“Operating in D.C. is so much harder than it needs to be,” Lubchenco said. “It’s exhausting, it’s frustrating, and at times depressing. That said, it is possible to get things done.”

Lubchenco recently left NOAA to return to the faculty at Oregon State University. She was among a handful of high-profile scientists brought into President Obama’s first administration as part of an effort to emphasize scientific integrity and raise the profile of scientific knowledge in policy decisions.

Her talk, at the Mallinckrodt Building’s Pfizer Auditorium, was sponsored by the Harvard University Center for the Environment (HUCE).

NOAA, part of the U.S. Commerce Department, runs the National Weather Service —including the National Hurricane Center — and the National Marine Fisheries Service, among other programs.

Lubchenco talked about the challenges of her time in government, including the disastrous BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the highly politicized atmosphere around climate science, and extreme weather events — searing drought, major floods, record snowstorms, more than 700 major tornadoes, and 70 Atlantic hurricanes, including Isaac, Irene, and Sandy — all against a backdrop of economic struggle and legislative gridlock.

Though she could have spent her four years in reaction mode, Lubchenco pushed ahead with several initiatives, including reducing political interference and stressing integrity in the science done at NOAA, restructuring a dysfunctional weather satellite program (which provides 90 percent of the data that goes into weather forecasts), creating a national oceans policy, and strengthening fishery management plans that have recovered 32 fisheries since 2000 and reduced the number of overfished stocks.

Among her failures was an effort to create a National Climate Service, a longer-term parallel to the National Weather Service. The change needed congressional approval and, with climate science becoming a third-rail issue, couldn’t get it.

“Some suggested that if we called it the ‘Longterm Weather Service’ we would have had a different outcome,” Lubchenco said.

Shifting from personal experience to the role of science in policy, Lubchenco called for more scientists to take up positions in government. This requires a change in how faculty training the next generation of scientists view a policy-focused career, she said. Currently, she said, academic scientists regard it as a failure if a student doesn’t wind up as an academic scientist. Instead, she said, students with an interest in policy should be encouraged, because their voices are essential.

“I think the country desperately needs more scientists in government,” Lubchenco said.

But just showing up doesn’t mean success, she said. To be effective, scientists have to understand that the culture in Washington is not what they’re used to. Stories and anecdotes that relate facts to real people are often more persuasive than the bare facts themselves. Relationships, with both supporters and opponents of your positions, are crucial to accomplish anything. Equally vital is a skin thick enough to take the inevitable criticism.

“I would say that good science is critical, but not sufficient,” Lubchenco said. “You need good science. You need good strategy. You need good diplomacy. Progress really hinges on finding the right incentives and the right partners. Finding common ground is key to navigating conflict, but so too is having a very, very thick skin.”

Giving science a stronger voice in Washington will require having more scientists in key positions throughout the establishment: in government agencies, in the White House, and on Capitol Hill, Lubchenco said. It will also require greater engagement and a bigger effort by the academic community to communicate scientific findings.

“Science can be a powerful force, but it has to be at the table, it has to be understood, it has to be relevant, and it has to be credible,” she said. “Unfortunately that combination is all too rare.”

Lubchenco was introduced by Professor of Biological Oceanography James McCarthy, who sat on her dissertation committee in the early 1970s. She received her doctorate from Harvard in 1975 and stayed on as an assistant professor before moving to Oregon State in 1977.

Not only was the long employment break a concern, but she had never used Microsoft’s Office programs. Her last employer had only used WordPerfect.

A year later, Connolly is so well-versed in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint that she is helping others, and just completed a stint as a teaching assistant in a computer class. She’s also on the job hunt, armed with a new résumé, freshly honed interview skills, and state-of-the-art knowledge of how to conduct Internet job searches, fill out Web-based applications, and upload resumes.

“I can walk through the doors of the company and feel very confident,” said Connolly. “They [the course instructors] have given that to me.”

Connolly, who lives in Brighton, credited her development to classes offered by the Harvard Allston Workforce Development Collaborative. The collaborative is part of a rich suite of programs, grants, and neighborhood improvements that stem from an agreement struck between Harvard University and the city of Boston five years ago.

The Education Portal is an example of where Harvard has gone over and above the terms of the agreement. It takes the strengths of the University and brings them to the community, to kids, to parents, and to teachers.” — Linda Kowalcky, deputy director of the Boston Redevelopment Authority

The agreement grew out of discussions between the University and the city over the construction of Harvard’s Science Complex in Allston. Although the University paused construction in 2009, implementation of the non-construction-related aspects of the agreement has continued.

What that has meant to the neighbors is the opening and expansion of the Harvard Allston Education Portal, a community-centered education facility that serves as Harvard’s front door to the neighborhood; access to certain University programs and facilities; more green space, in the form of the 1.74-acre Ray V. Mellone Park; and new resources, in the form of grants to community organizations and nonprofits that have totaled $500,000 in five years. (Information about the agreement’s benefits to the community, as well as about Harvard’s deep ties with Cambridge and Boston, are available on the new community-oriented Public Affairs website, which launched earlier this month.)

“Harvard is an engaged community partner and is committed to projects, educational and outreach programs, and other initiatives that benefit Allston,” said Kevin Casey, associate vice president of Harvard Public Affairs & Communications.  “The programs implemented over the past five years have created a solid foundation of meaningful community engagement to build upon as we enter into this next phase of community benefits associated with our new institutional master plan.”

Gavin Healy (left) and Brendan Shea go over a play at an A.R.T. workshop at the Ed Portal. File photo by Katherine Taylor

An Ed Portal “over and above”

The Harvard Allston Education Portal is perhaps the centerpiece of the University’s burgeoning relationship with the Allston-Brighton neighborhood. It opened in 2008 with mentoring and after-school enrichment programs aimed at local schoolchildren, including those at nearby Gardner Pilot Academy, the closest public school to Harvard’s Allston campus.

Over the last five years, 80 Harvard undergraduates have provided mentoring for 300 neighborhood students, and programming has grown to include the Workforce Development Collaborative’s computer and job-readiness classes, a lecture series that brings the Harvard faculty’s cutting-edge research to a community audience, and an outdoor farmers market that runs from June through October.

The free Ed Portal membership is open to any neighborhood resident. Membership has grown rapidly from 455 in 2009 to 1,700 this year. The facility has grown as well, with an annex opening last year that tripled its size.

“What began as a thoughtful but modest program of mentoring has blossomed into a full array of programs for kids, adults, seniors, and residents who speak other languages,” said Linda Kowalcky, deputy director of the Boston Redevelopment Authority.

Kowalcky, who helped to negotiate the cooperation agreement for the city, said that while there are aspects of the agreement tied to the science center construction process that have yet to be implemented, Harvard has carried out its non-construction-related obligations, and in some cases exceeded them.

“The Education Portal is an example of where Harvard has gone over and above” the terms of the agreement, Kowalcky said. “It takes the strengths of the University and brings them to the community, to kids, to parents, and to teachers.”

The key to the Education Portal’s success has been the University’s commitment to treat the relationship with the community as a core priority, said portal faculty director Robert Lue, professor of the practice of molecular and cellular biology.

Lue said he views the facility as something of a “sandbox” where innovative ideas about how to strengthen the relationship between the University and the community — while enhancing the understanding of learning — can be suggested and tried out.

“People who have great ideas and great energy need a place to do it,” Lue said. “It’s not something built separately. Sharing and outreach truly must come from the heart, and be an extension of the core priorities of the University.”

A longstanding community resource in Allston that predates the cooperation agreement is Harvard’s Ceramics Program, managed by the Office for the Arts. The program was founded in Cambridge in 1969 and has been located since 1987 at its studio at 219 Western Ave. In addition to events for all ages, presented in collaboration with the Ed Portal, the program provides adult ceramics classes, workshops, and seminars led by highly skilled artists and scholars from around the world, drawing about half of its student body from the University and half from the community. It also sponsors a semi-annual show and sale, which this month drew a record number of attendees. In the fall, the program will increase its visibility and commitment to the Allston community by moving to 224 Western Ave., where a large studio will feature enhanced amenities, including a dedicated exhibition space at street level.

Allston resident Stephanie Henry looks over the finished pieces at the ceramics studio. Managed by the Office for the Arts, the Ceramics Program was founded in Cambridge in 1969 and has been located at its studio at 219 Western Ave. in Allston since 1987. Photo by Kris Snibbe/Harvard Staff Photographer

Funding partnerships

The cooperation agreement also provides for the Harvard Allston Partnership Fund, through which the University has distributed $100,000 a year for the past five years. The funds have gone to 20 organizations, including the Friends of the Honan-Allston Library, the Oak Square YMCA, the Charles River Watershed Association, and the Fishing Academy, a nonprofit that runs summer camps for urban youth. Because of its success and popularity, the fund was extended this year for five more years as part of the planned relocations associated with the Barry’s Corner mixed-use development.

Fishing Academy Executive Director John Hoffman said the funds have provided scholarships for youth from Allston-Brighton, most of whom had never cast a line, tied a knot, or baited a hook. The weeklong camp provides two days of freshwater fishing in nearby ponds and then three days of fishing on the Boston Harbor islands, cruising aboard a local charter fishing boat, and taking a turn on the academy’s own boat.  In 2012, the academy received more than $5,000, which provided scholarships for 45 youths.

“Without support from the Harvard Allston Partnership Fund, a lot of local kids wouldn’t be able to get into the outdoors and participate in such a fun and educational experience,” Hoffman said. “It really is a program that can actually change the course of some of the kids’ lives.”

Carin O’Connor, librarian at the Boston Public Library’s Honan-Allston Branch, applied for partnership funds to enhance the library’s offerings for adult education. The funds were used to buy seven sewing machines and hire an instructor so the library could offer sewing and quilting classes. O’Connor said the partnership funds, which went to Friends of the Honan-Allston Library, are essential, since city budget cuts have meant the library had no funds for programming.

“It absolutely would not have been possible,” O’Connor said. “Adults really like getting back into making things. Why should the kids have all the fun?”

Camps and programs and scholarships, oh my!

While the Education Portal provides a physical focus for the partnership between Harvard and the Allston-Brighton community and the Partnership Fund extends resources into the community, a variety of scholarships give community members access to programs at the University.

Since 2008, 556 academic and recreational scholarships have been given to Allston-Brighton youth and adults. Each year, 50 scholarships allow adults to attend the Harvard Extension School, and each summer 50 more allow neighborhood youth to participate in summer camps for tennis, baseball, and swimming.

Last year, Erica Herman, principal of the Gardner Pilot Academy, attended instructional rounds at the Graduate School of Education’s Principals’ Center, with three other Gardner faculty members. Herman called the four days of professional-development classes “an eye-opening, challenging, wonderful opportunity,” one that should be experienced by other teachers at the school.

Herman said the Ed Portal’s mentoring program provides Pilot Academy children, ranging from kindergarten through sixth grade, a chance to interact with Harvard students and to see that college is a possibility for them.

Herman, who sits on the Education Portal’s advisory board, said that while Harvard has long had a partnership with the community, the two-way communication is better now. She looks forward to seeing the relationship continue to expand.

“There is definitely a deeper presence of Harvard in our community, in our school,” Herman said. “It’s not that Harvard has never been a partner, but the partnership has deepened. There’s a much stronger presence and a two-way conversation.”

The two-day conference was a rare convergence of two communities that, if the direst predictions come true, may get to know each other much better in the coming decades.

“We’re going to rely on you to deal with the mess that’s coming,” Daniel Schrag, director of the Harvard University Center for the Environment (HUCE), Sturgis Hooper Professor of Geology, and professor of environmental science and engineering, told the humanitarian relief workers at the event. “You’re going to be critical and you’re going to have your hands full.”

During the panel, Daniel Schrag told humanitarian relief workers, “We’re going to rely on you to deal with the mess that’s coming.”

Topics at the event, “2013 Humanitarian Action Summit: Climate and Crisis,” included an overview of climate change as well as talks on climate change and food security, conflict and migration, humanitarian aid, climate predictions, and related initiatives in humanitarian organizations. It was co-sponsored by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI) and the Harvard University Center for the Environment, and held at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Cambridge.

Attendees included representatives from a variety of academic and nonprofit organizations, including Oxford University, the University of Liberal Arts in Bangladesh, Oxfam, the World Food Program, AmeriCares, MIT, Stanford, the Brookings Institution, the World Bank, and the Conrad Hilton Foundation.

A major hurdle remains the translation of long-term climate trends into predictions about regional weather events. Although there seemed to be little doubt of the growing relationship between human-induced climate change and extreme weather, pinpointing trends precisely enough to be useful to relief organizations will be difficult, speakers said.

If long-term trends are clear, the natural variability in the weather on any given day makes it difficult to predict very far into the future. That’s not to say predictions can’t help.

Speakers pointed out that weather forecasting has improved significantly in recent decades, so that a 10-day forecast — nonexistent not so many years ago — is reasonably accurate today. Accuracy degrades rapidly beyond that, however, and predictability from a few months up to a decade away is very poor, after which longer-term trends can be discerned. Improved computing power should continue to improve forecasts, but there will remain a certain amount of unpredictability, said Mark Cane, a professor of Earth and climate sciences at Columbia University.

Climate scientists do understand some specific drivers of regional weather, and there are useful steps that can be taken even based on long-term outlooks. For example, the relationship between weather patterns and the El Nino and La Nina events in the equatorial Pacific are better understood. Though predicting the magnitude of an El Nino/La Nina remains difficult, scientists know that an El Nino is linked to heavy rains in western South America, drought in southern Africa, cool and wet weather in the southern U.S., and dry weather in Australia, which might shed light on the likelihood of crop failures, water shortages, and flooding. Also, knowing that record-setting heat waves will become more frequent will allow officials to take preparedness steps in cities with vulnerable elderly populations even if a heat wave cannot specifically be predicted far in advance.

El Nino and La Nina are such powerful drivers of local conditions in the regions they affect that a study of 93 tropical nations found that the annual risk of conflict decreases significantly from El Nino years to La Nina years, comparable to increasing annual per capita income in a nation from $1,000 to $10,000, Cane said.

The U.S. Agency for International Development has already begun to use data in its Famine Early Warning Systems Network, which uses weather and other information to give advance warning to places at risk of food shortages and famine.

“Any increase in predictability will be useful,” said Michael Delaney of Oxfam. “I don’t think we have to wait until it’s perfect to use it.”

HHI co-founders Jennifer Leaning, Bagnoud Professor of the Practice of Health and Human Rights, and Michael VanRooyen, HHI director, professor of medicine, and professor of global health and population, said that follow-up between climate scientists and disaster relief specialists will be key. VanRooyen said it’s likely a small working group will be organized to continue the conversation and develop real-world applications.

Also on the “2013 Humanitarian Action Summit: Climate and Crisis” panel was Noah Diffenbaugh, assistant professor in the school of earth sciences at Stanford University.

]]> http://www.knock3.com/urgent-prep-work/feed/ 0 http://www.knock3.com/toward-a-more-competitive-u-s/ http://www.knock3.com/toward-a-more-competitive-u-s/#comments Fri, 17 May 2013 18:25:06 +0000 Harvard Gazette http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/?p=138809 At an event at Harvard Business School (HBS) that was three parts analysis and one part rally, participants tried to chart a new path forward for the sluggish U.S. economy — a move that may require a new definition of “competitiveness.”

Highlighting the panel discussions Wednesday on “U.S. Competitiveness: Paths Forward,” an HBS initiative, was an appearance by Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, who was brought in by wheelchair but rose to his feet to speak about how the city could be a model for the nation.

“I believe that for America to be more competitive, it must be more collaborative,” Menino said. “This approach delivered results for our city. It will also deliver results to our country.”

The mayor cited development of the South Boston waterfront and the creation of summer jobs for youth. “Just look at what happened after the Marathon attack,” he said. “City, state, and federal official worked together to collect evidence, keep our city safe, and bring the bombers to justice. Everyone put their egos aside.

“Sometimes I wonder if Washington is capable of doing the same,” Menino added. “We have to put away this Democrat-Republican nonsense.  They get elected to help people, but it’s criminal those people in Washington don’t work together, don’t speak together.”

Likewise, Michael E. Porter, Bishop William Lawrence University Professor, and Jan W. Rivkin, Bruce V. Rauner Professor of Business Administration, each led spirited discussions on how HBS alumni could play an active role in the national debate, countering the “circus” in D.C.

“We are trying to understand what we can do to actually move the needle on both the quality of the debate and the facts underlying the debate and the political choices and compromises that we can make,” said Porter.

While many people say the country needs to be more competitive, “we don’t have a robust and common understanding of competitiveness,” he said. “What this means is that people who should be allies are at cross-purposes with each other.”

The U.S. Competitiveness Project put forth this definition: “The United States is a competitive nation to the extent that firms operating in the U.S. can compete successfully in the global economy while supporting high and rising living standards for the average American.”

Republicans may focus on the global economy angle, Democrats on the living standards, but “competitiveness occurs when we do both together,” Porter said.

Rivkin put the issue in historical context: “We worried at the beginning of the Industrial Age that the advent of mass production would mean there would be no jobs for the vast majority of the population, but we reinvested and gained productivity and expanded the economy.”

Innovation has driven the country’s strength in world markets and quality of life, said Rosabeth Moss Kanter, the Ernest L. Arbuckle Professor of Business Administration, a panel moderator. “But that strength has to be nurtured.”

She added, “We count on start-ups for job growth in America. Start-ups turn out to be more successful when they are also linked to a rich ecosystem of partnerships and collaborations.”

Gerald C. Chertavian (from left), Mary L. Fifield, Gregory Bialecki, and Rosabeth Moss Kanter discussed “U.S. Competitiveness: Paths Forward,” an HBS initiative, which included an appearance by Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino, who was brought in by wheelchair but rose to his feet to speak about how the city could be a model for the nation.

Three panelists outlined some of those collaborations. Mary L. Fifield, president of Bunker Hill Community College, described that school’s partnership with a consortium of local businesses to create the Learn and Earn program, in which students work a day or two a week at a major corporations, receive mentorship, and are matched with a “work buddy.” The model should be scaled up to include the state’s other 14 community colleges, she said.

Gregory Bialecki, secretary for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development, acknowledged that government is used to making rules, not partnerships, and that state officials must now learn to “be more collaborators and not order givers.”

Gerald Chertavian, founder and CEO of Year Up, focused on how education must respond to workforce needs. Today 6.7 million 16-to 24-year-olds with a high school education are out of school and out of work, he said. Yet, “Thirty percent of jobs in this country are middle-skilled jobs, which means you need a high school degree but not necessarily a four-year degree.”

Any discussion of the U.S. economy must include an analysis of the debt, and Robert Kaplan, the Marvin Bower Professor of Leadership Development Emeritus, cheerfully admitted he would provide “the gloomy panel” with David Walker, founder and CEO of Comeback America Initiative. The picture they painted was gloomy, indeed.

“The bottom line is that the government has grown too big, promised too much,  waited too long to restructure, and it needs to restructure sooner rather than later,” Walker said. He said the government lacks three things taught in every management 101 class: a plan, a budget, and metrics for performance. “We’re zero for three — that’s called a strike out.”

Since its launch in 2009, Kepler has found 130 planets orbiting other stars and 2,500 planet candidates requiring further investigation. The space telescope has pulled back the veil on the true nature of the Milky Way, showing it to be a galaxy rich with planets, and potential homes for life outside of Earth.

Gazette staff writer Alvin Powell discussed the problem with one of Kepler’s co-investigators, Astronomy Professor Dimitar Sasselov, asking what the glitch means for Kepler, for the quest for extra-solar planets, and for the search for life outside the solar system.

GAZETTE: Can you tell us what is going on with Kepler?

SASSELOV: The telescope needs to point very precisely in the direction in which it takes images. That pointing has been compromised by the breakdown of one of the reaction wheels — or gyroscopes — which keep it aligned.

The wheels come in packages of four, with three needed and one a spare. We lost one last July, so we have been without the spare since then. Losing a second one means that the telescope cannot point, and hence the images are not precise enough for us to continue the scientific mission of the telescope.

GAZETTE: Are there potential fixes or workarounds being considered?

SASSELOV: What is happening now is an immediate assessment, and within a few days we’ll know the results. It’s very likely the engineers will test and implement some new workarounds in the coming weeks, trying to recover the wheel functionality. So they’re not going to write it off.

However, there is no obvious workaround. We were forewarned that this may happen when the spare stopped working last July. So I don’t think there was a clear path to solve this if the second wheel really got stuck.

GAZETTE: What are the implications for Kepler’s scientific mission?

SASSELOV: We have collected data for a little bit more than 17 quarters. Only about two-thirds of that has been analyzed or downloaded to the ground. Inevitably, there is always a delay between what the telescope has obtained — in the can, so to say — and that data having been fully reduced and analyzed.

In the next year and probably more, there will be analysis of data that is currently on the spacecraft. When that is done, you can say the scientific mission has been completed. You will continue hearing about Kepler discoveries at least for the next two or three years. It is not over yet.

GAZETTE: Will the problem interfere with transmission of data already collected to the ground?

SASSELOV: The satellite has two functional wheels and thrusters powered by hydrazine fuel. Those thrusters allow the telescope to point in different directions. It doesn’t allow the telescope to point precisely enough to allow for data collection, but under normal conditions it would be enough [to relay data to Earth].

GAZETTE: Just about a year ago, NASA extended Kepler’s mission through 2016. What had scientists hoped to learn during the additional time?

SASSELOV: The telescope would gather additional data that would improve dramatically our statistical confidence of our final results. It was also kind of a no-brainer. The telescope was working fine and taking great data. At a minimal expense, you continue to use it.

GAZETTE: Can we say Kepler has been successful, whatever the outcome of attempted workarounds for the balky wheel?

SASSELOV: It’s been a resounding success. Not only because you hear about it in the news all the time, but because when you look at what we knew [before it launched] and what we know about exoplanets from all our other efforts combined, Kepler stands way above all of them.

So just by sheer volume, it provided us new insights and data to understand how planets form, what they are, and where they are. [Kepler] has provided us with a mother lode of planetary systems that we will be exploring for decades in the future, not just a few years, but decades. Kepler has already delivered beyond expectations. So it was worth every penny.

Artist’s composite of Kepler viewing a small planet. Since it launched in 2009, Kepler has found 130 planets orbiting other stars. Credit: Ames Wendy Stenzel/NASA

GAZETTE: What’s the feeling of the scientific team now?

SASSELOV: Obviously, we were very excited about the extension, and we did expect to find exciting new things in the additional four years. You shouldn’t be surprised that the team would feel that we have the best telescope working, and it’s a shame if it cannot deliver more.

On the other hand, if this had happened two years ago, it would have been really a disaster for our efforts. We would have essentially failed if it were two years ago.

Now we can forge ahead and plan our next steps. Kepler was able to accomplish two things. One was the research and new discovery. The other was helping prepare so the next step in our exploration is successful. That has been done, and, for posterity, that’s probably the most important thing. Now we have TESS [the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite] already approved.

GAZETTE: Is TESS the next step or is the James Webb Space Telescope?

SASSELOV: Both. They go hand in hand. Kepler was supposed to deliver the numbers, the frequency of planets the size of the Earth around solar-type stars in the habitable zone.

Now, we want not simply to improve the number, we want to find those planets we can study directly with high precision. Now we want to find the nearest ones. There, we need TESS to discover them, and then we need James Webb to analyze them.

GAZETTE: Any possibility of a Hubble-like rescue for Kepler?

SASSELOV: The answer is very clearly no. Kepler is in an orbit around the sun, very far from the Earth and the moon. It’s trailing behind the Earth, and no human has gone that far from the Earth before. You’re talking about capability similar to going to nearby asteroids, which we’re talking about developing, but we’re not there.

GAZETTE: How does this change the work of researchers at Harvard?

SASSELOV: A lot of this does relate to our efforts here at Harvard. Last summer, we installed a new spectrograph on the Canary Islands, together with our colleagues from Geneva. It is currently the highest-precision spectrograph in the world, and it has the specific goal to observe the planets that Kepler has discovered.

The demise of the Kepler telescope would have very little effect on our plans for the work with the spectrograph because we already have the data. Once you identify the planets with Kepler, then you pick the best candidates and spend one to four years observing them with the spectrograph to determine the planet’s precise parameters.

So in a certain sense, that second step has been happening for the past year. The original plan was that Kepler would gather data for four years, and then we’d continue with HARPS North, our spectrograph, for another four years. So from that point of view, our work here at Harvard is going on as scheduled.

But Hansun Hsiung, a Ph.D. student in East Asian languages and civilizations, isn’t convinced.

As part of the Harvard Horizons symposium, May 6 at a packed Sanders Theatre, Hsiung argued that distance learning began significantly earlier, with the printing of the first international textbooks in the 18th century.

“The textbook as we know it was a fairly recent invention,” developing only in the second half of the 18th century and rising in use over the course of the 19th, Hsiung told the audience.

For readers, he said, the access such books provided was considered in the same light as online learning is today. Access to the textbook “promised that every man could be his own teacher,” Hsiung said. “No matter who or where you were in the world, as long as you had the right textbook,” you — as a reader — could share in long-distance learning.

Created this year by the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS), the Harvard Horizons initiative highlights top research by doctoral students. One of the goals is to foster a greater sense of intellectual community across Harvard’s graduate schools. Another: to help students develop crucial presentation skills. The culmination of the initiative was an afternoon symposium in which eight Ph.D. students each offered five-minute presentations, styled on the popular TED talks, about a specific aspect of their current research.

Along with Hsiung, other presenters included:

• Edgar Barroso, music, “Enhancing Music, Social, and Entrepreneurial Innovation through Trans-Disciplinary Collaboration”
• Stephanie Dick, history of science, “Aftermath: Following Mathematics into the Digital”
• Alex Fattal, anthropology, “Guerrilla Marketing: Information War and the Demobilization of FARC Rebels”
• Fenna Krienen, psychology, “Big Brain Science: Strategies for Mapping the Human Brain”
• Aaron Kuan, applied physics, “Graphene Nanopores for Single-Molecule DNA Sequencing”
• Liz Maynes-Aminzade, English, “Macrorealism: How Fiction Can Help Us Understand a Networked World”
• Jeff Teigler, medical sciences, “Building Better Vaccines by Learning the Language of the Immune System”

GSAS Dean Xiao-Li Meng, Ph.D. ’90, hosted the event, which was attended by Provost Alan M. Garber ’76, Ph.D. ’82, and FAS Dean Michael Smith. In a video address, President Drew Faust emphasized the importance of the symposium.

“Communicating about one’s work outside of one’s discipline is an essential skill for scholars and researchers in the 21st century, and the women and men you are about to see are persuasive and powerful presenters,” she said. “Their presentations exemplify one of the finest gifts universities give to humanity: individuals capable of making new and significant contributions to the world of knowledge.”

While the presentations may have looked simple, they were the result of weeks of work.

After being selected from 55 applications, the eight members of the inaugural class of the Society of Horizon Scholars underwent a five-week training course that included mentoring sessions by Harvard faculty members and experts from the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning. The sessions, which focused on voice and on visual presentation skills, among other topics, were led by Laura Frahm, an assistant professor of visual and environmental studies, and Pamela Pollock, an assistant director of the Bok Center.

Harvard Horizons was the brainchild of Shigehisa Kuriyama, chair of the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations.

GSAS Dean Xiao-Li Meng: “In addition to possessing deep expertise in their field of study, our students need to be able to deliver an elevator speech, and that’s a skill that has not traditionally been emphasized. They need to be able to talk with a variety of audiences, across a variety of disciplines, about what they do and why it’s important.”

“One of the big challenges at Harvard is this: the wealth of talks and presentations constantly occurring on campus makes it hard to reach audiences beyond one’s division, or sometimes even beyond one’s department,” Kuriyama said. “Because the competition for attention is so intense, the ability to communicate one’s ideas lucidly and crisply is becoming an even more fundamental skill.”

Equally important, Kuriyama said, have been the social aspects of the program. Given the focus and time research demands of students, it’s unlikely any of the Horizon Scholars would otherwise have met each other.

“I think that’s one of the things that they found most invigorating, the social bonding and the intellectual exchange,” he said. “All of our students are curious, and eager to learn about other fields. But they have relatively few opportunities to speak with students in other divisions, especially students who have the ability to explain their research in terms that are clear and compelling to the nonspecialist. This program is designed to give them those opportunities.”

Meng said he sees the initiative as filling an important role in helping provide much-needed training in the communication skills students require — as teachers, as scholars applying for grants and fellowships, and in their professional careers, whether in academia or in policy, corporate leadership, or industrial research. Going forward, Meng said, he hopes to explore how to expand the program to ensure more graduate students receive the benefit of such training.

“We now have about 10 departments that include various courses on how to communicate,” he said. “Regardless of what your career may be — some of these students may become professors, and others may go into business or government — communication is a skill that is absolutely critical.

“If you look at how society is evolving, we’re all multitasking, every one’s attention span is getting shorter,” Meng continued. “In addition to possessing deep expertise in their field of study, our students need to be able to deliver an elevator speech, and that’s a skill that has not traditionally been emphasized. They need to be able to talk with a variety of audiences, across a variety of disciplines, about what they do and why it’s important.”

]]> http://www.knock3.com/style-and-substance/feed/ 0 http://www.knock3.com/new-masters-for-pforzheimer-house/ http://www.knock3.com/new-masters-for-pforzheimer-house/#comments Thu, 16 May 2013 17:55:30 +0000 Harvard Gazette http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/?p=138302 Having spent their careers focused on teaching and learning, and community building, Anne Harrington and her husband, John Durant, say they are excited about the opportunities that lie before them as the new master and co-master of Pforzheimer House.

Today, Harvard College Dean Evelynn M. Hammonds announced the appointment of Harrington ’82 and Durant.

“I am very pleased that Anne and John have agreed to take on these important roles. Anne and John are tremendous scholars, passionate not only about science, but also deeply committed to teaching and learning,” said Hammonds, the Barbara Gutmann Rosenkrantz Professor of the History of Science and of African and African American Studies. “But in addition to their scholarship, they are wonderful people committed to mentoring students and fostering community in Pforzheimer. The Houses are such an enriching part of the Harvard College experience, and having a family like Anne and John’s join the Pfoho family will help strengthen that tradition.”

Harrington is a professor of the history of science, as well as director of undergraduate studies for the department, while Durant is the MIT Museum director and an adjunct professor in MIT’s Science, Technology & Society Program.

“I am very excited,” Harrington said. “We spoke to a lot of masters as a part of this process, and through those discussions we got a sense of the real joy that this kind of position can bring and also what a wonderful opportunity for service this can be.”

They will take over as House masters in the fall, bringing with them their 8-year-old son, Jamie.

Harrington said having their young child living in the House atmosphere is part of what drew them to the masters’ roles.

“Jamie will be 9 when we take over as masters, so we decided as a family that if we were going to do it, this is the time to do it,” Harrington said. “We like the idea of him growing up in an aspirational community, one that is full of creativity, and talent and diversity.”

Durant added, “I see this as enormously enriching for the family. To be surrounded by smart, energized, talented young people, why would that not just be the greatest opportunity for a young child?”

Harrington received her A.B. summa cum laude from Harvard and Ph.D. in the history of science from Oxford University. After completing postdoctoral work at the University of Freiburg in Germany, Harrington returned to teach at Harvard in 1988. The author of three books, Harrington specializes in the history of psychiatry, neuroscience, and the other mind and behavioral sciences.

“My career has also been marked by a sustained commitment to teaching, especially undergraduate teaching,” Harrington said.

In 2004, she was appointed to a five-year term as a Harvard College Professor, winning the Phi Beta Kappa Alpha Iota Prize for excellence in teaching.

Durant earned his B.A. in natural sciences and a Ph.D. in the history and philosophy of science from Queens’ College, Cambridge. In addition to his current day job as a museum director, Durant has worked to introduce science to a broader spectrum of people through the creation of the Cambridge Science Festival, and his efforts to launch similar festivals around the world.

“A lot of my career has been about community. I have spent a large part of my career in trying to engage the research community with the wider community outside of the university walls,” Durant said. “So there is something about community that I am drawn to, and now with Anne, I find myself drawn to a community within the university. I am hoping this will be exhilarating, I expect to learn a lot, I expect to be challenged and to also be stimulated immensely.”

The husband-and-wife team have also been teaching study abroad programs in England for the past five years. They will continue to do so this summer at the University of Cambridge with an eight-week program, titled “Science, Medicine, and Religion in an Age of Skepticism,” encompassing classroom study, extensive travel, and independent projects.

Durant and Harrington will be taking over for Nicholas and Erika Christakis, who have been House masters at Pforzheimer since 2009.

“I wish to extend to Nicholas and Erika Christakis my thanks for their service to our students during their time at Pforzheimer,” said Hammonds. “They have worked to foster a tight-knit House community and brought creativity and vibrancy to Pforzheimer. The College was fortunate to have them in these roles.”

Both Harrington and Durant said they look forward to fostering the tight-knit house community and traditions that currently exist at Pfoho, while introducing some new programs and events.

“There is a tremendous amount of enrichment and learning that happens just by virtue of living in a vibrant community with people with distinct talents,” Harrington said. “How can we leverage that into something greater than the sum of its parts? This is an opportunity and a challenge we take very seriously and one we are very much looking forward to.”

Dupont began working in Papua New Guinea in 2004, spending time with the gangs of Port Moresby, the nation’s capital and one of the world’s most crime-ridden cities.

More recently, in 2011, Dupont traveled around the country, documenting a culture in transition as a Robert Gardner Fellow in Photography from Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. The fellowship, which supports a documentary photographer in an in-depth endeavor examining “the human condition anywhere in the world,” was created by documentarian and author Gardner in 2007.

Dupont’s project examines the impact of globalism and the creep of Western lifestyles into a nation where traditional ways have long held sway.

Dupont has long been interested in the clash of cultures. Living in Australia, he was first drawn to Papua New Guinea after two friends, a filmmaker and a photojournalist, traveled there. During his fellowship year, he focused on three areas: Port Moresby, a melting pot of the nation’s many tribes, rife with modern urban problems including crime, slums, unemployment, and AIDS; the fishing communities along the Sepik River, the country’s longest; and the tribes of the remote highlands, whose rugged terrain and isolated valleys still provide some insulation from the outside world. He took thousands of images using five different photographic formats, including Polaroid film and large-format, 4-by-5 cameras.

Dupont’s work is on display through September at the Peabody Museum. The exhibition features diaries and large images that take the viewer to a country in flux, and also chronicle daily life — mothers sitting with their children, people dashing for shelter from a sudden downpour, a rugby team praying together before a match.

The images hold echoes of Australia’s influence on the lowlands and the highlands’ eroding traditions. Dupont, who will participate in an online “webinar” on his work on June 27, found fertile ground at Sing-Sings, cultural events created by colonial authorities as a way to get highland tribes to interact peacefully. The events, which Dupont described as “tribal Woodstocks,” draw thousands to observe and participate in tribal dance, singing, and other competitions.

To document the Sing-Sings, Dupont set up a portable portrait booth, using black or white sheets as backgrounds to isolate the subjects. But instead of using physical supports to hold the backdrop, Dupont had bystanders hold up the sheet. He then pulled back the frame to include the helpers around the edges. Where a portrait against a neutral background might be taken anywhere in the world, this technique allowed him to incorporate the flavor of the setting within the images.

The Sing-Sing pictures show the subtle — and sometimes not so subtle — intrusion of Western influence into what is intended to be a traditional tribal display: one woman wears a white brassiere with otherwise traditional garb, while a man wears a drum made from a large plastic container on a sling around his neck.

Dupont said the Sing-Sings have visibly changed since his first visit to the country in 2004. In addition to the Western items working their way into people’s dress, advertising is everywhere, with Digicel, the country’s leading mobile phone carrier, surpassing even Coca-Cola.

“I was there in 2004 and there was far less advertising there,” Dupont said. “How will this look in 10 years’ time?”

To get a sense of how people dress while away from the competitions, Dupont visited a traditional tribal area in the southern highlands. But a nearby liquid propane plant had brought in roads and infrastructure and moved people off their land. While some older people maintained traditional dress, most of the younger people wore Western clothes, adorned with a lone piece of traditional jewelry.

“It’s the death of their culture. How long will it be before it’s completely gone?” Dupont asked.

He may be around to find out. Though he has already done a lot of work there, the intersection of globalization and traditional culture is a rich subject area, and the diversity in Papua New Guinea means there’s still plenty to do.

“New Guinea has really gotten into my blood,” Dupont said. “I feel as if I’ve only scratched the surface.”

First awarded in 1981, the Harvard Medal recognizes extraordinary service to Harvard University. The service can relate to many aspects of University life — from teaching, leadership, and innovation to fundraising, administration, and volunteerism. President Drew Faust will present the medals at the Annual Meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association on May 30, during Commencement’s Afternoon Program.

2013 Harvard Medalists

James V. Baker has been an active citizen of Harvard, serving both his local community in England as president of the Harvard Club of the United Kingdom, as well as the global alumni community as the HAA’s first international president. He has always maintained an eye toward strengthening Harvard’s relationship with international alumni.

Baker’s commitment to the University has been consistent since his graduation from Harvard Business School (HBS). A recipient of the HAA Alumni Award in 2000, he has served in a number of different capacities, including as an alumni interviewer for both Harvard College and HBS, an HAA elected director, a vice chair of his class gift committee, chair of the Class of 1968 John Harvard Society Leadership Committee, and first marshal of his class.

His work at the local level in the U.K. saw a revitalization of the Harvard Club’s programs and a significant increase in the club’s membership. His talents were then recruited by the HAA to serve as a regional director for Europe. As such, he organized a European Leadership Conference in London, bringing together 16 European clubs from 13 different countries. The success of the conference led to it becoming a regular event, with a different European club acting each year as host. The format has subsequently been used by clubs in South America and Asia.

Following graduation from HBS, Baker worked for Goldman Sachs in London and Zurich, retiring as executive director of the equities division in 1996. He and his wife, Maggie, are the parents of Chris ’96 and Tanya.

William Thaddeus Coleman Jr. has devoted his life to public service. He was the first African-American to serve as a clerk for a U.S. Supreme Court judge, Justice Felix Frankfurter. Coleman was a contributing author to the landmark 1954 case Brown v. Board of Education, working with Thurgood Marshall at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and later becoming president of the fund. He was the second African-American to serve in a presidential cabinet, as the nation’s fourth secretary of transportation during the Ford administration. In 1995, he was a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Most recently, he has served as a judge of the U.S. Court of Military Commission Review.

Coleman was first in his class at Harvard Law School (HLS) and was an editor of the Harvard Law Review, and his call to service has extended to the University as well. He has served as an Overseer and has been a member of five Overseer visiting committees — Law School, Business School, Center for International Affairs, Institutional Policy, and Social Studies. He is a recipient of the HBS Distinguished Service Award, the Harvard Law School Association (HLSA) Award, and the Harvard Club of Washington, D.C., Public Service Award, and he has been an HLS Traphagen Speaker. He has also been a member of the HLS Dean’s Advisory Board since 1997.

Coleman and his wife, Lovida, have three children, Lovida, William, and Hardin.

Georgene Botyos Herschbach has made enduring contributions to the University and is among its most valued and selfless citizens. After serving as co-master of Currier House with her husband, Dudley, she embarked on a wide-ranging career at Harvard College, including: assistant dean and director of special programs, registrar of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, associate dean of academic programs, and dean of administration. Exemplifying all that Harvard holds dear, she worked tirelessly in support of many initiatives to enhance the experience of undergraduates.

Having earned her Ph.D. in chemistry, Herschbach brought astute analysis to shaping policy as well as advising students, mentoring fledgling administrators, and counseling senior colleagues. She collaborated with faculty in developing innovative interdisciplinary courses in the life and physical sciences, and was a co-founder of PRISE (Program for Research in Science and Engineering), a summer program in which undergraduates work with faculty on projects at the frontiers of science.

Herschbach’s family life has also been deeply involved with Harvard. While a Harvard graduate student, she married Dudley Herschbach, Ph.D. ’58, and became the mother of two daughters, Lisa, Ph.D. ’97, and Brenda, ’88, A.M. ’88, J.D. ’98.  For this family, the sum of their years as Harvard students plus Georgene’s three decades in administration and Dudley’s four on the faculty, totals a full century.