Chair Jack K. Silvers ’25, Sports Chair Technology Dennis S. Eum ’26, Technology Chair Neil H. Shah ’26, Technology Chair

Miles J. Herszenhorn ‘25 will be the next managing editor. Matthew M. Doctoroff ‘25 will be the next business manager. JOEY HUANG — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

antisemitism.”

In another University-wide statement released minutes after Garber’s interview with The Crimson on Thursday, Gay condemned the use of the pro-Palestine slogan “from the river to the sea” and announced a new effort to implement antisemitism education and training for Harvard affiliates.

Garber said in the interview that while he also condemns the use of the slogan, the University “will remain concerned about free speech and freedom of expression on campus.”

“At a time like today, when there is a great deal of conflict on campus and protests and counter-protests, it is all the more important for us to protect speech rights,” Garber said. “So this is a top priority for us as the University.”

Garber said the divisiveness of the issue means there is an opportunity for institutions of higher education to educate on the Israel-Palestine conflict.

“Universities have a great deal more to contribute in advancing public understanding of the issues,” Garber said. “That does not necessarily mean neutrality, but I do hope that it means that we can approach each other with greater empathy.” miles.herszenhorn@thecrimson.com claire.yuan@thecrimson.com

Harvard Faculty Members Have Retired Later Since 2003, per FAS Annual Report

BY TILLY R. ROBINSON

next business manager, stewarding the newspaper’s financial operations and business affairs. An Economics concentrator from Huntington Woods, Michigan, Doctoroff has served as the Business Board’s marketing manager, guiding affiliate marketing efforts and overseeing a sponsored content suite responsible for more than $60,000 in revenue.

Doctoroff previously worked on social media engagement and analytics for the Business Board, bolstering The Crimson’s educational conference outreach and improving distribution strategy across a wide swath of advertising channels.

“The new guard’s innovative vision, capacity for empathy, and passion for holding power to account and telling untold stories will serve them well as they make the newspaper their own,” Chang wrote. “I cannot wait to see how Sellers, Miles, Matthew, and the rest of the masthead keep the old sheet flying in 2024.”

Founded in 1873, The Crimson is the independent student newspaper of Harvard University and provides detailed coverage of Harvard and Cambridge affairs to University affiliates, residents, and readers around the globe.

The Crimson elects its leaders through a process known as the Turkey Shoot, in which all outgoing members of the masthead may deliberate. A candidate for senior leadership must receive 75 percent of the vote or more to be elected.

Joining Hill, Herszenhorn, and Doctoroff on the masthead are:

the war in Israel and Gaza after the outrage caused by the University’s initial messaging.

In a speech during a Harvard Hillel Shabbat dinner held over Family Weekend, Gay announced the establishment of an advisory group to combat antisemitism that will work closely with her and Garber.

Garber and Dean of the College Rakesh Khurana were also present at the dinner, part of what Garber said was an intentional effort to demonstrate support for Harvard’s Jewish affiliates.

“At a time when there was rising concern over antisemitism at Harvard, when the parents of the students were concerned about antisemitism, and the students themselves were reporting their discomfort about antisemitism, it was particularly important to be there to show that this mattered to us,” Garber said.

Garber said while the University recognizes Islamophobia is “an ongoing problem at Harvard,” he added that Harvard has placed increased resources into combating antisemitism due to its sharp rise nationwide.

“In general, if you look at the national statistics, the other forms of hate had not grown as rapidly over that period,” Garber said. “So there was a sense of great urgency about addressing

AND TESS C. WAYLAND CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

had entered into these agreements. Since the rollout of the Faculty Retirement Program, an average of 11.9 faculty members have retired per year, compared to an average of 7.6 retirees from 2003 to 2011.

“Despite the increase in faculty retirements due to the Faculty Retirement Program, they have not kept pace with the number of faculty turning 65 or older,” the report states.

The report also examined hiring and promotion over the past academic year.

Out of the 53 ladder faculty searches in the 2022-23 academic year, the FAS made 39 offers, including 20 to women and 20 to people of color. The FAS granted tenure to 14 of the 15 ladder faculty under review — eight of whom were faculty of color.

Since 2014, 78 percent of faculty who have stood for tenure review have been granted tenure. While 75 percent of male candidates received tenure after review, 83 percent of female candidates received tenure. Faculty of color received tenure in

86 percent of cases.

The “unconditional promotion rate” — the percentage of all faculty members who received tenure out of those who would have come up for tenure review — was 59 percent between 2014 and 2023.

Though a higher percentage of women who stand for tenure review receive tenure compared to men, the unconditional promotion rates are roughly equal across gender — indicating that women are more likely than men to choose to leave Harvard rather than go up for review.

According to last year’s faculty trends report, retention rates have increased for all faculty since 2014, and the gender gap has narrowed but not closed.

Between 2014 and 2022, the rate of eligible women who decided to stand for tenure was 68 percent, compared to 58 percent between 2008 and 2014.

The rate for men increased from 71 percent to 78 percent.

The FAS began tracking the number of nonbinary faculty this year, reporting them as 0.2

Harvard faculty have retired at increasingly older ages throughout the last two decades, according to the annual Faculty of Arts and Sciences report.

FAS Dean for Faculty Affairs and Planning Nina Zipser presented the report to members of the FAS during a Zoom faculty meeting on Tuesday.

Since 2003, the rate of faculty who retire before the age of 75 has dropped from 95 percent to 56 percent, according to Zipser. The percentage of faculty members who retire between the ages of 75 and 79 has increased from 1.5 percent to 5.9 percent between 2003 and 2023, while the percentage of faculty who retire above the age of 80 increased from 0 to 3.3 percent.

Harvard could no longer enforce mandatory retirement at 70 after 1994 when Congress amended the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. As tenured faculty began retiring later in their careers, the FAS introduced the Faculty Retirement Program in 2009 to promote retirement for faculty older than 65 and younger than 72.

The program offers tenured faculty two- and four-year ret i r e m e n t paths, including reduced teaching obligations, more paid sabbaticals, or retirement contributions instead of full salaries.

Zipser said at Tuesday’s meeting there was “no clear path to retirement” before the program’s introduction.

As of 2019, 124 faculty SOURCE: 2023 FACULTY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES DEAN’S ANNUAL REPORT

percent of the faculty — three people, Zipser said.

The racial and ethnic composition of the Harvard faculty remains similar to last year’s report. Tenure-track faculty, 44 percent of whom are faculty of color, remain the most racially diverse group. For both the tenured and non-ladder faculty cohorts, less than 30 percent are people of color. tilly.robinson@thecrimson.com tess.wayland@thecrimson.com

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10

THE HARVARD CRIMSON

EDITORIAL

NOVEMBER 10, 2023

COLUMN

COLUMN

A DEEPER DIVE INTO HARVARD’S FAITH

HARVARD’S ROLE AMID CLIMATE CHAOS

An Ode to Columns

Money or Sustainability: Choose One

IN CLASSES on religion, you eventually reach the inevitable question: What is religion? And at the end of the discussion, you’re more confused than you were at the beginning. That is the beautiful, frustrating tension of religion I am elated to continue studying.

NOT ENOUGH. Harvard should make a point to end not just individual investments, but the practice of land grabbing overall.

BY ELLIE H. ASHBY

BY PHOEBE G. BARR

­E

veryone on the Editorial Board knows two facts about me. First, my dad is a pastor and my mom is a therapist. Second, my name is synonymous with columns.

I comped the Editorial Board my freshman fall. Sophomore fall, I wrote my first column, “From Houston to Harvard.” From sophomore spring to junior fall, I edited columns for a year. Then, in junior spring, I wrote “A Leap into Faith.”

Now, senior fall, I write my final column, “A Deeper Dive Into Harvard’s Faith.”

You can see why my peers say I’m married to the position. For the past two and a half years, not a semester has gone by where I have not done something related to columns.

Even the other well-known Editorial Board fact about me — the occupations of my parents — is related to columns.

As the daughter of a pastor and a therapist, the idea of nuance, of symbiotic relationships, of connecting seemingly disparate threads together, was thrust upon me the moment I

Savior. For many, first communion is accompanied by spiritual clarity — but for me, it is a strangely empty void in my memory.

I cannot remember the conversation I had with the pastor on that Sunday, March 1, 2009. I don’t recall what I said on that stage in the westside of Atlanta, Ga. I fail to recall if I had any feelings of joy, acceptance, or any acknowledgement at all.

But I remember the snow. I remember pushing my sister down the hill in our backyard on our makeshift sled. That joy felt real; it felt spiritual. The neighborhood, with its porous structure overflowing with communal glee, was more a church than the physical sanctuary. *** This intense duality frames my relationship with Christianity.

I find spiritual joy in the absence of the institution that many around me cherish and

“

As the daughter of a pastor and a therapist, the idea of nuance, of symbiotic realtionships, of connecting seemingly disparate threads together was thrust upon me from the moment I entered the world.

entered the world. There was really no way around it — growing up at the intersection of Sunday morning services and chats about Brené Brown forces a person to hold multiple things at once. Even positing that these occupations are polar opposites feels like a failure to my upbringing.

Threads of this sentiment are entwined in my first column, a series of pieces that attempted to dispel the myths that the North is somehow absolved from the same needed and correct scrutiny that the South broadly undergoes.

There is more than what meets the eye. As my latest two columns on religion have revealed, religion at Harvard is complex; there is no one story that fits it all.

In part, this is why I love columns: They tell a larger story than a single op-ed can.

I aim to interrogate what has either been simplified or forgotten. The columnist’s methodology of placing all of these pieces together

love. I find more of a home amongst the snow than within the pews.

For a long time, I did not know what to do with my out-of-the-norm relationship with faith. I do not outright reject faith, but neither do I follow the well-trodden path.

I’ve wrestled with this sentiment explicitly in one of my past pieces, but I wrestle with this tension implicitly in all of them. It slithers in the shadows of every sentence.

Whenever I speak about religious structures on campus, whenever I stand before Memorial Church or Memorial Hall, I am viscerally confronted with my own relationship with Christianity. I am forced to package and repackage my understanding of myself in relation to a faith that I was born into, but also a faith that I chose.

Still, the emotion surrounding that choice has always felt beyond my conscious mind.

Am I comforted by religion because it has always existed, from the moment I stepped

“

Am I comforted by religion because it has always existed, from the moment I stepped into my family — or because it holds some divine truth? I do not think I will ever stop having this internal debate.

and in conversation with one another allows my subject material to become clear. *** This column is titled “A Deeper Dive Into Harvard’s Faith.” As I’ve illustrated over the course of this column, the history of Harvard’s faith is a tapestry of the stories of its leaders, students, and affiliates. I’ve covered many stories across my column so far, but there’s one missing: my own. In my final column piece of my tenure at The Crimson, I’ll dive into just that. Even my own story deserves some nuance.

In my first piece of this column, I mention the first time I saw snow in Atlanta, Ga. I use it to illustrate the ubiquity of religion throughout my life, as that same day, I took communion for the first time.

But the story is much more than that.

On the one hand, it is a glorious memory: I remember my entire neighborhood running outside, wrapped in every layer, every jacket, every sweater we could lay our hands on.

A snowball fight ensued. My dad got nailed in the head. With the help of all our neighborhood friends, my sisters and I constructed a snowman so large that it remained for weeks, outlasting all other icicles. Over the following weeks, it tilted to the right, until the snow pilar was at 45 degree angle.

On the other hand, I wrestle with the fact that what joy I felt that day did not come from where it was ‘supposed’ to.

That day, my younger sister and I took our first communion, one of two Protestant sacraments that demonstrate one’s acceptance and understanding of Jesus Christ as Lord and

into my family — or because it holds some divine truth?

I do not think I will ever stop having this internal debate.

This unending debate is an example of the same unknown I reach toward in other aspects of my life — as a columnist, a writer, and a student.

I think about column writing like I think about journaling: The first and the last pages are the hardest to fill. There is an undeniable pressure for beginnings and endings to be tidy, for the first and last pages of a journal to serve as reflective bookends.

This article is like those last pages of a journal. There is no reason to think of this piece as dictating some assertive end to my column journey, yet the final pages suggest a conclusion.

But there are no conclusions. Studying religion — not just as a specific faith or as a lens to examine other topics, but holistically as an idea — has taught me that.

In classes about religion, you eventually reach the infamous, inevitable question: What is religion? And at the end of that discussion, you’re more confused than you were at the beginning.

That is the inherent, beautiful, frustrating tension of religion. It’s the tension that I am elated to continue to study, knowing that I will likely never find a final satisfying conclusion but only chip away at the larger picture — just as my columns have done.

–Ellie H. Ashby ’24, a Crimson Editorial editor, is a Social Studies concentrator in Adams House. Her column, “A Deeper Dive Into Harvard’s Faith,” runs tri-weekly on Fridays.

­W

hen it comes to climate justice, Harvard has a problem.

On one hand, the University is ostensibly dedicated to both sustainability and justice. As I’ve explored extensively in this column, Harvard pledges to be a leader in confronting the climate crisis and to prioritize “wellbeing and equity” in its approach. On the other hand, Harvard Management Company’s highest priority is maintaining and increasing the endowment.

One way this tension manifests is through Harvard’s long-held relationship with the fossil fuel industry. Harvard held endowment investments in the fossil fuel industry until 2021, when it moved to divest, and various research programs at Harvard still receive funding from fossil fuel companies.

Another way Harvard continues to drive climate injustice is its deeply extractive relationship with land.

Following the 2008 financial crisis, Harvard began buying up agricultural land and other “natural resource assets” to diversify its investments. Over the following years, the University spent more than a billion dollars — or more than the entire endowments of many smaller universities — amassing land in South Africa, Eastern Europe, the United States, Australia and New Zealand, and especially South America.

The environmental effects of these land grabs were gruesome. Natural forests in Brazil were clear-cut and burned, and the excessive use of toxic chemicals infected water used for drinking and fishing. The resulting extreme deforestation also strongly exacerbated the effects of the

land holding practices — and since its natural resource investments didn’t pay off as expected — Harvard has been working to sell off most of its land grabs. Many of the lands have remained idle for years; but still, the lands have not been returned to their indigenous inhabitants, who are kept away by security guards. Amid this deep injustice, the then-head of natural resources investments for Harvard’s endowment expressed fear primarily at the prospect of running out of money and not finding a lucrative sale.

There has been some progress, however.

Groups like Stop Harvard Land Grabs have been working to expose and end Harvard’s problematic land practices.

Just this year, they helped win an important victory. A reservoir project was proposed on land previously controlled by and still indirectly owned by Harvard Management Company. Many locals, as well as Harvard affiliates, testified against the project because of concerns about water access and environmental impact.

The proposal was ultimately rejected.

The community showing up to push against Harvard’s extractive land processes is a heartening development. But the dynamic is telling: The locals, students, and activists in this case were fighting against Harvard’s investments and practices — rather than Harvard supporting them in pursuit of environmental justice.

Harvard’s wealth doesn’t have to be at odds with its environmental mission. Theoretically, the University could channel the vast resources of its endowment toward improving sustainability efforts and student life. That is certainly an

“

But as long as endowment wealth is gained at the cost of advancing environmental injustice in other parts of the world, Harvard isn’t prioritizing equity and well-being.

climate crisis.

Local people also suffered. Formerly public land was fenced off from the people who had traditionally gained a living from it. Native inhabitants were allegedly forced away from their land through a combination of division, bribery, and intimidation.

Harvard can’t plead ignorance, either: A court-filed document of correspondence between Harvard leadership and involved companies indicates that Harvard was aware of both the prospect of massive deforestation and conflict with local people in some of its land holdings. Yet, this awareness didn’t seem to stop them from going forward with buying up and eventually selling the land.

This type of extractive land practice doesn’t seem related to Harvard College’s central mission of education — and it certainly doesn’t relate to the University’s ideals of advancing sustainability and equity. In fact, it seems to counteract them.

But these investments weren’t made to advance education or make a positive impact on the world. They were made in pursuit of profit.

Since coming under fire in 2018 for its farm-

important goal, as I have pointed out elsewhere.

But as long as endowment wealth is gained at the cost of advancing environmental injustice in other parts of the world, Harvard isn’t prioritizing equity and well-being. Any sustainability efforts that come from sacrificing the rights of vulnerable communities aren’t worth it.

Despite efforts to sell off its land investments, Harvard’s transition away from this extractive practice is not complete. Harvard should make a point to end not just individual investments, but the practice of land grabbing overall. It should also pay reparations to the communities harmed by its past actions.

And it should reconsider how to ethically handle an endowment larger than the GDP of some nations. The University must confront this problem head-on, and choose between wealth-grabbing and environmental justice. Only one can be Harvard’s central priority.

–Phoebe G. Barr ’24 is a History and Literature concentrator in Lowell House and an organizer with Fossil Fuel Divest Harvard. Her column, “Harvard’s Role Amid Climate Chaos,” appears bi-weekly on Thursdays.

Pictures worth a thousand words.

EDITORIAL 11

THE HARVARD CRIMSON

NOVEMBER 10, 2023

STAFF EDITORIAL

Our Course Registration Frustration REGISTER ASAP. Despite the benefits of early course registration to teaching teams, a course registration period over winter break is a more favorable.

BY THE CRIMSON EDITORIAL BOARD

“*U

rgent* Please Remedy your Account Holds to register for Spring Classes.”

Under previous circumstances, such an email would find students enjoying the last days of their winter break, reminding them of the slowly but surely approaching cold weeks of the spring semester. But we’re only in November, and the trees have barely shed all their leaves.

In May of last year, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences voted to eliminate shopping week in favor of previous-term course registration. With spring 2024 as the pilot semester, many students currently find themselves scrambling to lift registration holds and enroll for classes before the Nov. 15 deadline.

As a Board, we find the new system beneficial, to the extent that it alleviates some of the burdens placed on our course instructors.

Teaching teams — both faculty and graduate students — face irregular demand curves for their classes. Enrollment in previous semesters may not be reflective of capacity needs in coming semesters, and as such, they have to make adjustments once enrollment numbers are confirmed.

With only a week or few days to make final sectioning plans, teaching teams may be left scrambling with staffing shortages and capacity constraints to fully accommodate students’ scheduling needs. Graduate student course staff, who have classes of their own, have to adjust their schedules on short notice to accommodate more section times when enrollment exceeds faculty estimates. This inflicts an undue burden on them.

Despite the benefits of early course registration to teaching teams, we take issue with the current implementation.

With a slew of midterms, papers due, problem sets to be submitted and readings to be completed,

OP-ED

C

oming from South Korea, where intensely law-abiding citizens do not dare to set foot on the road before the pedestrian light turns green, the norm of jaywalking in Harvard Square took some time to adjust to. I was pleasantly surprised, however, to learn that despite its supposedly disruptive effects, for some urban planners, ubiquitous jaywalking signals success at prioritizing pedestrians over vehicles.

This difference is one of many I have noticed about urban living in Cambridge. A myriad of unfamiliar systems of public transit, streets, and buildings in this new environment left me fascinated by the culture-specific nature of urban design.

For an undecided freshman scrambling to explore potential concentrations, fascination meant opportunity — an opportunity to explore the field of urban studies. But amidst the scramble of course registration, I was confused to learn that Urban Studies was not among the 50 concentrations and 49 secondaries offered at the College.

It is time for Harvard to establish an Urban Studies department.

Urban studies epitomizes Harvard’s interdisciplinary mission. As a student in a first-year seminar about the subject, I’ve learned about topics ranging from symbols of power and fascism in Nazi architecture to the tensions between envi-

In light of the glaring relevance of this field, every college in the Ivy League offers urban studies as a major or minor — every college, that is, except Harvard. ronmental activism and public housing projects.

These ideas transcend departmental boundaries and connect seemingly unrelated corners of society, embodying the liberal arts education that Harvard promises to offer.

Urban studies is also at the core of the most pressing socioeconomic and environmental problems that Harvard is committed to addressing — particularly the climate crisis. Sustainable urban design is fundamental to reducing our buildings’ carbon footprint, planning green spaces, and making green transportation options available. A comprehensive response to the climate crisis requires urban planning as an integral part of Harvard’s agenda.

In light of the glaring relevance of this field, every college in the Ivy League offers urban studies as a major or minor — every college, that is, except Harvard.

Outside of urban planning and design programs at the Graduate School of Design, the Har-

mation available, students will have had the opportunity to reflect on their previous semester and have more concrete plans for their coming semester.

Teaching teams on the other hand will have incorporated feedback from students and will still have time to hire according to their needs.

In the meantime, the school should maintain a flexible add-drop system to allow students to consider other classes should they change their minds in the spring — preferably one that lasts longer than a week.

Until then, get your flu shot and meet your adviser — registration closes in T-5 days, and you don’t want to enroll in a 9.00 a.m. class you couldn’t care less about.

This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.

STAFF EDITORIAL

Harvard Needs an Urban Studies Department

BY AIMEE K. CHOI

asking students to start planning for their next semester’s classes in November is questionable at best.

At this point in time, students are plagued with uncertainty about where they stand on current courses, much less their next semester classes. Many are weighing whether they want to continue pursuing certain disciplines or topics or explore new fields. Their activities and commitments for the next semester remain largely uncertain and very few have a complete sense of what their schedules will look like for the coming semester.

Similarly, professors who are required to post complete syllabi of their courses may still need to incorporate student input to workshop what parts of their courses are working and which ones can be improved. Those who have classes with several guest speakers face logistical challenges in scheduling the speakers for their classes this early.

Given these concerns, we think that a course registration period over winter break — perhaps two weeks before the semester begins — is a more favorable timeline. With the most recent Q report infor-

vard Mellon Urban Initiative and the Bloomberg Center for Cities seem to support urban studies on the broader campus. However, these resources lack the centralization or accessibility to undergraduates of a full department. HMUI supports “public events, exhibitions, course activities, community engagement, and workshops,” while BCC primarily focuses on research, training, and collaboration with city leaders.

Both are a far cry from conventional academic departments that offer dedicated faculty, classes, and degrees for undergraduates.

Demand for undergraduate urban studies education certainly exists at Harvard. In recent years, a group of students formed the Harvard Undergraduate Urban Sustainability Lab as a hub for urban studies on campus, and others have crafted their own special concentrations to pursue the field.

Special concentrations have often been a preliminary step to establishing an academic department at Harvard: Dramatic studies and global health were popular topics for special concentrators before the advent of the Theater, Dance, and Media concentration and Global Health and Health Policy secondary. Harvard can meet a similarly unmet academic need with an Urban Studies concentration or secondary.

While the argument for an Urban Studies department may sound strange coming from a student considering many concentrations, that is precisely the point. For someone like me, whose interests are somewhat scattered, the lack of an Urban Studies department eliminates the possibility of pursuing the subject at all.

College should be a place where students get to tap into every bit of curiosity they have for a field of study. Undergraduates should not have to rule out potential interests because of the school’s lack of available concentration pathways — especially at a college like Harvard, which prides itself on its academic resources.

Harvard should support students wishing to explore the ever-relevant subject of urban studies.

Doing so will enhance students’ understanding of the liberal arts, equip them with tools to resolve grave threats to sustainability and quality of life — and teach them to feel less ashamed the next time they jaywalk.bility of pursuing the subject at all.

College should be a place where students get to tap into every bit of curiosity they have for a field of study. Undergraduates should not have to rule out potential interests because of the school’s lack of available concentration pathways — especially at a college like Harvard, which prides itself on its academic resources.

Harvard should support students wishing to explore the ever-relevant subject of urban studies. Doing so will enhance students’ understanding of the liberal arts, equip them with tools to resolve grave threats to sustainability and quality of life — and teach them to feel less ashamed the next time they jaywalk.

– Aimee K. Choi ’27, a Crimson Editorial comper, lives in Matthews Hall.

Submit an Op-Ed Today!

Street Signs of Change WE HOPE this project will encourage Cambridge residents to contend with their self-identity, community, and history writ large. These signs hold the power to start all too-infrequent discussions about America’s founding injustice of settler colonialism.

BY THE CRIMSON EDITORIAL BOARD

­B

Before Cambridge was home to Harvard, it was inhabited by the Massachusett Tribe.

After centuries of colonization, forced removal, and dispossessions that persist to this day, the city of Cambridge has approved an initiative to install new street signs with road names translated into the Massachusett language.

This gesture is a small but vital step towards memorializing historical wrongs and celebrating Cambridge’s original dwellers through everyday education.

These signs — numbering roughly 80 in total from First Street through Eighth Street — will serve as a constant, quotidian reminder to all Cambridge residents that the city they inhabit was not always theirs, but rather land stolen from Indigenous people.

While other attempts at recognition of dispossession, including our own calls for a “museum of institutional failings” showcasing Harvard’s legacy of injustices, constitute admirable efforts to engage and educate the community about the ongoing legacy of settler colonialism, these intellectualized modes of recognition can only reach so far. Conversely, initiatives like this, which in-

the pecuniary support of the city is a refreshing counter to this dynamic, and we’re excited to see it come to fruition.

Moreover, these signs challenge the narrative that we live in a post-Indigenous world by acknowledging and honoring the presence of Indigenous people on this land. Even today, Native people continue to face dire disenfranchisement at the hands of state legislatures. Compared to all other racial or ethnic populations domestically, Indigenous people suffer the highest poverty rates, almost twice the national average. Those who live on reservations often lack access to basic resources, such as clean water and electricity.

America’s responsibility to address colonial wrongs is ineffable and never ending. Powerful institutions like Harvard must do more to spotlight the egregious sins of our country — as well as their own.

No number of street signs can fully atone for our nation’s brutality, nor can mere signs ever truly redress the unthinkable harm unleashed on Indigenous people. But strides like this one still serve a meaningful purpose and should not be written off as purely performative. Symbolic gestures to redress historic wrongs — like denaming, or in this case, renaming — can send a loud signal about the ideals we espouse, even if they fail to completely redress the wrongs they aim to correct.

We hope this project will serve to encourage Cambridge residents to contend with their self-identity, community, and history writ large.

We believe these signs hold the power to start all too-infrequent discussions about America’s founding injustice of settler colonialism and its

“

No number of street signs can fully atone for our nation’s brutality, nor can mere signs ever truly redress the unthinkable harm unleashed on Indigenous people.

tertwine memorialization within the day-today fabric of our communities, are a sure step in the right direction, sparking productive conversation amongst every Cantabrigian who walks, bikes, or drives by one of these signs.

Proposed and developed by local Indigenous voices as part of a multi-year undertaking to recognize the city’s historical ties to Black and Indigenous communities, the initiative’s collaborative nature also sets it apart. Too often, recognition of past atrocities is bestowed upon communities without their input, overshadowing or flattening the very perspectives such projects aim to uplift. A project driven by Indigenous leaders with

undeniable, if often unspoken, embodiment in our surrounding environment. With this new project under way, an important initiative is coming soon to a street near you: the potential for tangible — and necessary — change.

This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.

12

THE HARVARD CRIMSON

METRO

NOVEMBER 10, 2023

Cambridge Takes to Streets for Annual Half tions, he said, citing diversity and Marathon equity as his key priorities.

SCHOOL COMMITTEE

Schools Incumbents Reelected VOTE OF CONFIDENCE. Cantabrigians reelected all four incumbent School Committee members in the running, per Tuesday’s preliminary results.

BY SALLY E. EDWARDS CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

­C

ambridge voters gave high marks to their school district’s leadership, reelecting all four incumbent School Committee members seeking reelection, as well as Elizabeth C.P. Hudson and Richard Harding Jr., according to preliminary results early Wednesday morning.

The School Committee — made up of seven members, six of whom are elected at-large — develops and executes education policy across the district. The committee has recently focused on contract negotiations with the Cambridge Education Association, with discussions ongoing for more than a year.

Challengers vocally criticized the district’s current approach to educators’ contracts, while incumbent candidates cited the committee’s active discussions with the CEA and were hesitant to comment.

The 2023 election was marked by debates on how to best address equity within the district curriculum — especially in mathematics and special education. In a race defined by the scrutiny the district received over its lack of Algebra 1 in middle schools and a federal inquiry into the state’s equity in special education programs,

Cambridge reelected all four incumbent School Committee members seeking reelection on Nov. 7, according to preliminary results. SALLY E. EDWARDS — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

incumbents and challengers were divided in their approaches to address these issues.

Two new faces will help shape the district’s educational policy in the coming term: Hudson, who was a strong advocate for universal Algebra 1 in middle schools during the campaign, and Hard-

From Boston to Boylston.

ing, a former School Committee member who worked to advance higher-level math opportunities during the 2016-17 term.

Voting at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, resident Costanza Lara said she cast her ballot to help “push students to have a more rigorous curriculum with

Algebra specifically — and special ed.”

Harrison Shulik said he was motivated to vote in this year’s local elections because education “affects wherever you are — your daily existence.” Shulik said he “hopefully made good choices” for his school committee selec-

“For the School Committee stuff I was looking at Our Revolution,” he said, referring to the national progressive organizing group that grew out of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (D-Vt.) 2016 presidential campaign.

“I was looking at their writeup on the candidates there, and the folks who came from diverse backgrounds, and focused a lot on equality and equity,” he added.

The four incumbents — Rachel B. Weinstein, David J. Weinstein, José Luis Rojas Villarreal, and Caroline M. Hunter — will return to their positions on the School Committee for the upcoming term. Hunter, Rachel Weinstein, and David Weinstein worked together to introduce a September motion to establish Algebra 1 in all Cambridge middle schools by 2025.

As current members of the School Committee, they have all been involved in the ongoing contract negotiations with the CEA. Hunter was the only incumbent — and only winning candidate — to receive an endorsement from the organization.

Oscar Godeker — a junior at CRLS — said he hoped Cantabrigians listened to students like him as they arrived at the polls to vote.

“If you have a kid, I’d ask your kid because we don’t really get a vote,” he said. “I would ask them because we’re the ones being affected by decisions.”

sally.edwards@thecrimson.com

ELECTION FROM PAGE 1

Cambridge Reelects Council Incumbents, Shift Toward Center of Zondervan, his former boss, shared his appreciation for the election process during an interview as voting was ongoing.

“I just want to thank everyone who’s run such a spirited campaign and all the voters for showing up and making their voice heard,” he said.

Voters expressed concerns about an array of issues facing the city, including the affordable housing shortage and the rising cost of existing housing.

Affordable housing has been a hotly contested issue on the Council this year. Less than a month prior to the elections, amendments to the city’s 100%-Affordable Housing Zoning Overlay passed, increasing building height limits throughout Cambridge.

Pickett was among the candidates concerned that these amendments would change the character of the city.

Wilson told The Crimson that she would have voted for the amendments and said residents make up “the character of our community.”

Sobrinho-Wheeler, who was previously on the Council, cochaired the Housing Committee during the original passage of the AHO in 2020 and has expressed support for the recently passed amendments.

“I miss my neighbors,” said voter Allen R. Perez on Cambridge’s housing issues. “They had to move to different places like Chelsea.”

“Now, it has been gentrified,” he added.

Transportation infrastructure, a centerpiece of Pickett’s campaign, was another key issue in this year’s race. She called on the city to rethink the implementation of separated bike lanes throughout the city.

In 2020, the Council amended

the Cycling Safety Ordinance to require the construction of more than 22 miles of bike lanes by 2026. Sobrinho-Wheeler was the lead sponsor of these changes.

David Myers, who also voted in this year’s election, expressed concerns about how bike lanes were installed without input from all parties.

“I think both bikers and businesses should be included in this whole thing,” Myers said.

The city has stated that every step of the amendment process included input from residents, with officials noting a decreased number of crashes and increased bicycle safety in the wake of the changes.

“Well, regardless, I win or not, personally — I hope the Cambridge people win,” said candidate Hao Wang. muskaan.arshad@thecrimson.com jina.choe@thecrimson.com jack.trapanick@thecrimson.com

BY JINA H. CHOE AND SAMUEL P. GOLDSTON

BY DARCY G. LIN, AVANI B. RAI, AND AKSHAYA RAVI CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

More than 6,700 runners and their supporters flooded First Street in Cambridge on Sunday morning for the sixth annual Cambridge Half Marathon and 5K race.

The race began early in the morning and ended at Cambridgeside in East Cambridge, with a route that passed by several undergraduate houses and circled Harvard’s athletic fields in Allston.

For some participants, running with others offered a social way to prepare for the race. One runner, Aryeh N. Padwa ’27, described how rewarding it was to experience training and the race itself with friends.

“I had a couple friends that were running with me so it was fun to train together, and I’m just really proud of all of us,” said Padwa.

Mohan A. Hathi ’26 entered the race with a group of approximately 25 other First-Year Outdoor Program leaders. The group registered as a social team called “Friends of Peace” and was provided a tent by the race organizers, which Hathi said served as a key gathering point for the team’s runners.

“We all congregated there and could start together. It was kind of a home base,” he said.

Hathi, who ran alongside his friend Nurayn Y. Khan ’26, said he found the race difficult.

“At the end I actually threw up, but then Nurayn caught up to me and we finished together, so it was a great ending,” he added.

The FOP leaders were among many University affiliates participating in Sunday’s race. Harvard on the Move—a University-wide running and walking group to promote healthy living—was the event’s largest social team, with 70 members.

“Our community is very inclusive — we promote ourselves as being open to anyone,” said Morgan T. Redman, a health educator with the Center for Wellness and Health Promotion and a coordinator for Harvard on the Move.

“It was great to have such a large group because I feel like everybody had their little subset to go with,” Redman said.

Supporters, who flocked to the sidewalks to cheer on runners throughout the race, contributed to the “lively” energy of the event.

“The finish line is always super exciting — everyone has their signs,” Melissa LaVita, marketing director of CambridgeSide, a shopping mall in Cambridge.

Among the supporters were Sam A. Cano Cabrera and Andrea T. Buitrago, who flew in this weekend to watch their high school friend, Oli Torres, compete.

“All our friends came from other parts. I came from New York. We all planned to go see her run,” Cano Cabrera said.

“We got here right at 7,” Buitrago said.

The pair carried a poster that read “Run Oli Run” and a large print-out of Torres’ head.

The majority of the funds raised through participation fees and donations will be awarded to more than 20 local charities, including Cambridge Camping and the City of Cambridge Scholarship fund.

Last year’s event brought in $150,000 for Cambridge-based charities. LaVita said the charitable aspect of the half marathon makes the race a “win-win”.

“It’s a great event, it brings a lot of people, we raise a lot of money,” she said.

CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

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Challenger Hao Wang stands outside the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School polling site on Tuesday.

JACK R. TRAPANICK — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

THE HARVARD CRIMSON

ARTS

NOVEMBER 10, 2023

13

Joshua G. Caven ‘24 is involved with stand-up comedy, improvisational comedy, and technical theater on campus. By Vivian W. Rong

THEATER

Comedian Josh Caven ’24 is Bad at Sports but Good on Teams

BY KATIE A. SILVERMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

­ shua G. Caven ’24 says o that the best thing he ever participated in was his sixth-grade production of “Alice in Wonderland,” in which he played The Mad Hatter. And true to his roots, as a senior at Harvard College, Caven wears quite a few hats. Caven is the lighting designer for the original musical “White House Princess,” co-President of On Thin Ice, Harvard’s oldest improvisational comedy troupe, and a stand-up comedian performing with the Harvard College Stand-Up Comedy Society (HCSUCS). His art is all over campus, across comedic media — both on and offstage.

“The through line for me, for everything I do, is the simple fact that I’m bad at sports,” Caven said. “But I like working on teams.”

From Caven’s point of view, technical theater, improv, and stand-up have one primary element in common: the opportunity for collaboration. “[Technical theater] is a very collaborative experience. You are working with other people; you’re communicating with other people; and you are given the chance to be creative in a way that’s entirely separated from a self-serving element,” Caven said.

But even though a traditional theatrical performance requires an incredible amount of teamwork, Caven believes that this medium does not require nearly as much cooperation as improv, which he calls “the most radically collaborative art form.”

“With something like theater,

you have roles you’re assigned to, tasks you’re assigned to, responsibilities,” Caven said.

On the other hand, he describes improv as a “completely flattened field” because the performers can take on any role they choose.

“Every time you enter a scene, you have no idea who’s going to be leading it. How are you going to play off each other? Who’s going to take power in the scene, who’s going to be subversive, who’s going to be funnier?” Caven said. “And there’s a really great joy in that. There’s a joy in the spontaneity.”

Even in his conversation with The Harvard Crimson, Caven cracked jokes constantly and intuitively. This sense of humor serves

want to take it and run with it, it’s all yours,’” Caven said.

Comedians giving each other their best material may seem counterintuitive, but in Caven’s words, artistic collaboration is “very rarely a zero-sum game.”

These three media almost encapsulate Caven’s artistic pursuits, but not quite. He describes improv as his “second favorite thing in the world.”

His first favorite, which he wishes was “considered more artistic”?

“It’s cringe: Dungeons & Dragons.”

For Caven, the role-playing game combines the best parts of his other three arts forms. From technical theater, it has the idea of “mastering a craft”; from improv, “pure

and sometimes it goes well, and sometimes you get stuck in a Perry the Platypus scene. That probably wasn’t great,” Caven said. “And maybe afterwards THUD doesn’t have people open anymore. And it probably wasn’t because of you, but maybe it was, and that happens.”

But as painful as “Phineas-and-Ferb”-inspired fiascoes can be, improv helps Caven work through his self-described “really deep fear of failure.”

“Improv is the only space I give myself in life to just fall on my face in a really embarrassing, humiliating way — and I’ve fallen on my face a lot in improv, and it never feels good in the moment, but I think I grow as a person because of that,” Caven said.

“

Improv is the only space I give myself in life to just fall on my face in a really embarrassing, humiliating way Joshua G. Caven ‘24

him not only in improv, but also in his work with HCSUCS. Given that stand-up involves talking alone on a stage for three to five minutes, it’s an unlikely medium for someone as passionate about collaboration as Caven — but from his perspective, stand-up comedy is a team sport.

“Stand-up at Harvard is all about giving each other jokes, riffs, and bits — and there’ve been many times when someone else will come up with a bit and be like, ‘Ah, this is a good bit, but I think you would do it better, you know? Like, if you

collaboration” and “pure spontaneity”; from stand-up, the opportunity “to really bring yourself into it.”

Another advantage of Dungeons & Dragons is that it “removes the failure” — unlike improv, where failure is a major risk, according to Caven.

“There’s no guarantee that you’re going to do well. You can practice as much as you want, but you’re still going to have shows where you bomb, and that feels awful,” Caven said.

“Sometimes you open for THUD,

As much as he says he loves Harvard improv, Caven struggles with the exclusivity of the art form on campus, especially in comparison to technical theater and stand-up.

He said that “anyone can do technical theater at Harvard,” and he described stand-up comedy as “entirely welcoming.” But he pointed out that improv is “different” because its collaborative nature requires extreme trust between the performers. While he enjoys on campus improv, its exclusivity frustrates him.

“Harvard does not need more things on campus that prevent people from being a part of them, and I do wish that improv could be one of those more welcoming spaces on campus,” Caven said.

Considering improv’s lack of accessibility on campus, Caven is interested in “expanding opportunities in comedy,” a pursuit that began in high school, when he participated in an inclusive performing arts program called Live Art and an improv class for underserved students in Richmond, Virginia.

“It’s not about a savior complex — ‘we need to reach out to people and pick them up by their comedy bootstraps,’” Caven said. “It’s just that doing improv with people is fun, and when we’re thinking about what kinds of people to do improv with, we should have a wider perspective.”

Caven’s commitment to making comedy inclusive is crucial to his conception of the arts as a space, first and foremost, for collaboration, not competition. Beyond making people laugh, he realizes comedy’s power as a force for social good.

Part of that power, in Caven’s opinion, lies in comedy’s ability to subvert mainstream narratives, and he takes inspiration from the Black comic tradition.

“There’s a really long history and tradition of using stand-up comedy to express things about America, life, society, and racism that you couldn’t get away with expressing in day-to-day conversation,” Caven said. “And I think for me, as an art form, in addition to the collaborative piece, I really find the potentially subversive element in comedy, especially stand-up comedy, to be really interesting and compelling.”

“But yeah, I really was not good at sports.”

‘Priscilla’ Review: A Fresh Take on a Famous Romance

BY J.J. MOORE CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

Picture this: a crackling record playing an enchanting tune, accompanied by flashes of nail polish, hair spray, red lipstick, and a smile. Love, like a lingering melody, hangs in the air, casting a spell on the world. With a magical touch, Sofia Coppola transports audiences back to the mesmerizing year of 1959.

Coppola’s new biopic “Priscilla” draws inspiration from Priscilla Presley’s 1985 memoir, “Elvis and Me.” The film unfolds entirely through Priscilla’s eyes, weaving a tale of love, marriage, and the inevitable unraveling of their relationship in 1973.

It has been a little over a year since Baz Luhrmann’s psychedelic biography, “Elvis,” graced theaters, and in that short amount of time, already another movie that relates to the life of the King of Rock and Roll has been released. While Luhrmann relied

on style and energy to propel his film forward, Coppola exercises restraint in “Priscilla.” Patiently, she guides the audience through the highs and lows of Priscilla’s experience — a life often isolated and lonely, and at other times suffocated by a controlling and manipulative presence. Cailee Spaeny’s quietly captivating performance as Priscilla is coupled with Coppola’s brilliant filmmaking, painting an intricate portrait of a high-profile relationship.

The journey begins in West Germany, where a shy 14-yearold Priscilla meets the 24-yearold rock sensation, Elvis (Jacob Elordi). Uncomfortable and laden with predatory dialogue, the scene is delicately presented by Coppola, forcing the audience to confront the uncomfortable truth of this early romance.

Spaeny’s portrayal of youthful innocence adds a layer of unflinching honesty to the narrative.

The visual tapestry woven by Coppola emphasizes the imbalance of their relationship. The

subtle play of light and shadow, the choice of high and low camera angles to create a sense of unease and inequality, and the meticulous close-up framing all contribute to the intimate and unsettling quality of “Priscilla.” Whether capturing the early introduction of Elvis or the ominous love that later unfolds, the cinematography speaks a language of its own.

Priscilla remains the focal point throughout the film, offering a fresh perspective on the iconic figure of Elvis. From winning her parents’ blessing to being whisked away to Elvis’s Memphis estate, the fairytale romance gradually unravels to reveal a more toxic and controlling dynamic. The film’s rhythm, coupled with the cinematography, ensures that every emotion is vividly portrayed on screen.

The film’s fantastical quality is complimented by its enchanting music, none of which is by Elvis — a fact owed to the film not being able to obtain the rights to his songs.

Songs like “Crimson and Clover”

by Tommy James and “My Love

for You” by Sevyn Streeter serve as a backdrop to intensify the emotional journey of Priscilla. The upbeat tunes mirror her hopeful outlook, while the lonely moments are accompanied by a melancholic soundtrack. Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You” makes the final scene of the film cut even deeper and emphasize the reflective journey that “Priscilla” has taken us on.

The music matches every scene perfectly, making it impossible for every song to not feel crushingly memorable.

When Priscilla turns 21, marriage follows. Elvis constantly leaves her alone in their suffocatingly large abode. “When I call you, I need you to be there for me,” Elvis orders. Priscilla obliges, becoming a lonely bird in a suffocating glass cage. The birth of their daughter marks the downward spiral of Elvis and Priscilla’s relationship. Coppola meticulously brings to life Priscilla’s ordeal through montage sequences of her and Elvis at their happiest and long intense moments of scream-

ing dialogue and silent contemplation at their lowest, most abusive, points. Coppola uses these beats to easily guide the audience to the erratic final act.

In this whirlwind of emotions, the film jumps from event to event, mirroring the blur of Priscilla’s memories of the relationship’s demise. The audience only sees Priscilla during brief moments when her and Elvis’s lives reconnect. It is up to the audience to recognize her growth as her own person, separate from Elvis’ dominating presence that seemed to constantly envelope her when they were together. The tail end of the film is left completely up to the audience to interpret. Viewers must piece together what eventually convinces Priscilla to leave the man she’s spent so much of her life with. As people watch, it will be impossible not to root for Priscilla to develop her own voice and self-resolve.

The final act is an unconventional choice. Through a quick montage, Coppola shows Priscilla at her happiest — with her

friends, learning self-defense, taking care of her daughter, and finding herself. The frantic storytelling and editing in the end turns the last of Priscilla and Elvis’ relationship into a haze. It is impossible to not wish for more and feel a bit lost in all the quick flashes, but perhaps it aligns perfectly with Priscilla’s memory.

Despite the final act, “Priscilla” remains a captivating experience. Coppola’s bold vision refuses to conform to the biopics that audiences have grown used to. “Priscilla” feels more personal than the usual biopic — it feels like a young girl confiding in a diary, whispering all of her secrets.

The audience is no longer just a viewer: Instead Coppola turns them into Priscilla’s closest friend and confidant. Coppola’s mastery of this cinematic art form is on true display as she provides an intimate look at Priscilla Presley’s personal account of Elvis and their renowned relationship. jj.moore@thecrimson.com

14

THE HARVARD CRIMSON

ARTS

NOVEMBER 10, 2023

THEATER

‘Wicked’: A 20-Year Retrospective THE MUSICAL continues to speak to the experience of college students in a touching, hilarious way.

BY ASHA M. KHURANA CONTRIBUTING WRITER

S

tephen Schwartz’s hit musical “Wicked” just turned 20, so it is officially time to revisit the Shiz campus.

In “Wicked,” the timeline opens with the arrival of two young witches in training, Elphaba and Galinda (Idina Menzel and Kristen Chenoweth), to Shiz University, where they begin their relationship as unlikely friends. The first act of the musical is grounded in the setting of the university. Offering a motley cast of characters, teen spirit, and love triangles, Shiz centers the musical firmly in adolescent self-discovery.

As “Wicked” moves out of its own teenage years, solidifying the show as a timeless classic, the college backdrop continues to captivate audiences of all ages. Young viewers will continue to be swept away by the excitement and freedom of Elphaba’s college experience, while older viewers may watch “Wicked” and fondly reminisce on their own college days.

The audience that constantly renews itself through two decades of Wicked’s history is young adults, undergoing their own college transformation alongside El-

phaba. “Wicked” tackles classic college issues with grace and humor, masterfully creating a narrative that still feels fresh 20 years after its premiere.

Elphaba and Galinda arrive to Shiz University to a college fight song not all that different from “Fair Harvard”: “Dear Old Shiz” references “Hallowed halls and vine-draped walls” that place the characters in any number of East Coast liberal arts schools. Sonically, the tune is a classic alma mater, stately and formal, providing the jaunty contemporary narrative against a backdrop of tradition and status quo. This makes social issues like Elphaba’s greenness all the more weighty, as she battles these issues at an institution that may value tradition more than belonging.

The narrative that unfolds at Shiz resonates with college students in 2003 and 2023 alike. Elphaba and Galinda share their first moment of college drama in “What Is This Feeling,” in which the ever-pertinent issue of roommate troubles plagues witches just as it peeves college students. To open the song, the girls address their parents, vowing to put their roommate issues on the back burner with the explanation, “For I know that’s how you’d want me to respond.” Schwartz cleverly touches on the very true phenomenon of young college students consulting their parents’ morals as they make their first independent decisions.

“What Is This Feeling” then

launches into a verbal jousting match between Elphaba and Galinda as they find increasingly specific and humorous ways to articulate their mutual hatred.

Citing “every little trait,” they embody the worst case scenario of a roommate relationship: one in which the close quarters of dormitory living magnify the habits of each roommate to an intolerable degree. Every audience member has heard a roommate horror story — or perhaps they have one of their own. The challenge of sharing a living space is incredibly human, serving “Wicked”’s greater contemporary relatability.

Shortly after the roommate spat, Schwartz introduces Fiyero (Norbert Leo Butz), a roguishly handsome prince who unveils a new college archetype. In “Dancing Through Life,” Fiyero offers audiences a slew of his personal life lessons. The audience, however, can take or leave this advice: Fiyero touts the pleasure of “the unexamined life,” saying “those who don’t try never look foolish.”

Fiyero asks where the fun happens, and Galinda responds by leading him to the Shiz late-night haunt. As the song progresses, the staging explodes into a whimsical whirlwind of bicycles and ribbons, enveloping audiences in the joy that comes with Fiyero’s way of life.

Schwartz uses “Dancing Through Life” to simulate the genuine temptation of leading a life without meaning. Ironically,

Chelsea A. Vuong ’20-’21 and her Road to Miss America

BY NICOLE L. GUO CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Chelsea A. Vuong ’20-’21 was crowned the 83rd Miss Massachusetts on June 24, thus qualifying her to compete for the title of Miss America next January. This achievement marks the most recent in a long history in pageantry, with Vuong competing in her first pageant at 12 years old and joining the Miss America organization at 15.

“In my earlier days, pageantry was more so a tool for me to understand myself and develop that confidence skill, learn how to do public speaking, learn how to figure out what my interests and passions are,” Vuong said.

Over the course of the last decade, what started out as a tool to build confidence has since transitioned into a way for Vuong to give back to the community.

One of the defining aspects of the Miss America organization is the year of service that state titleholders must fulfill in the time between the state-and national-level competitions.

Vuong has chosen to use her platform as Miss Massachusetts to advocate for a cause she has supported since her time at Harvard: improving financial literacy.

Vuong came from a low-income background with immigrant parents who instilled a sense of financial responsibility in her. She was inspired to do work in personal finance because of her desire to help ease the financial burden of people with a similar background.

“My dad came to the United States with $200 in two suitcases, so he grew up pretty frugal.

It wasn’t until we went through quite a bit ‘we don’t know when the next meal is going to be on the table,’” Vuong said. “And so just growing up, my parents did teach me a lot about budgeting and savings and investing.”​​ Upon arriving at Harvard, Vuong was excited to continue developing her knowledge on the subject. However, she was astonished to discover that out of more than 400 clubs at Harvard, not one had to do with managing personal finances. Fueled by mutual passion, Vuong and a friend co-founded the Personal Finance & Consulting Group in 2019 with the

aim of improving fellow college students’ financial literacy.

Vuong lamented that Massachusetts youth are given such limited opportunities to learn about personal finance. Despite how crucial it is as a life skill, finance courses are rarely mandated or even offered in high schools and colleges.

“Personal finance is something that is so important in everyone’s life — when you’re thinking about buying your first house, about how to invest in your first paycheck and how taxes work and how to get a good credit because you need a good credit to get all these loans to buy things in your future,” she said.

“Everything is about personal finance when you get older. And so I’ve really just honed in on that moving forward, because it’s something that’s missing in all of our education.”

Vuong also shared how the inability to manage one’s own finances can become a source of vulnerability for women. After hearing stories from women at shelters, Vuong realized the immense role that financial burden played in domestic abuse: Financial abuse occurs in 99% of domestic abuse cases.

“Being a part of the Miss America organization where we’re empowering women, with my personal mission of promoting personal finance, it does go hand in hand because that financial stressor and not being able to do the things that you want — because your husband is dictating all the finances — it does have a lot of ramifications for women in the future,” Vuong said.

After becoming Miss Massachusetts, Vuong finds that her new title has become a valuable asset for her in terms of advancing her work in advocacy, giving her a tremendous reach which she previously did not have access to.

As co-president of the nonprofit FinancialMile, Vuong and her colleagues often had to actively reach out to schools to be able to present personal finance courses to students. As a Miss America state titleholder, Vuong has frequently received invitations to speak at schools that might not have heard of her otherwise.

“It’s very special how — once you put on that crown and put

on that banner — people are asking you questions, people are inviting you to different meetings and asking you to share your experiences,” she said.

Pageantry has changed the way Vuong sees and interacts with the world around her.

Her past decade of competing in Miss America — one of the largest scholarship providers for women — has provided her with financial support in pursuing her goals, whether that be attending Harvard or, more recently, advocating for causes she is passionate about. Vuong hopes to spread awareness of the incredible opportunities that the organization has to offer.

“After I graduated from college, I continued with pageantry because I just love the aspect of giving this opportunity to other people. And so now I speak at elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools, really encouraging them to compete in this organization because it has done me wonders, and I would love to be able to pass that forward to other people,” she said.

With new CEO Robin Fleming, who is wholeheartedly dedicated to improving Miss America, Vuong anticipates that the organization has the potential to increase viewership and continue to change the lives of young women for years to come.

“I think there’s like a huge upward trajectory of where Miss America could go, so the fact that I have an opportunity to compete for Miss America and potentially become Miss America — be the first Miss Massachusetts to be Miss America — we’ve never had one before,” she said.

THC Stay Up to Date with our Newsletter, Subscribe at THECRIMSON.COM

MICHELLE LIU — CRIMSON DESIGNER

this night of fun is the foundation of a genuine and rich friendship between Elphaba and Galinda.

Fiyero’s archetype, the proponent of a shallow yet fun life, remains morally ambiguous: Fiyero’s presence does not serve the world, but the joy that unfolds as a result of his personality can unintentionally provoke meaningful ripples in the lives of those around him. This query may engage young adult audiences to think about their relationships with Fiyero-like characters. Communities that encompass both living and learning ask students to explore their profound academic interests alongside their personal social development,

prompting some students to consider living Fiyero’s “unexamined life.”

Such shallowness remains the question in “Popular.” In one of the show’s most well-known numbers, Galinda gives Elphaba a physical and social makeover. Elphaba’s reluctance towards this transformation prompts Galinda to comment on the success of high profile individuals: “Think of celebrated heads of state or especially great communicators / Did they have brains or knowledge? Don’t make me laugh! / They were popular!” This notion of success as a product of popularity speaks to an age-old discussion of college

networking. Again speaking to a question on the mind of college students worldwide, “Wicked” humorously addresses the balance between street smarts and book smarts.

At this point, the plot of “Wicked” takes on twists and turns that pull the narrative away from Shiz.

However, the college experience still remains the foundation of almost all of the relationships depicted in the show. As long as institutional living and learning exists, “Wicked” will still speak to the experiences of college students in a touching and hilarious way. Audiences from all walks of life can expect to hold “Wicked” dear for many decades to come.

Halloween Was too Scary?

Watch These 13 Disney Films

BY KATIE A. SILVERMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Do you breathe a sigh of relief on Nov. 1 because now, no one can make you watch “It”? Do you wish you could enjoy scary movies but have, like, an absurdly low horror tolerance? Great news: Oct. 16 was Disney’s 100th anniversary, which is the perfect excuse to open Disney+ at your next movie night.

And since watching “The Haunted Mansion” in November feels off, these 13 not-so-spooky Disney flicks are watchable year-round and perfect for the extremely faint of heart.

1. “Enchanted” (2007) If you want princesses and genuine fear in the same place, look no further than this classic New York City fairytale. The film follows Giselle, a princess from an animated fairyland who falls through a well into a terrifying world where people don’t burst into song and “true love” doesn’t exist. If you don’t find yourself genuinely afraid for Giselle’s safety (and Robert’s engagement), then you’re looking at the wrong list.

2. “Finding Nemo” (2003) Traditionally understood as a heartwarming animated film about talking fish, this movie is actually full of scary details. A father’s search for his abducted son.

That aquarium scene. Sharks.

What else could you want?

3. “The Good Dinosaur” (2015) Arlo is a young apatosaurus (yes, that’s a real dinosaur!) who gets separated from his family, and if that ever happened to you in a Costco as a child, you already know this is a horror movie. This hugely underrated interspecies friendship story is liable to produce more tears than fear. But without being seasonal, it’s still sci-fi enough to be a great Halloween do-over; dinosaurs count as monsters, right?

4. “The Little Mermaid” (2023) “The Little Mermaid” is the story of a young mermaid whose love for all things human (Prince Eric in particular) is enough to tempt her into a Faustian bargain in exchange for legs, and the re-

cent live-action remake is a mustwatch if you haven’t seen it already. And while it’ll give you your Halloween fix — there’s literally a witch — no one can get mad at you for watching this in November.

can still rewatch the underappreciated original, which holds up against any sci-fi horror movie of the same decade.

5. “Cruella” (2021)

When a hapless Boy Scout accidentally joins a grumpy old man on a balloon-powered trip to live out the latter’s lifelong dream, fantastical creatures, nefarious forces, and an extreme emotional roller coaster ensue. In addition to being one of the only movies that can make you cry in the first five minutes, “Up” has its genuinely frightening moments, and is just otherworldly enough to give you Halloween vibes without crossing the line.

This is another one you might not have seen yet, and it actually has a pretty spooky vibe without being “scary” or a “Halloween movie.”

“Cruella” truly has it all: a creepy manor, high-society murder, and Dalmatians. Plus, everyone loves Emma Stone. Everyone.

6. “The Parent Trap” (1998) If you’re in the mood for twins but not sold on “The Shining,” “The Parent Trap” has you covered. It’s definitely not Halloween (they’re at summer camp), and Lindsay Lohan is so much fun to watch that you’ll forget it was supposed to be a scary movie night in the first place.

7. “Pete’s Dragon” (2016) A mysterious, supernatural creature that lives in the woods? That’s a formula for horror right there, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. The movie follows the classic boy-meets-dragon structure, and is a surprisingly powerful found-family story. The original 1977 animated version is pretty cute, but arguably not as good as the remake.

8. “Pirates of the Caribbean” Marathon (2003-2017) Pirates are a classic Halloween costume, but they’re still safe for November viewing. The whole marathon would take 726 minutes, which is probably unhealthy, so maybe pick your top two or three and be sure to call out skeletons whenever you see them to assure your friends that this is a seasonally appropriate film franchise for post-Halloween frights.

9. “Tron” (1982) Tron, which tells the story of artificial intelligence operating systems fighting for dominance and freedom within a computer, was unbelievably ahead of its time. “Tron: Ares,” the third installment in the franchise, is delayed on account of the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes, but you

10. “Up” (2009)

11. “Muppets Haunted Mansion” (2021) Ok, so this is definitely a Halloween movie, but the Muppets transcend seasonal logic. Clocking in at 49 minutes, it’s a great option when you don’t have time to watch a longer film, or even if it’s just one of those days when you’re feeling less like a man and more like a Muppet.

12. “The Secret World of Arrietty” (2010) Based Mary Norton’s 1952 children’s novel “The Borrowers,” “The Secret World of Arrietty” is about a family of tiny people, who live in a regular house and get by “borrowing” small items humans won’t notice are missing. “Arrietty” is such a perfect film that it transcends holiday distinctions, but tiny strangers secretly living in your house are particularly apt for one last taste of Halloween.

13. Maleficent (2014) Last but not least, “Maleficent” is easily dark and spooky enough to qualify without being seasonal. This modern retelling of the classic story of “Sleeping Beauty,” in which a jealous fairy curses a newborn princess to sleep for one hundred years, takes the perspective of the villain, played by Angelina Jolie. After all, nothing’s scarier than prosthetic cheekbones (seriously, they could have been used as weapons). Plus, “fairy” is an underrepresented villain species. If we want to make evil fairies happen next Halloween, we’ve got to start planning now.

THE HARVARD CRIMSON

FIFTEEN QUESTIONS

NOVEMBER 10, 2023

N

aomi Oreskes is a professor of the History of Science and is an affiliated professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

FM: Of the nearly nine books you’ve published, which is your favorite?

NO: Oh, that’s easy because your first book is like your first child.

Now, don’t tell my children I said that.

My first book is my favorite because I think there’s a way in which you pour your heart and soul into a first book. And so my first book is about a question that’s still near and dear to me even now 20 years later, which is, “How do scientists know when they have enough information, enough evidence of sufficient quality to say, ‘Yes, we know this to be true’?” So it’s really a fundamental question about scientific truth.

Q&A:

NAOMI ORESKES ON CLIMATE CHANGE DENIAL, APOLITICAL SCIENTISTS, AND ROCKS THE HISTORIAN and her dog sat down with Fifteen Minutes to talk about disinformation, climate change, and rocks. “Generally people don’t act — especially if you’re asking people to change how they’re living, how they’re behaving, how they’re thinking — if you just give them dry scientific information,” Oreskes says.

BY CIANA J. KING CRIMSON MAGAZINE WRITER

The radioactivity causes crystal defects which causes the light to refract into these different interesting colors.

At the end of the day, part of the reason I do the work I do is because I want to protect the amazing natural beauty of the world. And a lot of people, when they think about protecting nature, they think about animals and plants, which are good too.

But they forget the minerals are beautiful, too.

FM: You collaborated with composer Yvette Jackson on “Doubt,” a musical composition inspired by the doubt surrounding the science of climate change. What role do you think music and art should play in climate change?

So what does make people change their views, or act? Usually in some kind of emotional impact, and that’s where art comes in. Part of the way art works — whether it’s music, fine arts, painting, sculpture, drama, theater, whatever — it’s because there’s an emotional connection.

I was supposed to go to the Reuters Impact Summit in September.

I couldn’t go for personal reasons, but the panel I was supposed to be on was “Is sustainable capitalism an oxymoron?” And I think that is really the crucial question, because if we can’t figure out some way to align our economy with our ecology, then we’re gonna be in big trouble. And we’re already seeing that — what economists call the “external costs,” the damage from climate change, the damage from biodiversity destruction.

These things are increasing by the day, and we’ve seen now many, many billions of dollars in damage from extreme weather events far more than in the past.

FM: In your Scientific American piece, “The Public Wants Scientists to Be More Involved in Policy Debates” you talk about calls for scientists to abandon the protections of being “apolitical” and contribute to urgent debates like gun control. What do you imagine the successful implementation of this to look like?

NO: I want to be clear, I’m not calling for all scientists to necessarily get involved in policy or political debates. That column came out of work I do with my postdoctoral fellow here, Viktoria Cologna, who’s here visiting from Europe.

She found in her work that a lot of scientists, particularly in the United States, think that it’s extremely important that they not get involved in policy decisions because they feel that if they do, people will see them as politicized, not objective, and therefore it will undermine public trust in science. But that’s an assumption that many scientists have made without data.

The IMF estimates the external costs of fossil fuels is something like $1.5 trillion every year.

I wouldn’t say don’t go into banking or finance or economics, but go into them and figure out how to change our models to account for this, so we don’t destroy everything we care about.

I mean, after all, what is the point of wealth? The point of wealth is to live a good life, but increasingly people are not living a good life because of climate damage.

AMANDA Y. SU — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

One thing I always say is that scientists, when it comes to thinking about science, most scientists are incredibly unscientific.

What she found was that the people in her survey, both in the United States and in Germany, more in Germany than the United States, actually do want scientists to be involved in policy.

FM: What do people most often get wrong about climate change denial?

I think it’s more of a mixed landscape now. One of the things that people get wrong now is the idea that the fossil fuel industry could

I have another favorite rock. It’s banded fluoride.

Scientific data rarely has an emotional impact on people. And generally people don’t act, especially if you’re asking people to change how they’re living, how they’re behaving, how they’re thinking, if you just give them dry scientific information.

NO: Well, I think that’s the question of the hour.

Well, we showed that was not true. And in fact, there are polls that show that among climate change deniers, amongst people who are registered Republicans, the more educated they are the more likely they are to be climate change deniers. It’s a very sad thing for a professor to admit but more scientific education doesn’t solve the problem.

ful mineral. It refracts light internally due to the crystal structure, and it creates these beautiful shades of blue.

NO: Most people think science is either boring and uninteresting, or they think it’s above their heads and it’s not accessible.

FM: In an appearance on “Facing The New Reality” for the 2023 Climate Week New York City Opening Ceremony, you highlight the entanglement between damage from uncontrolled climate change and economic growth. And yet, many people are still very committed to the current structure of the world economy and have a personal incentive to enhance their lives under it. Is it possible to pursue finance or buy into the current economic system while combating climate change?

NO: When I first started working in this area, which is now 20 years ago, most people thought climate change denial was based on ignorance, that it was a lack of education. People just didn’t understand. It was scientific illiteracy.

And so they thought if you just explain the science more clearly, then that will solve the problem.

15

VIVIAN W. RONG — CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

be a trustworthy partner.

These are the people who made this problem. To me, saying we should work with them would be like telling a battered woman she should try to make amends with her husband.

FM: In a line of work where you often look at the negative consequences of human contributions, what things restore your faith in humanity?

NO: Nothing. Just kidding.

We want there to be positive things.

We want to hear optimistic stories.

There’s so much pressure especially in the United States, to be optimistic.

In a way, that question really annoys me. In a way, it distracts attention

from the core thing, which is recognizing what’s wrong and what needs to be fixed. The real question should be, “How can we fix this problem as rapidly and effectively as possible?”

And that’s where I try to always bring the conversation back to the rapid phase-out of fossil fuel use.

FM: You’re a professor in the History of Science Department now, but before that, you were trained as a geologist. How has that training affected the way you approach history now?

NO: I think my background as an earth scientist informs my sense about the importance of the notion of planetary limits. A lot of people don’t like the idea of limits. Again, Americans especially.

I mean, we have so much American iconography around the idea of, you can do anything you want.

And obviously, there’s something appealing about believing you live in a world of possibility, and I don’t want to be the one who says, “No, actually you don’t.”

But in some deep way — a way that, for me, has roots in my own scientific training — there is a limit to what the planet can take.

FM:As a geologist, what is your favorite rock?

NO: I think I said Labradorite when I was asked that question the other day.

Labradorite is an incredibly beauti-

They see scientists as people who have important and useful information, and so they want scientists to be involved in shaping policy in those areas where they have expertise.

ciana.king@thecrimson.com

FM Fifteen Minutes is the magazine of The Harvard Crimson. To read the full interview and other longform pieces, visit THECRIMSON.COM/ MAGAZINE

16

THE HARVARD CRIMSON

SPORTS

NOVEMBER 10, 2023

FIELD HOCKEY

Ivy Champs to Begin 2023 NCAA Tournament Run Harvard field hockey team celebrates during 2022 game against the University of Delaware. DYLAN J. GOODMAN — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

AMPED TO ADVANCE. After winning the Ivy League title, No. 9 field hockey begins its 2023 NCAA Tournament run.

BY MAIREAD B. BAKER CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

S

ometimes, history has a way of repeating itself. Two years after making its deepest run in the NCAA tournament yet, No. 9 Harvard field hockey has found itself in a similar situation with a bid from the Ivy League and a November weekend plane ticket to some top-ranked school. But the Crimson only punched this ticket after the installation of the Ivy League’s new four-team, post-season tournament — of which it stands as the inaugural champions.

In previous years, Harvard could enter the tournament in two ways: with an Ivy League title or an at-large bid based on record, rigor of competition, and an array of other factors. The conference introduced a post-regular-season tournament with the four top Ivy teams, with the victor receiving an NCAA bid. Harvard won it for the first time ever at home on Berylson Field this past Sunday afternoon.

“We get the first inaugural Ivy tournament championships, and that will forever be at Harvard,” reflected field hockey head coach Tjerk van Herwaarden.

While Harvard has racked up an excellent resume this year — from beating four ranked opponents to tight overtime losses to schools like No. 3 Duke — van Herwaarden believes the team’s improvement this year comes from a myriad of little steps forward.

Reflecting on games against familiar foe St. Joseph’s University, for instance, he noted, “When you look at just the results from this year, compared to last year, it was just a close 1-0 loss — this year, it’s a 1-0 win. I think those small differences, definitely having more attacking

power, generated the overall resume that we have this year where we came up a little bit short last year last season.”

The Crimson’s 2023 schedule has prepared it for the caliber of NCAA tournament teams it may face this time around. Though it automatically qualified after winning the Ivy tournament, it put itself in a good position to get an at-large bid by meeting the level of competition these top-15 teams bring.

“It’s a ‘you win, or you go home’ kind of mentality. And I think that it’s a type of style that our team can very well deal with,” van Herwaarden said.

In the past, what first came to mind when thinking of Harvard field hockey was its defense.

Hailed as one of the strongest defensive teams in the nation — and having the top-ranked goalkeeper, Ellie Shahbo ‘22 — it made a name for itself by shutting out 10 of 19 teams it faced in 2021. Any goals scored by the Crimson were usually dispersed between two to three players. But this season, the Crimson has reshaped its offensive strategy — and it has had tangible results.

In 2022, Harvard scored a total of 33 goals. Just this year, it’s already at 49. What more, these goals are spread across several different players, younger and more-experienced alike.

“I think this year we’ve been doing so much work to connect from our defense through to the midfield up to the forwards — it’s resulted in a load of goals,” said junior captain and midfielder Emily Guckian.

“Our bread and butter over the last couple of years has been our defense and how difficult it is to score goals against us,” added the head coach, such that in the tournament, “it’s going to be the combination between those two where we, you know, maybe find a goal twice or three times and just make sure that they hit our goal one time less than that we find theirs.”

Heading into its first tournament game against No. 6 Rutgers University, Harvard is trying to stay focused on itself and how to capitalize on its own strengths, such as how difficult it is to score in the Crimson’s net.

“I think the defense and limiting opportunities to our goal has been one of our key strengths. And I do think that can go well in NCAA play,” van Herwaarden commented.

This season, Rutgers has responded to the high demand of its schedule. After beating several teams like No. 4 Maryland, No. 15 Penn State, and No. 16 Michigan, it will make its fifth-ever tournament. Similar to Harvard, it last made an appearance in 2021, where it lost to runner-up Liberty University in the second round.

“When you look at Rutgers, they’re not a high-powered scoring team, but they do find the net in every single game that they play,” van Herwaarden said. “So I think they certainly have the possibilities and quality to score goals.”

“Rutgers is a very strong Big 10 opponent. Big 10 is well known for solid hockey, but also powerful hockey — fast, physically strong people. And I think that’s something that we definitely need to prepare for,” he added.

H a r vard will head south to Chapel Hill, N.C. for the first round of the NCAA tournament on Friday, Nov. 10 against Rutgers at 2:30 p.m. EST. The victor of the matchup will go on to face the winner of the North Carolina-William & Mary game on Sunday, Nov. 12 at 12:00 p.m. EST. Both games will be streamed on ESPN+.

Bronte-May Brough defends against the Univeristy of Delaware during an Oct. 16 contest. mairead.baker@thecrimson.com

DYLAN J. GOODMAN — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

GAMES TO WATCH THIS WEEK FRIDAY 11/10

THC

SATURDAY 11/11

Field Hockey NCAA Tournament vs. Rutgers, 2:30 p.m., at UNC Chapel Hill

Men’s Soccer Ivy League Tournament vs. Yale 3:00 p.m., at UPenn

Women’s Hockey vs. Cornell 6:00 p.m., Bright-Landry

Men’s Hockey at. Colgate 7:00 p.m.

Women’s Swim & Dive vs. Cornell, Dartmouth 11:00 a.m.,Blodgett

SUNDAY 11/12 Women’s Soccer NCAA Tournament vs. Maine 5:00 p.m., Jordan Field

Football vs. UPenn, Men’s Swim & Dive 1:00 p.m., Harvard Stadium vs. Cornell, Dartmouth 3:00 p.m.,Blodgett

Wrestling Journeymen Collegiate Classic 9:00 a.m., Bethlehem, PA Women’s Basketball vs. Quinnipiac University 2:00 p.m., Lavietes

Read more at THECRIMSON.COM

SPORTS

THE HARVARD CRIMSON NOVEMBER 10, 2023

17

WOMEN’S SOCCER

WEEKLY RECAP SCORES WOMEN’S FENCING VS. AIR FORCE

W, 20-7

FENCING VS. UNC

W, 21-6

FIELD HOCKEY IVY LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP VS. PRINCETON W, 2-1 SOCCER IVY LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP VS. COLUMBIA W, 3-0

MEN’S

FENCING VS. AIR FORCE

W, 22-5

FENCING VS. UNC

W, 20-7

WATER POLO VS. MIT

W, 17-11

READ IT IN FIVE MINUTES

The Harvard women’s soccer team huddles in its Nov. 5, 2022, game against Columbia. The Crimson toppled the Lions 5-0. ZING GEE — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

No. 10 Women’s Soccer to take on U. of Maine­ NCAA MATCHUP. No. 10 Harvard women’s soccer to face maine in 1st round of NCAA tournament.

BY NGHIA L. NGUYEN CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

D

­ u ring an excitin weekend of games in Providence, R.I., the Harvard women’s soccer team triumphed over two successive opponents to win the first-ever Ivy League Tournament in history.

Thrilling wins against Princeton and Columbia capped the Crimson’s successful Ivy League season and guaranteed a spot in the upcoming NCAA tournament.

Coming into the tournament, Harvard held the No. 2 seed after failing to keep Brown from winning a fourth-consecutive Ivy League regular season victory.

Despite that, the team felt ready to challenge for the title.

“I think the goal every season is to win a championship, and the fact that there was an Ivy tournament this year gave us two shots at that: either win the regular season or the Ivy League Tournament Championship,” Head Coach Chris Hamblin said.

“With Brown going 7-0, that ruled that [first] one out, and so all of our sights were set on winning that championship, and Princeton was our first opponent,” he continued. “We tied during the year and so we were focused on finding a way to break them down.”

Similarly to their regular season matchup, the Friday semifinal against Princeton began as a tight affair, with teams trading scoring opportunities and goals.

Princeton opened the scoreline in the 16th minute on a penalty kick, but Harvard scored an equalizer 5 minutes later when junior de-

fender Jade Rose made a longrange pass from Harvard’s half into the front of Princeton’s box.

Junior midfielder Hannah Bebar seized the opportunity and slotted the ball past the goalkeeper.

“That [goal] was a critical part of the game because they were away from us at that point. And so for Hannah to get that goal was a huge relief for us because we were under a lot of pressure at that point,” Hamblin reflected.

“So I think that goal was probably the most important part of that game for us.”

Princeton went up again in the 29th minute but the Crimson’s answer came under three minutes later when junior midfielder Josefine Hasbo — from an astounding central free kick right outside the 18 — curled a shot over the defending wall into the net. The first half ended in a 2-2 draw.

“We’ve been in situations where we’ve been down before

Then sophomore Josefine Hasbo beats Columbia defender to ball in 2022. ZING GEE — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

previously and we just knew that we had to come out stronger in the second half in order to finish strong,” Hasbo reflected.

In the second half, the picture changed in favor of the Crimson through two successive Harvard goals in the first fifteen minutes.

In the 47th minute, sophomore defender August Hunter headed the ball back into Princeton’s box and into the feet of first-year striker Ólöf Kristinsdóttir who chipped it over the goalkeeper into the net. Just six minutes later, senior midfielder/forward Gabby DelPico sprinted into the box, intercepted a pass between two Tigers players, and scored a quick goal. The Crimson kept control of the game until the final whistle and punched their ticket into the final.

“It was obviously a relief but also I think it’s because we showed up in the second half by playing our game, by achieving our goals, by showing our physical perseverance too,” Hasbo added. “So I think, taking all these factors into account, they allowed us to go out there strong and getting the two goals quickly.”

The Crimson came into the Sunday final with a recovery advantage over their opponent, No. 4 seed Columbia, who defeated Brown after a double overtime in the latter semi-final.

“We fortunately played earlier during the day, so we knew we had an advantage in the recovery. I give huge credit to our athletic training staff for their work on our team on Saturday and for helping us recover,” Hamblin said. “I think we had more legs than Columbia on Sunday.”

The first half of the final was an entertaining affair, with Columbia putting pressure on the Crimson’s defensive line in the early minutes and Harvard responding in kind with shots on goal by Rose, Kristinsdótti, and DelPico. However, the game remained scoreless at halftime.

“The first half was really a half of a big game, very frantic and it didn’t really calm down from Columbia or from us,” Hasbo said. “But, obviously, the feeling was the belief that we would do it but we also needed to adjust some technical things to get to the point.”

These adjustments paid great dividends in the second half, with Hasbo’s performance being the highlight. In the 53rd minute, Hasbo scored a long-range rock-

et shot from 30 yards out. Eight minutes later, she scored again from a cross into the box by senior defender Smith Hunter. Hasbo completed the hat-trick in the 71st with a solo effort in the penalty area which ended in a curved shot that went past the goalkeeper. This was the first Harvard hattrick since Hasbo accomplished the feat against Central Conn.

State on opening day in 2022. The Crimson defense completed the job by not allowing Columbia to score any shots on goal to ensure a final 3-0 victory.

“Obviously, it is amazing to be able to contribute to the result and I’m also very aware that I can’t do this without my team so I was more so happy that we were able to win the trophy and to reach the milestone that we worked for all season,” Hasbo reflected.

After last weekend’s victories, the Crimson will now embark on a more difficult journey ahead: the NCAA tournament, starting this weekend with a game against Maine on home turf. “[Maine] won their conference, America East, and only lost once this season and they’ve got 11 wins so they are obviously a quality opponent. I think we’ve been fortunate enough to play some really good teams this year to prepare us for whatever coming up next. [...] We’re looking forward to it,” Hamblin said.

On the Crimson’s part, “There’s a ton of potential and a lot of opportunities for us to compete nationally after we were fortunate enough to receive a first seed that we earned,” the head coach concluded. “So we now have to prove it and taking on Maine is the only thing we’re thinking about right now. And if we are able to get that done, we will look to whoever is next.”

This sense of excitement is also shared amongst the players.

“We have been building up a lot of experience during the season and hopefully we’ll keep building on that momentum,” Hasbo said.

“Those games require that we are delivering our best so hopefully, we can get a good crowd from Harvard out there and cheer on us on Saturday.”

Harvard will face Maine this Saturday, Nov. 11th at 5:00 p.m.

EST on Jordan Field in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

The game will be streamed on ESPN+. nghia.nguyen@thecrimson.com

HARVARD BEATS COLUMBIA 38-24 TO WIN 900TH GAME IN PROGRAM HISTORY No. 19 Harvard Football (7-1, 4-1) traveled to New York to take on Ivy League competitor Columbia (2-6, 0-5) and came out victorious. The Crimson defeated the Lions 38-24 to give the Harvard football program a 900th game win in its history. With the win, Harvard improved to 7-1, which is the first time since 2016 that the Crimson had seven wins out of eight games.

HARVARD STILL SEARCHING FOR AN IDENTITY AFTER TOUGH WEEKEND LOSSES Before the season, Harvard men’s ice hockey head coach Ted Donato said that it would take time for the Crimson to establish an identity, especially on offense, with so many of its players experiencing college hockey for the first time. Three games into the season, the team is still looking for that identity, as well as its first victory, after a shootout loss to Princeton and a blowout loss to the Quinnipiac.

HARVARD MEN’S SOCCER BEATS PRINCETON AT THE BUZZER Senior Ale Gutierrez scored a brace for the second time in his career to send the Harvard men’s soccer team (5-4-6, 3-1-2) past the visiting Princeton Tigers (4-7-3, 1-3-2) on Oct. 28 to secure a spot in the Ivy League Tournament. The Crimson will play in a single-elimination style tournament starting Nov. 10 and ending with the championship on Nov. 12.

18

THE HARVARD CRIMSON

IN PHOTOS

NOVEMBER 10, 2023

In Photos: Planting a Yard-Sized Urban Forest MIYAWAKI MARVEL. More than three dozen Cambridge residents gathered Saturday morning to plant Cambridge’s first ever residential Miyawaki garden. Volunteers planted more than 40 species of plants native to New England in a single front yard to guard against biodiversity loss.

BY FRANK S. ZHOU — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER Cambridge resident Julia G. Mason picks out a rock while planting spotted cranesbill in the front lawn.

Amid the planting, Cambridge resident Susan Filene teaches children how to feed the chickens in her backyard.

Musician Jordan F. Mudd serenades a plant. “I’m building a relationship with this plant by singing to it,” he said.

More than three dozen organizers, volunteers, and block party attendees gather to survey the 40 species of plants planted as a part of the Miyawaki garden. “We’re in a biodiversity crisis,” said Tori Antonino, an organizer of the event. “It’s just a matter of what we choose to plant in our landscapes that are going to determine whether or not creatures exist.”

A sprout sits in freshly-laid compost. “Move over, humans,” Antonino said. “We’re not number one anymore.”

Volunteers lay down lengths of pink ribbon to mark the garden’s borders.

Francis, one of half a dozen children at the block party, helps a volunteer water a plant in the front yard. “We’re in the age of the Anthropocene, and planting for ourselves and our own aesthetic has brought us into this crisis,” Antonino said. “This could be a game changer.”