News Across Harvard

Symposium On Tocqueville, Religion, and Civil Society

A public symposium on "The Democratic Soul: Tocqueville, Religion, and Civil Society" will be held Tuesday, Oct. 28, at 8 p.m., sponsored by the Center for the Study of Values in Public Life at the Divinity School. Participants will include six distinguished Harvard professors: Diana Eck, professor of comparative religion and Indian studies; David Hall, professor of American religious history; Bryan Hehir, professor of the practice in religion and society; Michael Sandel, professor of government; Ronald Thiemann, Dean of the Divinity School and John Lord O'Brian Professor of Divinity; and Cornel West, professor of the philosophy of religion and of Afro-American studies. The event will be held in the Sperry Room at Andover Hall, 45 Francis Ave., Cambridge. For more information, please call 496-3586.

RADCLIFFE

Women's Labor Issues are Focus of Rothschild Lecture

Karen Nussbaum, director of the newly created Working Women's Department at the AFL-CIO, will deliver the seventh Rothschild Lecture, "Women: The Future of Labor," at Radcliffe College on Tuesday, Oct. 28, at 8 p.m. Nussbaum came to the AFL-CIO from the U.S. Department of Labor, where she served as director of the Women's Bureau, the highest seat in the federal government devoted to women's issues. President Clinton has called her "uniquely qualified" to serve as chief advocate for the nation's 60 million working women.

Nussbaum is also well-known in metropolitan Boston for her work in creating 9to5, an organization that advocates for the rights of women clerical workers. Started in the early 1970s by Nussbaum and a fellow secretary at the Graduate School of Education, 9to5 has won major legal victories and grown into a national organization.

The Rothschild Lectureship was established at the Schlesinger Library by alumna and former trustee Maurine Pupkin Rothschild '40 and her husband, Robert F. Rothschild '39, to provide a series of annual lectures by distinguished women in history, library science, women's studies, and related fields. This year's lecture will be held in the Cronkhite Graduate Center, 6 Ash St., Cambridge.

Murray Research Center Hosts Lectures on Biology and Gender Differences

Some studies suggest that gender differences are "hardwired," biologically determined by evolutionary adaptation; others argue that they are a direct result of socialization. Gender differences are being explored during this fall's Brown-Bag Lunch Series, held by the Murray Research Center at Radcliffe Yard, 10 Garden St. Experts from the fields of anthropology, biology, psychology and medicine are holding weekly talks on Tuesdays at noon.

The upcoming lectures are as follows: "Why Genes Are Poor Predictors of Behavior," on Oct. 28, by Ruth Hubbard, professor of biology emeritus; "When Is a Difference a Gender Difference?," on Nov. 4, by Rosalind C. Barnett, senior Murray Scholar in residence; "Biological Foundations of Emotional and Cognitive Development," on Nov. 18, by Kurt Fischer, professor of education in human development and psychology at the Graduate School of Education; "How Sexually Dimorphic Are We?," on Dec. 2, by Anne Fausto-Sterling, Brown University Professor of Medical Science and Women's Studies; and "Gender, Dominance, and Cardiovascular Responses During Interpersonal Stress," on Dec. 9, by Tamara Newton, clinical research psychologist at the Women's Health Science Division of the Boston Veterans' Administration Medical Center.

The Brown Bag lectures are a series of public informal talks that address current topics in social science and contribute to greater discussion of biology and developmental research. They are sponsored by the Henry A. Murray Research Center, a national repository for social science data on human development and social change which emphasizes the changing life experiences of American women. For more information, call the Murray Research Center at 495-8140, send e-mail to mrc@radcliffe.edu, or check the Web page at http://www.radcliffe.edu/murray.

NATIVE AMERICAN PROGRAM

'Un'-observance of Columbus Day takes place

On Monday, Oct. 13, Native American students from Harvard held a candlelight reading in front of the John Harvard Statue in un-observance of Columbus Day. The gathering was organized to raise awareness of the consequences of Christopher Columbus' arrival on the indigenous people of the Americas. Approximately 80 people attended the event.

GRADUATE SCHOOL OF DESIGN

Starck receives GSD Design Award

On Wednesday, Oct. 15, Philippe Starck, the renowned designer, received the first Harvard Excellence in Design Award. The ceremony took place at the Graduate School of Design's Piper Auditorium and simultaneously announced the establishment of the school's Design Arts Initiative. Dean Peter Rowe made the opening remarks, highlighting the GSD's new emphasis on interior design.

"For some time now several of us here at Harvard have become increasingly aware of gaps or missed opportunities in our educational offerings, intellectual understanding, and even historical appreciation of interior design, the decorative arts, and industrial design," said Rowe. "In order to both remedy shortcomings and address these opportunities, we have proposed and begun to implement what we are calling the Design Arts Initiative here at the GSD. . . . We hope to constructively diversify the design and learning environment by making much stronger connections with allied design disciplines, for the benefit in the end, we think, of architecture itself."

The Design Arts Initiative will take effect through workshops, colloquia, lectures, exhibitions, and ultimately, some new coursework added to the present curriculum. It will try to prepare architecture graduates for a professional work environment that is increasingly concerned with the improvement of existing buildings and interior spaces.

To complement the start of the Design Arts Initiative and to honor exemplary design, the ceremony presented Philippe Starck with the Harvard Excellence in Design Award. Starck was recognized for a lifetime of work in architecture as well as product, industrial, and interior design. His first important commission, in 1982, was to design the private bedroom of François Mitterrand. Since then, Starck has produced groundbreaking interior designs for cafes, restaurants, and hotels in Paris, New York, and Tokyo. He has also designed various buildings, particularly in Japan, and he has boldly interpreted furniture, domestic appliances, and common objects, putting his mark on everything from chairs to shoes, colanders to buildings, and motorcycles to flower vases.

Professor Jorge Silvetti of the GSD introduced Starck's work, emphasizing that it is still unfinished and energetic, always "evolving, struggling, and redefining its own trajectory." For this reason, and for its excellence and breadth, Starck's work was selected for the 1997 award.

The GSD commissioned a reproduction of a silver pitcher at the Fogg Art Museum for the award.

The pitcher, in Greek urn tradition, was presented to the University by Sarah Wyman Whitman in 1892. Whitman was a famous pioneer in the field of design and a tireless supporter of Radcliffe College, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, and the Boston Society for Arts and Crafts. Her silver pitcher, an object of refined design, is used by the University on public occasions.