A NEW ERA. This Sat urday’s football game against Stetson will be Andrew Aurich’s first as a head coach, and will mark the start of a new era for the Harvard Crim son without legendary coach Tim Murphy — the winningest coach in Ivy League football history.
16
Head Pub to Reopen as Event Space
VENUE VENTURE. The Dean of Students Office will reopen the Queen’s Head Pub as a event space called the “Queen’s Head venue.” The DSO intends to hire six employees for the event space, but the workers won’t be part of a campus union, sparking crticism from labor activists.
PAGE 5
Harvard’s Legacy of Slavery: Infighting and Accusations
How Intellectual Vitality Became Vital to Harvard
College
Three years ago, almost no Harvard students had heard of “intellectual vitality.”
Now, they can’t escape it.
tiny for its handling of campus protests and antisemitism following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, administrators have increasingly leaned on their new intellectual vitality initiative — which aims to promote free expression — to convince prospective students and alumni that Harvard remains committed to its academic mission.
“Intellectual Vitality will only work if we do,” Khurana wrote.
‘A Very Noble Idea’
criticism over the University’s handling of campus antisemitism and Islamophobia following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
As the war in the Middle East revealed deep divisions among the students and faculty at Harvard, University leadership sought to demonstrate its commitment to bridging those divides and fostering open debate.
Weezer Concert Review: A Faithful Homage
HIP HIP. The curated setlist was one of the performance’s many strengths. Weezer performed a wide cross-section of their songs from the heavier “Hash Pipe” to mellow “Island in the Sun,” and even the pensive “Any Friend of Diane’s.”
SEE PAGE 13 ARTS
CIVIL DISCOURSE. In principle, a commitment to free speech is commendable. But in practice, Harvard has too often promoted a hollow, right-wing vision of civil discourse, all the while failing to engage in — or even allow — difficult conversations when the moment demands. SEE PAGE 9 Harvard Is Doing Discourse Wrong
Even Dean of the College Rakesh Khurana, the loudest champion of intellectual vitality in Harvard’s top administration, acknowledged in a Thursday email to undergraduates that they might have some questions about this new, mysterious, and ubiquitous phrase.
“Whether you attended Convocation or read about it afterward, you’ve likely encountered references to ‘intellectual vitality,’” Khurana wrote. “We’re writing to say a bit more about what intellectual vitality has meant and why it matters — and to invite you to take the lead in determining what it will be.”
As Harvard found itself at the center of a media maelstrom and national scru-
This summer, the College launched “phase three” of the initiative — which has included new programming at freshman orientation events, funding opportunities, a growing group of fellows and staff, and repeated references to the spirit of intellectual vitality in messages from administrators.
But some Harvard affiliates expressed skepticism of the intent behind the intellectual vitality push, saying that the initiative appears to be an attempt to mollify outside forces and political criticism.
Khurana wrote in a Sunday statement that “the work of engaging in challenging conversations and advancing a better understanding of the world belongs to all of us.”
Many members of the Class of 2028 first became acquainted with intellectual vitality at Visitas, Harvard’s annual admitted students weekend, where administrators promoted the initiatives to some students who were not even officially enrolled in the College. During a question and answer session as part of the weekend’s programming, Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 highlighted the College’s efforts to foster a “rewarding and stimulating learning environment.”
“We have a number of initiatives intended to promote discourse — including the intellectual vitality initiative in the College, which I’m sure you’ll be hearing more about,” Garber said at the April event.
The intellectual vitality push picked up steam after Harvard weathered months of
Camila L. Nardozzi, the director of Intellectual Vitality Initiatives, acknowledged that the controversies that roiled Harvard’s campus surrounding the war in Gaza made intellectual vitality more imperative.
“Students have been saying that they want more authentic conversation for quite some time,” Nardozzi wrote in an emailed statement. “The events of last year only made that need more urgent.”
As Harvard resolved its leadership crisis over the summer and sought to turn a new leaf with the start of the academic year, the College launched new intellectual
BY WILLIAM C. MAO AND DHRUV T. PATEL CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
For the past four decades, Harvard Kennedy School lecturer Ronald A. Heifetz has been the face of the school’s widely popular classes on leadership.
But this year, Heifetz will no longer be teaching his flagship course. Management, Leadership, and Decision Sciences 202: “Leadership From the Inside Out: The Capacity to Lead and Stay Alive — Self, Identity, and Freedom” is part of a series of internationally celebrated courses, developed by Heifetz, that are collectively known as the HKS Adaptive Leadership classes.
In the wake of a Crimson investigation that found another course in the Adaptive Leadership series — which featured intense and personal conversations and required students to sign confidentiality agreements — had left some students feeling emotionally distressed, former HKS Dean Douglas W. Elmendorf canceled “Leadership From the Inside Out” in late spring 2024. After students launched a partially successful campaign demanding the
school bring back the course and reinstate Heifetz as the lead instructor, HKS brought the course back for spring 2025 — but with two adjunct lecturers at the helm. In a statement to The Crimson, an HKS spokesperson did not offer an explanation for why Heifetz will no longer teach the course, but wrote that it would be offered in a new, pedagogically improved format. While Heifetz’s version of MLD-202 lasted more than 8 hours per day for 10 consecutive days during the January term, the revamped course will last for six weeks in Spring 2025 and meet for a total of 15 hours — less than one-fifth of the original course length. Heifetz declined to comment on the end of his teaching involvement in MLD-202, but told students who took the course in January that he would not teach it again, according to a source in attendance. Still, according to several students who spoke with Heifetz after the Kennedy School’s decision, Heifetz has privately expressed that he would teach MLD-202 if allowed to do so.
Valencia had been staying at the Temporary Respite Center in East Cambridge with her husband and their toddler son for several months when, one morning, her son woke up in his cot with red bumps all over his head.
“He woke up in the morning with his skin stinging — even on his head,” Valencia said during an interview in Spanish.
In July, Massachusetts Governor Maura T. Healey ’92 implemented a new regulation across the four existing state-run temporary respite centers, including the center located in the Middlesex South Registry of Deeds building in Cambridge, that caps families’ stays at five days.
The change added another layer of uncertainty for some of the state’s most vulnerable residents, who already report poor living conditions in shelters and difficulty accessing state-provided employment and housing support services.
In interviews with The Crimson, nine residents and shelter workers said the new five-day stay limit was going unenforced but fostered a sense of instability
as residents struggled to make concrete plans for the future. Meanwhile, many residents reported inadequate shelter conditions and said they struggled to sleep in the state-run facilities. Yves, who had lived at TRC Cambridge for several months, said in an interview that he had been treated “like a dog, like an animal.”
“We are human beings,” he added.
“You can’t create a condition like that.” Yves, like many other shelter residents interviewed by The Crimson, agreed to speak on the condition that he would only be identified by his first name. The state-run Emergency Assistance system, which organizes shelters for eligible families under the state’s “right to shelter” law, has been buckling under the pressure of its growing waitlist, overcrowding in shelters, and a $224 million deficit this fiscal year. When the five-day limit went into effect on Aug. 1, most families at the Cambridge TRC had already been there for months. Rather than evicting hundreds at once, these families were given rolling exit notices throughout August. However, many families who have
IN THE REAL WORLD
FEDERAL RESERVE CUTS INTEREST RATES FOR FIRST TIME IN FOUR YEARS
The Federal Reserve cut interest rates by half a point on Wednesday, marking the first decrease since March 2020. The cuts are a departure from the Fed’s previous strategy which focused on curbing inflation by increasing borrowing rates to a nearly two-decade high, according to the New York Times. The decision, which comes amidst decreasing inflation, indicates that the Fed intends to protect against economic stagnation and job-market slowdown.
TRUMP SAFE AFTER APPARENT ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT ON GOLF COURSE
On Monday, just weeks after surviving a previous assassination attempt, former President Donald Trump was the target of another attempt on his life while golfing in Florida. Trump was golfing at his golf course in West Palm Beach when Secret Service agents spotted a man with a rifle standing by a fence 400 yards away according to the Associated Press. After agents fired at the man, he fled from the scene and was later apprehended by law enforcement. The incident marks the second assassination attempt on Trump.
US SUES SHIP OWNERS OVER BALTIMORE BRIDGE COLLAPSE
Attorneys from the Justice Department filed a case against the owners of Dali, the cargo ship that destroyed Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, killing six of its workers. In the filing, the attorneys allege that the two Singapore based corporations failed to prevent an avoidable accident by “cutting corners” and staffing the ship with an “ill-prepared” crew.
WAVE OF BLASTS AIMED AT HEZBOLLAH KILL DOZENS IN LEBANON
At least 32 people were killed and thousands were wounded Tuesday and Wednesday after pagers, walkie-talkies, and other handheld devices owned by members of Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah exploded across Lebanon. Though Israel, which has exchanged regular fire with Hezbollah amidst the group’s support for Hamas throughout the war in Gaza, did not take responsibility, officials told The New York Times that it was behind the strikes.
HARVEY WEINSTEIN FACES NEW SEXUAL ASSAULT CHARGE
On Wednesday, Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty to a new charge of committing a first degree criminal sexual act. The Manhattan district attorney’s office is also retrying an earlier case against Weinstein concerning allegations of sexual assault and rape. The Wednesday indictment accuses Weinstein of coercing the victim into oral sex.
ZEDD X HUEMC Q&A
Science Center, 1-2 p.m.
Join the Harvard Undergraduate Electronic Music Collective for a Q&A with Grammy Award-winning DJ and music producer Zedd. Learn about his creative process, the future of electronic music, and insights into the industry. The event is free and open to all Harvard students.
Saturday 9/21
THE HUMAN COMEDY: A REINVENTED MUSICAL
Agassiz Theater, 4-6 p.m.
The Office for the Arts and the HarvardRadcliffe Dramatic Club present a developmental reading of The Human Comedy – A Reinvented Musical,a fresh approach to this classic work. No tickets needed.
Sunday 9/22
¡CELEBREMOS EL SALVADOR!
Harvard Museum of Natural History, 1-4 p.m.
Celebrate El Salvador’s rich culture with a family-friendly event featuring Mario Quiroz’s Photographic video essay, folk dances by Grupo Torogoz, and hands-on activities. Create traditional crafts, learn about ancient Salvadoran pottery, and enjoy Salvadoran cuisine. Free admission.
Monday
PEOPLE, POWER, AND THE POLLS: ORGANIZING IN AN ELECTION YEAR
Institute of Politics, 6:30-7:30 p.m.
Join the IOP for a discussion featuring Marshall Ganz, author of People, Power, Change that will explore how to unite people with competing perspectives into impactful movements during a divisive election year. Open to all Harvard affiliates.
Tuesday 9/24
HIVE TO HONEY JAR Smith
limited to 50 registrants.
Wednesday 9/25
ZOOMERS AND BOOMERS: HOW YOUTH AND SENIORS SHAPE THE 2024 ELECTION Institute of Politics, 6-7 p.m. Explore how intergenerational voting trends could shape the 2024 presidential election, with insights from the latest “Harvard Youth Poll.” Featuring John Della Volpe, Director of Polling at HKS.
Friday 9/27 OIE INTERNATIONAL
Science Library, 1-4 p.m.
study, research, internship, and public
TREETOP TRANQUILITY
BARBARA A. SHEEHAN — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
COLLEGE ADMINISTRATION
Tenured Profs Return to College Ad Board
DISCIPLINE. Two tenured professors joined the Harvard College Administrative Board, ending a 3-year dry spell.
Two tenured professors have joined the Harvard College Administrative Board, the disciplinary body for undergraduate students, which clashed with Harvard faculty last semester after it imposed sanctions on student protesters.
The appointments of Philosophy professor Edward J. Hall and Classics professor Kathleen M. Coleman ended a three-year dry spell where the only tenured faculty member to sit on the Ad Board was Harvard College Dean Rakesh Khurana.
They also come amid a push for greater faculty involvement in day-to-day governance, particularly within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. As the war in Gaza sparked waves of student protest, faculty increasingly tried to assert their role in campus decision-making through public letters and procedural hardball.
FAS Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra has also tried behind the scenes to increase faculty involvement in the Ad Board, encouraging several other professors to consider joining.
An FAS spokesperson confirmed Hoekstra’s outreach to faculty, describing it in a statement as “part of her ongoing work to engage their voices in important community conversations.”
Hall said he first considered joining the Ad Board early last spring after one of his colleagues argued that faculty should be more involved in the “low-level” governance of Harvard via a listserv belonging to the Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard.
“It’s easy for people in administrative positions to kind of, over time, lose track of where the faculty are with respect to any given issue,” Hall said.
The Ad Board seemed to lose sight of faculty sentiments when it decided to impose disciplinary measures against 13 seniors who
participated in the pro-Palestine encampment, preventing them from graduating. But the FAS quickly reminded the body who was in charge, voting decisively to let the students graduate regardless. (The Harvard Corporation, Harvard’s highest governing board, overruled the FAS before itself reversing course in July.) Hall’s and Coleman’s seats will give the FAS an institutional foothold to make sure the Ad Board is executing the faculty’s wishes.
“The Administrative Board is literally the board that administers the rules of the faculty,” former Harvard College Dean Harry R. Lewis ’68 said. “It doesn’t make the rules, it administers the rules.”
Coleman decided in early summer to seek a seat on the Ad Board after Ad Board Secretary Titus Adeleke asked her to join. She said she saw Ad Board service as an important part of University life — one which could “help our community to grow in understanding and maturity” —
Kansas Ruling on Title IX Rules Impacts Harvard Regulations
BY CAROLINE K. HSU AND HANA
Harvard’s Title IX regulations are in limbo — and it’s because of a Kansas court injunction. The Biden administration released updated Title IX regulations in April that held students to a lower standard of proof, eliminated the requirement for live hearings with cross-examination as part of campus disciplinary processes, and expanded the definition of “sex-based discrimination” to include gender identity, a move that sparked anger and legal pushback from conservatives. Though the new rules were set to take effect last month, Harvard is still operating under the same interim regulations rolled out in 2020, which will stay in place until the Department of Education can enforce the new policy.
A Kansas District Court judge
upheld an injunction filed by Alaska, Kansas, Utah, and Wyoming, and three conservative groups — Young America’s Foundation, Female Athletes United, and children of the members of Moms for Liberty — which prevents the Department of Education from enforcing the new Title IX regulations at not only institutions in the four states but schools attended by members of the three plaintiff groups or their children. Harvard — and 700 other universities — is on this list.
Though the Kansas ruling does not appear to prevent Harvard from updating its Title IX rules, Harvard seems to be waiting for the legal challenge to conclude before finalizing polices.
Erin Buzuvis, a professor at the Western New England University of Law, said if “the current rule doesn’t conflict in any way with the past rule, there is no reason why an institution can’t comply with the new rule despite the injunction.”
Harvard’s interim policy already offers increased protections to students beyond the 2020 Title IX guidelines as a result of compliance with Massachusetts state law, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender identity.
A Harvard spokesperson declined to comment.
R. Shep Melnick ’73, a professor of American politics at Boston College, said the Kansas injunction was unique in seeking to strike down the entire set of protections.
The new Title IX regulations have also been met with legal challenges in several other states, with the Supreme Court upholding injunctions from Louisiana and Kentucky. But only the Kansas injunction — with the clause about plaintiffs and their children — impacts Harvard.
Buzuvis and Melnick also pointed to the importance of the U.S. presidential elections later this year in determining the fate of the new Title IX regulations.
“It’s only dangerous if the administration changes hands,” Buzuvis said. “If a Democratic president remains in charge, and the Department of Education continues on the same course, it will continue to press for the new rules to be implemented.”
Melnick said that the outcome of the November election would determine the future of the injunction and the new regulations.
“If Trump were to win the election, then he would try to undo the regulations anyway,” Melnick said.
though it falls outside most professors’ core pursuits of scholarship and teaching.
“These other things that we’re asked to do are usually not the reason why we’ve entered the profession, but we do them as honestly and honorably as we can, and it is our responsibility, I think, to take on tasks that we think we can manage,” she said.
The Ad Board is mostly composed of resident deans — non-ladder faculty who advise students in the undergraduate Houses — as well as administra-
HKS FROM PAGE 1
tors and some other non-ladder faculty members.
The body is divided into two committees, one of which oversees disciplinary matters and the other of which evaluates routine student petitions, like adding classes after the enrollment deadline. Both Hall and Coleman sit on the disciplinary committee, which is chaired by Khurana.
Archaeology professor Jason A. Ur received an invitation from Hoekstra to join the Ad Board. He wrote in an emailed state -
ment that he decided not to serve during the 2024-25 academic year due to scheduling conflicts but that he would be open to serving in the future. Ur characterized Ad Board service as a way to participate in faculty governance — something he saw as particularly important in parts of the FAS that he believes have “moved away from a commitment to academic freedom, including the freedom to express controversial opinions.”
But convincing tenured faculty to join the Ad Board has long been an uphill battle. In the 1994 Report on the Structure of Harvard College, a faculty and staff committee wrote that the “small number of regular teaching faculty serving as members of the Administrative Board” was a “disturbing trend.”
The committee argued that faculty participation on the Ad Board served three important functions: to bring faculty insights to the board, improve professors’ understanding of student life — and to maintain the legitimacy of the Ad Board itself.
“If it were a body entirely without representation from the teaching faculty, its actions might, with good reason, be more easily questioned by both students and faculty,” the report added.
Lewis, the former College dean, said in an interview that during his time chairing the Ad Board, there were typically two tenured professors — beside himself — in the group. Persuading new members to join, he said, could be difficult.
“It’s actually a lot to ask someone to sit on the board and lose every Tuesday afternoon, or a couple of hours of every Tuesday afternoon, going through a lot of stuff about, ‘Sam got drunk and punched his roommate,’” Lewis said.
“It does not require a professor of Philosophy to sort most of those things out,” he quipped. Hall, the Philosophy professor, said he was glad there are now at least two tenured faculty serving on the Ad Board again. “We probably need more,” he said.
tilly.robinson@thecrimson.com
Heifetz Will No Longer Teach Acclaimed
The student-led effort in support of Heifetz began over the summer, when a group of students who took MLD-202 in January met with former HKS Dean Douglas W. Elmendorf and Academic Dean for Teaching and Curriculum Suzanne Cooper at least two times to urge the school to reconsider its decision to cancel the course.
Achraf Aouadi, an alum of MLD-202 who attended some of the meetings with Elmendorf and Cooper, said while the two administrators admitted the course was popular among many students, they also said some students have had unfavorable experiences with MLD-202.
According to Aouadi, Cooper said during one of the meetings that there was no formal investigation into Heifetz that prevented him from teaching MLD-202 and he would remain on the school’s faculty.
But on the school’s 2024-2025 course catalog, Heifetz is not slated to teach any classes — which some students believed to be a sign that the Kennedy School wanted to force Heifetz from its ranks.
“My own conclusion is that the Kennedy School is trying to push Ron Heifetz out without being accused of it,” Aouadi said.
“So they’re somehow coming up with replacements, and now they find themselves improvising,” Aouadi added. A Kennedy School spokesperson did not comment on this specific allegation.
In August, 126 students who had taken the course signed a
petition addressed to newly-appointed Kennedy School Dean Jeremy M. Weinstein and other top HKS administrators calling on the school to offer MLD-202 again and reinstate Heifetz as the course’s instructor.
“Please trust in your students and listen to us,” the students wrote in the petition, which was obtained by The Crimson.
“Depriving new students of this unique course would mean they would miss out on its invaluable offerings,” the students wrote in the petition.
Following the petition, the Kennedy School added 100 seats to MLD-202, bringing the total course capacity to 150. An HKS spokesperson wrote that “given the strong student demand, we will be offering three sections of MLD-202 in the spring semester with spots for 150 students.”
“The Kennedy School values the teaching of adaptive leadership and we know that many students have had highly positive and beneficial learning experiences in these courses,” the spokesperson added.
While Heifetz will not be teaching MLD-202 on campus, he is currently working with the Office of the Vice Provost for Advances in Learning to organize an online version of MLD-202 and MLD-201 — the subject of The Crimson’s 2023 investigation — according to a person familiar with the matter.
The person also added that Heifetz will receive royalties from any students who enroll in the virtual courses.
MLD-202 is not the only Heif-
etz course to be canceled by the Kennedy School.
Heifetz has also previously taught another course on leadership — MLD-204 — which specifically focused on leadership in the context of racism, sexism, and anti-Black racism. But in fall 2023, MLD-204 was also quietly removed from the school’s course offerings. The turmoil around Heifetz and Adaptive Leadership marks the latest in a years-long battle to secure a stable future for leadership courses at the Kennedy School.
In 2013, several students criticized the Kennedy School’s decision to not promote Dean Williams — who taught MLD-202 at the time — and raised concerns about whether MLD-202 could survive if Williams were to leave the school.
“There is a possibility that MLD-202 will not be taught,” former HKS Dean David T. Ellwood told students at the time. Though MLD-202 will not be returning to its original format with Heifetz as the main instructor this fall, students said they plan to keep up their efforts.
“There’s just very strong support for Heifetz among all the alumni,” said Ryan T. Prior, a first-year HKS student involved with the petition to reinstate the course.
“They really feel very attached to him, and I think rightfully so,” he said.
Two tenured professors have joined the Harvard College Administrative Board. SAMUEL A. HA — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
Queen’s Head to Reopen as Event Venue
Harvard College will reopen the Cambridge Queen’s Head Pub as an event space this fall and hire six non-union employees, following the College’s controversial decision to close the establishment in May.
Paul Curran, Harvard’s managing director of labor relations and employee relations, announced the reopening in an email to Harvard Undergraduate Workers Union-United Auto Workers, which represented the 45 workers previously employed by the pub.
“The QHP is reopening this fall as the Queen’s Head venue and will be overseen by the College’s Dean of Students Office,” Curran wrote in the email, which was circulated in a group chat of former Queen’s Head employees.
“The DSO is planning to hire six ‘Event Assistants’ to work events in the Queen’s Head and other venues.”
“After evaluation, we have determined that these newly created positions are not part of the bargaining unit,” Curran added.
HUWU-UAW slammed the reopening as “union busting” in a post on Instagram Saturday, adding that the move “reflects a staggering contempt” for unionized workers on campus.
Queen’s Head workers.
off that they were going to be laid off beforehand,” Wall-Feng said. “When we met with them over the summer, it became very clear that they also didn’t really have a handle on a lot of details of how things had operated.”
Some former employees echoed complaints about a lack of communication from College administrators.
“Students aren’t being communicated with,” said former Queen’s Head employee Jack G. Towers ’25. “We find out about these things either after the decisions have been made or sort of indirectly through alternative routes.”
“I sent emails to many of the people involved in the decision, and they’ve just not replied to me,” said former employee Alice R. Ferguson ’25. “We’re not getting consulted about jobs, employment that matters to how we budget our semester, to how we fund our college.” She added that the DSO’s decision to hire
“The Dean of Students Office has reimagined the Cambridge Queen’s Head space into a more inclusive and welcoming environment focused on providing opportunities for all students, and particularly first-year students, to come together to learn, to talk, and to relax,” Harvard spokesperson Jonathan Palumbo wrote in a statement.
lumbo added. “We look forward to a semester filled with community building.”
“There will no longer be food or beverage service so the positions that support the space have been aligned to the needs,” Pa-
In May, the DSO and Harvard University Dining Services announced that the pub, located beneath Annenberg Hall, would close after 17 years. The decision met widespread backlash on campus and dealt a significant blow to HUWU-UAW, which had a bargaining unit that included a large proportion of
Bucking Tradition, Alan Garber Will Not Move Into
sion with 12 rooms, is located a little more than a mile away from Harvard Yard.
Harvard President Alan M. Garber
’76 will not move into Elmwood, becoming the first University leader in more than 50 years to pass up the opportunity to live at the official residence of the president of Harvard. Garber, who officially became Harvard’s 31st president in August, will continue to live at his private residence for the duration of his three-year tenure at the helm of the University. The property at 33 Elmwood Avenue has served as home to Garber’s five most recent predecessors. The property has been vacant since former Harvard President Claudine Gay left Elmwood after resigning in January, a University spokesperson confirmed.
In the meantime, Elmwood will be used for events hosted by the president and other top University officials. Elmwood, a bright yellow man-
First built in the eighteenth century, the Elmwood property has played an important role in both American and Harvard history. It functioned as a field hospital for George Washington’s troops during the revolutionary war and was home to Elbridge Gerry, who took the oath of office as Vice President of the United States in 1813 in the house’s drawing room. The property was later bequeathed to Harvard by professor A. Kingsley Porter after his wife died in 1962. It was first used by the University that same year to house the dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
At the time, the official president’s residence was Loeb House –now home to the Harvard Corporation and the Harvard Board of Overseers, the University’s governing boards.
But when former Harvard President Derek C. Bok was appointed to lead the University in 1971, he pre-
ferred to move to Elmwood due to construction and ongoing student protests. Until Garber, every president since Bok has called Elmwood home.
Garber has already experienced protests outside his private residence. In early May, over 400 protesters marched to Garber’s home after he announced he would not negotiate with the participants of a pro-Palestine encampment in Harvard Yard.
Though Garber’s decision to not move into Elmwood as the University’s permanent president is a break with tradition, he was not Harvard’s first interim president to live in his private home.
After former University President Lawrence H. Summers resigned in 2006, Bok returned to Harvard’s top administration for one year to serve as interim president but did not live at Elmwood during his brief second stint in Massachusetts Hall.
Bea Wall-Feng, a member of HUWU-UAW’s bargaining committee and a former Crimson Magazine editor, said the DSO’s decision to suddenly reopen the space was “shady” and “disrespectful.”
“Closing the Queen’s Head, firing 45 student workers and then reopening it but only hiring six workers, not hiring the impacted workers back, and moving the
workplace out of the union is a textbook example of union busting,” she said.
The move comes amid negotiations between HUWU-UAW and the University for the young group’s first contract. According to Wall-Feng, organizers discussed the closure of the Queen’s Head during summer bargaining sessions.
“Harvard, like I said, did not notify the workers who were laid
HMS Dean Talks Campus Rules, Financial Struggles in Speech
BY VERONICA H. PAULUS AND AKSHAYA RAVI CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
Harvard Medical School Dean George Q. Daley ’82 discussed forthcoming campus use rules, faltering financials, and post-affirmative action admissions in his annual State of the School address on Tuesday.
The speech — Daley’s sixth since assuming the deanship in 2017 — comes amid a year of tension on Harvard’s campus over the Israel-Hamas war and questions of free speech.
During his speech, Daley said that in the coming weeks, HMS will announce supplemental campus use rules “that speak to specific use of our shared campus spaces.” These will add to the rules announced by the University on July 30, prohibiting overnight camping, chalking, and unapproved signage on Harvard’s campus.
Daley also discussed the impact of the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling striking down race-conscious admissions, noting that the percentage of HMS applicants from backgrounds underrepresented in medicine decreased to 17 percent in the 2024 cycle — down from between 20 percent and 25 percent from 2020 to 2023.
Last week, Harvard College released admissions data revealing that the proportion of Black students in the Class of 2028 dropped from 18 to 14 percent in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision.
“This much is indisputable: we need to do more to recruit the most talented URIM students to HMS,” Daley said.
He added that HMS is pursuing greater philanthropic support to expand its financial aid program, following donations at other medical schools like Johns Hopkins University that will allow the majority of students to attend tuition-free.
“The number one deterrent for students seeking to come here is the high cost of our education,” Daley added. “Our aspiration is simple: no student admitted to Harvard Medical School should ever have to decide which medical school to attend based on cost.”
Daley added that after two years of balanced books, HMS may be in danger of returning to an operational budget deficit.
“Our financial team — led by Chief Financial Officer Julie Joncas — has warned us that without significant changes in our spending and without finding new sources of revenue, we will once again be returning to deficits,” Daley said.
“It’s become apparent that we may be facing up to a $37 million unrestricted cash budget shortfall this coming fiscal year,” he added. “Turns out that we’ve been facing a perfect storm of negative financial headwinds.”
Daley pointed to poor endowment returns, high construction costs, and National Institutes of Health funding that has not kept pace with inflationary pressures.
He emphasized a need to diversify revenue sources to make up for the deficit, particularly through pursuing more donors and advocating for increased federal funding.
Daley also emphasized the need for free and safe discourse among HMS affiliates.
“As tensions grew across the University last spring, the unfolding events precipitated conflict,
pitting some students and faculty within our community against each other,” Daley said.
“We missed opportunities to listen and to learn from each other, and indeed, I and other Harvard deans, in attempting to address the concerns of all members of our community, missed opportunities to listen intently before reacting,” he added.
Last semester, HMS affiliates staged multiple pro-Palestine protests, and several pro-Palestine student groups accused the HMS administration of censoring the annual class music video.
In particular, Daley highlighted that content on civil discourse was added to the school’s Introduction to the Profession course, which is taken by all first-year medical and dental students. He added that the Harvard Ombuds Office will deliver additional community workshops.
Daley concluded his address by praising his audience for their “remarkable work.”
“Because of you, the state of Harvard Medical School is strong,” he added.
The Queen’s Head Pub lies below Annenberg Hall, just above Harvard Yard. STEFAN STOYKOV — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
COVER STORY 6
Inside Harvard’s Legacy of Slavery Initiative
TURMOIL. Affiliates of the initiative said top administrators purshed for public relations victories at the project’s expense.
BY NEERAJA S. KUMAR, NEIL H. SHAH, AND ANNABEL M. YU
STAFF WRITERS
A$100 million University initiative intended to make amends for Harvard’s ties to slavery has been hamstrung by infighting, high staff turnover, and senior University officials seeking to limit the project’s scope, multiple current and former staff members told The Crimson.
Even as Vice Provost for Special Projects Sara N. Bleich, who leads the Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery initiative, underscored the University’s commitment to redressing historic wrongs, Bleich and other top administrators pushed for public relations victories and fostered an environment where affiliates felt pressured to speed up their work, the current and former staffers said.
Two high-profile departures occurred in late May when English professor Tracy K. Smith ’94 and Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts Director Dan I. Byers resigned as co-chairs of the initiative’s memorial project committee, issuing a scathing resignation letter to top University leadership.
The internal friction continued through the summer as Roeshana Moore-Evans, formerly the initiative’s executive director and Bleich’s top deputy, left the University in June. And Richard J. Cellini, the director of the Harvard Slavery Remembrance Program, said in a statement to The Crimson that he was explicitly instructed by Bleich to limit the number of descendants of enslaved individuals identified by his research team.
“I have been repeatedly and emphatically told by Dr. Sara Bleich ‘not to find too many descendants’ and that ‘the HSRP shouldn’t do its job too well,’” Cellini wrote.
University spokesperson Sarah E. Kennedy O’Reilly disputed Cellini’s statement, saying that no such instruction had ever been issued.
“There is no directive to limit the number of direct descendants to be identified through this work,” she wrote. This account is based on interviews conducted over the past four months with 18 people familiar with Harvard’s efforts to redress its ties to slavery, including eight peo-
ple directly involved in the Legacy of Slavery initiative, and dozens of documents and email communications reviewed by The Crimson.
Many of the current affiliates interviewed for this article were granted anonymity to speak candidly about the Legacy of Slavery initiative and discuss sensitive personnel issues.
Though almost everyone interviewed for this article said they were proud of their work to support the Legacy of Slavery initiative, several affiliates said the
told the Harvard Gazette, a University-run publication, that “the hard part is not the finding. The hard part is the looking.”
“There are a million reasons — emotionally, psychologically, financially, intellectually, spiritually, culturally — why we collectively — inside and outside Harvard — will find it difficult to look,” Cellini added. “So, in some sense Harvard has already overcome the biggest hurdle in this process, which is having the willingness and the courage to look.”
Richard J. Cellini Director of Harvard Slavery Remembrance Program I have been repeatedly and emphatically told by Dr. Sara Bleich ‘not to find too many descendants’ and that ‘the HSRP shouldn’t do its job too well.’
pressure to swiftly produce public-facing progress reports led them to question the authenticity of Harvard’s dedication to the mission.
Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 reiterated the University’s commitment to its goal of reckoning with its past and threw his support behind Bleich in a statement on Thursday. “We are dedicated to the success of this endeavor,” Garber wrote. “I am confident that Vice Provost Sara Bleich will continue to lead our efforts with vision and commitment.”
‘Fire Me, or Let the HSRP Do This Work Properly’
The University announced in October 2022 that Cellini would lead its efforts to identify the descendants of enslaved individuals who labored on Harvard’s campus or were owned by staff, faculty, or leadership. Cellini was one of the initiative’s first hires, with his appointment coming months before Bleich assumed her role as vice provost at the helm of Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery. He was well-known in genealogical research circles long before he even came to the University, having directed an independent effort at Georgetown University to identify the descendants of enslaved individuals sold to fund the school.
At the time of his hiring, Cellini
But less than one year later, Cellini no longer believed Harvard had cleared that hurdle.
One of the key figures Cellini accused of hindering his work was Bleich, a professor at Harvard’s School of Public Health who was appointed by then-Provost Alan Garber in November 2022 to oversee the initiative.
In spring 2023, there was debate among senior administrators over whether members of the University’s governing boards fell under the Remembrance Program’s charge to identify the descendants of those enslaved by “Harvard leadership.”
Cellini wrote in a statement that Bleich had told him “on several occasions” that Secretary of the University Marc L. Goodheart ’81 had “sought to exclude members of the Harvard Corporation and Board of Overseers from the scope of HSRP research” — a result that Cellini deemed unacceptable.
“When I expressed an intention to contact Mr. Goodheart directly to determine the truth of this statement, Dr. Bleich emphatically forbade me to do so,” Cellini added.
Kennedy O’Reilly, the University spokesperson, denied Cellini’s allegations against Goodheart, saying Harvard administrators had never been against considering the Overseers as part of the project’s scope.
But the University did not deny that some questions were raised internally about whether or not in-
cluding members of the governing boards was the right decision.
In May 2023, Bleich wrote a memo to Harvard Radcliffe Institute Dean Tomiko Brown-Nagin, who led the effort to produce the 2022 Legacy of Slavery report, asking for guidance on how to address those concerns.
In the memo, which was obtained by The Crimson, Bleich wrote that administrators questioned if Harvard should “voluntarily undertake acts of repair” related to “slaveholding activities” of individuals — such as members of the governing boards — whose primary position was not in Harvard leadership or who enslaved individuals “in their personal homes.”
These discussions lasted several weeks, before settling on including members of the governing boards in the Remembrance Program’s remit.
Still, Cellini’s relationship with Bleich and other Harvard administrators continued on a downward spiral.
In July 2023, Cellini filed a complaint with Harvard’s Office of the General Counsel alleging that he was instructed by Bleich and other administrators not to identify “too many descendants.” He filed a similar complaint in February 2024 against Bleich with Garber’s chief of staff, Tez “Bank” Chantaruchirakorn.
“I have publicly rejected the idea that the HSRP ever could, would, or should limit the number of descendants it finds; fail to do its job to the
Alan M. Garber
Still, she said it would be “inaccurate” to describe concerns raised by individuals in discussions about the project’s scope as “inhibiting the work to identify direct descendants.”
Rising Internal Tensions
As the relationship between Cellini and Bleich deteriorated, the two distanced themselves from one another and have avoided direct communication for months.
In January 2024, Bleich told Cellini that he was rude and abrasive. Cellini has also asserted that he reports directly to the Harvard Corporation, the University’s highest governing body, and does not need to report to Bleich — especially given the complaints he has lodged against her.
However, both Cellini and the Remembrance Program as a whole report to Bleich, according to a University spokesperson.
But Cellini was not the only leader in the initiative to find themselves at odds with Bleich and other senior University officials.
The environment in the Legacy of Slavery initiative grew increasingly tense as the disagreements over how to implement the 2022 report’s recommendations seeped into staff members’ interpersonal relationships, according to current and former employees of the initiative.
The employees said the bitter workplace culture started at the top.
President We are dedicated to the success of this endeavor. I am confident that Vice Provost Sara Bleich will continue to lead our efforts with vision and commitment.
best of its ability; or exclude members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers from the scope of HSRP research,” Cellini wrote in an emailed statement to The Crimson.
“Using plain English, I have told officials at the highest level of the University that they only have two options: fire me, or let the HSRP do this work properly,” he added. Kennedy O’Reilly declined to comment on Cellini’s complaints, citing a University policy not to comment on personnel matters.
In March 2024, according to two people with knowledge of the matter, Moore-Evans submitted a complaint with human resources against Bleich, citing both personal and professional differences — including the allegation that Bleich had micromanaged and hindered the work of the initiative.
A University spokesperson declined to comment on complaints or tensions between members of the team, citing a policy of not commenting on personnel matters. Moore-Evans and Bleich — the
initiative’s two top leaders — had a visibly tense relationship for several months, according to three people involved in the initiative. By the end of Moore-Evans’ tenure as executive director, they had avoided taking in-person meetings together for several months.
Moore-Evans’ complaint against Bleich was eventually dismissed. Her departure was negotiated by an HR representative, according to a person familiar with her departure, and she officially resigned from her position in June.
Moore-Evans wrote in a statement that she “was not terminated” from her position, though she did not deny that HR was involved in negotiating her departure. Moore-Evans also declined to answer questions about her HR complaint against Bleich.
Rayshauna Gray, who served as Bleich and Moore-Evans’ executive assistant from February to September 2023, said she often felt that she was talked down to or unfairly snapped at by the project’s leadership, especially by Moore-Evans.
“While I know I wasn’t a perfect employee, we don’t have to be perfect in order to not be condescended to, singled out, set up to straight up fail,” Gray said.
Moore-Evans wrote in a statement that she believes “in creating a work environment that is equity-centered, inclusive, and respectful, and I deeply value the relationships I’ve formed through the initiative.” However, several other members of the initiative expressed positive experiences, saying that they found other members of the team to be both supportive and productive.
Remembrance Program researcher Raymond L. Wilkes III said he felt
“Harvard is progressing at a rate as best as it can.”
“I do feel that it maybe took on a lot all at once — which is expected because it’s Harvard — and I do feel that it’s beginning to maybe realize some of that and I think it’s beginning to make the changes to fix,” Wilkes added.
Last year, around the time that divisions emerged between its leadership, the initiative sought out team coaching to resolve tensions between its staff members.
Around the beginning of 2024, they reached out to leadership coach Gina Lincoln, an affiliate of Harvard Business School’s Executive Education program, for advising. At the time, Lincoln wrote in an email to Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery leadership that the group was not yet ready for team
JULIAN J. GIORDANO — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
’76 University
20,
coaching — and that they need-
ed clearer demarcations between their positions.
“I think drawing clear distinctions between roles/responsibilities/decision-making authority will help A LOT to clear up tension,” she wrote in the January email.
The initiative ultimately did not engage with Lincoln, however, and instead opted for team coaching through Harvard’s Center for Workplace Development.
A Pressure to Produce
In addition to the workplace tensions, several people close to the group said they grew frustrated as University leadership seemed more focused on the Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery initiative’s public image than its work on implementing the recommendations.
The current and former staff members said they felt pressure to produce public announcements about the progress of the initiative’s work, even when they felt it was premature to do so, or that there was an unhealthy emphasis on speed.
One affiliate, however, disagreed with the characterization that Harvard, through Bleich, had improperly prioritized public image over work quality. Rather, they said that Bleich’s role, as vice provost, was to serve as a spokesperson for the initiative and ensure that Harvard is reliably sharing updates with the Harvard affiliates and other stakeholders.
Kennedy O’Reilly, the University spokesperson, echoed this affiliate’s reasoning.
Some people close to the initiative said that the focus on PR was apparent when the University contracted Proverb, a Boston-based marketing agency, in fall 2023 to provide the initiative with recommendations on its branding and naming strategy.
Proverb interviewed more than a dozen individuals involved in the initiative, including members of the community, students, and staff, according to a slide deck obtained by The Crimson. They presented commonly-held frustrations about the initiative by groups of stakeholders and suggested potential ways for the University to address them.
The agency also made suggestions for the initiative’s communications strategy and for how the initiative could potentially look to rename or rebrand itself to better signal the initiative’s reparative work. Some of the proposed renaming options suggested by Proverb included “Slavery & Harvard,” “Veritas & Justice,” and “The Institute for Slavery Justice at Harvard.” Proverb advised the initiative to focus on names that were direct and to not avoid placing the words “Harvard” and “slavery” close to one another.
At the time, the initiative had yet to develop a strategy for reaching out to descendants, several affiliates of the initiative said, leaving them disappointed by the decision to focus on public image before making significant headway on the work itself.
Kennedy O’Reilly declined to comment on the initiative’s relationship with Proverb. Gray, the former executive assistant, stressed the importance of the work and said Harvard needs to take the time to get it right.
“To handle this as if it’s anything but nitroglycerin is just the height of hubris, immaturity, ego, and a lack of appreciation for the gravity of what we’re doing,” Gray said.
“I can’t tell you exactly what Harvard wants but I know that Harvard does not want to be known for getting this wrong,” she added. In their May resignation letter, Smith and Byers encouraged the initiative’s leadership to slow down its efforts to construct a physical memorial to allow for more time to engage descendants during the process.
“Our decision to step down stems from our conviction that the only thing an ongoing ethos of speed will ensure is that the memorial-to-be will stand as a gesture of institutional self-regard; an aesthetic rather than a conscienceand community-based undertaking,” Smith and Byers wrote. The former co-chairs also expressed concern about administrative pushback to their efforts to engage with descendants.
“From our earliest committee meetings, we have warned ourselves against the hubris of erecting a memorial to the enslaved and their descendants without first forging genuine and durable rela-
tionships with descendant communities in Cambridge and Boston, yet we have been cautioned by the Office of the Vice Provost to delay and dilute these efforts,” they wrote. Though Byers still remains a member of the memorial project committee, Smith decided to leave the group entirely.
In response to a request for comment, Kennedy O’Reilly pointed to a statement issued by a University spokesperson in April stating that Bleich and the initiative “take seriously the co-chairs’ concerns about the importance of community involvement and of taking steps that will enable Harvard to deeply engage with descendant communities.”
Where Things Stand
Before Smith and Byers resigned as co-chairs of the memorial project committee, they solicited submissions from artists for a proposal to construct a physical memorial that would commemorate the enslaved individuals who labored on campus.
According to a “Request for Qualifications” document posted in December 2023, the committee had budgeted about $4 million to construct and design the site. At the time, artists were given a dead-
line of Feb. 20 to submit their proposals for the memorial.
But after Smith and Byers resigned and voiced their concerns about being rushed by Bleich and University administrators, the Legacy of Slavery initiative indefinitely paused its efforts to review artists’ submissions, according to an email obtained by The Crimson.
The email was signed by the “Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery Initiative team” and sent to artists in July, more than one month after Smith and Byers tendered their resignations.
“To enable us to spend more time engaging with community members to inform our path moving forward and in acknowledgement of the challenges over the past year, we plan to extend our timeline to ensure adequate time and care is given to collecting this vital community,” the email stated.
An artist who submitted a proposal for the memorial said in an interview in July that the communication between the initiative and the artists was “terrible,” expressing frustration that artists who had dedicated time and effort to submit their proposals were not notified of the delay in a timely manner.
The artist requested anonymity to speak freely about their communications with the memorial committee.
COVER STORY
“We know that things fall through, but because I’m the one that did all the work, I was pretty annoyed about it,” the artist said. “I said, ‘Hey, this isn’t right.’”
Kennedy O’Reilly, the University spokesperson, declined to comment on communication with artists, referring The Crimson to the Sept. 12 press release in which the University announced new cochairs for the committee.
Former Cambridge Mayor Kenneth E. Reeves ’72, who previously advised the initiative, said its leadership could have done a better job in listening to community members and Black alumni when making directional decisions.
Reeves said he did not feel the initiative had solicited community input “in the most deep and effective ways.”
“The creativity in terms of community outreach is pitiful,” Reeves said.
Kennedy O’Reilly wrote in a statement that the University is “grateful for the engagement, ideas and feedback received through numerous interactions with Harvard’s alumni community.”
But even as progress slowed on implementing some of the recommendations, several people familiar with the initiative’s work praised its new partnerships with historically Black colleges and uni-
ance to establish the HBCU Digital Library Trust, a collaboration that seeks to maintain and digitize African American historical collections.
HBCU Digital Trust Director Andrea Jackson Gavin said in an interview that the initiative is in the process of expanding from 25 contributing HBCUs to 28.
Bleich also praised the initiative’s partnerships in a statement.
“It is remarkable to see how many partners and leaders, in and outside the University, have joined this effort — where progress is happening but will take time,” she wrote.
‘The Long Haul’ Despite the leadership turnover and criticism of the initiative, several Harvard faculty members close to the initiative as well as other stakeholders said they remained optimistic about the initiative’s future. African and African American Studies professor Paulina Alberto and Afro-Latin American Research Institute Director Alejandro de la Fuente emphasized their appreciation for the work already conducted by the initiative and said they were hopeful about its future research.
“The first important thing this initiative does is call attention to a certain history that had remained silenced for many years,” de la Fuente said. He added that the project could grow to focus on Harvard’s ties to slavery in other areas.
“The Boston economy during the 19th century had very close links to the slave society of Cuba, the slave economy of Cuba, the plantation slave economy of Cuba,” de la Fuente said. “And that’s what we have not really researched yet.” Though Harvard’s
versities and its efforts to fund projects aimed at combating systemic inequalities.
Howard University law professor Harold A. McDougall ’67 said institutions like his are “happy” to see that the initiative has established exchanges between HBCUs and Harvard. Earlier this year, as part of the Legacy of Slavery initiative, the University established the Du Bois Scholars program. The program — named after renowned sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois, Class of 1890, Harvard’s first Black Ph.D. candidate — funds students from HBCUs to participate in a nine-week summer research internship at Harvard.
George R. “Chip” Greenidge Jr., a visiting fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, discussed his excitement for “the opportunities to prepare” for career goals on Harvard’s campus.
“I met up with the Du Bois scholars this summer and also the UNCF scholars this summer to just do a check-in,” said Greenidge, referring to students with scholarships from the United Negro College Fund. “They had many questions about continuing their relationships at Harvard University. The University is also partnering with the HBCU Library Alli-
in 2015 — led to the launch of the Reconciliation Fund, which allocates $400,000 annually towards organizations and projects that aim to benefit more than 10,000 descendants of enslaved individuals.
Brown University released its Report of the Brown University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice in 2006 — and an expanded edition in 2021 — to chronicle its historical ties to slavery and racial injustice.
Despite Harvard releasing its report only two years ago, expectations were high — and some affiliates said the large-scale initiative could have a global impact.
Luciano Ramos, the executive director of the Center for Economic and Social Justice at Roxbury Community College — a beneficiary of the Harvard initiative’s Reparative Partnership Grant Program, said he views the initiative “as being much bigger than Harvard.”
“Harvard is Harvard, right? It’s such a global institution, and what Harvard does doesn’t often stay within the walls of Harvard,” Ramos said.
But other people affiliated with the initiative said Harvard’s leadership must do more to demonstrate its commitment to engaging with descendants and local communities in Boston and Cambridge. Harvard has always tried to be number one at everything,” Reeves said. “It is not number one in efforts to address reparations for its involvement in slavery.”
Last week, the initiative announced Faculty of Arts and Science Chief Campus Curator Brenda Tindal and director of the Graduate School of Design professor Eric Höweler would succeed Smith and Byers as the two cochairs of the memorial committee project.
The initiative also launched a new advisory council, featuring several faculty members who served on the initial Harvard’s Legacy of Slavery implementation committee. The advisory council will advise the initiative’s leadership and support them with implementing the recommendations from the 2022 report.
Bleich also underscored Harvard’s dedication to redressing the University’s ties to slavery.
“The University is committed to this work for the long haul, and I look forward to the work we have ahead of us,” Bleich said.
The Legacy of Slavery initiative is housed in the Harvard Office of the Vice Provost for Special Projects at 114 Mt. Auburn Street. HAILEY E. KRASNIKOV— CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
Richard J. Cellini is the director of the Harvard Slavery Remembrance Program. COURTESY OF STEPHANIE MITCHELL — HARVARD UNIVERSITY
What HUPD Can Actually Do to Student Protesters
administration and HUPD, campus police emphasized their role in enforcing state law — not University protest policies.
Just before the pro-Palestine encampment ended last spring, the Harvard University Police Department told a group of University affiliates that officers would only use their authority to enforce state law on campus.
A few months later, the Harvard administration issued a series of warnings to student protesters, notifying affiliates that the University would call on police in the case of “substantial disruption.”
The move left students wondering where the line fell between enforcement of state law and administrative policies — and whether Harvard could instruct HUPD to arrest student protesters.
While University spokespeople declined to clarify the relationship between Harvard’s
Just before the academic year began, Harvard Executive Vice President Meredith L. Weenick ’90 sent an email to University affiliates stating that students engaging in protests violating University policy should be “prepared to be held accountable.”
“Where there is substantial disruption of the normal operations of our campus, University police may remove or remediate the disruption,” Weenick wrote. She added that Campus Use Rules are intended to “ensure community safety, security, and well-being,” as well as “compliance with federal, state, and local laws.”
But in a May meeting, HUPD personnel assured members of the HUPD Advisory Board — a group of Harvard affiliates who provide feedback on departmental transparency — that officers will only engage with student protests as a last resort, according to an attendee. HUPD representatives maintained during the meeting that their role is to ensure public safety, with the
goal of remaining as hands-off as possible.
This stance came as the University contended with the 20day pro-Palestinian encampment in Harvard Yard, which defined much of the spring semester. In a May interview with The Crimson during the en-
campment, HUPD Chief Victor A. Clay similarly said that officers are only authorized to enforce Massachusetts state law.
“You can’t ask me to arrest somebody unless they commit a misdemeanor in your presence or in my presence,” he said. “Whatever the guidelines of the
Mass. General Law states, that gives me the authority to arrest.” According to the HUPD website, the department’s “statutory authority” lies in enforcing state law, which allows them to “arrest for criminal offenses” committed on University property. As student activism returns to campus this fall, both HUPD and Harvard spokespeople declined to clarify how campus police and administrators will collaborate to ensure campus safety and compliance to policy.
How the Intellectual Vitality Initiative Swept Harvard’s Campus
vitality programming for students — with a focus on the incoming freshman class.
As a part of their orientation, freshmen were required to complete a newly-implemented “Perspectives” program comprising six 30-minute parts to help them “develop the ability to engage in constructive and respectful dialogue, even when it might be uncomfortable,” per the College’s website.
Dafne Unsal Nunchi ’28 said the module was the first time she heard of the term “intellectual vitality.”
“I think it’s a very noble idea — an idea that is hard to apply in practice,” Unsal Nunchi said.
Orientation programming also included a slate of events centered around intellectual vitality, such as “Community Conversations,” developed by the Harvard Foundation and a keynote talk by Government professor Michael J. Sandel about ethics and artificial intelligence.
Victoria R. Wilson ’25 and Ariel F. Kohn ’25-’26, who serve as undergraduate Intellectual Vitality Fellows, provided trainings for Peer Advisory Fellows, student club leaders, and pre-orientation programs at the start of the semester, where they modeled having difficult conversations and practiced gauging the “temperature” of hot-button issues.
Kohn said that with each training, feedback to the initia-
tive — including freshmen who have “really embraced intellectual vitality” and a reflection form after the training sessions — has demonstrated that “people feel like this is something that is so necessary.”
“The thing about intellectual vitality is it should be implicit and something that everyone does because it should be synonymous with Harvard,” she said.
“We don’t want it to be a top down thing that we bang people over the head with,” Kohn added. “We want it to be a sort of base assumption that everyone operates on all the time.”
More Hands on Deck
After one year of assessing the state of campus discourse with groups of students, faculty, and alumni, the initiative rolled out its programming to students for the first time.
Wilson said that the past year of the initiative was dedicated to “trying to gauge what people on campus felt” and “hear from student perspectives.”
“This year, we kind of understand how students are feeling — we understand student sentiment — and we’re now actually launching more action items,” she said. In the fall, the College announced new programs that seek undergraduate input, like the newly formed Intellectual Vital-
ity Student Advisory Committee and funding for events related to the initiative.
As the Intellectual Vitality initiative expands, there have been a growing number of hands on deck — including a recently established administrative position and an inaugural cohort of graduate fellows.
In June, the College appointed Matthew Sohm — who also serves as a lecturer in the Committee on Degrees in History and Literature — as the Intellectual Vitality Initiative’s assistant director of pedagogy.
Sohm’s role focuses on integrating intellectual vitality into classrooms and academics — including working with preceptors for Expos 20, a required writing class for freshmen, to strengthen the writing curriculum around counterarguments and collaborating with staff in General Education courses to “structure conversations of challenging topics.”
“We’d like Harvard classrooms to be places where students are able to see the best in each other and take risks, knowing that their ideas might be scrutinized, but that they won’t be judged as people,” Sohm wrote in an email.
In addition to working with educators in General Education and Expository Writing, the Intellectual Vitality Initiative launched a dinner and dialogue series called Books Open, Gates
Unbarred.
The dinners take place in the Faculty Club with students and professors. A dinner scheduled for Oct. 21 with Government professors Ryan D. Enos and Steven R. Levitsky is titled “Why is Harvard the Focus of So Much Political Attention?” On Nov. 14, Government professor Melani Cammett and Psychology professor Mina Cikara will host a dinner focusing on “Pursuing Reconciliation After Ethnic Conflict.”
The expanding staff centered around intellectual vitality also includes 26 Fellows in Values Engagement — a program created last year by the Dean of Students Office and the Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics — from each of the freshmen Yards and upperclassmen Houses.
Fellows are responsible for facilitating discussions with students, creating at least one event that encourages affiliates to engage with core values, and participating in a Safra Center workshop on “best practices for facilitating values-based conversations,” according to the fellowship website.
Yoseph D. Boku ’21, a fellow in Kirkland House, wrote in an emailed statement that he took on the role believing that civil disagreement is a key part of a liberal arts education.
“Last semester showed us that many students, including those doxxed for their advocacy for Palestine, don’t feel free to express their views,” Boku wrote in an emailed statement.
“I approach this role with humility, knowing that building a culture of intellectual vitality is a herculean task, and that students are the ones best equipped to lead the way,” Boku wrote.
Lost in Translation
In his email to undergraduates on Thursday, Khurana encouraged students to join the College’s intellectual vitality efforts and touted the initiative as an effort to promote respectful disagreement.
“Intellectual vitality began with a handful of students who felt that they weren’t having the kinds of conversations they’d come to Harvard for: in class, they found themselves saying what they thought others wanted to hear, for fear of being criti-
cized or judged if they spoke their own minds; even among their friends, they kept certain views and beliefs to themselves,” Khurana wrote.
“The result was a pervasive sense of inauthenticity and alienation,” he added.
But the Intellectual Vitality Initiative’s shift to public-facing messaging and programming has prompted some students and fellows to question whether the initiative is operating with students in mind or if the initiative is just another attempt to improve the College’s PR image.
Hugo C. Chiasson ’28 said that while the intellectual vitality initiative seemed a “mixture” of earnestly addressing campus division and “trying to respond to public criticism of Harvard’s campus and Harvard culture,” he also views it as a response to broader political polarization.
But other students pointed to the discrepancies between the idea behind intellectual vitality — which promotes “free and open inquiry” and encourages conversations beyond differences — to recent messages from University administrators limiting forms of protest and enforcing disciplinary consequences in accordance with protest guidelines.
In May, the College suspended five students and placed more than 20 other students on probation for their participation in the Yard encampment. Though the College has walked back many of those disciplinary sanctions and recently reinstated the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee after suspending the organization in the spring, many student activists have lambasted the College’s actions as equivalent to a “Palestine exception to free speech.” Jessica Wang ’26 said the initiative — especially in light of the University’s handling of campus protests — seems to show that administration prioritizes making the governing boards satisfied rather than “making sure that students have a not only good quality of life, but are able to express their thoughts and be a part of organizing that actually has an impactful change.”
Wang added that the initiative felt like “too little too late” and
said she didn’t “really have much of an impression of it.”
“It’s just another buzzword that I feel admin throws around to toot and play up Harvard’s name and how much they care about students, without actually putting the work and effort it takes to support students,” she said.
Catherine G. Huang, Elm Yard’s fellow in value engagement, said the language being used by administrators might be a reason for student distrust of the initiative.
“I think there’s definitely something being lost in the messaging and translation,” Huang said. She added that if the directors of the initiative want students to view the program as anything beyond a “political farce” or a response to donor and alumni pressure, then administrators must model intellectual vitality in their handling of student conflict and activism.
Khurana wrote in his Sunday statement that administrators “welcome disagreement and an ongoing productive conversation to advance our opportunities to connect meaningfully as a community.”
“Ultimately, it is students in their classes, residential spaces, and student organizations who either embrace or abandon intellectual vitality in their interactions with each other,” Khurana added. “We hope they choose to take advantage of the diversity of perspectives and points of view at our community.”
Still, both students and fellows alike acknowledged that intellectual vitality is a lofty but worthwhile goal.
Huang said that despite any skepticism students might have, “it doesn’t mean that intellectual vitality isn’t important and shouldn’t be important to students, because, again, it applies in many different ways.”
Chiasson said he believes it “remains to be seen” whether intellectual vitality will thrive on campus after the wave of programming launched this semester. “I think that there’s definitely space for it, especially if you go and look for it,” he added.
HUPD Chief Victor Clay, right, observes pro-Palestine protesters at a Sept. 7 rally at the Science Center Plaza. JULIAN J. GIORDANO — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
Harvard Is Doing Discourse Wrong
BY
Picture this: A student government president resigns after public backlash to his recently uncovered anti-immigrant views. But deep down, he’s really just a thoughtful guy with an open mind. Liberal mob. Conservative canceled. Illiberalism prevails.
You get the idea.
That might sound like a story pulled from Fox News primetime. Unfortunately, it’s the opening anecdote of “Perspectives,” Harvard’s new orientation training on constructive dialogue, required for all first-years.
One of us was asked to record the introduction to the training, which he did because of a belief in intellectual vitality as a worthwhile, essential pursuit. And it’s because of this very belief that we’re critical of “Perspectives” and the attitude it represents.
A product of Jonathan D. Haidt’s Constructive Dialogue Institute, the new module is the most recent of Harvard’s many attempts to promote “civil discourse.”
In principle, a University-wide commitment to free speech is commendable. But in practice, Harvard has too often promoted a hollow, right-wing vision of civil discourse, all the while failing to engage in — or even allow — difficult conversations when the moment demands.
“Perspectives” epitomizes that incomplete approach. In lesson one, we get the program’s only example of organizing or activism: a criminal anti-GMO protester who learns the error of his ways after finally bothering to look into the facts. Later, we hear about two roommates feuding
over their last orange before realizing one of them just requires the zest — if only every real dispute were so simple.
We’re asked to “fully solve” an issue like healthcare or climate change in a few sentences to demonstrate that the world is more complicated than you think. And we’re offered the Adams/Jefferson or Ginsburg/Scalia friendships as models for bridging political difference. (Perhaps you too can bond with your colleagues as you gut voting rights and enable super PACs to run wild).
Meanwhile, of course, we never see a concrete scenario in which a student or professor says something racist or transphobic, nor receive more than generalized advice about how to respond productively to hate speech.
And that’s the point. Trainings like this one reflect the narrow view that the major threat to free speech on campus is conservatives’ fear of “cancellation” — so “civil discourse” is anything that allays those concerns.
Don’t get us wrong: “Perspectives” isn’t all bad. Its discussion of cognitive biases, mindfulness techniques, and psychology research is useful. And sure, we could all do well to steer clear of unnecessary public pile-ons.
But after 11 months of doxxing, death threats, and unprecedented punishment of student protesters, this slew of simplistic scenarios and Fox News fables falls flat.
Think back to last year.
For signing a controversial letter — or merely being affiliated with organizations that did — our classmates’ faces were broadcast on flashing billboard trucks. They were labeled “Harvard’s leading antisemites.” Their full names and hometowns were circulated online. They received death threats.
They were even blasted by Harvard faculty.
Months later, the trucks returned — this time targeting students at the Law School. But only last week, after nearly a year, did administrators clarify that doxxing violates University rules. (By contrast, the University took mere months to reiterate prohibitions against indoor demonstrations, the use of megaphones, and unapproved gatherings on Widener’s steps.)
In March, a panel on Islamophobia and antisemitism — part of a new “Fellowship in Values Engagement” — was canceled after a barrage of public criticism and the subsequent withdrawal of institutional support.
In other words, as soon as a civil discourse initiative generated controversy (as civil discourse often does) its University sponsors turned heel and ran, foisting the blame on the resident tutor who organized it.
Then, during the pro-Palestine encampment last spring, administrators frequently admonished student protesters for failing to raise their concerns through the “proper channels,” neglecting to mention that such channels hardly exist.
Addressing the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Provost John F. Manning ’82 insisted that dialogue is “welcome” when not the result of “disruptions, demands, and ultimatums.” When asked about students’ repeated email attempts to initiate conversations with administrators, Manning claimed President Garber was simply unaware of those requests. In reality, the primary response to impassioned student protest was escalating waves of punishment – first through involuntary leave, then with probations and suspensions which prevented 13 seniors from graduating (a move widely condemned by the University community).
Now, it seems Harvard has learned all the
wrong lessons. To kick off the year, the University made plans to streamline disciplinary procedures, ban harmless speech like chalking, and call in police to respond to “substantial disruption.”
None of this sounds to us like promoting “civil discourse” — something Harvard should be doing. Talking with people who aren’t already on the same page as you is a universal skill — whether when living with new roommates, participating productively in a seminar, or organizing people behind a common cause like a campaign or a union.
But civil discourse means more than a blank check to cancel panels, punish protests, and cry “cancel culture.”
It requires faculty to model constructive conversations, not lambast students on social media. It requires administrators to treat protest as integral to campus discourse, not anathema to it. And it requires the University to defend forums for conversations about pressing issues, not flee at the first hint of controversy.
A few weeks ago, both of us attended a training for pre-orientation leaders and heard remarks from a University leader about moving forward this year. To the best of our recollection, the presenter could not bring himself to even use the word “encampment,” opting instead for euphemistic references to “the events of last semester.” Real discourse requires us all to acknowledge reality. Until we do that, Harvard’s commitment to “intellectual vitality” is nothing more than an epitaph in waiting.
–Saul I.M. Arnow ’26, an Associate Editorial editor, is a Social Studies concentrator in Adams House. E. Matteo Diaz ’27, a Crimson Editorial Comp Director, lives in Leverett House.
Harvard Is Not Home to America’s Best and Brightest
HHarvard — like other elite schools — is perceived as home to America’s best and brightest. The myth that Harvard has a monopoly on genius is rooted in two core beliefs: that Harvard College admits the best applicants and that its world-class academics then produce world-class graduates. Neither are true. The first belief is undermined by Harvard’s notoriously arbitrary and indirect admissions process, which relies on a host of factors unrelated to achievement. With acceptance letters conditioned by opaque preferences like whether your parents attended or how well you play the oboe, it’s difficult to conclude that the median student at Harvard is of a higher caliber than those at other top 50 schools in the United States. Even if Harvard’s criteria do select for talented students, the skyrocketing number of high-quality applicants flooding the system means it’s no guarantee that the average admitted class is stronger than many schools perceived as less prestigious. Roughly 30,000 applicants annually score in the top one percent of the SAT and ACT — for the former test, equivalent to a low 1500 — but there are fewer than 20,000 slots across all Ivy Plus colleges. That’s how you end up with schools like Boston College or Emory University, ranked substantially lower than Harvard accepting classes of freshman, boasting average SAT scores only 10 or 20 points lower. Additionally, between the 2014-15 and 2021-22
admission cycles, the share of students applying to greater than 10 colleges via the Common App jumped from eight percent to 17 percent, propelled largely by a marked increase in the number of top schools to which wealthy applicants apply. At the epicenter of this frenzy, Harvard saw its applicant pool soar from 12,189 in 1990 to over 40,000 in 2024.
To manage this problem of abundance, schools have to rely on much more arbitrary ‘holistic’ criteria far more distant from academic ability.
Most top universities, including Harvard, appear to have reduced quantitative metrics like grades and standardized test scores to thresholds, relying on holistic criteria to break ties between the many students who clear them. The strikingly similar average SAT score of admitted classes at the top 50 schools offers evidence for this theory.
Compared with test scores, essays, extracurriculars, and recommendations — the core qualitative components — are highly susceptible to manipulation. With access to private tutors, college counselors, and, now, AI tools like ChatGPT, students — particularly the wealthy — carefully craft their applications to align these preferences. (Admissions officers claim they can see through the polish, but some evidence shows otherwise.)
The upshot is that while academics set a baseline, the surge of qualified candidates and the growing potential to game the admissions process cast doubt on whether the average Harvard student is exceptional compared to peers at other top 50 schools.
Now to the second belief: That even if Harvard accepts a class of great — but not otherworldly — students, this lucky band is transmogrified into ge -
niuses by four years of a transformative academic experience.
The trouble with this theory? Academics at Harvard are just not as central as they once were. Some excellent pieces have been written on this subject, including recently by the Editorial Board admitting (a touch hyperbolically) that “Nobody Pays Attention in Class at Harvard.” Indeed, since 1960, the average study time at colleges nationwide has fallen by more than a third.
And as students have flocked from the liberal arts toward more technical fields, Harvard’s comparative advantage in education has diminished. For example, in 2008, the combined number of Harvard students studying applied math, computer science, and statistics was 204; in 2024, it is 1,232, fueled mostly by a corresponding decline in the humanities. This seismic shift from learning through intimate small-group discussions with renowned professors to a standardized curriculum accessible to anyone with a $100 textbook renders a Harvard education relatively less unique.
All the while, cheating has become ubiquitous, exacerbated by the dual effects of Covid and ChatGPT. In The Crimson’s latest senior survey, 47.2 percent of respondents in the Class of 2024 confessed to cheating while at Harvard, up twofold from 2023. At the same time, rampant grade inflation has undermined the pursuit of academic excellence by making As easy to attain and rendering GPAs increasingly meaningless.
In other words, if academic rigor once gave Harvard its edge, that edge is becoming duller with every passing year.
There is a caveat to the myth of Harvard: The upper bound of students here is likely among the highest in the world. While the median Harvard student may be on par with students at other top institutions, the College is able to identify and attract those who are exceptional by even the University’s standard. In essence, the handful of shoo-ins accepted everywhere — like their more mortal counterparts — almost certainly choose Harvard at a disproportionately high rate. Still, the bigger picture is nothing more than a very good school full of strong but not exceptional students with robust academics, though Harvard’s reputation suggests something far more exceptional. Herein lies a powerful paradox: As education democratizes and more qualified candidates flood the system, the perceived value of a Harvard degree inflates while its educational value diminishes. On one hand, increasing competition over and desire for excellence heighten the importance of Harvard’s brand. On the other, the comparable quality of education provided by other institutions and the sheer number of qualified students has made Harvard far less unique in practice. In some sense, it’s a vicious cycle — as colleges converge in quality, brand becomes the distinguishing factor. It’s often said that a myth is only as strong as the belief that sustains it. Perhaps tomorrow, perhaps in a decade, perhaps in a century, society will cease to believe in the myth of Harvard. Or perhaps it never will.
–Isaac R. Mansell ’26, a Crimson Editorial editor, is a Statistics concentrator in Kirkland House.
SAUL I.M. ARNOW AND E. MATTEO DIAZ
BY ISAAC R. MANSELL
JULIAN J. GIORDANO — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
EDITORIAL 10
Doing Intellectual Vitality Right
VITAL VITALITY. The University should commit to a definition of intellectual vitality without partisan baggage — and interventions capable of making real change.
BY THE CRIMSON EDITORIAL BOARD
Dice rolling in Harvard Yard. A training featuring roommates fighting over fruit. A cascade of emails from administrators. These and other efforts — some serious, some not — are part of Harvard’s recent push for “intellectual vitality,” through which the University has sought to answer some of the criticisms of the past year. Any push for free expression will find in our Board a friend, and this one is no exception. But as it continues to ramp up, the intellectual vitality initiative has at times felt simplistic or performative. Lest this noble campaign lose its way, the University should commit to a definition of intellectual vitality without partisan baggage — and interventions capable of making real change.
Though not without valuable social scientific in-
sights, “Perspectives,” the new required freshman orientation module, showcases the pitfalls of the College’s current approach.
At one point, the training encourages viewers to think about positive sum thinking through the “Parable of the Orange,” in which two roommates fight over an orange before realizing — thank god — one only needs the zest. At another, we’re treated to the story of the cancellation of a student body president who opposes immigration but turns out to have an open mind.
These examples aren’t noxious so much as they’re incomplete. In the real world, we all know situations involving free expression tend to be far more complex than a simple misunderstanding or a false dichotomy between one value and another.
And when “civil discourse” is invoked as an alternative to “cancel culture” — much less to justify the totally ad hoc punishment of student protesters — one worries that the University gives people the false impression that intellectual vitality is only for the right.
In truth, intellectual vitality isn’t partisan — it’s the challenging and mundane but ultimately essential work of learning how to engage with people who
don’t already agree with us about everything. The shortcomings of Harvard’s speech culture can’t be distilled down to flashy slogans about “cancel culture” or “viewpoint diversity.”
Though unmentioned in the University’s many communiques about free speech — save for the tidy admin-speak euphemism “last semester’s events” — the past year has produced a host of challenges to free speech on campus worth confronting. From doxxing trucks, to congressional investigation, to Title VI lawsuits, protest, to antisemitism, anti-Israeli bias, and Islamophobia, and anti-Palestinian racism, we have plenty to work on.
In other words, none of this is cause to abandon “intellectual vitality” — it’s a call to do it right.
To begin with, Harvard can work to plug the holes in intellectual vitality trainings like Perspectives. Particularly useful would be guidance on how to navigate situations involving identity, which often prove the most difficult, and training and support for teaching fellows and untenured faculty. In smaller classes and sections, it’s these academic workers who will shoulder much of the burden of facilitating these hard conversations, with no guarantee they won’t lose their job if they say the wrong
thing. While students might learn the basics of intellectual vitality in trainings and presentations, there’s no substitute for practice, and that has to happen in the classroom. To its credit, the College has already taken steps to integrate these themes into General Education courses — an approach it would be wise to extend to introductory courses like Economics 10 or Computer Science 50. More creatively, Harvard might consider expanding the freshman seminar program or introducing current events seminars that offer the opportunity to directly engage the questions of the day. We know firsthand how transformative conversation across difference can be. Intellectual vitality really is the spirit of a university. Harvard needs to make sure it gets it right.
–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.
My New Tutor Is ChatGPT. Here Are My Concerns.
BY SANDHYA KUMAR
At the start of a school year, there will always be changes: new dorm rooms, new classes, and new faces on campus.
This year, all Harvard students also gained a new study buddy: ChatGPT.
In an email to the college, Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education, Academic Programs and Policy Gillian B. Pierce ’88 announced that students would be granted access to ChatGPT Edu in efforts “to explore the uses of AI to enhance Harvard’s teaching and research mission.” Since then, I have heard overwhelmingly positive AI policies in every class I’m taking, encouraging the use of ChatGPT to help with conceptual understanding.
A recent study from a Harvard physics class, for example, highlights the use of AI in helping students learn more in shorter periods by encouraging them to have conversations with a personalized chatbot. Their AI tool, dubbed PS2 Pal, presents questions that students answer and get interactive, personalized feedback on. The rapid integration of AI into nearly all my
classes has come as quite a shock. I rarely used ChatGPT before the past two weeks out of paralyzing fear about violating academic integrity policies, discerning the accuracy of the information collected, or improperly citing the tool’s help.
But already, PS2 Pal has become a good friend of mine — so much so that I feel no need to go to office hours, open a textbook, or work through problems with peers. Any basic conceptual question I have is reliably answered in a couple of seconds.
I am concerned by this change.
In the past weeks, the way that I approach my classes has been less personal. I can sit at my desk and do my entire assignment with ChatGPT answering questions I have about inverting matrices or debugging code. There seems to be no need to meet up with friends and discuss the class work because talking to ChatGPT can give me better help faster.
Although I’m by no means barred from accessing resources like office hours and peer tutoring, the mere convenience of ChatGPT makes it a more appealing resource to turn to for help.
As I do so, I am aware that I am getting a single solution to any question, rather than the five or ten different ways of thinking I might encoun-
ter if I asked the same questions to a group of peers.
In short, I’m worried we could lose diversity in the ways we learn and interact with course material as students become reliant on ChatGPT’s perspective alone.
I have certainly learned much from observing what my classmates are doing correctly or incorrectly, and why they approach a question a certain way. It helps me to think about concepts from different perspectives. With ChatGPT, any questions I have typically come with one scripted answer.
Learning how to access these different perspectives in primary sources like textbooks and papers is something else that ChatGPT makes obsolete. Students can get answers about any topic by asking GPT to summarize a source, rather than engaging with it firsthand through libraries or journals. As we shift toward relying on AI for information, I also worry we deprive ourselves of the skills necessary to critically read, evaluate, and apply information, taking what ChatGPT provides as fact.
In this post-Covid era, with (partly) online education here to stay, digital tools have become essential in the classroom. Programs such as Kahoot, an
online quizzing system, and Quizlet, a website with digital flashcards, genuinely augment the educational experience. But the breadth of ChatGPT is significantly greater than these tools — it is fast becoming more akin to an instructor than an implement. Like with any new technology, it is healthy to harbor some skepticism about AI’s new role. While Havard’s incorporation of AI in the classroom may be a much-needed pilot study, we should not forget the importance of the latent learning that happens in peer-to-peer educational settings and from persevering through the slog of manual research and problem-solving. Struggling through classes, and spending time discussing concepts with peers is critical for developing skills in thinking flexibly about problems and reaching unique and original solutions. Courses that use or are considering using AI as a tutor should remember to encourage students to engage with one another and the course staff. ChatGPT is a fantastic new technology, but it’s no substitute for
–Sandhya Kumar ’26, a Crimson Editorial editor, is a joint concentrator in
CLAIRE YUAN — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
RYAN N. GAJARAWALA — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
CITY
Cathie Zusy to Fill Vacant City Council Seat
NEWCOMER. Local activist Cathie Zusy will fill the vacancy on the City Council after Councilor Joan F. Pickett died in August.
BY BENJAMIN ISAAC
The Cambridge Election Commission confirmed Catherine “Cathie” Zusy will fill the vacancy on the Cambridge City Council Thursday following the death of Councilor Joan F. Pickett on Aug. 30. Her appointment was widely anticipated: per state law, in the case of a vacancy, a successor is determined by a recount of the votes cast in the previous election as if the vacant member was not on the ballot.
In the case of last year’s municipal elections, that would be Zusy, who narrowly lost to Pickett for ninth in the race. Cambridge operates under a ranked choice voting system, where all candidates compete in one district for votes.
But the Thursday afternoon recount, though mostly pro forma, confirmed that Zusy will serve out the remainder of Pickett’s term through January 2026 — setting her up to cast votes on pivotal issues related to housing, transportation, and Cambridge’s form of government.
Zusy has long been involved in Cambridge activism and helped to raise $8 million dollars to re-
store Magazine Beach Park in Cambridgeport — earning her the moniker “Magazine Beach Lady.”
In a Thursday interview following the recount, Zusy — a trained museum curator turned community organizer — said she sees herself as “a curator of the neighborhood.”
She suggested that her curatorial approach could help Cambridge increase its supply of housing while simultaneously addressing some residents’ concerns about overdevelopment.
“I hope I can solve the puzzle of building more housing without destroying neighborhood fabric and neighborhood character, or tearing out trees or filling up open spaces,” she said.
Zusy took a similarly considered position on the contentious issue of bike lane expansion, endorsing the Council’s decision to delay a deadline for the city to build out its separated bike lane network.
“I fully recognize the need for more and better bike lanes,” Zusy said. “Giving the city an extra year to roll out the 25 miles of lanes so that they really work and so that they’re really safe is a good idea.”
She spoke trepidatiously about bike safety after two cyclists were killed in collisions with box trucks this summer.
Though she said that she and her husband are cyclists, she recalled giving her son a stark warning about biking around the city: “Cycling was the best way to get around Cambridge — if you didn’t get killed.”
Zusy also made clear that she’s
a problem solver who wants to get things done.
“I’ve always helped my neighbors,” she said. “People in Cambridgeport know I’m a go-to person if you want to solve a problem.”
“We’re a city that commissions plans all the time, but you know, we need to implement those plans if we hope to accomplish anything,” Zusy said.
Zusy’s election was warmly received by her fellow city councillors.
“Although her appointment came due to tragic circumstances, I’m confident that she will be a thoughtful, contributing member of the Council,” Vice Mayor Marc C. McGovern wrote in a statement.
Councilor Sumbul Siddiqui praised Zusy’s track record of local advocacy in a statement.
“Given Cathie’s years of experience and advocacy on neighborhood issues, particularly Magazine Beach, she will be well-prepared to plug into the various topics the City Council engages on,” Siddiqui wrote. “I look forward to serving with her, and wish her a smooth transition.”
After co-founding the Magazine Beach Partners — serving as president since 2017 — Zusy has spearheaded the renovation of St. Augustine’s African Orthodox Church and discussions on the city’s use of late local artist Peter Valentine’s house.
Zusy has also been extensively involved with the Cambridge Citizens Coalition, a local activist organization involved in housing, transit, and governance issues that
Harvard Chabad Appeals Zoning Board Decision to Reject Expansion Proposal
BY LAUREL M. SHUGART AND GRACE E. YOON CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
Harvard Chabad, after twice failing to secure city approval for a largescale expansion, appealed the decision Monday afternoon — just hours before their deadline to do so.
The appeal, submitted to Middlesex County Superior Court, challenges the decision made by the Cambridge Board of Zoning Appeals to reject a large-scale expansion of Chabad’s headquarters.
Chabad’s proposal seeks to merge two historic buildings into a larger indoor congregation space, which leaders say is necessary due to limited indoor capacity. According to Chabad President Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi, the organization has been hosting most of its programming outdoors because of space constraints.
“We’ve been outdoors now since March of 2020, including through
the cold winter,” Zarchi said in a May interview.
The expansion plan, which would add more than 7,000 square feet to the current space, far exceeds the size and density limits allowed by current zoning regulations, thus requiring a variance from the BZA to move forward.
After initially failing to gain approval at a May hearing, the group returned to the BZA roughly a month later with a revised proposal, optimistic that the variance would be granted.
However, Chabad fell one vote short of approval for the expansion, meaning the group must wait two years before the proposal can be reconsidered.
The BZA’s formal rejection was issued on Aug. 26, giving Chabad 20 days to appeal to either the Massachusetts Land or Superior Courts under state law. Chabad filed their appeal at 12:28 p.m. Monday, just hours before the deadline.
Chabad’s lawsuit alleges that the
BZA “acted unreasonably and arbitrarily” in their rejection of the proposal, stating that the BZA failed to provide a clear reason for denying the variance.
Members of the BZA could not be immediately reached for comment.
The BZA’s ruling states that the variance was denied due to concerns over the scale of the expansion and its compatibility with the neighborhood.
At the May hearing, BZA Chair Jim Montevard called the expansion a “detriment to the neighborhood” due to its size and density, which nearly doubles the current limit.
Cambridge residents — many of whom were from the Kerry’s Corner Neighborhood Association — expressed opposition to the expansion at both the May and June hearings, citing concerns about the size of the development, as well as potential issues with noise, trash disposal, and increased car traffic.
Although the BZA rejected the expansion, it granted Chabad a special permit to increase their parking on a private street extension adjacent to the property.
Last week, Toulopoulos Realty — the owners of neighboring apartments to Chabad — filed a separate appeal in Massachusetts Land Court, arguing that permitting parking on the shared, private Green Street Extension constitutes an “unlawful trespass.”
The appeal also alleges that the BZA failed to account for safety risks posed by increasing parking on the narrow street, including requiring drivers to reverse into the intersection of Green Street and Putnam Avenue.
Lawyers for Harvard Chabad did not respond to a request for comment. Chabad must respond to the neighbor’s appeal by early October.
Interim Superintendent Makes Slew of Top Appointments
ment.
As interim Cambridge Public Schools Superintendent David Murphy announced a slate of new administrative appointments at Tuesday’s Cambridge School Committee meeting, he found himself facing tough questions from member Richard Harding, Jr. “You’ve been on how many days, Mr. Superintendent?” Harding said. “This is a hell of a move in two months.” But Murphy, who was named interim superintendent after his predecessor, Victoria L. Greer, resigned in controversy, was prepared with a measured — if revealing — response: “All of us are interim in one respect or another, and that’s the nature of life.”
Though Murphy went on to say he wanted to prepare the district to transition to new leadership, his remarks were indicative of another reality: that Murphy has been taking unusually impactful steps for an interim leader, while the School Committee continues to defer launching a search for his replace-
He has announced a no-phones policy in classrooms, pledged to address cultural issues among district staff, especially at Graham & Parks Elementary School, and said Tuesday that he was elevating Cambridge Rindge and Latin School Principal Damon Smith to interim Chief Operating Officer, Murphy’s old position. In doing so, his tenure bears an uncanny resemblance to the leader of another Cambridge educational institution: Alan M. Garber ’76, who — after being named interim Harvard president following Claudine Gay’s resignation — made a series of consequential decisions that ultimately won him the role full-time. Indeed, Murphy may follow along the same trajectory.
The School Committee has left open the possibility of Murphy stepping up to lead the district permanently, and some members indicated Tuesday that he may continue in the role until December 2025 while they search for a replacement. And at the meeting, several members praised Murphy’s move to fill central administrative roles through the existing pool of CPS employees: appointing Smith inter-
im COO; Chief Equity Officer Manuel J. Fernandez as assistant superintendent; Chad Leith ’92 as chief accountability officer; and Desiree Phillips as executive director for special education. Both Fernandez and Leith will serve on an interim basis.
He also named assistant CRLS principal Allan Gehant to lead the school on an interim basis.
“Many of you have asked for a focused, slimmed down administration where everybody has a very clear portfolio and a unique portfolio,” said Elizabeth C.P. Hudson. “That is, I think, what we’re seeing.”
As for the search for a permanent superintendent, the School Committee seemed intent on taking things slow.
They discussed three possible search timelines resulting in making formal job offers either in December 2024, April 2025, or December 2025. According to the Massachusetts Association of School Committees, hiring for superintendent positions generally occurs in December.
Though they tabled the final decision until a later meeting, members said they did not want to rush the process — especially after their
last superintendent, Greer, resigned after months of public criticism over her hiring processes and a middling School Committee evaluation.
“I’m committed to taking as long as it takes — knowing that it can’t go forever,” added Mayor E. Denise Simmons, who chairs the committee.
Eight parents, educators, and citizens similarly demanded in public comments that the committee prioritize stakeholder feedback in the superintendent search — adopting a longer timeline if necessary.
“You owe it to the community, the educators, and to the children of the district to do your due diligence,” said Rebecca S. Lester, a Graham & Parks parent.
Simmons added that members will be able to align priorities and improve their collaboration ahead of the search in a Sept. 26 retreat — though she added that the committee would not discuss the search in private.
Committee members will also take part in a diversity, equity, and inclusion training in the coming weeks, as well as a meeting with Glenn Koocher ’71 — a former
School Committee member and ex-
ecutive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees — on best practices for the search, Simmons wrote in a Sept. 10 memo to the committee.
“We have to know what we want and that’s why this training is being set up: to give us an opportunity,” Simmons
endorsed her during the 2023 election.
CCC President Suzanne P. Blier, a Harvard professor, celebrated Zusy’s ascendance to the Council in
Zusy said her
Cathie Zusy will fill the Cambridge City Council seat left vacant by Councilor Joan F. Pickett’s death in August.
JULIAN J. GIORDANO — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
Allston Sees Sky-High Housing Demand
PLAYING THE LOTTERY.
Thousands of people have applied for fewer than 100 new units of affordable housing in Allston.
BY JACK R. TRAPANICK
BOSTON — There’s a lot to love about local artist Sarah Dylan Breuer’s micro-studio apartment at 525 Lincoln St., known as 525 LINC: a roof deck offering picturesque skyline views, community-building cocktail parties and brunches, and a fully furnished studio with electric appliances. The best part? Rent at $1,300 a month.
Not everyone is so lucky.
Breuer’s apartment falls under a city policy known as “inclusionary zoning,” which requires developers of large housing complexes to set aside units at below-market rates. The policy is one of Boston’s strategies to combat the wave of luxury development that has reached Allston. But as a small fraction of affordable apartments open their lotteries to prospective residents, they are inundated with applications, creating waitlists that could stretch for years.
This year, five new buildings in Allston-Brighton — the Alder at Allston Yards, 1515 Commonwealth Ave., the Indie, 280 Western Ave., and 365 Western Ave. — opened city-run lotteries for a total of 88 income-restricted units. According to a Crimson analysis of city data, roughly 10,500 people applied for one or more of the apartments — a ratio of nearly 120 to one. Similar to Cambridge, where the city’s affordable housing waitlist exceeds 20,000 names, the startling demand highlights Allston’s long-standing affordable housing crisis. It also reveals how essential — and insufficient — the new affordable units are for a neighborhood anxious about the future of its families, artists, and immigrants, who are struggling to keep up in one of the country’s toughest housing markets. Even as Boston has extracted more affordable housing and renter benefits from developers profit-
HOUSING FROM PAGE 1
ing from luxury projects, low- and middle-income renters seeking affordable units must navigate a confusing web of city programs, housing lotteries, and nonprofit grants meant to support them. Breuer, despite securing an apartment, isn’t fully out of the woods.
Though her apartment at 525 LINC certainly is “a nice place,” the nonprofit support she relies on to make rent — “affordable” in Allston can mean “reserved for people making around $80,000 a year” — won’t last forever. Plus, Breuer, who has a mobility impairment, needs more space to accommodate a backup wheelchair and other medical equipment. Like thousands of others across the Boston area, she remains on
Uncertainty,
Conditions
been longer-term residents at the site reported they had not yet received an exit notice, leaving them anxiously wondering when theirs would come. As families continue receiving exit notices, rumors of mass evictions at the end of September are sparking distress across the shelter. A state official confirmed that while many families have received exit notices for September, others have exit dates extending beyond October.
The state official wrote in his email that 309 families in across the state’s TRCs have been provided with exit notices since Aug. 1, but only 109 have been able to access alternative accommodations.
The remaining 200 families are actively residing in TRCs, with exit dates looming indefinitely. Families can qualify for onetime five day extensions for various reasons, including medical needs or participation in case management services. Those with “imminent access to housing” — such as signed leases or confirmed arrangements with friends and family — may qualify for an extension of up to 30 business days, according to TRC Administrative Extension policies. During their time at the TRC, the state provides diversion services aimed at helping families find permanent housing and employment. According to a state official, more than 350 shelter-eligible families — including some in the four statewide TRCs — have utilized
HomeBase, a program that temporarily subsidizes rent for eligible families.
The state also offers an optional reticketing service that provides transportation for families — including shelter-eligible families not staying in TRCs — with arranged housing in other states.
Since Aug. 1, 39 families statewide have used the reticketing program, according to a state official.
Despite these services, many families in the Cambridge TRC described the difficulty of finding stable housing and employment in the city, making it even harder to plan their next steps after receiving an exit notice. For many shelter residents, though, the immediate challenge is coping with the dayto-day conditions at the Cambridge TRC. Located in the Registry of Deeds building, part of which remains an active state facility, the Cambridge TRC is currently housing more than 100 people — and stretching its capacity. The TRC provides families with cots in an open congregate setting. Several residents, however, described the cots as rickety, small, and uncomfortable, leading to sleepless nights. Claudy, who recently arrived in the U.S. from Brazil, said in an interview that his experience at the Cambridge TRC has been “bad.” “There’s nowhere to sleep,” he said.
waiting lists, hoping to secure another affordable apartment soon. And while she waits, she continues applying for more units.
“It leaves one on tenterhooks,” she said. “It’s a constant state of at least low-grade alert.”
Even among Allston’s more established affordable housing nonprofits, waiting lists drag on for years.
At the Charlesview, a mixed-income Brighton development, the waiting list for its 200 units averages about four years. Some residents have waited up to eight, according to its executive director, Jo-Ann Barbour.
At the Allston Brighton Community Development Corporation, more than 6,000 people are on a list for just 500 units. The average wait
time has gone from a “very long time” to a “wicked long time,” Executive Director John Woods said.
Boston’s Section 8 voucher program, which provides direct financial assistance to low-income renters, is so backed up its waitlist is currently closed. According to the Boston Housing Authority website, the program receives over 10,000 applications annually.
And in terms of its public housing, the agency’s website puts it bluntly: “BHA has no immediate housing available.”
“The bottom line is that there’s woefully too few affordable housing units for the number of people eligible to live in them,” Chris Herbert, the director of Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, said. Yet the intense desire for real es-
tate in Boston means the city has considerable leeway to impose mandates and fees on the real estate industry to support affordable housing without the risk of losing out, according to Herbert.
“The demand for life science, lab space [in Boston] is extraordinary because of the presence of all these universities,” he said. “You can impose a tax on lab space and still have a developer saying, ‘Sure, we’ll build it.’ If you were in Buffalo, New York, I don’t know.”
In recent years, Mayor Michelle Wu ’07 has made several efforts to wield that leverage and expand such mandates. She changed the city’s inclusionary development policy — which forces developers of large projects to set aside income-restricted units — to increase the number of projects it applies to, and the number of units which must be set aside. Wu also negotiated with Harvard and Tishman Speyer to secure a commitment that a quarter of the nearly 400 apartments associated with Harvard’s Enterprise Research Campus will be income-restricted. The hope, Herbert said, is to one day create a housing market where the wait for an affordable unit isn’t much longer than finding a market-rate apartment — a world where “we had enough subsidized housing for everybody who needed it.” But in the near future, he said, “you have an endless waiting list.”
jack.trapanick@thecrimson.com
Around 10 Blue Bottle employees rallied outside the coffee chain’s Harvard Square location on Monday to demand the reinstatement of a barista who was fired last week.
The protesters alleged the worker, Remy S. Roskin, lost her job last Wednesday due to her support for the newly-formed Blue Bottle Independent Union, which includes the chain’s five other Boston-area locations and was formed in May.
A Blue Bottle spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment Monday evening.
Roskin said she was fired for violating company policy by using her phone to clock in for her shift shortly before she arrived on
Sept. 9. That day, she was called in for a meeting with her manager and a company HR representative.
Two days later, she was summoned to a second meeting and told she had been terminated.
The company did not follow its established disciplinary procedures — which start with a verbal warning and escalate to a written warning, followed by a formal write-up — against Roskin, she said.
Roskin expressed regret for clocking in early but said her termination seemed “targeted.”
Roskin, who had worked at Blue Bottle for more than two years and was a shift lead at the Harvard Square shop, said she had not previously received any warnings or write-ups.
In an open letter urging Blue Bottle’s regional officials to reinstate Roskin, the BBIU alleged the company had used its time and attendance policies to penalize organizers.
“While it might not have been wise for Remy to clock in with her phone, at Blue Bottle union supporters have previously been written up for being simply one minute late to clocking in,” the union wrote, describing the company’s enforcement practices as “draconian.”
“I recognize that I shouldn’t have been clocking in on my phone, but I also know that they know I’m a really big part of the union and union organizing,” she said. “It seems like they were looking for something to fire me over instead of actually talking to me about it or writing me up or anything.”
The BBIU, which currently has 70 members, first publicly announced its plans to unionize in April. After Blue Bottle refused to voluntarily recognize the union, employees staged a walkout and filed for an election with the National Labor Relations Board. The union won a majority of employee votes, 38-4, making Blue Bottle one of several Boston-area coffee chains to unionize in recent years. But Roskin and BBIU presi-
As of Monday afternoon, more than 300 people had signed the letter. Roskin and the BBIU also claimed Blue Bottle violated Massachusetts law by delaying her final paycheck until the day after she was fired. State law requires that “any employee discharged from such employment shall be paid in full on the day of his discharge.”
CATHERINE H. FENG — CRIMSON DESIGNER
Weezer Concert Review: A Faithful, Outlandish Homage to a Cosmic Musical Career
BY
Aspace shuttle sat center stage at TD Garden on Sept. 10, directly beneath a giant blue “W.” Circular screens flanking the spectacle displayed, “Five minutes until lift-off.” The clock ticked down — accompanied by the shouts of a packed arena of fans — to the sparks and fog machine-induced smoke of an explosive takeoff. As the ship lifted into the sky, Weezer took the stage and kicked off the show with “II. Anonymous,” an astronomical start to their space-themed “Voyage to the Blue Planet” tour. This introduction, which came complete with a video introducing the concert’s interstellar plot, set the tone for the next hour and 40 minutes: lighthearted, fantastical, and absolutely un-
relenting. The curated setlist was one of the performance’s many strengths. Weezer performed a wide cross-section of their songs, from the heavier “Hash Pipe” to mellow “Island in the Sun.” The pensive “Any Friend of Diane’s” even made the cut for the concert’s first section, which underscored their ascent through the stars in pursuit of the titular “Blue Planet.” In many ways, the first part of the setlist felt as though fans had directly picked it themselves, which is unsurprising given the “Setlist Survey” link on the lead singer and guitarist’s website. The vibrational hodgepodge was kept afloat by a stellar vocal and instrumental evening. Lead vocals from Rivers Cuomo ’06 sported a clean and straight-offthe-album sound that added to the performance’s faithfulness without subtracting from artistic value. Guitarist and backup vocalist Brian Bell, bassist and backup
vocalist Scott Shriner, and drummer Patrick Wilson were similarly at their best. Taking essentially no break between songs, the musicians delivered nonstop excellence.
The concert’s narrative and extravagant set drove the energy of this lengthy homage to Weezer’s incredible discography. The stage, covered in large asteroids and lights, and backed by a huge screen displaying zany cosmic imagery, took advantage of the large, open space at TD Garden.
During “Perfect Situation,” narrative and showmanship cohered as planets descended from the ceiling over the stage while the screen displayed a battle between the alien “Bokkus” and the protagonist space shuttle. Serving as the concert’s main antagonist and primary plot agent, Bokkus is himself a throwback to Weezer’s glory days as Wilson’s mysterious brain-child.
Shot down by Bokkus and
crash landing in the “Pinkerton Asteroid Belt,” this provided the perfect segue into a brief selection of five songs from the album “Pinkerton,” including favorites like “Getchoo,” “Why Bother?,” and “Pink Triangle,” which brought a much-needed rock energy to the stage as the audience prepared for the main event — landing on the “Blue Planet” for Weezer’s performance of the entire “Weezer” album, also known as the Blue Album. This final segment — complete with a final battle with Bokkus and Cuomo-shaped aliens known as “Weezoids” — was a pleasurable assault on the senses. Engaging visuals and the performers’ sincere demeanor made up for their otherwise stiff disposition on stage. Upon “landing,” the band reentered, placing a W-shaped flag on the “Blue Planet.” “One small step for Weezer, one giant leap for Weezerkind,” Cuomo said in the moments lead-
ing up to “My Name is Jonas,” the song that kicked off the Blue Album performance. The concert’s last moments brought out some of Weezer’s best musical work, including mind-blowing instrumental interludes from Shriner and Bell. Every note burst with a musical integrity and intensity that only a return to the Blue Album could offer. The band went all-out in tribute to their debut and, arguably, apotheosis. Several crowd-surfers and a mosh pit demonstrated the buzz of the audience. Cuomo remarked that was the first time he had ever seen anyone mosh to “Only in Dreams,” a hit that closed the concert with all the pomp and blue confetti one could expect from the evening. The lead singer summarized it best.
“What a voyage!” Cuomo said.
aiden.bowers@thecrimson.com
Previewing Harvard Theater’s Fall 2024 Season
BY
Looking to attend musicals, plays, or theatrical shows at Harvard?
Check out this round-up of campus theater productions running in Fall 2024!
“The Human Comedy”
A collaboration between the Office for the Arts and the Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club, “The Human Comedy” is a developmental workshop of a 1983 musical, culminating in a staged reading. Students work alongside Broadway professionals such as producer Jack R. Viertel ’71, director Sammi Cannold ’16, and composer Ian Chan ’23 to rework the musical. The story, set
in a Europe devastated by World War II, follows teenager Homer Macauley (Elio R. Kennedy-Yoon ’25), whose job at the local telegram office allows him to hear the stories of those in his community.
“The Human Comedy” runs at the Agassiz Theatre on Sept. 21 at 4 p.m. as part of Harvard’s Creative Careers Conference.
“Krapp’s Last Tape”
Samuel Beckett’s one-act, oneman play follows the 69-year-old Krapp (Jack T. Flynn ’26) as he listens to recordings of himself from 30 years ago. Directed by Gunnar Sizemore ’27, this ponderous and timely play meditates on the interactions between technology and memory, as well as the separation between the past and present. “Krapp’s Last Tape” is a sem-
inal play from one of the world’s greatest playwrights that will leave audience members thinking.
“Krapp’s Last Tape” runs at the Loeb Experimental Theater from Oct. 3 to Oct. 6.
“Spurned: A Wild West Tale of Love, Revenge, and Assless Chaps”
“Spurned” is an original, student-written musical in the style of a Wild West dramedy. With book and lyrics by Olivia F. Data ’26 and music by Preston C. Bushnell ’26 and Jackson Data, the musical promises heartbreak, revenge, and swashbuckling galore. Featuring a soon-to-be nun grieving her lost fiance (Claire Jiang ’28), an outlaw with the titular assless chaps (Cruz G. Allison
’28), and a sheriff ruling with an iron fist (Vander O.B. Ritchie ’26), “Spurned” is guaranteed to be a fun time.
“Spurned: A Wild West Tale of Love, Revenge and Assless Chaps” runs at the Agassiz Theatre from Oct. 24 to Oct. 27.
“Aida”
Elton John and Tim Rice’s “Aida” gets a new twist under the direction of Eliza Zangerl ’26. Set in Ancient Egypt, the musical follows Aida (Victoria C. Marshall ’27), a Nubian princess enslaved by the Egyptians, and Radames (Jesse E. Hernandez ’25), captain of the Egyptian army. Harvard’s production aims to spark conversation about the reggae, Motown, gospel, and pop influences in the score while merging punk rock with Ancient Egyptian art and architecture.
“Aida” runs at the Agassiz Theatre from Nov. 14 to Nov. 17.
“The Penningtons”
Written by Rave S. Andrews ’25 and directed by Hannah E. Alexis ’27, “The Penningtons” is an original student play in the vein of “Knives Out” and “Succession.”
Set in 1976, the play follows an influential family thrown into a fierce power struggle when its patriarch (Kavi M. Gasper ’27) is revealed to only have a month left to live. The family is composed of a colorful cast of characters, including scheming eldest son Daniel (James J. Farr ’25), exgolden boy Fitch (Kai C.W. Lewis ’27), and wallflower Char (Grace Y. Hur ’28).
“The Penningtons” runs at the Loeb Experimental Theater from Oct. 17 to Oct. 20.
Black Playwrights Festival
Presented by BlackCAST, the Black Playwrights Festival features plays by Black playwrights in the Harvard community that are workshopped by a Black theater professional. Each play will be presented as a staged reading during the two-day festival. This
year, the Black Playwrights Festival is directed by Eliza Zangerl ’26 and produced by Gabriel Brock ’26, Makayla I. Gathers ’26, and Sophia E. Lerebours ’26.
“Black Playwrights Festival” runs at the Loeb Experimental Theater from Oct. 24 to Oct. 25.
“Anastasia”
A musical based on the animated classic, “Anastasia” follows amnesiac Anya (Caitlin A. Beirne ’26) as she teams up with charming fraudster Dmitry (Kaylor G. Toronto ’27) and lovable oaf Vlad (Alexander Lee ’27) to rediscover her connection to the deposed Russian monarchy. As sparks between Anya and Dmitry fly, the trio navigate a changing St. Petersburg, evade the Bolshevik secret police, and wrestle with questions of identity and family. Directed by Katie Runions ’25, “Anastasia” will be an enchanting journey to the past.
“Anastasia” runs at the Loeb Proscenium from Nov. 1 to Nov. 9.
“Romeo & Juliet”
Not to be confused with the production of “Romeo and Juliet” currently running at the American Repertory Theater, this production, directed by Adrienne L. Chan ’25, features Sergei Provokiev’s iconic score to investigate Shakespeare’s timeless classic from a different perspective. Through a blend of dance and theater, Elio R. Kennedy-Yoon ’25 (Romeo) and Sachiko J. Kirby ’26 (Juliet) star in the genre-bending production that explores what the world could be.
“Romeo & Juliet” runs at the Loeb Experimental Theater from Nov. 14 to Nov. 17.
“Speed Bumps, And Other Things Jesus Wouldn’t Have Wanted”
“Speed Bumps, And Other Things Jesus Wouldn’t Have Wanted” runs on Nov 17.
“Pippin”
With the help of a traveling performance trope, young prince Pippin (Henry D. Pahlow ’28), the son of Roman emperor Charlemagne (Robert S. Hochstadt ’25), seeks the secret to happiness and fulfillment — and attempts to find it in vicious battle, courtly intrigue, and sexual encounters. Directed by Crystal X. Manyloun ’26, “Pippin” is a hilarious yet thought-provoking treatment on growing up and how easy it is to lose one’s identity.
“Pippin” runs at the Agassiz Theatre from Dec. 5 to Dec. 8.
“Jest the Way You Are”
Written by John “Jack” F. Griffin ’25 and Mack D.W. Webb ’25, and directed by James P. GaNun ’25, “Jest the Way You Are” follows June (Anna S. Fitzsimmons ’25) and August (Matthew J. Given ’25), a pair of court jesters on the run after being falsely accused of an attempted assassination. Their journey brings them into contact with a cast of hilarious characters as they struggle to both keep their coffers filled and find their purposes in life. A hilarious and entertaining romp through medieval England, “Jest the Way You Are” rounds out this semester’s slew of original student productions. “Jest the Way You Are” runs at the Loeb Experimental Theater from Dec. 5 to Dec. 8.
“Speed Bumps, And Other Things Jesus Wouldn’t Have Wanted” is unique as a dramedy with double-cast roles: One actor will perform with an emphasis on the drama and the other, the same role with emphasis on the comedy. Ethan (Will Jevon ’27 and Robbie Owen ’25) and Tori (Anna S. Fitzsimmons ’25 and Tia A. A. KwanBock ’25) reunite in their hometown of Harrington Park as they discuss love, loss, and everything in between. As a one-act dramedy written by Matthew W. Cole ’24 and directed by Ava K. Pallotta ’25, this production is a thoughtful exploration of how the same experiences can profoundly impact people in different ways.
Performing at TD Garden on Sept. 10, Weezer’s “Voyage
AIDEN J. BOWERS CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
FIFTEEN MINUTES 15
Spencer J. Weinreich is a Junior Fellow in the Society of Fellows. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
FM: You have a variety of interests, like history of Christianity, history of science, and the history of the prison. How does this broad range of interests come together and intersect?
SJW: The two strands that always seem to be there: one, a deep interest in violence.
How is it that somebody can commit an act of violence and think that they’re doing an act of kindness or an expression of faith or a way of making knowledge? And what kind of knowledge comes out of violence?
Q&A:
SPENCER WEINREICH ON SOLITARY CONFINEMENT, RELIGIOUS VIOLENCE
THE FORMER History of Science Lecturer and Junior Fellow in the Society Fellows spoke to Fifteen Minutes about his research into the experience and history of solitary confinement.
BY JEM K. WILLIAMS
finement than I ever will. Thinking about them as experts in their own right, and letting their knowledge and their authority and their understanding of the prison guide my own. So I conduct oral history interviews with former prisoners. I read as many diaries and memoirs and other prison writings as I can.
and what comes out.
be good for society to change.
FM: How did you become specifically interested in the history of the prison and solitary confinementhat was your reaction to this?
SJW: When I was doing my masters at Oxford, I discovered some letters belonging to one of Henry VIII’s bishops, and I liked the way he thought, and I liked the way he wrote, and I wanted to write my dissertation and my masters about him. And it turned out that the aspect of his life that no one had really studied was that he had been in prison. And so I worked with the notebooks that he kept while he
was in prison, and wrote about that, and came to read prison history scholarship, and found it just extraordinarily fascinating and exciting.
Solitary confinement sort of emerged out of a question, which was, is a history of solitary confinement possible?
I was interested in the idea of this, this practice where you sort of shut out the entire world from a person, you cut them off from everything and everyone. Does history still happen in that cell?
And as that question evolved, two more questions emerged, which have become the guiding questions of my
project. One is, the earliest evidence for solitary confinement is 2,000 years old. It has been done for thousands of years. It has been done on every continent. It has been done by every culture that has had a prison, and most cultures have had a prison. Why?
And the other question was, when you talk to former prisoners, and when you read what former prisoners 200 or 400 years ago wrote about the experience of solitude, the thing you hear most often is, “I can’t describe it. It’s beyond comprehension if you haven’t been in it. And if you have been in it, you don’t need me to describe it because you’ve been in it.” And so for me as a historian, there
was a real challenge.
How do you do the history of something that on some level you will never actually — God willing — never actually know?
FM: Can I pose that question back to you? How do you begin to study something that you feel you can never fundamentally understand?
SJW: For me, it comes back to two things. One is the survivors and the people who didn’t survive. Recognizing that if I don’t understand, they do. In some sense, they may not be academic historians — in most cases, they are not — but they’ve spent more
Harvard Football’s New Era
found support among the team.
Still, his debut could help put to rest the criticisms he faced following his hiring from alumni and players — who cast doubt on his qualifications and his selection over veteran Harvard Assistant Coach and Defensive Coordinator Scott Larkee ’99.
As practice ended on the evening of Sept. 10 and Harvard’s football team filed off the field, the Crimson’s new head coach, Andrew Aurich, stood on the sidelines greeting each player with a high five and words of encouragement before they headed to the locker room.
With 11 days left before the Crimson’s season opener against Stetson University, the energy on the practice field was palpable, as
The game — which will take place Saturday at Harvard — will not only be Aurich’s first test, but also a chance for the Crimson’s 2024 squad to follow up on its successful 8-2 campaign last season, which saw it finish in a threeway tie for the Ivy League title with Yale and Dartmouth.
‘Two of the Best’ Aurich kicks off the season with an enviable dilemma: having two talented quarterbacks and only one starting position. Junior Jaden Craig and senior Charles DePrima split the position last season, so Aurich finds himself in the unique situation of having two quarterbacks with experience at the collegiate level to choose from, both hailing
er, throwing for at least 245 yards and completing over 60 percent of his passes in each of his three starts down the stretch.
With Craig closing out the 2023 season as the starter, the Crimson could utilize a two quarterback approach — using DePrima in wildcat formations, jet sweeps, and flea flickers, similar to the New Orleans Saints’ use of tight end/quarterback Taysom Hill in the NFL — to create an explosive and unpredictable offense.
Despite the potential quarterback competition, Aurich expressed excitement about using both signal callers on the roster
“It’s a great position to be in, because they are two of the best quarterbacks in the Ivy League,” Aurich said in an interview last Tuesday. “Our job as coaches is to make sure that we’re putting them both in a position to help us win.”
that are such good friends, but we just push each other to get better each day.”
Craig, who threw for 775 yards and four touchdowns and rushed for another seven scores in the 2023 season, is hoping that the offense takes a leap forward this fall.
“I just hope we just continue on the same path we were last season, just explosive plays, big plays, but also just doing all the little things right,” Craig said.
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On a personal level, Craig hopes to take on a larger leadership role, saying he wants to be “more of a vocal leader” after taking “a backseat last year.”
alongside seniors Scott Woods II and Kaedyn Oderman — the only other pass-catchers on the roster who have more than one collegiate catch. With five freshman receivers on the roster, Aurich will hope that a new star begins to emerge who can take the veterans’ place in the 2025 season.
Beyond the game against Stetson, Aurich is looking forward to preparing for intense games alongside the team.
“I am most looking forward to just getting lost in the weekly process of preparing for a game,” Aurich said. “These guys, they’re putting everything they got into one week at a time, because the goal every week is to be 1-0 on Saturday and when you do that, it turns into a really fun process.” The Crimson will look to repeat its Ivy League title in a competitive field. The team ranked second in the Ivy League preseason media poll behind Yale, though it received one more first place ranking than its historic rival.
DePrima, who started the first seven games last season, recorded four games with 85+ rushing yards but struggled to find consistency in the passing game, with a completion percentage of
After taking over under center following a mid-season slump from DePrima, Craig was able to find success in the air, where DePrima struggled through the first seven games.
Boasting a strong arm and exceptional mobility, Craig provided stability as a pass-
Entering his last year playing for the Crimson, DePrima believes that the team is ready to gel, saying it’s “no secret that our QB
‘We’re Doing Great With the Guys That We Have’ While all eyes will be on Deprima and Criag during Saturday’s game, the Crimson’s hopes will also be pinned on its most important offensive skills players — senior running back Shane McLaughlin and junior wide receiver Cooper Barkate.
With some strong offensive talent in the skill positions, the Crimson’s offensive line remains a potential weak spot to look for in Saturday’s game. Harvard was tied with Princeton last year in allowing the most sacks in the Ivy League — with 27 throughout the season — and the team graduated three starters this year, so Stetson will serve as an important first test for this year’s starting lineup.
On the special teams side, the Crimson could see a freshman make his mark on the team early into his college career. Kicker
McLaughlin, the Crimson’s first offensive captain since Ryan Fitzpatrick ’05 and a unanimous first team All-Ivy League selection, will lead the backfield once again. McLaughlin accounted for 918 all-purpose yards (830 of them on the ground) during an impressive 2023 camBarkate caught 40 passes for 501 yards last season and is set to be Harvard’s most important target. The speedy wideout, who came to Cambridge as a blue-chip prospect out of Newport Beach, Calif. in 2022, will run routes
Kieran Corr was the top-ranked kicker in the nation as well as a five-star punter coming out of high school in Winchester, Mass. He is still untested on a collegiate level, but he could be a key asset for the team.
On the defensive side of the ball, the Crimson lost key pieces such as linebacker Matthew Hudson ’24, defensive lineman Thor Griffith ’24, and 2023 captain Nate Leskovec ’23-24. Despite the losses, the unit brings back leading tackler and junior safety Ty Bartrum, along with sophomore defensive back Damien Henderson, who was named to the Phil Steele All-America third team last season, to continue Harvard’s strong defensive performance. Standout senior linebacker Eric Little was optimistic about the defense’s prospects this season, despite the missing talent.
“We’re doing great with the guys that we have in this room,” Little said. “I know we had a lot of good guys leaving who were seen as leaders on his defense, but we have guys who are more than capable of filling these roles.”
‘I’m Excited to See How the Team Rallies Together’ Aurich is a key figure to watch for the Crimson this year, but even before his first game, players seemed optimistic about how he’s handling the role.
“I’m super confident in what Coach Aurich has been doing, and I feel like our preparation in the spring, along with camp thus far, has really put us in the right position,” Deprima said. “I’m just excited to see how the team rallies together and ultimately performs week one,” he added.
The Bulldogs, lead by longtime coach Tony Reno, have lost a few key players since last season — including quarterback Nolan Grooms, a perpetual thorn in the Crimson’s side — but their returning talent has proven enough to inspire confidence in another successful season.
Dartmouth, which shared the Ivy title with Harvard and Yale last year, slotted in at a tie for fourth place in the media poll, after losing several players to the transfer portal.
The Crimson’s showdown in late October against the other fourth ranked team, Princeton, will be another season highlight. The Crimson will hope to secure its first win against the Tigers since 2017 and achieve redemption for a 2021 game in which an erroneous referee call in triple-overtime cost the Crimson a victory.
The game will have the added drama of being Aurich’s first faceoff against his alma mater, as well as a team he once coached. Harvard shouldn’t face a huge challenge with Stetson (2-1) — who lost by over 40 points to Furman last week and
Harvard’s offensive line readies to block against St. Thomas during the Crimson’s season opener on Sept. 16, 2023. NICOLAS T. JACOBSSON — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
FIELD HOCKEY
Mixed Results for Crimson
BY ISABEL C.
No. 7 Harvard Field Hockey (3-1, 0-0 Ivy) kicked off its home opener in Cambridge this past weekend, facing off against both the No. 19 UAlbany Great Danes (4-1) and the No.16 University of Connecticut Huskies (5-1). After defeating both William & Mary and Wake Forest in its first weekend of play, the Harvard team hoped to continue its hot streak on its home turf.
Harvard 2, UAlbany 3 (OT)
On Friday evening, the Crimson hosted its first game of the year on Berylson Field against the UAlbany Great Danes. The Harvard team fell short in the final minutes, giving up a dramatic goal in overtime, ultimately losing 3-2. At the end of the first half, the game still remained tied at 0-0. Throughout the early phases of the game the Crimson struggled with its shots, recording only one throughout the entire first thirty minutes of play. In comparison, the Great Danes had tallied nine shots by the end of the opening half. Harvard only had one penalty corner in the first half as well, a drastically smaller number than the lower-ranked UAlbany’s five corner penalty chances. Harvard’s defensive unit, spurred by junior goaltender Tessa Shahbo and the 2023 Ivy League Defender of the Year junior Bronte-May Brough, prevented the Great Danes from capitalizing on its many scoring chances. In fact, Shahbo recorded an impressive eight saves during the contest, matching her career high. Despite being gridlocked through the first period, the Crimson rallied after the halftime break, producing significantly better offensive opportunities in the later quarters of regulation time. Junior forward Kate Oliver opened up the scoring for Harvard, notching the first point of the game in the third quarter. The goal marked the first of the 2024 season for the St. Louis, Mo. native. Unfortunately for the Crimson, Alison Smisdom, UAlbany’s offensive powerhouse, closed the deficit quickly, recording a goal of her own less than a minute later. In the fourth quarter, Lara Beekhuis lit the lamp for Harvard, slamming a shot past UAlbany’s senior goaltender Lara Behn. The goal was Beekhuis’s second of the year, setting the 2024 Ivy League Tournament’s Most Outstanding Player up for an impressive start to her sophomore season. However, in the 59th minute of play, Smisdom struck again, tying the game for the Great Danes. The senior from Antwerp, Belgium has already recorded nine goals in just five games for UAlbany. Smisdom’s point enabled the Great Danes to force a sudden death overtime in Cambridge.
Smisdom’s scoring streak continued in the 66th minute of play, as she snuck yet another shot past Harvard goaltender Tessa Shahbo. With her third goal of the game, Smisdom successfully secured both a hattrick and an upset win for her UAlbany team. The Great Danes devastated Harvard with its first loss of the season.
ranked opponent, the University of Connecticut. The Huskies have had an explosive start to their season, going undefeated prior to facing Harvard. The team had earned wins against St. Josephs, University of New Hampshire, Cornell, and Brown. The Crimson looked to rebound after its loss against UAlbany, while UConn simultaneously hoped to extend its winning streak.
“Going into the UConn game, there was a real team emphasis on compartmentalizing and putting everything aside so we could enter the UConn match totally present and focused on our
dominated the shooting statistics, recording 14 in comparison to the Huskies’ six. Harvard also had considerable accuracy, getting ten of its 14 shots onto UConn’s net. Meanwhile, the Huskies were only able to get four shots on goal throughout the entire game. Despite UConn’s lack of shots, Juul Sauer, the Huskies’ first year forward, was able to tally her sixth goal of the year against Harvard in the 20th minute of play. Four minutes later, Harvard’s Beekhuis powerfully responded with a goal of her own, capitalizing on a pass from freshman
GAMES TO WATCH THIS WEEK
FRIDAY 9/20
SATURDAY 9/21
lead and prevented the Huskies from getting any shots in the third quarter, a pivotal moment of the game presented itself in the fourth quarter. Sauer earned herself a breakaway, sailing the ball past Shahbo and lighting up the scoreboard again for the Huskies. Sauer’s goal, scored in the final ten minutes of play, ignited the possible threat of a Huskies comeback. However, Harvard’s defense was relentless, and excelled through the final whistle, protecting the lead and securing the win.
After the mixed-bag weekend, Harvard is 3-1 on the sea-
SUNDAY 9/22
further north to Burlington, VT to play against the University of Vermont Catamounts.
“As a team, we have set high goals for this season – winning the Ivy League Tournament again and then moving on to the NCAA Tournament,” Piekarski added.
“To get there, our team philosophy is to just take it one game at a time and focus on doing all of the little things right.”
Tune in on Saturday to watch Harvard take on the Dartmouth Big Green at 12:00 pm EST on ESPN+.
“UAlbany is a top 20 team
goals,” Piekarski explained. “Re -
Martha Le Huray and putting the
son and preparing for upcoming
The Harvard field hockey team posted mixed results this past weekend. DYLAN J. GOODMAN
The 52nd Annual An Evening with Champions
BY SARAH G. ERICKSON — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
TWIRLS AND TWISTS. An Evening with Champions, the annual world-class figure skating exhibition, returned to Harvard’s Bright-Landry Hockey Center on Friday and Saturday for its 52nd year. Over the course of its history, the event has raised over $3 million for the Jimmy Fund, a non-profit which helps fund pediatric cancer research at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.
In
British ice dancers Phebe Bekker & James Hernandez, two-time Junior National Champions and Senior Silver Medalists, skate to an elegant James Bond piece.
2020 New England Juvenile Champion Patrick Blackwell performs
The host of the evening, 1992 Silver Medalist Paul S. Wylie interviews Will Anis, 2022
Junior Silver Medalist, after his performance.
Figure skating cinematographer Jordan Cowan, a former Team USA ice dancer, filmed the entire night alongside all the performers. Above, Cowan films Filipino figure skater Cathryn Limketkai.
Professional figure skater and 2018 Canadian National Junior Champion Matthew Markell gracefully skated to an instrumental piece.
Across more than half a century of the event, performers have won 26 Olympic gold medals. During the electric finale, the cast of skaters smile and wave as they say goodbye to the audience. Skaters danced in unison to close out the night with roaring applause.
2022 Ontario Junior Sectional Champion Caitlyn C. Kukulowicz ’27, a Crimson News editor, floats across the ice in a musical number.
