The Harvard Crimson THE UNIVERSITY DAILY, EST. 1873 | VOLUME CXLV, NO. 101 | CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS | FRIDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2018
EDITORIAL PAGE 4
NEWS PAGE 3
SPORTS PAGE 8
The Undergraduate Council should vote for accountability, not against it.
Harvard students celebrate National Coming Out Day with rainbow cake.
Football prepares to host Holy Cross in Friday’s non-conference matchup.
GSD Addresses Diversity, Title IX By RUTH ZHENG CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
Harvard’s Graduate School of Design will hire a new administrator focused on diversity and inclusion as it seeks to implement a series of changes intended to improve the school’s culture. The recently announced policy changes are part of a series of ongoing initiatives to promote a culture of respect and to create institutional accountability at the Design School. In an email sent to students, Dean of Students Lauren Snowdon grouped the updates under three general categories: students, staff, and faculty. Regarding “students,” Snowdon wrote that the University-wide Title IX Office plans to create a graduate student liaison working group chaired by the Student Forum Chair of Diversity and Inclusion. The new group will work to assess the effectiveness of current programs and make recommendations to the office on behalf of students. Staff members from the Title IX Office and the Office of Sexual Assault Prevention and Response also plan to reach out to students to seek interest in different types of programming for the year, according to the email.
Under the category of “staff,” Snowdon announced the creation of a new position at the Design School: an assistant dean for diversity, inclusion, and belonging. The hiring process is ongoing, she wrote. The Design School also recently unveiled a new course called “Gender, Diversity and Inclusion” that is being offered to staff members starting this month. Under “faculty,” the email confirmed the implementation of mandatory online Title IX training for faculty members — a new requirement across the University announced last spring. Drawing on student feedback from course evaluationsin which students raised concerns about disrespect, racism, and sexism at the school, department chairs have also been holding meetings with visiting faculty affiliates to discuss expectations of appropriate conduct. These changes came after a spreadsheet filled with anonymous accounts of sexual misconduct and racist acts allegedly perpetrated by men in architecture began circulating on campus last spring. The spreadsheet, titled
SEE GSD PAGE 3
SEE BACOW PAGE 5
Bacow Preps for Next Recession Bacow, University leaders prepare for the next economic downturn with financial “scenario planning” By KRISTINE E. GUILLAUME CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
Before University President Lawrence S. Bacow rose to the helm of the nation’s oldest university, he was an economist. Judging from his plans for Harvard’s future, it’s clear he still is. Bacow’s economics expertise is evident as he navigates new financial challenges in the first months of his presidential tenure — including an endowment that continues to trail behind that of Harvard’s peers and an unprecedented tax on endowment returns levied by Republican lawmakers in Dec. 2017. Bacow said in a September interview the tax will prompt “belt-tightening” across the University’s budgets, though he does not yet know which areas will see cuts. Amid these fiscal hurdles, Bacow is examining the University’s financials at the macro level. Like a
true economist, he’s looking ahead to when the next recession hits. A decade after the 2008 global financial crisis — which decimated Harvard’s endowment and led to years of struggle — the United States economy is now booming. Bacow warned, however, that this will not always be the case, a point he has emphasized to the University’s administrators. Bacow said he has “challenged” all of Harvard’s schools to engage in “scenario planning” for when the markets inevitably dip. “What are we going to do when we have a recession — not if – I guarantee you there will be a recession, I don’t know when it’s coming, but it’s important to think about it in advance,” Bacow said. As history has shown, colleges and universities, which often depend largely on their endowments for funding, find themselves in
precarious positions when markets take a turn for the worse. “A lot depends upon the economy. When you’re endowment dependent, markets go up, markets go down,” Bacow said. “Nothing goes on forever.” A ‘SCARY’ TIME When former University President Drew G. Faust moved into her Massachusetts Hall office, one of her first tasks was to combat the serious ramifications of the 2008 financial crisis. Harvard’s then-$37 billion endowment plummeted $11 billion in value after a negative 27.3 percent return — a clear sign the University was in trouble. In a May 2017 interview near the end of her tenure, Faust called the experience of taking the University’s reins during the financial crisis “scary.” “Just in a matter of hours you watched the markets crash, and you
Black Activists Win Awards By CONNOR J. WAGMAN CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
Harvard’s thousand-seat Sanders Theatre was packed to the gills for the annual presentation of the W.E.B. Du Bois Medal at the Hutchins Center Honors, a celebration of achievement, diversity, and activism. A grand total of 17 separate standing ovations greeted the stars present at the ceremony. Speakers ranging from professors Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Cornel R. West ’73 to athlete-activist Colin Kaepernick, comedian Dave Chappelle, and Kehinde Wiley — an African American portrait artist who painted Barack Obama’s official presidential portrait — all called for increased advocacy for marginalized groups.
SEE DU BOIS PAGE 3
Kehinde Wiley speaks. CALEB D. SCHWARTZ—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
Pamela Joyner (left), Dave Chappelle (center), and Colin Kaepernick (right), all recipients of this year’s W.E.B. Du Bois award, listen to a speech during the medal ceremony. CALEB D. SCHWARTZ—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. speaks. CALEB D. SCHWARTZ—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
By SHERA S. AVI-YONAH CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
A s Harvard students marked National Coming Out Day with rainbow bandanas and pride pins, the College’s Office of BGLTQ Student Life and the University’s Title IX Office debuted a guide meant to keep affiliates up-to-date on campus resources for BGLTQ-identifying individuals. The twopage guide — now permanently housed on the Title IX Office’s website — provides information about University offices and student groups that work to address issues related to gender, sexuality, and diversity.
National Public Radio’s Ofeibea Quist-Arcton delivers the 2018-2019 Rama S. Mehta Lecture at the Radcliffe Institute. AMANDA Y. SU—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
Harvard Today 2
Law School students and faculty reflect on Kavanaugh’s confirmation in off-the-record forum
By AIDAN F. RYAN CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
Harvard Law School students, faculty, and administrators convened behind closed doors at an off-the-record forum Thursday for two hours to reflect on the recent, and contentious, confirmation of Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. The event was meant to allow Law School affiliates to “listen generously to one another” after several weeks of Kavanaugh-related controversy roiled and divided campus and the nation, Law School Dean John F. Manning ’82 wrote in an email earlier this week announcing the gathering. But some students said the forum fell far short of that goal. Manning did not attend. Students who participated in the forum, which was closed to members of the press, said attendees gathered in small groups in Wasserstein Hall to discuss their general feelings about Kavanaugh’s troubled confirmation process and its historical reverberations. The conversations kicked off at 3 p.m. and lasted until roughly 5 p.m. Second-year Law student and forum attendee Sejal Singh, a member of the student advocacy group Pipeline Parity Project, said she “appreciated all the faculty” that took part. But she said the event was ultimately not “responsive to student concerns at all.” Singh said she and others would have preferred to spend the afternoon directly speaking to administrators about how Harvard addressed and plans to address issues raised over the past few weeks. President Donald Trump nominated Kavanaugh to the nation’s highest court in July; his confirmation seemed all but certain until at least two women stepped forward to allege he had sexually assaulted them decades ago. In the wake of the accusations and calls from some students and alumni for Kavanaugh’s resignation, the Law School announced Kavanaugh would not return to teach at Harvard in January 2019. But administrators appear to have taken no action to effect Kavanaugh’s departure —
SEE KAVANAUGH PAGE 3
Students Celebrate Coming Out Day
SEE PAGE 5
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
Law School Discusses SCOTUS
News 4
Editorial 6
Sports 8
TODAY’S FORECAST
RAINY High: 63 Low: 46
Title IX administrators Nicole M. Merhill and Rachel A. DiBella said administrators developed the guide to help BGLTQ students identify resources available to them at the University. Merhill said disparities between Harvard’s schools can present a challenge for students seeking guidance. Members of campus group One Queer Harvard had raised concerns about the accessibility of campus offerings for BGLTQ students in meetings with Merhill and DiBella earlier this year. Ph.D. student Andrew A. Westover, who attended the meetings and helped develop
SEE CAKE PAGE 3
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THE HARVARD CRIMSON |
OCTOBER 12, 2018
PAGE 2
HARVARD TODAY
For Lunch “Local Fresh Catch” Fried Red Spiced Chicken Garbanzo Falafel Sandwich
For Dinner Chicken Pot Pie Turkey Burger Cheese, Mushroom, and Spinach Tortellini
TODAY’S EVENTS
IN THE REAL WORLD
Crossing the Chasm: Why Now is the Time for Public Interest Tech Institute of Politics, 6:00 p.m.
Wife Who Sued After Astronaut Husband’s Death Dies
Join the IOP for a talk about technology in the public interest sector. Former Secretary of Defense Ash Carter and Executive Chairman of LinkedIn Reid Hoffman will be there.
Betty Grissom, the widow of astronaut Virgil Grissom, died Saturday in her Houston home. Ms. Grissom was 91 and is infamous in the space world for suing a NASA contractor when her late husband died in a launchpad fire in 1967. Almost four years after the fire, she settled for $350,000, or $2.2 million in today’s dollars.
A Streetcar Named Desire Farkas Hall, 7:30 p.m. The Goat Exchange and Harvard Theatre, Dance, and Media present the acclaimed American drama entitled A Streetcar Named Desire. Directed by Mitch Polonsky ’19, the drama is being performed all weekend in Farkas Hall. Check it out! Apollo Night 2018 Lowell Lecture Hall, 7:30 p.m. Come see BSA’s largest talent showcase! There will be music, dancing, poetry, and more, and the winner will get a cash prize. Tickets are $5 in advance or $7 at the door, and are SEF eligible.
Kanye West Meets with President Trump Two individuals play chess by the Smith Campus Center. KAI R. MCNAMEE—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
DAILY BRIEFING Harvard’s Graduate School of Design will hire a new administrator focused on diversity and inclusion following a semeser of controversy surrounding alleged instances of racism and sexual misconduct at the school. The school is also implementing mandatory Title IX training for faculty and forming a student group focused on evaluating sexual harassment prevention programs. In other news, Colin Kaepernick and other activists received the W.E.B. DuBois medal, Harvard and Cambridge celebrated National Coming Out Day, and University President Lawrence S. Bacow is already planning ahead for the next recession.
Kanye West visited the White House yesterday to meet with President Trump. Kanye wore his “Make America Great Again” hat and called Trump his “brother.” The pair discussed a range of topics, including North Korea. Kanye also gave a tenminute speech about his personal and political beliefs, which was “from the soul.”
Mrs. Trump Claims World’s Most Bullied Melania Trump started an anti-bullying campaign, and she has since stated that she chose this particular cause because she is the “most bullied person in the world.” This statement was released in an interview while the First Lady was in Africa on her first solo trip. Since then, there has been a lot of online criticism of Mrs. Trump’s comments.
AROUND THE IVIES YALE Yale Daily News reported that the college suspended senior Saifullah Khan, a student who had been acquitted on four counts of sexual assault, on Sunday. The newspaper reported last week on new allegations of assault leveled against Khan, which preceded the emergency suspension. Khan filed an emergency suit against Yale Wednesday in the New Haven Superior Court to contest the suspension, which bars him from campus. According to court documents, the suspension is due to allegations that he behaved violently to Jon Andrews, a former associate of Khan’s who accused him of sexual assault earlier this year.
COLUMBIA Columbia sophomore Kirk Wu died Thursday at age 19, according to the Columbia Daily Spectator. Columbia College Dean James Valentini communicated the death to students via email. Wu was editor of the Columbia Economics Review and a member of the taekwondo club. Earlier this week, Columbia launched a mental health program designed to respond to a series of student suicides in the 2016-2017 academic year. The college will also be holding additional counseling services for students in the coming days.
DARTMOUTH Hand, foot, and mouth disease has affected at least 50 students at Dartmouth College in recent weeks, according to The Dartmouth. “[I had] a super sore throat,” said sophomore Sunbir Chawla, a student recovering from HFMD. “Eating food was definitely pretty hard.” Greek organizations at Dartmouth have also been affected — 10 cases at Alpha Chi Alpha prompted the president to temporarily shut down the chapter. Dartmouth campus health services have been encouraging additional sanitation practices to prevent the disease from spreading further.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY, EST. 1873
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CORRECTIONS The Harvard Crimson is committed to accuracy in its reporting. Factual errors are corrected promptly on this page. Readers with information about errors are asked to e-mail the managing editor at managingeditor@thecrimson.com.
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THE HARVARD CRIMSON | OCTOBER 12, 2018
DU BOIS FROM PAGE 1
CAKE FROM PAGE 1
Kapernick, Chapelle Given Medals Students Mark Coming Out Day
Other notable attendees included University President Lawrence S. Bacow, students from local high schools, the Harvard Men’s Basketball Team, Muhammad Ali’s family, and Jaylen Brown of the Boston Celtics. Kaepernick, famous for boycotting the national anthem at NFL games to protest police brutaliy — and for quarterbacking the 49ers to the Super Bowl in 2012 — was a much-anticipated speaker. The first standing ovation of the night kicked off as Kaepernick, the initial honoree invited onto the stage, entered the theater. A 10-minute laudatory introduction from West further hyped the crowd for Kaepernick. However, West ensured the awardees remained accessible to the packed audience. “Keep in mind, young folk, these are not glitzy celebrities, they are exemplars of excellence,” West said.
Kaepernick, for his part, erred on the side of saying more by stating less. In his softly-delivered acceptance speech, he drew attention to the everyday struggles of people across the country. Kaepernick recalled the story of a visit to a high school football locker room before a big game. “One of the young brothers says, ‘We don’t get to eat at home, so we’re gonna eat on this field,’” Kaepernick said. “People live with this every single day — and we expect them to thrive in situations where they’re just trying to survive.” Kaepernick’s remarks were prohibited from being videotaped or photographed due to ongoing litigation. Kaepernick is currently suing the NFL for conspiring to keep him off the field after his protests. Honoree Florence Ladd, an author and social critic, earned the most boisterous applause
with a direct call to action at the conclusion of her brief but direct speech. “A prominent theme in the works of W.E.B. Du Bois is protest,” Ladd said. “It’s clear that one of the themes in this election process was protest. A takeaway from this occasion must be ‘Protest! Protest! Protest!’” In spite of a delayed flight that caused him to miss the first half of the ceremony, the rhythmic, up-tempo speech by social justice activist Bryan Stevenson — a man Desmond Tutu once called “America’s Nelson Mandela” — also captivated the crowd, with murmurs of affirmation echoing throughout the auditorium. “If you’re not sure about how you can make a difference, get close to the people who are incarcerated, or marginalized, or excluded, or abused, or neglected,” Stevenson said. Throughout the afternoon,
moments of lightheartedness were juxtaposed with accounts of racial injustice in America. Glenn H. Hutchins ’77, the founder and philanthropist of the Hutchins Center, alternatingly joked with the basketball team and relayed a note from Obama about the ceremony. Chappelle offered occasional comedic relief with a surprised expression or a well-timed grin. Harvard has presented the medals annually since 2000 to individuals in recognition of their contributions to African American culture and the life of the mind. Businesswoman and philanthropist Pamela Joyner, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute president Shirley Ann Jackson, and businessman and philanthropist Kenneth I. Chenault also received this year’s award. Past winners include Oprah Winfrey, Maya Angelou, and Muhammad Ali.
GSD FROM PAGE 1
GSD Takes Steps to Improve Diversity “Shitty Architecture Men,” included accusations against at least 18 GSD affiliates. It was met with student protest at the school; last spring, student organizations collaborated on an installation in Gund Hall that consisted of banners demanding action against sexual misconduct. More than 35 female faculty members signed a statement in support of student activists. Pamela H. Baldwin, the Design School’s assistant dean for faculty affairs, wrote in an email that the school is facilitating ongoing dialogues between students, faculty, staff, and top administrators, which gave rise to the recent changes focused on diversity and inclusion. She added that school affiliates can expect more changes in the future. “The dialogue and actions
taking place at the GSD have been deeply collaborative, in-
While we have always been committed to fostering inclusing and belonging at our school, we need to keep reexaming our policies and resources and updating them as appropriate. Laura Snowdon GSD Dean of Students
volving people from all areas of the school,” Baldwin wrote.
The Dean’s Diversity Initiative, a standing committee tasked with advancing inclusion at the Design School, has a particularly “ambitious agenda this year,” Baldwin wrote. Snowdon wrote in an emailed statement that she was hopeful about the current momentum for change at the school. “While we have always been committed to fostering inclusion and belonging at our school, we need to keep reexamining our policies and resources and updating them as appropriate,” Snowdon wrote. “I am especially optimistic about our forthcoming Assistant Dean of Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging, an officer that will have influence across many GSD functions,” Snowdon added. Conversations at the Design
KAVANAUGH FROM PAGE 1
HLS Students, Faculty Reflect on Kavanaugh’s Confirmation University President Lawrence S. Bacow later said Kavanaugh chose to leave of his own accord. Administrators including Manning repeatedly refused to take a public stance on Kavanaugh. Manning’s New Haven counterpart, Dean of Yale Law School Heather K. Gerken, was comparatively outspoken. On Sept. 28, she joined the American Bar Association in calling for an investigation into the allegations against the nominee. Thursday’s forum at Harvard Law School centered around more than just Kavanaugh’s confirmation, Singh said. “I think that most of us were there to talk not about the confirmation but to talk about the issues it has raised for our community and our specific concerns about the ways that we are not all equal members of the Harvard Law community,” she said. Law School Dean of Students Marcia L. Sells told attendees that Manning could not attend the forum Thursday because he was “stranded at an airport,” according to Singh. Singh said attendees raised their concerns to Sells instead. “[Administrators] committed to making sure there is another event that Dean Manning
will be present at to discuss our specific concerns about the Harvard community,” Singh said. “I’m really heartened by that.” Asked for comment, Law School spokespeople pointed to Manning’s Monday email. In that message, the dean wrote that “additional programs will follow” the conversation Thursday. Attendee and third-year Law and Business School student Amber A. James ’11 said she is looking forward to future programming and hopes to see Manning there. She added Thursday’s forum was not all she had hoped it would be. “I didn’t think that there was anyone at the event who would have been satisfied if this was the only HLS community forum on this issue,” James said. In an emailed statement Thursday evening, Sells emphasized the ongoing nature of these conversations — which, she said, are aimed at Law School affiliates only. “The Dean has had many conversations with students over the past weeks and will have many more in the weeks to come,” Sells wrote. “The Discussion Circles was an HLS event only and never for the press. We really wanted all
parties to share as a community. It was for students, staff and faculty. Members of the HLS community did express their thoughts and concerns and we know there will be more discussions in the future.” When women began coming forward with allegations of sexual assault against Kavanaugh about three weeks ago, the Law School saw days of protest. Christine Blasey Ford — a Palo Alto-based psychology professor — was the first woman to speak up, telling the Washington Post that Kavanaugh tried to rape her at a party both attended while in high school. Ford repeated these allegations in vivid detail during a nationally televised hearing Sept. 27. A second woman, Deborah Ramirez, later told the New Yorker that Kavanaugh had pushed his penis in her face at a party both attended while freshmen at Yale College. Kavanaugh has repeatedly and strongly denied all of the allegations. The Senate confirmed Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court Saturday in a close 50-48 vote Saturday and the new justice began hearing oral arguments this week. aidan.ryan@thecrimson.com.
The latest on student life. The Crimson @crimsonflyby
School about cultivating inclusion, belogning, and respect coincide with animated debates over sexual assault and misconduct across Harvard and nationally. This past week, students from across the University filed Title IX complaints against Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh ahead of his confirmation to prevent him from returning to teach at the Law School. Kavanaugh will not return to teach at HLS, the school announced last week. Harvard is still investigating allegations of sexual harassment against former Government Professor Jorge I. Dominguez spanning decades. Dominguez retired from the University last spring in the wake of the controversy. ruth.zheng@thecrimson.com.
the resource guide, wrote in an email that he hopes the guide will help “Harvard will become an institution where LGBTQ+ students, staff, and faculty are more fully included.” “Some schools, like Harvard Medical School and the College, have dedicated staff who support LGBTQ+ students; other schools have no such positions,” he wrote. “While the College has a dedicated space for LGBTQ+ students, graduate students lack their own affinity space.” DiBella said the document released Thursday will serve as the basis for a more comprehensive resource sheet slated to be released in the spring, as well as a jumping-off point for further work. “This document is a way of reflecting to the community wherein the collaborations lie, where we aspire to further
One’s process of coming out can be continual, everchanging, and personal, and not everyone can afford to come out emotionally... spritually. Cahleb E. Derry ’20 BGLTQ Office Intern
partnerships in those collaborations, and also will drive folks who receive the one-pager to a broader, more longform list,” DiBella said. The collaboration between the two offices formed part of Harvard’s plethora of National Coming Out Day programming. Sheehan D. Scarborough ’07, who heads the BGLTQ Office, said the day’s events were meant to celebrate the coming out experience and to shed light on “the difficulty and the chal-
lenges that come with being visible.” “The BGLTQ office [wants] to create a space for students to share their experiences around outness and non-outness: how they navigate that here on campus, how they’ve done that before even arriving at Harvard, and what that can look like — self-acceptance and the courage it takes to arrive at that place,” he said. Scarborough’s office partnered with Harvard University Dining Services to place rainbow sheet cakes in campus dining halls at Thursday dinner.
The BGLTQ office [wants] to create a space for students to share their experiences. Sheenan D. Scarbourough ‘07 Head of BGLTQ Office
The BGLTQ Office also joined with the Office of Sexual Assault Prevention and Response to run a “Yoga for Restoration” class. The day’s programming culminated in a open mic event held Thursday evening in the Barker Center in partnership with spoken-word group Speak Out Loud. At the event, BGLTQ office interns Cahleb E. Derry ’20 and Natalie J. Gale ’21 said the holiday can often be challenging. “One’s process of coming out can be continual, ever-changing, and personal, and not everyone can afford to come out emotionally, physically, financially, and/or spiritually,” Derry said. “On National Coming Out Day we want to honor the many ways we may embrace and/or grapple with our BGLTQ identities.” shera.avi-yonah@thecrimson. com.
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THE HARVARD CRIMSON | OCTOBER 12, 2018
BACOW FROM PAGE 1
Bacow Preps for Next Downturn felt this urgent emergency was going on before your eyes, and you didn’t know if by the end of the next day the endowment would have fallen another 10 percent or 15 — when was it going to stop? Was there going to be no endowment left at all?” Faust said. Faust made some critical decisions during her first weeks on the job. She assembled the deans of all of Harvard’s schools to form a dean’s council, who helped her pick and
What are we going to do when we have a recession — not if — I guarantee you there will be a recession, I don’t know when it’s coming, but it’s important to think about it in advance. Lawrence S. Bacow University President
choose where to make cuts in the University’s budgets. Former Executive Vice President Ed C. Forst ’82 said in a May 2017 interview that the recession forced Harvard’s leader into “the corner of having to make choices.” Those choices included Faust’s decision to halt the construction of Harvard’s science and engineering complex in Allston, which is now set to open in the summer of 2020. In 2009, Faust wrote a letter to Harvard affiliates in which she said the decision was based on the “altered financial landscape of the University, and the wider world,” which “necessitates a shift away from rapid development in Allston.” Apart from suspending the Allston development, the University also reduced Harvard’s staffed food services, froze faculty salaries and hiring, and laid off and offered buyouts to hundreds of University employ-
ees. The recession also delayed Harvard’s highly-anticipated capital campaign — which had been set to kick off in 2006 or 2007 under former University President Lawrence H. Summers — by several years. The University has yet to fully regain its financial footing. In 2016, Harvard’s endowment lost almost $2 billion, dropping to $35.7 billion and marking its worst endowment returns since the nadir of the 2008 recession. The course of the University’s endowment has trended upward in recent years. It returned to its 2008 value in 2017, coming in at $37.1 billion. Last week, the University announced its most recent endowment returns; the endowment’s value now stands at $39.2 billion, marking a turnaround from former financial woes. These returns, however, still put Harvard in last place behind all seven of its Ivy League peers in terms of percentage growth. The delayed capital campaign took off in 2013 under Faust’s purview, closing out in September at $9.6 billion and smashing higher education fundraising records in the process. The campaign surpassed its original goal by more than $3 billion. But, as Bacow made clear, the University’s financial health is dependent on the fluctuations of the market — and with every boom ultimately comes a bust. ‘THOSE RAINY DAYS’ Though top leadership has changed hands, Bacow’s foresight regarding the whims of the market finds an echo throughout many of Harvard’s individual schools, whose deans said they are also planning for an impending downturn. Bridget Terry Long, the new dean of the Graduate School of Education, is also an economist by training. In an interview Thursday, she said it is “prudent” to think about “rainy
days” when it comes to financial planning. “There is the cyclical nature of the economy,” Long said. She referenced Wednesday’s stock market dip as evidence of current instability. She added that recessions typically occur around once a decade. Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Claudine Gay — another recently appointed University leader — said considering impending market fluctuations is crucial in financial planning for not only FAS, but the entire University. “In a context like the current one, where most economists are saying that it’s very likely there will be a downturn, potentially globally, not just the U.S., in the next five years, it’s impossible not to take that into account,” Gay said. During the financial crisis, FAS suffered a $77 million hit to its budget, and was also affected by the substandard endowment returns, which it relies on for about half of its budget. In order to match the buying power FAS had in 2008, Gay said the school’s own endowment would have to increase by $4 billion dollars. But FAS has made reforms in its fiscal planning since the Great Recession under the tenure of former FAS Dean Michael D. Smith, Gay and Bacow said. Bacow said Smith helped FAS look for “efficiencies in the budget” and that the recent capital campaign — which raised $3.2 billion for FAS — has given the school a boost. Gay said the 2008 crisis forced FAS to strengthen its budget strategy in ways that might not have occurred if not for the recession. She added that the school is “actually in a stronger position” due to the “greater discipline” in financial and academic planning. “Dean Smith did tremendous work over the last 11 years in terms of providing, bringing a level of financial discipline to the structure of the FAS and
really providing us with a really solid foundation that honestly didn’t exist pre-crisis,” Gay said. Richard P. Melnick, chief financial officer at Harvard Business School, wrote in an email that Bacow did not introduce “scenario planning” to HBS financial strategy, but that the new president has “underscored the importance” of such a practice. Melnick described his annual routine of asking various units of the school what they would do if their budgets were to be cut by five percent as part of the “downside scenario planning” strategy. In an interview last week, Kennedy School Dean Douglas W. Elmendorf said Bacow has emphasized the “importance of developing careful plans” with the mindset that economic downturns could happen unexpectedly. Elmendorf said even before Bacow became president, it has been common practice for every school, including HKS, to construct a multi-year financial plan. “When we do the financial plan at the Kennedy School, we’ve been doing not only the base case but also a downside case that could capture the effects of a future recession or a big decline in the stock market or some other adverse event,” Elmendorf said. Long said the University’s multi-year financial plans are part of being “good stewards of the institution.” “When you have surpluses and you can expand and do things responsibly, but you do have to think about those rainy days. And so for us, for any of our kinds of investments we have, we always have to think about what’s the potential benefit of these investments. Can we keep it sustainable?” Long said. “I generally think it’s just my upbringing, you know, you don’t spend money you don’t have.” kristine.guillaume@thecrimson.com.
Saloniki Arrives in Harvard Square By ISABEL M. KENDALL CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
Casual Greek restaurant chain Saloniki, co-founded by award-winning chef Jody Adams, opened its doors last Wednesday in the recently renovated Smith Campus Center. The opening event was announced on Eventbrite and offered customers free Greek sandwiches if they ordered through Saloniki’s app. According to Blaise Cohen, the chain’s general manager, the opening day at Harvard was “crazy.” Students were among the many visitors clamoring for free sandwiches with the app order. “The restaurant has absolutely delicious food and managed to feel authentic,” Heather E. Brown ’19, who was at Saloniki for the opening event, wrote in an email.
The restaurant has absolutely delicious food and managed to feel authentic. Heather E. Brown ’19 Student
“I give it an A!” Brown added. Saloniki is among several eateries that have recently moved into the Smith Campus Center since its re-opening in early September, including Blackbird Doughnuts, Pavement Coffeehouse, Bon Me, and Swissbäkers. Several parts of the center, including the lobby, underwent a two-year renovation to install new collaborative study areas, outdoor spaces, and student meeting rooms. Saloniki’s co-owners include Adams, Jonathan Mendez, and Eric Papachristos. Adams is no stranger to local foodies: the chef had opened Rialto, a longtime Harvard Square restaurant that closed in 2016. Her other ventures include the Bos-
ton restaurants TRADE and Porto, which she co-owns with fellow Saloniki owner Eric Papachristos.
Our other two locations are more assembly line style, similar to a Sweetgreen or a Chipotle. Blaise Cohen
Saloniki’s Harvard Square location is the brand’s third and latest installation. The chain also cooks up Greek flavors in Fenway and Central Square. Unlike the restaurant’s other two locations, however, the Smith Center Saloniki is a sitdown venue. “Our other two locations are more assembly line style, similar to a Sweetgreen or a Chipotle,” Cohen said. Customers eating at the Harvard Square store can take their food to-go or opt to eat there, Cohen added. According to Cohen, restaurant aims to become a go-to venue for Harvard students, faculty, and staff. Over the past week, it has already “seen a steady stream of students and faculty,” she said. “We’ve got some regulars coming in already, which is awesome.” To draw in students, Saloniki currently offers free french fries for customers with a college ID who order meals over five dollars. Cohen added that Saloniki’s bar scene has picked up over the past week. Saloniki is “the only restaurant in Boston with an all Greek wine list, and our beers on tap are all local beers,” Cohen said. “We also have some Greek bottled beers and curated Greek isabel.kendall@thecrimson. com.
Cambridge Mayor Holds Town Hall on BGLTQ Youth Rights By PATRICIA J. LIU and LEON K. YANG CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
Cambridge Mayor Marc C. McGovern held a town hall meeting Thursday evening to discuss steps the city can take to support BGLTQ youth. City councillors, Cambridge LGBTQ+ Commission researchers, and the mayor all spoke at the town hall. The goal of the meeting, though, was to hear from Cambridge residents themselves — and after the presentations, attendees were invited to participate in smaller discussion groups to suggest ways in which Cambridge could better serve its BGLTQ residents. Despite Cambridge becoming the first municipality in the country to grant same-sex marriage licenses in 2004, McGovern noted that progress is “built on a shaky foundation.” He referenced the confirmations of
Supreme Court Justices in recent years who want to overturn same-sex marriage and other protections, as well as a November ballot question that could repeal a Massachusetts transgender anti-discrimination law. “I am a heterosexual, white, cis-gender male,” McGovern added. “I have the quadruplets of privilege, so if I’m scared with how things stand, I can only imagine how folks whose rights are truly fragmented feel.” The Cambridge LGBTQ+ Commission was established in 2004 following a town hall meeting discussion. The commission is comprised of around 20 volunteers who live in Cambridge. One of the many things the commission highlights is the importance of inclusion for BGLTQ youth in extracurricular activities. John W. Gintell, who co-
From the Law School to Longwood,
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chairs the commission with Aren Stone, said he has been on the commission since its beginning and has witnessed a cultural shift around transgender rights. “I would say in 2004, most people had not even heard of transgender people, and now many transgender people have come out,” Gintell said. “There’s still a lot more to be done.” Earlier this year, the LGBTQ+ Commission published a report on youth inclusion in out-of-school organizations. According to the report, which was discussed at Thursday’s town hall, 41 percent of the 155 after-school staff members surveyed said there are lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth participants in their program. Fifty-three percent — the majority — said they were “unsure,” and 6 percent reported no BGLTQ youth in their program. In the report, 90 percent of
respondents said they could describe at least one strategy to help create a “welcoming and respectful environment” for BGLTQ youth and their families. The report encouraged outof-school organizations to always strive for an inclusive atmosphere. One of the report’s recommendations was to assume their programs have BGLTQ participants, even if nobody has explicitly disclosed their sexual orientation. This disclosure — also known as “coming out” — is solely the right of that person when they feel comfortable, the report said. The town hall event — by no coincidence — coincided with National Coming Out Day, which has been observed every Oct. 11 for the past 30 years. The Human Rights Campaign, a BGLTQ advocacy organization, highlighted the importance
of individuals’ decisions to be open about their sexualities and of building a safe environment for people to do so. Cambridge city officials are also working on initiatives that support BGLTQ residents of all ages. The City Council has “unanimously” passed resolutions expressing support for “Yes on 3” — a campaign urging Massachusetts residents to vote “yes” in the Nov. 2018 referendum in order to keep Massachusetts’s Transgender Anti-Discrimination Law in place, McGovern said. This will be the first time in decades that “taking away a group’s rights will be put to the vote,” McGovern said. Councillor E. Denise Simmons has been working on BGLTQ housing issues and Councillor Craig Kelley has worked on more inclusive BGLTQ policies in Cambridge Public Schools, according to
McGovern. “We’re trying to make sure we do things on different levels — some of the bigger issues like housing but also some of the more direct issues such as school policy and supporting the ballot question,” McGovern said. Simmons noted the importance of the town meetings as a manifestation of democracy, especially in light of current initiatives by the White House administration that deviate from Cambridge’s values as “a city of tolerance, of diversity, of inclusivity.” “History is for ours to recapture and for us to rewrite,” Simmons said in remarks during the town hall. “We have to dig ourselves from the margins and put us on the center, and it’s these opportunities, these town meetings that make it possible.” patricia.liu@thecrimson.com. leon.yang@thecrimson.com.
Report on Women, Africa Journalist Says By JAMES S. BIKALES and SYDNIE M. COBB CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Ofeibea Quist-Arcton, an award-winning Africa journalist, spoke about her career and female empowerment in Africa to a full-capacity crowd at the Radcliffe Institute’s Knafel Center Thursday. Quist-Arcton’s talk — entitled “(Why) Reporting the Voices of African Women and Girls Matters” — was the Institute’s annual Rama S. Mehta Lecture, a series highlighting issues faced by women in developing countries. Following the lecture, Marco Werman, host of Public Radio International’s daily radio show “The World,” moderated a discussion with Quist-Arcton. Quist-Arcton — who is currently an “all-purpose” Africa correspondent for NPR in Dakar, Senegal — focused a large part of her talk on her experiences covering kidnapping and sexual violence against women. She recently reported on
the reunion of school girls kidnapped from by Boko Haram in Nigeria with their families. “There’s an immense amount of bravery for girls to speak out, since it’s a taboo subject in many of these countries,” she said. Quist-Arcton said she believes it is important to approach these stories with compassion and empathy, and to not just focus on their journalistic relevance. Quist-Arcton, a Ghana native, joined the BBC as a reporter in 1985, and was then hired as the first roving North America correspondent for “The World” in 1995. She received a Peabody Award in 2014 for her coverage of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. The title of Quist-Arcton’s talk was meant to be “both a statement of fact and a call to action,” said Tomiko BrownNagin, newly-appointed Radcliffe Institute dean, in her remarks introducing the journalist.
“The voices of African women and girls matter deeply, and far too often they go unheard,” Brown-Nagin said in her opening remarks. Quist-Arcton said that as a journalist, reaching out to women sources can add valuable perspectives to a story. “Men are always eager to run up to the microphone to air their grievances, but you have to go to the back of the crowd or the compound, and that’s where you’ll find the women,” she said. “They too have a story to tell. It may well be a different story from the one that the young men rush to tell you.” Quist-Arcton added. “You must make the effort to seek it out.” Quist-Arcton also disputed the perception that the only stories coming out of the African continent are those of war and violence, emphasizing the diversity of her reporting on topics ranging from technology to “bespoke chocolate.” Bonny K. Lemma ’22 said she appreciated how personal Quist-Arcton’s accounts were.
“News and opinions are often done by third-parties, but to know that she has first-hand experience was really amazing to hear,” Lemma said. Local resident Tanya Hawley said she was drawn to the event because she is an avid listener of Quist-Arcton on the radio. Noting Quist-Arcton’s “candor” and “confidence,” Hawley said she hoped to meet the speaker following the event. One attendee, Sarah D. “Dixie” Brown ’73, said she related to the call to action that the speech was meant to invoke. “What happened to the abducted young women is appalling. [The lecture] was very inspiring, and grave,” Brown said. Quist-Arcton closed her speech by recounting her experience covering Winnie Mandela’s funeral earlier this year. “There’s something really special about witnessing history and reporting it, and something particularly special about reporting what women and girls have to say about it,” she said, to resounding audience applause.
THE HARVARD CRIMSON | OCTOBER 12, 2018
PAGE 6
EDITORIAL THE CRIMSON EDITORIAL BOARD
The UC Should Vote For Accountability, Not Against It
O
n Monday, the Undergraduate Council narrowly struck down a proposed amendment to its bylaws that some representatives argued would have decreased transparency. The amendment would have required two-thirds majority approval of the Council, and it would have made it easier for the council to vote by secret ballot on some proposals. While we are grateful that the measure failed, we remained concerned that it nearly passed and that it was even considered. We are stunned by the substantial support for this change to the UC’s bylaws. The motion failed by just one vote. Since UC parliamentary procedure requires a two-thirds majority for changes to its bylaws, over half of our UC representatives voted in favor of the measure. In essence, the majority of our student representatives voted to prevent us from knowing how they choose to represent us. Moreover, at least one representative of the UC indicated that their vote on the measure was at least in part motivated by the fear that their voting record will affect their future job prospects; we hope this line of thinking was not very widespread. That this justification played a part in the decision-making process on this proposal at all is deeply troubling — and telling.
As recent national conversations have demonstrated, many Americans perceive that students at elite universities often feel that they should not be held accountable for their actions at this stage of life.
While we expect these student representatives to understand the importance of transparency, this measure demonstrates that a majority of our representatives may be motivated by self-interest rather than a desire to serve our community. We urge the UC to reflect on how it can hold itself more accountable to voters, not less. This refusal to take responsibility for one’s own actions is disturbing. While Harvard undergraduates are young adults, they are still adults. As a result, we are all responsible for our actions here. Decisions made during our time as undergraduates should represent our character, and we would hope that all the choices we make — be they poor or courageous ones — with friends, in the classroom, in extracurriculars, and on the UC affect students’ futures.
SHIREEN YOUNUS — OTHER
In Defense of Ignorance
Harvard has long attracted aspiring public figures, politicians, celebrities, and prospective world-renowned professors. Thus, we have consistently spoken to the need for Harvard to educate its student body on not only on how to be great, but also how to be good. If UC members, or indeed any other student, hope to occupy high-profile roles in the future, then they should spend their undergraduate years doing more than racking up accolades and connections. They should spend these years learning to hold themselves accountable for their decisions. It is both ironic and alarming that the representatives who voted for such an anti-democratic measure might aspire to pursue careers in democratic government. While we expect these student representatives to understand the importance of transparency, this measure demonstrates that a majority of our representatives may be motivated by self-interest rather than a desire to serve our community. We urge the UC to reflect on how it can hold itself more accountable to voters, not less. This staff editorial 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.
Be a Crimson Cartoonist! The Crimson
The case for stepping back, closing your eyes, and pulling the plug.
E
very day, I spend hours working on a newspaper. And yet, I do not follow the news. (I promise, I am not exaggerating.) The last time I watched cable news, I was in an airport (without headphones). I don’t even remember the last time I voluntarily perused a national news site. Two weeks ago, when most of my peers were entranced by the Kavanaugh hearings, I was not. I watched exactly zero minutes of them. Every day, I calmly scroll past news stories blaring Trump’s name on my Facebook and Twitter feeds. I cannot name more than three people in the Trump administration (counting the president and the vice-president). Honestly, I barely know what’s going on in this country. And I’m fine with that. I wasn’t always like this. Freshman year, I was such a news junkie that my parents gave me Anderson Cooper’s then-recent autobiography, “The Rainbow Comes and Goes,” as a present on move-in day. I was addicted. For years, I regularly watched CNN, MSNBC, and even Fox News. I was subscribed to daily emails from the New York Times and the Washington Post. The Atlantic, USA Today, and HuffPost lined my bookmarks bar. Through the 2016 election season, I knew the breakdown of every primary race. During the school year, I checked Twitter in between classes and live streamed cable news on my laptop while doing my readings. But after the election, I unfollowed Trump. I stopped streaming AC360. I stopped clicking on any Trump-related headlines. And even today, I do not keep up with the president’s rants on Twitter. I do not watch SNL spoofs or late night comedy bits about the administration. In fact, the last time I saw or heard the president speak was on election night two years ago. For someone like me, this is a major confession. Here at Harvard, I spend most of my time outside of class at The Crimson or the Institute of Politics. I’m a government concentrator and have taken multiple classes on American politics and American democracy. I’m a citizen of this country, and its politics affect me, my family, and my friends. And yet, when it comes to political news, even my mother talks circles around me. Of course, I’m not completely out of the loop. My political sphere on campus makes that impossible, as does my conscience. When the news is gripping and relevant, I keep up. This summer, I watched with horror as the president’s administration tore children from their parents at the border. In the last few weeks, I followed the Kavanaugh news and hearings (obviously). But as often as I can, I choose ignorance. This is in part because I find most of the news cycle to be focused on the endless internal discord, vitriolic language, or extramarital affairs that make up the circus surrounding Donald Trump. The news is usually more focused on fantasizing about how Melania Trump is a secret member of “the resistance” than it is on discussing the U.S.-backed atrocities that are occurring in Yemen. And that’s just not worth my time.
But it’s also because I have found that staying in the loop exhausts me and ultimately takes away from my personal happiness and mental health. I know this is an extreme position. I understand that domestic politics are important and increasingly relevant. I understand that many will say that what I dismiss as a “circus” is unconstitutional behavior that skirts our democratic norms. I understand that many believe that staying informed is a civic duty, an act of accountability against this administration. Though I could argue against this, I will instead simply say that, for me,
I’m a government concentrator and have taken multiple classes on American politics and American democracy. I’m a citizen of this country, and its politics affect me, my family, and my friends. And yet, when it comes to political news, even my mother talks circles around me. choosing to close the flap of the tent and leave the circus has been life-changing in the best way. Free of the pressure to always know what is going on, I am present — less focused on refreshing my newsfeed and more aware of my surroundings. I’ve traded in political videos on Twitter for cooking videos on Facebook, and CNN roundtables for Netflix teen comedies. As I avoid the endless barrage of opeds debating when Trump will be impeached, I am more likely to click on a headline about something I know nothing about. As a result, I consume less domestic news and have actually become more aware about what’s going on in the rest of the world. The fact is that I live with the reality of a Trump presidency and a broken America. I wake up in the morning in a country in which abusers sit in the White House and on the Supreme Court, in which my existence as other is often up for debate. I know this. Drowning myself in the news in a futile attempt to stay informed does not help me. And often, instead of holding the president and his administration accountable, the news only seeks to amplify his behavior, until his presence is crashing over me again and again and again. And so now, I unplug. I choose ignorance, and I am happier for it. I choose to make time for my own self. I choose to spend my time on action rather than consumption, working in the hopes of effecting real change. By silencing Trump, I’ve allowed myself to make noise, to think and write and speak. I have created space for myself to grow and change and learn. And it is in this, in my ignorance and in my disinterest and in my happiness — in this, I have found my resistance. —Shireen Younus ’20, a Crimson Editorial Comp Director, is a Government concentrator living in Pforzheimer House. Her column appears on alternate Fridays.
@thecrimson
Unsettling Truths About Harvard’s Investments in Prisons By PAUL T. CLARKE, JARRETT M. DRAKE, and ANNEKE F. DUNBAR-GRONKE CONTRIBUTING OPINION WRITERS
S
ince 1983, there have been over 1,000 documented cases of American police or correctional officers killing civilians by using Tasers to subdue them. Not included in that figure, however, are people like Martini Smith, who, in 2009, survived being shocked while in a holding cell in Ohio, but miscarried her unborn child just five days later. Video footage released last year of Smith and others whom officers tased in custody prompted the U.N. special rapporteur on torture to declare that the sum of these incidents “constitutes a grave violation of human dignity” and may well qualify as torture. This declaration helps explain why Taser’s manufacturer, Axon Enterprise, Inc., has settled dozens of wrongful death lawsuits for untold sums of money. What remains unexplained, however, is why Harvard, the nation’s oldest and wealthiest institution of higher education, holds stock in Axon, through an iShares Core S&P SmallCap ETF fund. In fact, Harvard profits off of many such holdings within the prison-industrial complex. Some of these companies like the private prison operators CoreCivic and the GEO Group, to which Harvard is connected through a related Mid-Cap ETF fund, profit from owning immigrant jails that serve as sites of detention for the many children separated from their parents. Moreover, just days ago, it was revealed that conditions in GEO Group-run Adelanto immigration detention center had driven several people detained there to attempt suicide. Other companies, including the insurance giant Tokio Marine Holdings Inc., a key player in the $2 billion a year bail bond industry, make money off millions of people, like Kalief Browder, who are simply too poor to finance their freedom and turn to private bail bondsmen. Unable to afford the sum owed to bondsmen, Browder was incarcerated for three years at New York City’s Rikers Island jail, two years of which he spent in solitary confinement. His experience at Rikers drove Browder to commit suicide at his family’s home in the Bronx in 2015. The Harvard endowment pours $14 million into a Vanguard FTSE Developed Markets ETF fund that holds over 3 million shares of stock in Tokio Marine. Due to the fact that the University publicly discloses just $425 million — barely one percent — of its total endowment holdings, these examples likely represent only a small fraction of Harvard’s investments in prisons. During his installation address last Friday, University President Lawrence S. Bacow implored the audience to note that “the goodness of Harvard [...] lies
in the three essential values we represent: truth [...] excellence, and opportunity.” Yet the truth is that Harvard cannot claim to be excellent if it makes money from investments in companies that destroy the life opportunities for millions of people across the country, who are disproportionately black, brown, and poor. Bacow later in his address remarked that “there are both reassuring truths and unsettling truths, and great universities must embrace them both.” If Harvard is a great university, it must face the truth. By investing in corporations like Tokio Marine Holdings, GEO Group, Axon, and others, Harvard is complicit in the ongoing moral disaster that is the prison-industrial complex. Mutual fund managers pour hundreds of millions of dollars into the prison-industrial complex, and universities like Harvard pour millions of dollars into their funds. A growing coalition of students across the University’s many schools have formed the Harvard Prison Divestment Campaign to hold Harvard to its stated ideals. We are calling on Bacow and the Harvard Management Company CEO N. P. Narvekar to disclose and divest the full scope of our holdings in the prison-industrial complex but also to take meaningful steps to repair the harm that the University has already inflicted through its investment choices. We call on Bacow and Narvekar to re-invest the divested funds in local organizations, initiatives, and companies, led by people directly impacted by the prison-industrial complex. They should also create funded academic programs and projects that hire scholars and grassroots organizers to teach and research creative approaches to eliminate structural social harms in ways that do not rely on prisons and police. Harvard enriches and is enriched by a system that keeps 2.3 million souls in shackles and millions more under surveillance. The only truth more unsettling than that would be indifference to these facts, which would indict our own inhumanity and ignore our collective complicity with injustice. This is not an inevitable state of affairs. We can construct an endowment — and hopefully a society — without reliance on prisons and police. If our motto of “veritas” means anything, indeed we must. —Jarrett M. Drake is a second-year Ph.D. student in Anthropology in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Paul T. Clarke is a third-year Ph.D. student in African and African American Studies in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Anneke F. Dunbar-Gronke is a third-year student at Harvard Law School. The authors are members of the Harvard Prison Divestment Campaign, a collective that includes more than a dozen Harvard students from multiple schools.
ARTS
THE HARVARD CRIMSON | OCTOBER 12, 2018 | PAGE 7
CAMPUS
Peabody Museum Opens New Native American Poetry Playlist KAREN CHEN CONTRIBUTING WRITER
COURTESY OF PEABODY MUSEUM OF ARCHAEOLOGY & ETHNOLOGY, COPYRIGHT PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE.
As Cambridge celebrated Indigenous People’s Day earlier this week, the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology added a new piece to their first floor Native American galleries: the Native American Poets Playlist. The installation, which opened on Oct. 1, is an effort cosponsored by the Harvard University Native American Program and the Woodberry Poetry Room and a new idea that features the contemporary poetic voices of Native Americans with historic artifacts. The playlist consists of eight contemporary poems by indigenous poets drawn from the anthology “New Poets of Native Nations,” edited by Heid E. Erdrich. Museum visitors are encouraged to check out an audio device and listen to the poems, each read aloud by its respective poet. The playlist will be available at the museum until Nov. 30. Polly Hubbard, the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology Education Department Manager, created the concept of a poetry playlist for the museum visitor’s experience. She was first inspired to push the museum to celebrate Indigenous People’s Day in a contemporary way after reading a newspaper article about Cambridge officially celebrating Indigenous People’s Day rather than what was Columbus Day just over two years ago. Her initial idea was to create an exhibit, but she quickly realized it was not feasible for the timeframe, opting instead to refresh what was already in the museum. Hubbard noted how Native American history is oral history.
“It would make total sense to bring in this contemporary orality back to this space — and we have it in some little spaces in the more up to date exhibits — but we don’t have the emotional life through these poetic arts,” Hubbard said. The Peabody Museum first agreed to the idea in December 2017, and the project became an experiment. Hubbard said she began by looking through the poems from the Woodberry Poetry Room. Because she was searching for contemporary voices, Shelley Lowe, Executive Director of the Harvard University Native American Program, and Zoe Eddy of the Wendat/Huron peoples, a graduate student at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, recommended an anthology from which Hubbord eventually selected the poems. Lowe and Eddy also served on the poem selection committee. Throughout the compilation process, the selection committee received constant feedback from indigenous communities and additional support from museum staff. Eddy saw this playlist as a much-needed critical intervention in the museum world, which has historically overlooked minority perspectives. She noted the playlist speaks to the existence of art movements within contemporary native communities. “People assume we’re either relics of the past or that we’re static, inertia-filled beings of the present,” Eddy said.
The curators wanted to create an ebb and flow of emotion with the poems, which showcase a range of voices young and old. One poem in the playlist is in the Ojibwe language, followed by an English translation. Margaret Noodin, poet and Associate Professor of English and American Indian Studies at the University of WisconsinMilwaukee, said she had never presented poetry aurally in a museum before. “For me, the most important thing about the playlist is that our languages are alive and that we’re able to have voice,” she said. The artists and curators of the playlist hope that people begin to think more about the spaces they occupy, and that museum visitors that step inside will want to hear more. “The Native Indigenous voice on this continent can really help people feel anchored in place. Whether it’s part of your heritage or whether it’s not, to know this space differently is something people can benefit from,” Noodin said. The playlist acts not so much as a trial run but as proof that spoken poetry can have a role in museum spaces. By implementing the unconventional, the Peabody Museum has created an exhibition not only to be be seen but also understood, critiqued, and praised. 2019 marks the International Year of Indigenous Languages, and, by then, Hubbard hopes to develop another project based on the feedback from this playlist for the Peabody Museum.
BOOKS
Five Spooky Short Stories for October ANGELA F. HUI CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
Spice up your Halloween season with some spooky short fiction! 1. “Nemecia” by Kirstin Valdez Quade “Nemecia” is about a young girl and her creepy cousin Nemecia, who carries a dark secret. There are no overtly supernatural elements in this story, but it’s eerie as hell and flawlessly written. Don’t just take my word for it: This story won first place in Narrative Magazine’s Spring 2012 Story Contest and received the Narrative Prize in 2013. You can read the story online in Narrative Magazine or in Kirstin Valdez Quade’s 2015 short story collection “Night at the Fiestas,” which is one of my favorite books of all time. 2. “The Lady of the House of Love” by Angela Carter In this brilliant and beautiful story, Nosferatu’s daughter is reimagined as a Sleeping Beauty figure. Angela Carter’s style is stunning and distinctive; though some might consider her prose unnecessarily ornate, her luscious descriptions and turns of phrase are perfectly suited to the Gothic atmosphere of her stories. You can read the best version of “The Lady of the House of Love” in Angela Carter’s collection “The Bloody Chamber: And Other Stories,” but if you’re anxious to read the story right now, you can find an earlier version online in The Iowa Review. You can also head to YouTube to listen to “Vampirella,” the radio play that Angela Carter wrote and later adapted into “The Lady of the House of Love.” 3. “The Bloody Chamber” by Angela Carter If you’re going to read “The Lady of the House of Love,” you may as well buy “The Bloody Chamber: And Other Stories” so that you can also read the title story. “The Bloody Chamber” is a reimagining of the Bluebeard folktale, and it’s just as beautifully written as “The Lady of the House of Love.”
4. “The Husband Stitch” by Carmen Maria Machado I listened to everyone and their mother hype up Carmen Maria Machado’s short story collection “Her Body and Other Parties” before I finally sat down and read it, and I’m not going to lie: I was disappointed. There’s just a bit too much heavyhanded metafictional cleverness for my taste, and I really feel like stories written in list form (i.e., “Inventory” and “Especially Heinous”) are annoying to read and really just a way to avoid the usual work of storytelling. That being said, no list of spooky short stories would be complete without “The Husband Stitch,” the first and best story in Machado’s collection. A feminist retelling of “The Green Ribbon” (that story everyone reads as a kid about the girl whose green choker is the only thing keeping her head attached to her body), “The Husband Stitch” has about as much subtlety as a sledgehammer to the testicles. Personally, I was able to enjoy this story only after I was reminded of how terrible men can be, as the whole story is basically about the insidious ways all men, even — and perhaps especially — the ones you love, can cause you great pain. 5. “The Next World and the Next” by Alice Sola Kim This story is wacky. It’s about the nightmares of the cryogenically frozen… I think? Read it now on the Lenny Letter website and please tell me what you think is going on. No matter how you feel about science fiction (or Lena Dunham), you really have to hand it to Alice Sola Kim for creating such richly imagined worlds. Happy reading! Staff Writer Angela F. Hui can be reached at angela.hui@thecrimson.com.
SPORTS
WEEKEND EVENT
SCHEDULE
FRIDAY ______________________________________
SATURDAY ______________________________________
SUNDAY ______________________________________
Women’s Ice Hockey vs. McGill 6:00pm, Bright-Landry Hockey Center
Men’s Soccer at Brown 7:00pm, at Brown
Men’s Water Polo vs. Toronto 11:00am, Blodgett Pool
Football vs. Holy Cross 7:00pm, Harvard Stadium
Men’s and Women’s Basketball Crimson Madness, 7:00pm
Men’s Ice Hockey vs. No. 18 Wagner 3:30pm, Blodgett Pool
FOOTBALL
Harvard Prepares For Home Game With Holy Cross By JACK STOCKLESS CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
“ We just have to think about coming out a little better, doing a little better myself running the ball, making some people miss this week so [we can] put some more points on the board.” If it surprises you that the above statement came from the mouth of Aaron Shampklin, you’re not alone. The sophomore running back exploded for 191 yards on 27 carries and a touchdown against Cornell last weekend. The performance marked the most rushing yards for a member of the Crimson since Paul Stanton, Jr. ’16 put up 235 against Penn during the 2014 season. However, the difference between these two striking statistical outputs is that one came in a win, and the other occurred during a loss. Shampklin and the entirety of the Harvard football team are searching diligently for any and every way to improve following a 28-24 loss in which Cornell erased a 24-14 fourth-quarter deficit. “I think the biggest thing is, to be successful, to win these tough, close games, we need to play well in all phases,” coach Tim Murphy said. “The effort’s been good, but we need to play well in all phases to win football games.” Less than a week after losing in Ithaca, N.Y., the Crimson (22, 1-1 Ivy) is back home for a Friday night matchup against Holy Cross (1-5, 0-2 Patriot). This is the final game in the team’s non-conference schedule. Harvard and Holy Cross squared off recently. In 2016, the Crimson traveled to Worcester, Mass., where it lost, 27-17, and in the process snappinged a 16game road winning streak and
a 16-game non-conference winning streak. This is not the same Crusaders team, however. A new coaching staff, headed by Bob Chesney, and an entirely new system has Holy Cross reeling at the moment. Its most recent game culminated in a 28-0 shutout at New Hampshire and the team has broken the 20-point plateau just once. However, the lone time the Crusaders managed to score more than 20 points was a surprising 31-28 overtime win against reigning Ivy League champion and No. 1 in the Ivy League preseason poll Yale. Senior defensive tackle Richie Ryan warns that Holy Cross can put it together quickly. “We desperately need a win; they need a win too, so I think it’s going to be two great programs getting after it,” Ryan said. “They’re as dangerous as any other team we’ve played thus far.” Murphy categorizes this edition of Holy Cross football, a team with scholarship athletes, as similar to previous iterations: tough, physical, and defensively-focused. Based on Harvard’s recent play, this game may end up coming down to which defense comes out on top. Run defense and third-down conversion prevention have been the staples of a Crimson defensive unit that has had to do more than its fair share, in some respects. Last week, Harvard held the Big Red to just 4.4 yards per carry, and the unit is conceding just 76.3 rushing yards per game. Additionally, the defense leads the Ivy League in third and fourth-down conversion defense. Last week, Cornell converted just one of twelve conversion tries on third or fourth down.
HANDS UP Sophomore linebacker Jordan Hill and senior defensive back Wesley Ogsbury celebrate a big play. TIMOTHY R. O’MEARA—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
“It’s the first time in my career as a head coach — 32 years at three different schools — where we rushed for over 300 yards (not including sacks), didn’t have a single turnover, and only allowed one thirddown conversion all day, and lost the game,” Murphy said. “It’s a statistical anomaly, but that’s what happened.” Ryan attributes this defensive success to his companions . “As a member of the d-line, I’m going to brag,” Ryan said. “I think our d-line is really good.
We got Alex White back last week against Cornell, Stone Hart [is a] great defensive tackle, Kelvin [Apari], John Pirrmann, just a great defensive line. And our linebackers — Jordan Hill, Cam Kline, Anthony Camargo’s back — they fit the gaps faster than [any] I’ve ever played with before.” Discipline on both sides of the ball is also playing a part in keeping the team in games. So far this season, the Crimson has limited penalties (22) and penalty yards (149).
At least part of Harvard’s struggles over the past two weeks can be attributed to the failure of its quarterbacks to sync up with receivers. For the first time since the Penn game last year, the Crimson will have a new starter at quarterback, as senior Tom Stewart gets the nod in Friday’s game. Against Cornell, Stewart and sophomore Jake Smith combined to complete 10 of 34 passes for only 137 yards, though neither tossed an interception. Though non-conference
games like this one do not count toward the team’s chances of winning the Ivy League title, don’t tell that to the players. “It’s about this week,” said Ryan when asked if the team was looking forward to the rest of its Ancient Eight slate. “I don’t care if they cancel our season, it’s about this week. It doesn’t matter who we play next week, it’s about beating Holy Cross and putting our name back on the front pages.” jack.stockless@thecrimson.com
MEN’S SOCCER
Crimson Freshmen Make Early Impression On Team By CONNOR DOWD CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Freshmen Alfred Perez and Nico Garcia-Morillo grew up playing youth soccer in the same region of South Florida. They met in middle school, and played both with and against each other at various times throughout high school. Each has had an illustrious career up to this point at every stage of the game, and each has even represented the United States national team at the youth level. Now, after so many years spent in the same soccer-related circles, Perez and Garcia-Morillo play to-
gether at Harvard and look poised to continue their success at the college level. It hasn’t taken long for Alfred and Nico to make an impact on behalf of their new team. The two have appeared in a combined 17 games for the Crimson so far this season—Perez has tallied three goals, while Garcia-Perez has chipped in with a goal and two assists. Statistics aside, the freshmen have made quite the impression on their more experienced teammates as well. Senior captain Sam Brown mentioned how impressed he was by the level of skill that the
two freshmen brought to the team this season. “What stuck out to me when they first came here for preseason was their technical ability,” Brown said. “Alfred’s a guy who can score from anywhere. Nico’s more of a guy who can create his own shot, and who’s good at beating guys one on one.” Despite the apparent abundance of individual talent on the team, Perez and Garcia-Morillo put the success of the team above all else. When asked, for instance, whether his first career goal or his game-winner against Yale meant more to him,
Alfred did not hesitate to answer. “Definitely the one against Yale,” he said. “You know, it’s a big rivalry… you always hear about Harvard - Yale, and how it’s really like a Real Madrid Barcelona type thing.” This team-first attitude comes through in the goals that the two have set for themselves, too. They’re not interested in individual accolades; they both agreed that winning the Ivy League is their first priority. With regard to their relationship with their teammates, Garcia-Morillo put it simply: “We really have a great group of
FRESHMEN CONNECTION Freshman forward Alfred Perez celebrates with fellow freshman Alex Debayo-Doherty. HENRY ZHU—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
guys.” Alfred and Nico have been able to acclimate so well to the new environment of college soccer because their unique experiences with the sport in the past have prepared them well. Interestingly enough, Perez’s father played for the Houston Astros in his younger years, and the impact that his career made on his son was a positive one. “My dad, being a professional, always taught me to be professional,” Perez said. Garcia-Morillo also learned first hand about the demands of playing sports at their highest level when he played for two years in the Atletico Madrid youth academy. He was quick to emphasize the more intense nature of the game while playing overseas. “Soccer is all they think about,” explained the Key, Biscayne, Fla., native regarding his experience with the European game. “There’s no room for slacking… it’s a more professional environment.” The two also mentioned their time spent playing for the United States youth national teams as a source of confidence and pride. Alfred described how it felt to represent his country in the context of his lifelong love for soccer: “It’s just something you dream about as a kid,” Perez said. The transition to academic and social life at Harvard has also been fairly smooth so far for these two freshmen. Garcia-Morillo, a resident of Wigglesworth, has enjoyed meeting interesting people from all over the place in college, and he praised the school’s general culture. “Everybody has a different story,” Nico said. “Everybody here is extremely ambitious, and everybody is out here to help each other too.” Furthermore, Harvard has given them a great chance to
pursue their interests beyond soccer. “I’m interested in, in the future, maybe becoming a lawyer, attending law school, and taking after my father,” said Perez, who lives in Matthews. “I’m majoring in economics most likely,” mentioned Garcia-Morillo, noting that he’s also comping the Harvard Investment Association to learn more about finance. In their short time here at Harvard, Alfred and Nico both already feel that they’ve learned a lot from their teammates and coaches and that they’ve made significant improvements as players. “I’m way more fit than I’ve ever been,” Perez stated, mentioning how the physical demands of college soccer have forced him to work harder than ever. Garcia-Morillo agreed that the biggest adjustments have come in the physical aspects of the game. “It’s all basically been adapting to this new physical gameplay,” he said. “There are more aerial duels, and there’s a lot more running.” Although Perez and Garcia-Morillo find themselves focused primarily on the success of their team this year and in the future, senior captain Sam Brown offered some important advice for them to heed along the way. “Enjoy every moment,” Brown advised. “It goes by super fast… Enjoy all the little stuff.” For Perez and Garcia-Morillo, whose chemistry with their teammates and with each other is immediately evident on and off the pitch, finding a way to have fun along the way to those coveted Ivy League titles should not prove difficult. The future of these two freshmen, and of the Harvard soccer program which they will help to lead, appears bright.
