Did Summers Notice?

Last week, in a matter of seconds, Clay H. Kaminsky ’05 slipped from relative anonymity to campus-wide celebrity. Literally.

Kaminsky was taking a stroll near the Design School last Tuesday when he passed University President Lawrence H. Summers and some other administration big-wigs. Summers and his cronies, on their way to Mass. Hall for that day’s high-profile faculty meeting in Lowell Lecture Hall, probably had a lot on their mind as they waited to cross the street. Kaminsky, heading toward them, was probably not one of these concerns. When he took an unexpected spill, slipping on a patch of ice, it took the administration members a few seconds to catch on—but it took Crimson photographer Joseph P. Abel ’07 less time to immortalize the fall, creating the image that ran on the back cover of this magazine last week.

Kaminsky’s clumsiness may have been spread campus-wide, but his identity was unknown until he e-mailed FM to ask for a digital copy of the picture. FM agreed to give it up—but only in exchange for the story behind the photo.

While Kaminsky says Summers was oblivious to the stricken senior, Abel’s flip-book style series of photos shows that Summers did turn his head to look at Kaminsky. And University Provost Stephen E. Hyman and several others of the powers-that-be did ask if the hapless senior was ok. “I was fine,” he promises.

Kaminsky had no idea that a photographer had captured the event until FM appeared in the door of the Currier Ten-Man—a door which is now plastered with the picture along with the caption “The Rise and Fall of Clay Hubbard Kaminsky,” an extra touch from his roommates.

“There’s a theory that he was actually break dancing,” roommate Tor K. Krever ’05, who is also a Crimson editor, suggests to Kaminsky’s quick denial.

“Actually,” he says, “Summers pushed me.”

But that, he adds, is a joke. After all, Kaminsky can sympathize with Summers’ recent media roasting.

“Everyone,” he says, “slips up now and again.”