Emily Vides, OFA Communications Coordinator

Source of Inspiration: I’m telling people about some really interesting things that are happening in the arts… and all these students that are doing amazing things. And that’s great, just seeing the wealth of imagination and creativity.Meaningful Works of Art: I have two kids, and I take them to the Harvard Art Museums and we sketch because otherwise they’ll run around like crazy people. They don’t know that I can’t draw, and they don’t care…. I’m forced to do it because I can’t tell them no, because if I tell them no then they can be like, “Well, I don’t want to do this either, because I can’t draw either.” So I have to get over the fact that I don’t know how to draw and just do it.

I listen to The Band a lot…. Crazy hippies, right. Through them, I’ve learned so much about rock and roll and the history of rock and roll and… how [it] was formed in the South…. Bob Dylan just won the Nobel Prize, and I love that he doesn’t call them back; it’s hilarious, very Bob Dylan. So I’ve been listening to the stuff that he did with The Band because they were his backing band when he went electric. I’m really drawn to things that I can revisit at different parts in my life and see in completely different ways.

Emily Miller, Title IX Coordinator

Source of inspiration: Every major civil rights social movement is in some way a source of inspiration…. So much change can come from a movement, a person, an effort, just an idea born out of a single conversation.

A meaningful work of art: Anything by Audre Lorde.

Invisible Hands

When the single-gender policy came out last semester, the dining halls buzzed with robust debate. The topic loomed so large that it even spawned imaginary scenarios about the policy’s few visible craftsmen. Friends assigned motivations to administrators and speculations of political maneuvering ran rampant, and I began to feel that we were living under the dystopic rule of villains like those in “House of Cards.” As a large, bureaucratic, faceless entity, the administration is easy to demonize. But what happens when we assume best intentions? In the coming weeks, this column will use personal portraits to introduce some of the not-so-visible administrators who work to form our community.