Jabrai Jordan Copney, who was convicted of the murder of Cambridge resident Justin D. C. D. Cosby in criminal court last year, lived with his girlfriend, a Harvard student, for most of the school year before the murder in May 2009.

B. Denise Cosby, the murder victim’s mother, filed a wrongful death suit last Friday against the University, Lowell Co-House Masters Dorothy A. Austin and Diana L. Eck, and chemistry and chemical biology lecturer Ryan M. Spoering, who was resident dean of Lowell at the time of the shooting.

The complaint alleges that the three Lowell House officials either “knowingly allowed Copney, a nonstudent, to live in the Lowell House for an extended period of time, in contravention of Harvard’s rules, and allowed him to have unfettered access to the House and the rest of Harvard’s campus,” or “negligently failed to detect Copney’s continuing, unauthorized presence.”

As a result of the University’s negligence, the complaint says, Copney was able to run “a criminal enterprise”—a pattern of holding Ivy League drug dealers at gunpoint for their marijuana.

Copney, who is originally from New York, had been living for most of the academic year with his girlfriend Brittany J. Smith, then a Harvard senior, in her Lowell House room when the Kirkland shooting occurred.

According to testimony in Copney’s murder trial last year, Copney and two other men, who had come from New York to conduct a drug robbery with him, invited Cosby, who sold marijuana to Harvard students, into the basement of Kirkland’s J-entryway with the intent of stealing marijuana from him at gunpoint. When Cosby refused to hand over the drugs, Copney shot him, prosecutors and witnesses said.

Earlier in the year, Copney and one of the two associates held up two other drug dealers—Yale students whom they had met at a party in Kirkland House during Harvard-Yale weekend—in an incident that was termed a “blueprint” for Cosby’s killing.

Copney was sentenced to life in prison for Cosby’s murder in April 2011.

Copney’s two associates, Jason F. Aquino and Blayn Jiggetts, both pleaded guilty to manslaughter charges and accepted shorter prison terms.

In September, Smith pleaded guilty to five charges connected to her role in hiding the murder weapon after the fact and protecting Copney. She was sentenced to three years in prison.

University spokesperson Kevin Galvin wrote in an emailed statement that the University will fight the suit.

“We recognize that the Cosby family has suffered a heart-rending loss, but there is no basis in law or fact to hold the University accountable for Justin Cosby’s death,” Galvin wrote. “He entered Harvard property that day for the sole purpose of selling a large quantity of marijuana to people unaffiliated with the University, and one of them shot him. We will vigorously defend against this lawsuit.”

In a phone interview with The Crimson, Denise Cosby’s lawyers Isaac H. Peres and Dennis A. Benzan said that Denise Cosby had waited for the criminal trials to conclude and for more information about the murder to be revealed before suing the University.

“She felt that the time was right,” Benzan said. [The criminal proceedings have] taken a tremendous toll on her, but she’s been able to regroup over the last few months and move forward with this suit.”

Denise Cosby said in September that her first reaction to Smith’s sentencing was “thank you, Jesus, this is all over with.”

The Harvard College Handbook for Students, which is cited in the complaint, states that “students who wish to have guests who are not Harvard students for more than two nights must first also obtain permission of the House Master or Dean of Freshmen. The hosts of repeated overnight guests who are not Harvard students must make their guests’ presence known to the Building Manager and security personnel due to safety considerations.”

Peres said that this language makes Harvard liable for Copney’s unpenalized presence in Lowell House.

“The rules recognize that that’s a dangerous thing, to have a non-Harvard student living there,” Peres said. “Someone looked the other way and they knew about it, or they were just lax and allowed this situation to occur.”

According to documents filed in October 2010 in Smith’s case, Lowell tutors did approach her about the smell of marijuana from her room. After that, Copney, who smoked $100 worth of the drug a day, according to court documents, moved his daily drug use to Kirkland.

Peres said that Denise Cosby chose to sue Eck, Austin, and Spoering because they were “the ones that are closest to the situation.”

“They’re supposed to enforce the rules, and obviously someone did not enforce the rules as to non-Harvard students living in the dorm,” Peres said.

Benzan added, “There is clearly a drug culture on campus.... Harvard University should take more responsibility.”

The University has twenty business days to respond to the complaint, at which point the discovery phase of the suit could begin.

If a jury in a potential trial delivers a verdict in Denise Cosby’s favor, the University and the three Lowell officials could face monetary damages.

Eck declined to comment, and Austin and Spoering did not respond to an emailed request for comment.

—Staff writer Rebecca D. Robbins can be reached at rrobbins@college.harvard.edu.

Victoria L. Migdal ’12 and extension school student Nicole A. Unis were commissioned into the Army, Evan C. Roth ’12 was commissioned into the Navy, and Isaiah T. Peterson ’12 was commissioned into the Air Force.

“It’s something I’ve looked forward to since freshman year,” Migdal said as family members and friends gathered around her after the ceremony. “It feels really good to finally be at this point.”

After completing their oath of office and receiving their first salute from a senior officer, the new officers handed a traditional silver dollar to the senior officer.

Harvard recognized Naval ROTC in March 2011, and then recognized the Army’s ROTC this past March in an ongoing process to reinstate the ROTC on campus after a 40-year ban.

Students who complete the ROTC program are commissioned as officers in the armed forces. During the ceremony, University President Drew G. Faust, whose family has a long history of military service, reiterated the University’s renewed commitment to the armed forces.

“We must ensure that Harvard students understand military service as a choice to consider and honor even if, and perhaps especially if, they pursue other paths,” Faust said. “And we hope that students from Harvard will dedicate themselves to military service in increasing numbers using their remarkable talents to play a significant part in the responsibility and the privilege of defending our nation.”

Secretary of the Navy Ray E. Mabus, who delivered the keynote address, lauded the graduates for their dedication and diverse skill set. “We have the full range of our military ability, sitting on stage right here,” Mabus said.

At last year’s ceremony, three Harvard College seniors were commissioned into the armed forces.

Migdal said she was pleased to be commissioned in the first ceremony after the Army formally returned to campus. “I’ve worked with my cadre with since freshman year to get it recognized, so it’s definitely nice to see it back on campus,” Migdal said.

Peterson, who said he would like to see the Air Force formally recognized on campus, echoed Migdal’s sentiment.

“I’m really glad to be part of this class because President Faust has reached out to us so much and we’ve made so much process with ROTC the last four years,” Peterson said. “I really like how the relationship between Harvard and the military is improving.”

—Staff writer Rebecca D. Robbins can be reached at rrobbins@college.harvard.edu.

The introduction of the concentration follows the creation of a secondary field on the same topic in May 2011 and is accompanied by a new joint concentration between the history and NELC departments.

“We’re expanding in the world of Islamic studies,” said Dean of Undergraduate Education Jay M. Harris, a Jewish studies professor. “What part of the world is more interesting, more volatile than the modern Middle East?”

The modern Middle Eastern studies concentration, which allows study of the region since the 1800s, will serve as the fourth track within NELC, adding to existing offerings of Middle East in antiquity, Jewish studies, and Islamic studies.

A new course, Modern Middle East 100, has been created as a gateway course for all students considering the concentration.

The curriculum for the new area will pool new and existing courses.

“Basically what we are doing is that we are restructuring the undergraduate program,” said NELC department chair Ali S. Asani ’77. “It’s a big change in the direction of the department.”

Though concentrators will be required to take a sophomore tutorial and complete two years of study in a Middle Eastern language, the track boasts “a great deal of flexibility,” Asani said.

“People don’t have to restrict themselves to what NELC offers,” he said, adding that concentrators can select classes in related departments in order to shape their curricula. “NELC will be the home base.”

In addition, NELC has also partnered with the history department to host a pre-approved joint concentration that combines the study of the Near Eastern languages and literatures with the study of Near Eastern and Middle Eastern history.

According to history professor Ann M. Blair, the joint concentration is modeled on a similar partnership between history and East Asian languages and civilizations, which has been “considered a good success by the students and faculty.”

Some students interested in the Middle East praised the creation of the new concentration option.

“In essence, that was what my concentration would have been,” Renee C. Motley ’14 said, adding that she applied to Harvard with the intention of studying the modern Middle East. She is currently concentrating in economics and pursuing a secondary in the modern Middle East.

“I think it should encourage more students to concentrate in NELC,” Motley said,

—Staff writer Nikita Kansra can be reached at nkansra01@college.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Sabrina A. Mohamed can be reached at smohamed@college.harvard.edu.

Looking back further to the start of the year—the fall semester—one issue looms inevitably large, both for the United States and for today’s generation of young people. This was, of course, the anniversary marking one decade since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

With the events of September 11 now more than a decade behind us, it seems at times as if the wound has scarcely healed. The event itself was a tragedy beyond words, but in retrospect, perhaps it was also a portent of things to come. Indeed, in the decade since September 11, the United States has stumbled from one frustrating war to another and seen its once-robust economy nearly brought to its knees, bringing pain and suffering to millions across the country.

In many ways, the post-9/11 world has also separated the decade-long post-Soviet honeymoon from a far more fraught and challenging time for the United States. The days of unthreatened American hegemony had come to an end. Before the end of this decade, the Chinese economy will very likely become the world’s largest. For all the political rhetoric, there is a very real fear that America’s education system is falling behind; that American workers are no longer the world’s best; that American exceptionalism is merely an illusion; that America will never again regain the place in the world it once occupied.

The Class of 2012 leaves the rather protective sphere of Harvard for this uncertain world. Often, our time at Harvard leaves us in a state of virtual insularity, blinding us to the uncertainty of the outside world. Nevertheless our lives after September 11 have been affected by many consequences, tangible and intangible, that have modified our activities and even changed the way we view our liberties. We are reminded of this occasionally: We have grown familiar with the Department of Homeland Security as we submit to scrutiny at Logan Airport. Likewise, the Patriot Act has permitted an unprecedented level of government surveillance. Yet as citizens, we would do well not to fall into complacence and to guard our civil liberties jealously, as rights rather than privileges.

On another level, pernicious scars of xenophobia and intolerance are also a legacy of September 11. These attitudes are inevitable reactions to a terrorist attack executed by Islamic extremists. However, as the recent popularity of the Tea Party and its inflammatory rhetoric shows, they threaten to take hold in the wider national psyche. This is something we must continue to be wary of.

From a more global perspective, the generation of Harvard seniors that graduates this week represents the first college class to have spent more time in the shadow of September 11 than outside of it. They have come of age in an era marked not by American power, but by its limitations; they have witnessed the horror of Abu Ghraib, the disappointment of Guantanamo, and the endless misery in Afghanistan. They take this knowledge with them into the world, and they must choose what to do with it. Some may cynically choose to view our times as reflective of the shortcomings of human nature. Yet some—and, let us hope, most—will view the shortcomings of these days as a call to action for a better, more humane future.

Thankfully, there are already signs that point to such a future. Osama bin Laden’s death last year, at the hands of Navy SEALs, gave the nation an opportunity to lay a ghost to rest. As the spontaneous celebrations that took place in Harvard Yard, outside the White House, and across the country demonstrated, the wound left in the American psyche by 9/11 had far from healed. It was notable that many of those who turned out were young people, in keeping with the exceptional influence of 9/11 on our generation.

Hopefully, as we argued at the time, bin Laden’s death—now more than a year passed—provides an opportunity for much-needed renewal and a chance to move on from 9/11. From his lonely grave somewhere at sea, he no longer haunts our collective consciousness. His absence has been complimented by a new presence in the New York skyline—that of the new World Trade Center, which just last month became the tallest building in the city. Its presence will not erase the memory of the Twin Towers that came before it, but Daniel Libeskind’s creation has filled a gaping physical hole in the city’s heart and will continue to impress as it is completed. With time, perhaps the gash in the nation’s soul will also come to heal.

As the reconstruction continues, it is clear that America cannot recapture the past. Perhaps its days as the world’s only superpower will soon be over, but the country still has much to give to the rest of the world. Let us remember and honor the achievements of the past and recognize and learn from the mistakes of the present as we look toward the future. Times will certainly be different. But whether they are better—a reemergence, a restoration, even a redemption—depends on us and our ability to emerge from the shadow of 9/11 into a brighter world.

Today, it is estimated that just over 20 percent of graduating seniors will head into consulting or financial service sector jobs at the start of their post-college lives next year. Consulting stands as the most favored career path, drawing over 12 percent of graduates; finance will bring in just under 9 percent. Together, these may seem like big numbers for two relatively narrow career paths.

But consider the statistics from previous years. Ignoring, for a second, the previous year and the two years before it, take 2008: Around 37 percent went into finance or consulting, and 40 percent into “business.” But even that looks insignificant compared to the year before: In 2007, a full 47 percent of graduating seniors went into the two sectors that have become synonymous with a big-bucks Wall Street future. Does this point to a change of culture at Harvard and to the reduced influence of aggressive, for-profit companies’ recruiting tactics on campus?

Perhaps. As we have argued in the past, undergraduates risk going into sectors and jobs because they value safe post-college options that offer transferable skills and transition easily to other sectors. If finance—often used as a byword for working at investment banks—and management consulting have lost some of their luster, this may not all be a bad thing.

Spun a little differently, we could also say that the percentage of seniors entering what have traditionally been the best-paying entry-level positions in the United States’ job market has collapsed by more than half over the past five years. This may be due to a change in culture on campus. But even this change in students’ mentality is inescapably a product of the driving force behind the shifting employment landscape of Harvard graduates. This is the enduring legacy of the financial crisis—on campus, across the U.S., and around the world.

While we are all conscious of the deep, visible psychological effects felt around us and our families by the Great Recession, it is a point less often made that the Class of 2012 has had a rather unique experience with economic crisis. When today’s seniors were settling into their freshman dorms, safely ensconced in the Yard far from upperclassmen concerns like jobs and theses, they were also reading about the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers. They listened to their parents and to their then-president, who with customary eloquence summed up the situation with the following: “This sucker could go down.” Fall 2008’s freshmen, then, could have been forgiven for being just a little anxious as to what the world might look like when one day in the distant future they too went on the job hunt. All around, predictions were dark. The end of capitalism was forecast. Democracy would soon be under threat in several countries. The way of life to which American 18-year-olds had all more or less become accustomed was under threat. Excessive debt, faulty mortgages, and runaway capitalism were—and still are, if you believe many in the media—ruining the American dream. If you believe Mitt Romney, on the other hand, then it is clear that under Barack Obama, the U.S. has remained in dire straits.

It is true, to a certain extent, that the U.S. has still not recovered from 2008-09. Official unemployment remains far above historic figures for the American economy, at over 8 percent. Other estimates, which count the full percentage of the working-age population out of work—as opposed to just those actively looking—place the true figure at above 11 percent, and as high as 17.5 percent at the height of the crisis. For young Americans, the picture is mixed. While college graduates have a far lower unemployment rate than the work force as a whole, the prospects for young people without an undergraduate degree are far worse and not completely rosy even for those possessing one.

Of course, it would be wrong to paint too dark a picture of Harvard graduates’ employment prospects. 2012’s senior survey reveals that 68 percent of graduating seniors already have jobs, down from pre-recession highs of 73 percent in 2007 but far better than at the height of the financial crisis. This figure is encouraging for today’s graduating seniors.

That students earning a degree from a college as prestigious as Harvard should be well-employed is hardly surprising. There should be little doubt that Harvard graduates are and will remain among the most employable young people in the country. Moreover, the last thing any well-educated young person—Harvard or otherwise—should do today is panic. The broader state of the U.S. economy is not quite as gloomy as the Republican Party would have us believe; gross domestic product growth of roughly 2 percent a year, while not stellar, hardly qualifies as a crisis.

The real problem, and one that does affect Harvard graduates as much as it does every person living in the U.S., is that long-term prospects for the United States’s role in a still-globalizing and fast-shifting world economy are more uncertain.

Now that we are all left with the memory of the worst recession since the Great Depression, it is hard not to worry that another crisis could be just around the corner. Similarly, will young Americans today enjoy the same standard of living and, to put it bluntly, ease that so many of our parents’ generation have? Will the future leaders of our generation of Americans also be the most powerful and influential leaders of the world?

Being poised to become influential in the United States may no longer carry quite the same global caché as it has in the past. The country in which Harvard is a leading institution, and from whose success Harvard has benefited so much, stands in a more uncertain global position—in large part because the financial crisis is considered to have accelerated the convergence in strength and size of developed and developing economies. Tomorrow’s trend-setters look more and more likely to come from China, India, and Africa than the United States.

Is this cause for panic? Clearly not. What it does mean, however, is that young people graduating from top American colleges can afford less than ever to look inward and define success as a good career at home.

A good many of us are already from international backgrounds. Just as students from abroad are eager to come and be educated in the United States, young Americans should have zero qualms or hesitance about moving abroad to pursue their careers and ambitions to the fullest; many of us may yet have to.

Universities like Harvard, in the meantime, by orientating their campuses and pools of talent more and more to the rest of the world, can play a vital role in preparing the United States and the global community for a future of increasingly shared power.

If that can happen, then young people and universities can help create a brighter and more symbiotic future, and something good may actually come out of the pain of the Great Recession. Though the future for the Class of 2012 is more uncertain than it has been for previous years and generations, uncertainty alone should never be cause for pessimism.

While Yale has partnered with the National University of Singapore in what was a controversial move, due in large part to the perceived incompatibility between some of Singapore’s laws and the ethos of Yale, Harvard has focused the bull’s share of its efforts in cyberspace.

Harvard has attempted over the course of the last year, more seriously than before, to use the Internet to make its prodigious resources more widely available. These changes seem likely to benefit at least some members of the wider public unaffiliated with the University, as well as those of us taking classes on campus.

Harvard’s library system began digitizing its collections in partnership with Google in 2005 in an effort to make its volumes with expired copyrights available to the larger public, a partnership that fell through in 2011 after disputes over Google’s right to scan library volumes still under copyright. These efforts will be reinvigorated, as University officials announced in April that it planned to digitize 12 million volumes as part of the Digital Public Library of America, a project chaired by John G. Palfrey ’94 and with University Librarian Robert C. Darnton ’60 as a director, which aims to digitize every book in the world.

One of Harvard’s most important and increasingly costly resources is its massive library system, and the DPLA will hopefully alleviate some of the expenses associated with the system while allowing Harvard to share its collections with the world beyond its gates.

On the classroom instruction front, Harvard began attempts to open its lectures to public observers on the internet and television in 2009, when a taped version of Michael J. Sandel’s popular class Justice aired in a 12-part series both online and on Boston-based television station WBGH. This change to education was embraced by much of the Harvard community as a step toward a 21st century Harvard that would be able to expand its influence beyond its traditional student body.

Harvard, in conjunction with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, revealed plans this month to create an online education portal named edX. The administration announced that the portal will allow people around the world to take Harvard courses free of charge. As an improvement over previous forays into online education, edX is intended to enable students to interact with other students and educational components, including problem sets and exams. Although the democratization of high-quality education through initiatives such as edX is commendable, we are wary of the potential to gain a certificate from such an initiative, as online learning cannot replace the traditional classroom environment.

The ability to export coursework effectively through an online medium is an exciting new development for Harvard. Though many of the specifics of the program have not yet been disclosed, an initiative akin to a more developed version of MIT’s open courseware is an excellent opportunity to make world-class educational materials available to individuals who are motivated to enrich themselves academically for personal gain. Additionally, increasing access to courses in specialized, narrow fields to individuals outside the University will propagate further interest in study in areas of focus that are, due to the sheer number of specialists, limited to a select few locations.

Yet along with the enormous potential for learning through edX, there is a natural desire to have some sort of certification of that learning. Harvard has stipulated that, for an as-yet-unnamed price, it will provide a special Harvardx certificate of completion of coursework to people who enroll in edX classes. While the desire to provide some sort of validation is completely understandable—very few people elect to take a course simply out of intellectual curiosity—we fear that because of Harvard’s brandname there is a high potential that this sort of credit will be sought for the wrong reasons. A Harvard degree—or a Harvardx certificate, in this case, as a lesser representation of the same credentials—is only valuable so long as the accomplishments required to get it are sufficiently valuable themselves. As soon as Harvard begins handing out credentials that, although very different from Harvard degrees, seem somehow similar, we run the danger of diminishing the gravity of what we have been doing for a long time in favor of the novelty of something new.

Moreover, there is value to be gained from a traditional classroom environment that cannot transfer into online learning. In a traditional classroom setting, students have in-person interactions with the professor, teaching assistants, and fellow students that cannot be translated onto the Internet. Although students in an online setting can listen to and absorb material from a lecture, they lack the same freedom to interrupt the professor with questions or to attend office hours after class. Further, there is no similar accountability to that which exists in a traditional environment; students who slack off, doze off during lectures or watch YouTube videos with the professor on mute are not monitored in the same way. Ultimately, the in-person interactions that shape a Harvard experience cannot be mass-produced.

As stirring as it is to be able to watch these changes begin and to observe these plans take shape, the potential benefits of these developments are even more exciting. But a note of caution must be struck—with the potential to redefine many of the basic tenets of a modern education, Harvard needs to protect what it has been doing for 375 years from being devalued by its new experiments. While Harvard arguably has a duty to provide its educational resources to as many people as possible, there shouldn’t be “levels” of a Harvard education, and a Harvardx certificate cannot be allowed to cheapen a Harvard University degree. University officials stressed that plans are still largely in the development stage, and we are glad they decided to roll out what they had for public review. Much has to be added, while some should be discarded. As Harvard’s online infrastructure develops, the University has proven itself once more to be a leader in education worldwide.

Over the past two years, four primates and five other animals—a dog, a goat, a sheep, and two rabbits—have died in several separately registered Harvard-affiliated laboratories. Following two recent primate deaths at the NEPRC, former director Frederick Wang announced his resignation in March.

Since the beginning of Wang’s term as director last September, the NEPRC received multiple citations from the United States Department of Agriculture.

Over the course of the past few months, the center has begun implementing stricter regulation and policies to address the animal safety complaints. According to Johnson, the center has identified areas for improvement and has quickly taken steps to improve animal care.

“We’ve instituted training for a new group of employees who are undergoing training now and instituted a second round of quality control checks on animals,” Johnson said. “We are in the process of hiring additional animal care supervisors, both senior veterinary technicians and assistant animal care supervisors.”

Johnson said that he welcomes feedback from the University community and farther afield as he heads up reform efforts at the NEPRC. “We are continuing to get input from a variety of different resources both within and outside the University,” he said. “We look forward to getting those recommendations and implementing them.”

Though Johnson said that “our first priority is to ensure the quality of care provided to our animals,” he added that he hopes to improve other aspects of the NEPRC as well as he takes the reins. In particular, he spoke of his desire to “reinvigorate” the research efforts at the facility, which currently specializes in studying AIDS pathogenesis and vaccines, cancer, neuropsychiatric diseases, drug addiction, and new treatments for Parkinson’s disease.

—Staff writer Fatima N. Mirza can be reached at fmirza@college.harvard.edu.

Finnegan, who is the co-CEO of Chicago-based investment firm Madison Dearborn Partners, has been an active and visible Harvard alumnus. He currently serves on the University’s Board of Overseers, Harvard’s second-highest governing body, and was previously the president of the Harvard Alumni Association. He has also served on a number of councils and advisory boards across the University, from Harvard Business School to Harvard School of Public Health.

“I often marvel at how Paul Finnegan seems to be everywhere,” University President Drew G. Faust said in a press release. “It’s remarkable how much he does for Harvard, and how he does it with such enthusiasm, such a thoughtful and probing manner, and such concern for how we can always do better.”

The Corporation, which is the oldest corporate body in the Western hemisphere, announced in 2010 that it would enact the first major structural changes in its history in order to improve transparency and accountability. The plan expanded the Corporation’s membership from seven to 13 members. Finnegan is the fourth appointment since the announcement and the second of the new members to have served on the Board of Overseers, which is the larger of Harvard’s two governing bodies.

“I’m especially pleased to be able to take on this new role at a time when the Corporation itself is in the midst of important changes and when the University is pursuing new approaches,” Finnegan said in the press release. ”This seems to me a particularly interesting moment of transition and possibility for Harvard, and it will be a privilege to continue working with President Faust and others to make the most of it.”

As a corporation member, Finnegan will be responsible for helping make some of the University’s most pressing decisions. Senior Fellow of the Corporation Robert D. Reischauer ’63 cited Finnegan’s knowledge of finance as a skill that would benefit the Corporation.

“Paul Finnegan is one of Harvard’s most devoted, energetic, and accomplished alumni leaders,” Reischauer said in the press release. “He will bring us not only important financial and organizational expertise and a deep knowledge of the University and its governance, but also a broad set of relationships across the community.”

Finnegan’s appointment will begin July 1 and last until 2018, with the possibility of extending his service for a second six-year term.

—Staff writer Justin C. Worland can be reached at jworland@college.harvard.edu.

She arrived at the University in 1997 during the final days of University President Neil L. Rudenstine’s tenure. She weathered the controversy sparked by President Lawrence H. Summers’ infamous comments about women. After Summers’ sudden resignation, Spencer stuck by President Derek C. Bok when he came out of a nearly two-decade retirement to lead the University during the search for Harvard’s new president. Under President Drew G. Faust, Spencer witnessed the University at its economic nadir after the endowment dropped nearly 30 percent during the 2008 financial crisis.

Through it all, she has been a key figure in Massachusetts Hall. When asked about what Spencer’s responsibilities entailed, Faust responded, “That’s like asking me what my day-to-day duties are.”

But now Spencer will be striking out on her own. She is set to leave Harvard next month to become the eighth president of Bates College on July 1.

According to her colleagues, she will be sorely missed at Harvard, where her contributions have included the implementation of the Harvard Financial Aid Initiative, the creation of the Crimson Summer Academy, and the integration of Radcliffe and Harvard Colleges.

“Anything good that’s happened in the time she’s been here, there is very little question [whether] she had a hand it in,” says William R. Fitzsimmons ’67. “If anything that happened that wasn’t good when she was here, you can also be almost guaranteed that she opposed it.”

While Spencer has played a crucial role behind-the-scenes at Harvard, she will now step out into the public spotlight at Bates.

“It was terrific working under four different presidents,” Spencer says of her time at Harvard. “I had the most amazing tutorial in university leadership that anyone could ever have.”

‘THE FAMILY BUSINESS’

Spencer describes higher education as “the family business.”

The daughter of a university president, Spencer grew up in a household where the logistics of running an institute of higher education was a usual topic of conversation at the dinner table.

Spencer says this proximity to university administrators has informed her role in Massachusetts Hall.

“I’ve seen that leadership in higher education is really the intersection of a kind of love for the enterprise, intelligence, data, good decision making, values, sound judgment,” she says. “That’s kind of what I grew up with.”

Born December 1954 in Concord, N.C., Spencer has spent much of her life earning degrees from various educational institutions. She studied at Phillips Exeter Academy, majored in history and German at Williams College, read theology at Oxford, and then returned to the United States to study religion at Harvard.

Spencer says she originally intended to become a traditional academic. “I fell in love with the study of religion, but then I decided I didn’t love it enough to make that my life,” Spencer says. “Then I went to law school.”

She says that even as she worked towards earning her J.D. at Yale Law School, she knew she wanted to enter the field of higher education. In her law school applications, she described her love for academia as her reason for wanting to study law.

“I always knew I wanted to work in the field,” Spencer says. “I was completely agnostic about what particular roles I might end up playing.”

After a brief stint working in a traditional law firm, Spencer moved to Washington D.C., where she found a job that combined her love for the law and devotion to academia. While she worked in the office of Senator Edward M. Kennedy ’54-’56, Spencer served as chief education counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources and helped to push through a slew of education policies.

In 1997, Spencer left Washington D.C. for Cambridge, where her then-husband was on the faculty of Harvard Kennedy School, and took a job as a consultant and advisor in Rudenstine’s administration.

THE PRESIDENT’S RIGHT HAND

Spencer has quickly ascended the ranks of Mass Hall to become what senior administrators have described as one of the most influential voices in the central administration.

When Spencer first arrived at the University she was tasked with helping to orchestrate the official merger of Harvard and Radcliffe. Though the University had become co-educational decades before, the schools were still technically two separate entities. After the integration was complete, Spencer assisted in transforming Radcliffe College grounds into the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study that exists today.

She also became a member of the search committees for many high-level deans. Rudenstine, who served as president at the time, describes her as one of his two “chief advisors.”

“I knew she would be very, very good,” says Rudenstine. “I don’t think I could have guessed the whole evolution—not because she didn’t have the talent, but because I didn’t know what role she wanted to play.”

In the years that followed, Spencer received a number of promotions and roles of increasing importance. In 2005, Spencer found herself in the role of Vice President for Policy, the position she holds now. In this role she worked on a number of important initiatives that have defined her legacy at Harvard and reputation in the world of higher education.

The Harvard Financial Aid Initiative, which greatly expanded and simplified Harvard’s financial aid offerings, is perhaps the most well-known of her efforts. Lawrence H. Summers had announced that Harvard would redo its financial aid policies in 2004 and Spencer’s expertise in analytics allowed administrators to crunch the numbers.

Faust says that figuring out how to use data most effectively is an important part of her role, and was a skill that was particularly crucial to HFAI.

“I think I can say clearly that I don’t think that our financial aid initiatives would have occurred in anywhere near the shape or form that they have without her and she was in on the ground floor from the very beginning,” Fitzsimmons says.

With HFAI, as with the many other projects she led, Spencer also played an influential role in winning over skeptics in the faculty and administration.

“Harvard is a very budget conscious place and there were many who didn’t want to spend money on a new initiative and Clayton helped to persuade them that they were wrong—helped persuade them that this was an important investment in Harvard’s future,” says Summers.

Fitzsimmons and others say that this ability to build bridges and get along with a wide range of people is one of Spencer’s most notable strengths.

“There was a relatively small staff so we worked very, very closely together,” Rudenstine says. “She is a person, at least in my view, who is very open, very outgoing, very communicative and a person with whom it is very easy to form a candid relationship.”

Though Spencer insists she is not shy, she acknowledges that she has kept a low profile to allow her colleagues to take the spotlight. Despite several requests, the interview for this article marks only the second time she has granted an interview to The Crimson.

“She is probably the least selfish person I have seen in the academic world or any other world in terms of getting credit for her ideas or her hard work,” Fitzsimmons says. “In fact, she’s always been very publicity shy.”

Even as Spencer prepares to leave Mass Hall, she remains reluctant to take credit for her accomplishments. For example, while Faust and Summers credit Spencer for playing a major role in the creation of the Crimson Summer Academy, Spencer says that she is proud of the project but insists that “none of the credit belongs to me.”

Despite her modesty, Spencer says that she looks forward to having a position in the spotlight when she takes over at Bates.

“I will get a huge kick out of speaking to the press once I’m the leader in my own right,” she says.

A NEW CHALLENGE

For Spencer, the transition from Harvard’s vice president for policy to Bates’ president will be dramatic. In a month’s time, Spencer will be thrust from the back rooms of academia and into the limelight as the leader of one of America’s most prominent liberal arts colleges.

As the president of Bates, she will be responsible for overseeing a faculty of more than 200. While leading an academic institution will be a new task for Spencer, those who have worked closely with Spencer say she is up to the task.

“The key things in many colleges is that the person be able to work well with the different groups that need attention and also [have an] academic vision, which I think she can provide,” Rudenstine says. “You can’t be at Harvard for the better part of a decade without being saturated with its intellectual activity.”

And her comfort with the world of academia is evident: she opines at length about learning and the future of knowledge.

“The biggest challenges are the explosion of knowledge and the changing shape of knowledge,” she says. “What I would I like to see Bates do, and I’ve got a sense that it would be very fun to do, is [embrace] those forces.”

Spencer also said she plans to use her position as president of Bates to continue her efforts to expand accessibility to higher education. But, at Bates, an institution with only 1,800 students and a $183 million endowment, the task is far different than at Harvard.

“There’s a very strong progressive tradition at Bates that is kind of a model of inclusivity and the notion that everybody deserves an education. It completely resonates with my basic values about access and affordability,” she says. “It will be an absolute priority to bring financial aid dollars at Bates.... We’ll be fundraising against it the whole time and in that sense we’re never going to take the pressure off that issue.”

Even as Spencer departs for Bates, her friends and colleagues at Harvard say they will continue to seek her wisdom.

“You cannot replace a person like her, but I intend to draw on her,” says Fitzsimmons, noting that Lewiston, Maine, where Bates is located, is only a short distance away. “She’s a person who becomes a lifelong friend and will never go away.”

—Staff writer Hana N. Rouse can be reached at hrouse@college.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Justin C. Worland can be reached at jworland@college.harvard.edu.

The drafters of the plan for a major overhaul of the heart of Harvard Square have presented it to City Councillors and other Cambridge officials, but no one told Patel.

“I never knew about this plan before,” he said.

The 15-page set of artistic renderings, created by members of the Harvard Square Business Association, suggests transforming the Out of Town News kiosk into a state-of-the-art tourist center and installing a 23-foot by 5-foot LED screen and stadium seating in the Pit to model Harvard Square on Times Square.

Patel’s Muckey’s Corp. currently leases the Out of Town News kiosk under a five-year contract which is set to expire in 2013. Whether the lease can be extended an additional five years is at the discretion of the city. The ambitious construction plan, too, must be vetted by city officials including Mayor Henrietta J. Davis and City Manager Robert W. Healy, who both said last week that they supported the idea but have not secured funding for it.

Beautification projects in Harvard Square has been in various stages of completion for 15 years, but the proposal that would spell the end of Out of Town News is the most dramatic yet. Since its release by The Crimson on Wednesday, residents have expressed differing opinions over whether the improvements would bolster the Square’s charm or detract from it.

“I’d hate to see any of the old businesses to leave, but I understand if it’s not feasible for them to stay. Those things happen,” said Chris Kotelly, president of Crimson Corner, the competing newsstand across the street.

BUILDING ON HISTORY

The plan for revamping Sheldon Cohen Island, the stretch of red brick at the heart of Harvard Square, surprised many business owners in the Square.

Sheldon Cohen, the island’s namesake and founder of Out of Town News who manned the kiosk for 39 years, said that he was unaware of any designs for modernizing his former place of business but expressed excitement about the prospect.

“It’s bringing it up to the 21st century, looking at it that way. I think it could work together with historic and 21st century,” Cohen said.

Others, however, were more hesitant to endorse this vision.

“The screen is ridiculous,” said Edward P. VerPlanck, owner of Dickson Brothers hardware store, of the plan’s proposal to place a massive display screen on top of the main MBTA station entrance on the island.

Many of those opposed to the plan took issue with the proposal to put the Out of Town News name on a new structure with interactive tourism information displayed on its glass walls.

“It’s nice to take advantage of technology, but I love the charm and feel of it now. I don’t think there’s any need to put money into it,” said Laura Evans ’13.

The plan’s developers said this idea seeks to remedy a lack of information for visitors to the Square. The current tourism center, a small booth near the MBTA entrance, is rarely staffed.

Robyn Culbertson, executive director of the Cambridge Office of Tourism, said that the number one question the information booth currently gets is, “Where is Harvard Square?”

Travelers are sometimes not able to have this question answered, since the kiosk is manned only sporadically by volunteers.

“A lot of people ask for info, so it’d be nice to have,” Steven Zedros, owner of Brattle Square Florist, said about an information center.

But among those who lamented the potential demolishing of the current Out of Town News, many made reference to the newsstand’s long history.

Charles M. Sullivan, the executive director of the Cambridge Historical Commission, said that the current building was constructed as a railway stop in 1928. The building then served as an entrance to the MBTA station until Cohen purchased it in 1984 to house the news operation he had been running since 1955.

The kiosk came under the protection of the Cambridge Historical Commission as a national historic landmark in 1979. In order to adapt the structure for reuse as a newsstand, Cohen had to receive approval from the Commission.

The planners behind the new update of Sheldon Cohen Island kept this in mind when creating new designs for the building.

“We want it to maintain the character and the transparency,” said Sullivan, who was aware of the HSBA preliminary plan. From offering a window on the world, the stand might go to literally being made of windows.

But Patel said that despite the decline in print media sales in Harvard Square as in all parts of the country, he would be sorry to see the unusual newsstand, which vends papers from around the world, disappear from the busy gateway point of the Square.

“It should be retail. People come from all over the world and would like to get news from their country,” Patel said.

ROUGH DRAFT

Alumni from the Class of 1962 visiting for their 50th reunion said the island already looks very different from what they used to see, when it was surrounded by two-way streets without safely navigable crosswalks. They said that the construction of the past 50 years has improved the area’s aesthetics and pedestrian security, but many were hesitant about further changes.

“The less electronic application the better. There’s already plenty of that,” said Henry S. Horn ’62.

In addition to the screen, the prospect of stadium seating drew negative reactions from several Square business owners, who theorized that it might prove a place for homeless residents of the Square to sleep at night.

The presence of homeless men and women in the Pit on Sheldon Cohen Island has been on the radar screen of improvements planners since at least 2006, when the Harvard Square Initiative, an older document of suggestions for beautifying the Square, mentioned “the homeless and safety concerns around the Pit at night.”

Kotelly, who owns Crimson Corner, said, “We’ve had some customers complain they felt that walking through the Pit area at night wasn’t the safest venue.”

But he thought the stadium seating was a good idea, since it would come along with other improvements like new shrubbery. “I’m in favor of cleaning up that area and putting some extra seating,” he said.

Though they disagreed on the merits of the proposals like the glass kiosk and the giant LED screen, most Square business owners and city officials said that the area seems due for some sort of facelift.

“The area is old and certainly tired. The street furniture is tired and needs to be redone,” Sullivan said.

Donez J. Cardullo, co-owner of Cardullo’s Gourmet Shoppe, also located across the street from the island, said that if the proposed major construction becomes reality, it will inevitably dampen foot traffic for the many surrounding businesses.

But she said that the result—a radically modernized look for the central crossroads of Cambridge’s most touristed district—would be worth the inconvenience.

“We’ve lived through several construction projects, and we just hold our breath until it’s done,” she said. “We support any project that works to beautify the area.”

—Staff writer Kerry M. Flynn can be reached at kflynn@college.harvard.edu.

The I-Lab—which is located next to the Business School in Allston—was created as a center for entrepreneurship, bringing together students from across the University.

Currently, the I-Lab is base camp for 55 teams-in-residence, who receive space and a host of resources, including access to “experts-in-residents” who are knowledgeable in their field of business.

University President Drew G. Faust praised the venture for encouraging the cross-pollination of ideas.

“Over the past year we have watched the I-Lab evolve from an idea into a successful innovative center that fosters collaborative creativity and entrepreneurship across the University’s Schools and throughout the Boston community,” Faust said in a statement.

Gordon S. Jones, the head of the I-Lab, said the University was surprised by the level of enthusiasm the I-Lab inspired among students.

“The biggest thing we didn’t see coming was the volume of student interest,” said Jones.

I-Lab administrators, Jones said, anticipated the Lab would receive applications from 15 teams. The Lab, instead, received proposals from 100 teams—a difference which compelled I-Lab officials to reconsider space distribution so that it could accommodate as many teams as possible.

Jones said that he considers the Lab, like the businesses it houses, to be a start-up, with all the usual highs and lows.

“It’s been a crazy but good year,” Jones said.

Allston residents were also pleased with the I-Lab’s progress in its first year.

“I think the I-Lab has been a great development for the community,” said resident and Harvard-Allston Task Force member John Cusack. “It’s a really nice spot in the neighborhood.”

Throughout the year, the I-Lab has made much of its programming available to community members, often reserving portions of workshops and lectures for local residents and small business owners.

Looking to the future, Jones said that the I-Lab will be “continuing to refine and develop.”

The I-Lab will also incorporate new features, such as a physical prototyping lab in which students can model their designs.

Faust said she is optimistic that the I-Lab will continue to grow and to serve both the Harvard and Allston community.

“In the year ahead, we expect even more engagement from aspiring and established innovators, mentors and networkers across campus and in the community who access growing I-Lab programming,” she said in a statement.

—Staff writer Mercer R. Cook can be reached at mcook@college.harvard.edu.

The cloud is composed of words such as caring, good, food, communication, and service. They complete the sentence at the top of the poster: “Dining Services Customer Service Culture is....”

From planning a dinner to commemorate Harvard’s 375th anniversary to opening Plaza Taco, Harvard University Dining Services has had a busy year.

But amidst this hustle and bustle, HUDS has also made a concerted effort to improve customer service and employee satisfaction—two goals that David P. Davidson has pushed since he took over as managing director of HUDS last October.

“Customer Service is beyond just swiping with a smile,” is Davidson’s mantra, and is emblematic of his philosophy that employees should have positive relationships both with students and with one another.

“I think a lot of conversations I have with our managers is trying to get the message out that we care about our employees,” Davidson says.

COMMITTED TO SATISFACTION

Davidson worked as director of retail dining at Harvard from 1991 to 2000, before moving on to serve as executive director of dining services at Yale and director of dining services at Phillips Exeter Academy.

Missing the Boston area, Davidson returned to Harvard in 2007 as director of retail and residential operations for HUDS.

When former HUDS Managing Director Ted A. Mayer announced he would retire last year, Davidson applied for the job.

As managing director, Davidson oversees the 13 undergraduate dining halls, the Kosher kitchen, 14 cafes, Crimson Catering, marketing finance, and the Food Literacy Project.

But Davidson has still found time to work closely with the management team to “create a culture where everyone is respected and everyone is treated in a professional way,” Davidson says.

And those who work with Davidson have noticed these efforts.

“The walls have come down,” Susan G. Simon, HUDS senior human resources consultant, says of the HUDS office environment. “[Davidson is] very easy to talk to. There’s a lot of positive energy.”

In his attempts to bolster staff satisfaction, Davidson revamped HUDS’ training programs. Twenty hours a week, four hours a day during winter and spring break, HUDS staff members are required to take two classes. The University-mandated classes focus on topics such as sanitation and workplace harassment.

But under Davidson’s leadership, an optional supplementary curriculum was instituted. These development courses included a pizza-making class, a coffee tasting session, and customer service culture classes.

“The whole idea is to give [our employees] experience,” Davidson says. “Give people an opportunity for them to know what they’re doing and give them skills they can use somewhere else.”

Robert J. Leandro, director of operations and facilities, says that Davidson “is concerned about the employees. He wants them to be happy.”

For Davidson, HUDS plays an integral part in Harvard’s House system because every House has a dining hall.

“The dining hall becomes a very crucial part of the community and building the community of the House. It’s going to be your home for the next three years,” Davidson says. “Clearly, our main role is to make sure that you all are having a great experience and we’re meeting your needs.”

To increase student’s satisfaction with HUDS, Davidson has implemented changes that make dining more accessible to busy students, such as the addition of ready-made salads.

Overall, Davidson’s commitment to employee and student satisfaction has benefited him in his first year as HUDS managing director.

“We’re really pleased. It’s been a good transition,” Simon says. “It’s an ongoing process that David is really committed to.”

—Staff writer Laya Anasu can be reached at layaanasu@college.harvard.edu

Presented by the Harvard School of Public Health, this award recognizes an individual “who has made a tremendous contribution to public health and improving nutrition throughout the world,” said Julio Frenk, dean of HSPH.

About 500 people attended the sold-out event, which took place at the Joseph B. Martin Conference Center at Harvard Medical School.

Oliver, the host of the Emmy Award-winning show, “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution,” was honored for his advocacy for healthy eating and cooking, as well as for his fight against childhood obesity.

At the award ceremony, Oliver lifted the silver Healthy Cup over his head as he thanked the audience for supporting his mission to improve global public health.

“To have this [award] means a lot,” he said.

Oliver is known for a campaign he began in 2004 to improve school lunch programs in the U.S. and the U.K., according to Walter C. Willett, chair of the department of nutrition at HSPH.

While on stage, Oliver asked the packed audience to imagine what a society more focused on healthy eating habits would look like.

“Imagine a world where mothers would not feed bottles of Coca-Cola to babies,” he said, “where the ingredients would not read like scientific equations, where children and parents gardened veggies together.”

In order to raise public awareness of healthy eating, Oliver created Food Revolution Day, an event dedicated to bringing people together to “share information...and to pass on their knowledge and highlight the world’s food issues,” according to the event’s website.

“What’s beautiful about it is that people really loved the excuse to stand up for real food,” he said. “My wish is that in the next three years, a real, real food revolution will happen.”

Oliver also encouraged people to be proactive about their eating habits, adding that he believes that smartphone applications that provide healthy recipes and educate individuals about nutrition can play an important role in the future of this movement.

Oliver, who said that he believes that “modern day health is basic human rights,” added that he focuses his activism on empowerment and education.

“My uncompromised belief is that, whether we are British, American, or any dude on the planet, we can make great decisions if we are informed properly,” he said. “That gives me hope.”

The biannual Healthy Cup Award was created six years ago by HSPH’s Nutrition Round Table, a group of leaders from the business and food worlds that support research in nutrition and school meals.

Past award recipients have included U.S. Senator Tom Harkin in 2010 for putting wellness and health awareness on the American agenda, Kenneth H. Cooper in 2008 for his role as the “father of aerobics,” and businessman Lee Iacocca in 2006 for his efforts to find a cure for diabetes.

—Staff writer Jane Seo can be reached at janeseo@college.harvard.edu.

Bihlmaier, who was set to graduate on Thursday, went missing Saturday night after being asked to leave a pub in Portland, Maine. Police discovered his body Tuesday in Portland Harbor after conducting a search near the pier where he had last been seen. There was no evidence of foul play, according to Portland Police Department Lieutenant Gary Rogers.

“He was a great guy,” said Helen Y. Weng ’08, a classmate of Bihlmaier’s at the Business School.

Bihlmaier was passionate about technology and health care, friends said. After graduating from the University of Kansas in 2003, Bihlmaier worked for the Cerner Corporation in Kansas City, Chicago, Denver, and Boston. He later worked as a summer associate for the United States Department of Health and Human Services.

“This is a very sad day for all of us,” the Business School said in a statement. “There is a tremendous sense of community here, of camaraderie among students, faculty, and staff. We are all in a state of shock and grief, and our hearts and prayers go out to Nate’s family at this terrible time. This is a tragic loss, and we are very sad.”

Beyond his interests in health care, Bihlmaier was an avid skier.

“Skiing was his passion,” said classmate Jad S. Elias.

Andrew J. Rosenthal, Bihlmaier’s close friend and fellow Business School student, often went on ski vacations with Bihlmaier. He recalled their last trip together, in February at Breckenridge Ski Resort in Colo. On the trip, Bihlmaier managed to convince Rosenthal to join him in hiking further up the mountain and skiing down a particularly “steep and very narrow run” known as a chute.

“Nate came down it and skied beautifully,” Rosenthal said. “I did not do as well,” he added, laughing.

Bihlmaier was also known for his deep devotion to his family, especially his wife, Nancy Ho Bihlmaier, who is pregnant with the couple’s first child.

“He was more of a family man than most other people on campus,” Elias said.

According to Rosenthal, Bihlmaier was one of the Business School students who often brought their spouses to class. When Bihlmaier introduced his wife to his classmates, the couple’s strong bond was evident. “When Nate would bring Nancy to class, his introductions for her made it so obvious how he felt about her,” said Rosenthal. “Nancy is very much part of our section community.”

Bihlmaier was so excited to become a father that he started a blog on fatherhood, said Harvard Business School spokesperson Brian Kenny.

Bihlmaier’s wife could not be reached for comment.

Most of all, friends and classmates said they would miss Bihlmaier’s thoughtfulness and insight in their conversations.

“Conversations with him were never superficial,” Rosenthal said.

Bihlmaier was a devoted student in and out of the classroom. Rosenthal remembered one discussion he had with Bihlmaier about a potential paper topic that carried over into lunch.

“Nate was unique in that he sent me back a two-page bullet-pointed list of specific feedback,” Rosenthal said. “He wanted to respond not just with his own opinion, but how he thought it related to the class.”

Though Bihlmaier was dedicated to his academic work, friends said that he always struck a balance between work and life.

“I really do think Nate was a role model for the rest of us,” said Rosenthal.

—Staff writer David W. Kaufman can be reached at davidkaufman@college.harvard.edu.

Conover and her four future roommates had been thrilled to be placed into Eliot, their first-ranked upperclassmen House.The women had friends who were already in the House, and were attracted to Eliot’s proximity to the Yard and its prime view of the Charles River.

Eliot House, Conover recalled, seemed “as good as it gets.”But that summer, the women learned that Eliot did not have room for them.

Instead, the five sophomores would be moving into Wigglesworth Hall, a freshmen dorm, when they returned to campus in the fall. “We were quite distressed,” said Conover. “It was not the big change we were looking forward to.”

In fall 1986, Conover and her roommates were five of about twenty Winthrop and Eliot sophomores who were sent to live in Wigglesworth.Another two Winthrop sophomores had to live in the Winthrop Master’s Residence with then-Masters James A. and Martha J. Davis.

The 1986-87 academic year saw widespread housing shortages and upheaval due to enrollment miscalculations, renovations in the Quad, and a separate system for transfer students. But despite the inconveniences caused by the housing shortage, alumni said that their unusual housing arrangements in fall 1986 brought them closer together. House life, many alumni said, was even sweeter when they were able to move into their assigned Houses.

CROWDED ON THE RIVER

In the fall of 1986, an unusually low number of undergraduates took time off or chose to live off campus, leading to an atypically low attrition rate.With more students than beds in the river Houses, administrators turned to non-traditional housing options to ease the crunch.

According to Dean of Freshmen Thomas A. Dingman ’67, who was Assistant Dean for the House System at the time, his office chose Wigglesworth, one of the dorms closest to the river Houses, in an effort to minimize the distance between the sophomores and their classmates in the Houses.

But some of the students who were unable to move out of the Yard as sophomores were disgruntled at being denied this rite of passage. An outraged Crimson editorial reported that one sophomore was so surprised by his Wigglesworth room assignment that he thought it must have been a joke .The editorial also suggested Harvard’s promise that the residential house system served as a home was “a cruel farce.”

Brooke A. Masters ’89, who covered the housing upheaval for The Crimson, recalled that students were frustrated because they believed that Harvard had broken its promise to provide all upperclassmen with its unique brand of residential housing. “Harvard markets itself as, ‘You’re going to be in the Houses, you’re going to have on-campus housing,’” Masters said.

Even sophomores who were able to move into their new Houses were upset by the housing arrangements.Gillian Darlow ’89, who lived in a cramped triple bedroom in Eliot that fall, recalled being disappointed that Conover’s rooming group, which included several of her close friends, was so far away.“They were completely isolated from us,” Darlow said.

But Darlow said that the space constraints that she and her roommates faced as a result of overcrowding proved to be a blessing in disguise. The crowded conditions, she said, “made us all a lot closer. We were so on top of each other and it made us have to get to know each other.”

NO SPACE IN THE QUAD

In the mid 1980s, Harvard launched a multimillion dollar renovation project to bring the substandard Quad housing up to par.In fall 1986, Cabot’s Eliot Hall was renovated, displacing about fifty Cabot House sophomores to apartments at 29 Garden Street.Additional students in North House, now Pforzheimer, spent the semester living in the Botanic Gardens Apartments at 28 Fernald Drive, while Moors Hall and Holmes Hall underwent construction.

David J. Schiffman ’89, a Cabot affiliate who spent the first semester of his sophomore year living at 29 Garden Street, recalled the disproportionate impact of the housing shortage on sophomores. “We were definitely the lowest on the totem pole,” Schiffman said. “It really was not a good way to get integrated into the house by being three blocks down in an apartment building.”

John C. Reece II ’89, another displaced Cabot sophomore, was disappointed by what he viewed as the unfulfilled promise of the Harvard housing system. “You have this Harvard rooming group mentality of a common room with the rooms off of it and all the social interaction is formed by that,” he said. “And then you get put into a regular apartment off a hall.”

Displaced Quad affiliates also described their temporary housing as uncomfortable.Schiffman remembered 29 Garden Street as a “smelly old place” where even in the winter “you couldn’t keep the heat on because it was just so hot.”

But Schiffman’s memories of his semester at 29 Garden Street are not all negative.That semester, Schiffman met John T. Schiavone ’89, his roommate at 29 Garden Street, who became one of Schiavone’s “best friends from college.”

NO ROOM FOR TRANSFERS

In June 1986, the College informed new transfer students that it could not guarantee them a spot in a residential House due to the housing shortage. All new transfer students would have to find housing either in Harvard-affiliated apartments or on their own.

At the time, one transfer student told The Crimson that he was so dismayed by Harvard’s transfer student housing policy that he almost went to Stanford instead.

But L.D. Wood-Hull ’88, a junior transfer student from Wheaton College, said that he chose to come to Harvard despite knowing that he would not live in one of the twelve residential houses. “I was sitting down with all my possibilities and options,” Wood-Hull recalled. “Coming to Harvard without being in one of the residential houses was the best option, so I was happy to have that choice.”

SPRING HOMECOMING

With the start of the second semester of the school year, the housing situation improved for some students who had been affected by the shortage. A more normal attrition rate that spring allowed some of the sophomores in Wigglesworth to move for the first time into Eliot and Winthrop. Conover recalled being “really excited” to finally move into Eliot House, which was nearer to the river and closer to her friends.

By January, displaced Cabot residents were also allowed to move back into their House after renovations of Cabot’s Eliot Hall were complete.

Reece described the experience of moving into Cabot House as a second-semester sophomore as analogous to “going to the Ritz-Carlton.”“Everything was perfect white, the floors were all redone,” he said. “It was amazing. We felt very spoiled.”

For Reece, after a semester of living among adults in an apartment building, being in Cabot meant that “suddenly you’re back among kids.”

Despite having missed a semester, Schiavone remembered that he and the other sophomores had no difficulty integrating into the House community when they moved into Cabot. “I didn’t feel like we were odd men out,” Schiavone said.

The housing outlook even began to look brighter for transfer students.In March, Harvard announced that it would subsidize rent for any students who wished to live in Harvard-affiliated apartments.

“Some students were really excited about the idea,” said then-Housing Officer Lisa Colvin Zengilowski. “Even though there was this challenge and this crunch in housing, it turned into a win-win situation that allowed us to think about how to better look at transfer students.”

Today, as Harvard anticipates another housing shuffle resulting from the upcoming House renewal project, Dingman said that the 1986-87 housing shortage provided administrators with important lessons about how to best manage a housing crunch.

Dingman said that administrators learned the importance of providing contiguous and high-quality space for displaced students, as well as a robust residential staff of tutors to help ensure community.Still, he admitted that temporary housing is “not the same as living in the House proper.”

—Staff writer Rebecca D. Robbins can be reached at rrobbins@college.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Amy L. Weiss-Meyer can be reached at aweissmeyer@college.harvard.edu.

In one exceptional and already notorious case, the Republican candidate elect stated that Russia was the United States’s “number one geopolitical foe.” Although he would admit that states like Iran and North Korea pose a greater immediate threat to global stability, Romney appears to cling to the implicit assumption that a post-Soviet Russia still poses the gravest danger to American interests. In particular, he has cited Russian support for rogue nations at the United Nations; given Russia’s status as a permanent member of the Security Council, the Kremlin is able to shield regimes such as Bashar al-Assad’s despotic and cruel regime in Syria from international censure.

The logical fallacy behind Romney’s conception of Russia as America’s greatest enemy is apparent. Despite Romney’s determination that the anchor of the former Soviet Union remains a serious threat to American freedom, the reality suggests otherwise. Admittedly, Russia today is mistrustful and suspicious of American motives, particularly regarding the construction of a missile shield in Central and Eastern Europe. At home, Russia is far from a free country; “managed democracy,” a term too often used by Western media outlets, has served as a byword for Vladimir Putin’s “United Russia” party’s domination of the political sphere for more than a decade.

But Russia hardly qualifies as the U.S.’s most pressing adversary. Rather, both the modern Russian Federation and the United States face similar challenges: both struggle, though in different ways, with the threat of Islamic-inspired fundamentalist terrorism. While the United States may face the impending question of how to deal with rising Chinese economic power, Russia has already been forced to accept economic second-power status. Unlike the U.S., Russia faces acute immediate challenges: she must confront an imminent demographic crisis arguably worse than anything faced by the least fecund Western European countries. While Russian GDP growth had been phenomenal under the first few years of Putin’s administration, the long-term outlook for an extractive-resource and, specifically, petro-state economy seems uncertain.

Both Russia and the United States face similar challenges, albeit to different extremes, of how to reduce large nuclear arsenals, push back terrorism, and address long-term competitiveness issues. In the post-Soviet era, the two countries have been on remarkably good terms considering their Cold War relations. With that in mind, the Republicans’ apparent desire to return to imminent nuclear-war rivalry is quite baffling.

Mr. Romney would do well to avoid characterizing Russia as evil. His own understanding of Russian relations can in part be informed or explained by the suggestion that he views foreign policy as a “zero sum" game. Such an outlook bears a depressing resemblance to former president George W. Bush’s pronouncement to the effect of “you are either with us or against us.” Good or evil, blessed or satanic; these are the kinds of counterproductive, black and white judgments that Barack Obama, however successful or not he has been at foreign policy, has at least avoided in his administration. It would be a shame to revert to this good-evil divide.

Instead, Romney and the American public would do well to recognize who is working to deliver reform and democracy in Russia and who is hindering this effort. Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index regularly lists the world’s largest country as among the most corrupt. In many cases, large-scale corruption has also turned Russia into a violent and lawless state. Witness the now well-known death of Moscow lawyer Sergei L. Magnitsky and the U.S. Congress’ subsequent effort to pass the “Magnistsky Act” aimed at targeting corrupt bureaucrats and security officials thought to be behind Magnitsky’s death after he exposed a massive fraud. Romney and the Republican Party would do well to draw the distinction between an ill-informed view of a “Russia” driven by ulterior motives and the reality: the desire of Russians to secure a more ethical and democratic future for their country.

Russia is not the U.S.’s best friend, but neither should the two states be anything approaching real enemies. Romney’s conception of Russia is indeed confusing to today’s generation of young Americans who have grown up in a post-Cold War era, and who in many cases know—or are among—the millions of former U.S.S.R. immigrants who have moved to the United States.

Russia has changed and modernized considerably since the fall of the Soviet Union. Any visitor to today’s Moscow would surely balk at the idea that the capital represents Washington D.C.’s top adversary. Romney’s own misguided stance re-emphasizes the need to interact with contemporary powers through diplomacy and understanding rather than jingoistic and uninformed nationalism.

Occupiers plan to gather outside the Holyoke Center before making their way into the Yard, where Commencement takes place.

The protest, which is slated to include undergraduates, graduate students, and members of the Harvard Union for Clerical and Technical Workers, comes after 65 library workers took a voluntary early retirement package following an announcement by library leadership in January that the library restructuring may include layoffs.

Although the University has not said for certain that it will lay off workers, Occupy Harvard is protesting because “administrators have never lifted their threats to cut even more jobs,” according to the press release.

Jennifer A. Sheehy-Skeffington, a graduate student in psychology and an occupier, said that the No-Layoffs-Campaign is important because a smaller staff would damage what Occupiers view as an already strained library system.

“This is important because the library workers have been threatened at a time when the library is already really suffering,” Sheehy-Skeffington said.

On the Occupy Harvard blog, Occupy leaders wrote that they organized the protest in order to bring the issue to the attention of people from across the Harvard community, including alumni and parents, “to expose the damage that has been done to the libraries already, and how much more harm further cuts would inflict.”

Skeffington added that the protest is not just about the library-specific cuts, but also about the University’s approach toward labor.

“This kind of cost-cutting, corporate approach is very disappointing,” she said.

Skeffington said that she hopes students will appreciate how cuts and restructuring could endanger the entire library system, one of the “most valuable aspects of the college.” She said that the proposed plan would mean that students would be deprived of the chance to work closely with library specialists, while more skilled library workers would be working in centralized jobs that would not take advantage of their expertise.

—Staff writer Mercer R. Cook can be reached at mcook@college.harvard.edu.

This last detail might be considered but a minor one in Mr. Chen’s unlikely saga, yet it hints at the important role held by American universities in fostering democracy and good governance abroad. In this particular case, Mr. Chen’s affiliation with NYU is a way for the Chinese government to save face. In the eyes of Beijing, amnesty for Mr. Chen would only legitimize his suffering and his cause. While the communist regime maintains a tight control on the media at home—one state-run tabloid condescendingly claimed that “dissidents…fail to make a dent among the Chinese”—it is highly sensitive to criticism from the international community. Yet it seems likely that Mr. Chen will benefit from his time at NYU, and, if he one day returns home, he will arrive better-equipped to battle the injustices he may there encounter.

On another level, American universities have a unique opportunity to encourage democracy abroad. Nearly 700,000 foreign students currently pursue higher education in the United States. Many of them will return home and, one day, serve as leaders in their national communities. During their time in America, these students are exposed to a vibrant environment of open discourse they might not find in their own countries. By becoming part, if only temporarily, of a society that prizes freedom of speech and civil liberties, foreign students may come to better appreciate that such values are crucial to national wellbeing.

Harvard, due in part to its unparalleled resources and international prestige, has long served as a center for molding world leaders. In fact, the University frequently welcomes to its fold the children of current global figures. The recent controversy surrounding Bo Guagua—a student at the Harvard Kennedy School whose father, former regional Chinese Communist Party leader Bo Xilai, suffered a well-documented political downfall—serves as an uncomfortable reminder of this.  For better or worse, a comparatively large number of foreign students at Harvard are uniquely poised to hold positions of influence in the future. Still other international students, armed with the prestige that a Harvard education confers, may very well be powerful figures one day. We hope that their time here allows them to grow as persons, so that they may one day better serve their countries.

Finnegan, who is the co-CEO of Chicago-based investment firm Madison Dearborn Partners, has been an active and visible Harvard alumnus. He currently serves on the University’s Board of Overseers, Harvard’s second-highest governing body, and was previously the president of the Harvard Alumni Association. He has also served on a number of councils and advisory boards across the University, from Harvard Business School to Harvard School of Public Health.

“I often marvel at how Paul Finnegan seems to be everywhere,” University President Drew G. Faust said in a press release. “It’s remarkable how much he does for Harvard, and how he does it with such enthusiasm, such a thoughtful and probing manner, and such concern for how we can always do better.”

The Corporation, which is the oldest corporate body in the Western hemisphere, announced in 2010 that it would enact the first major structural changes in its history in order to improve transparency and accountability. The plan expanded the Corporation’s membership from seven to 13 members. Finnegan is the fourth appointment since the announcement and the second of the new members to have served on the Board of Overseers, which is the larger of Harvard’s two governing bodies.

“I’m especially pleased to be able to take on this new role at a time when the Corporation itself is in the midst of important changes and when the University is pursuing new approaches,” Finnegan said in the press release. ”This seems to me a particularly interesting moment of transition and possibility for Harvard, and it will be a privilege to continue working with President Faust and others to make the most of it.”

As a corporation member, Finnegan will be responsible for helping make some of the University’s most pressing decisions. Senior Fellow of the Corporation Robert D. Reischauer ’63 cited Finnegan’s knowledge of finance as a skill that would benefit the Corporation.

“Paul Finnegan is one of Harvard’s most devoted, energetic, and accomplished alumni leaders,” Reischauer said in the press release. “He will bring us not only important financial and organizational expertise and a deep knowledge of the University and its governance, but also a broad set of relationships across the community.”

Finnegan’s appointment will begin July 1 and last until 2018, with the possibility of extending his service for a second six-year term.

—Staff writer Justin C. Worland can be reached at jworland@college.harvard.edu.

The anniversary received attention from some of the country’s largest newspapers, including the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times.

Indeed, even the U.S. Postal Service joined in the celebration, issuing a commemorative stamp with a drawing of John Harvard’s face etched in crimson.

The festivities, which drew 44,000 attendees, were part of one of the largest and most extravagant birthday parties the country has ever seen and brought together members of the Harvard community from the class of 1918 to the Class of 1990 and everything in between.

CRIMSON AND CHRYSANTHEMUMS

On the morning of the first day of the three-day celebration, three flags waved gallantly from University Hall: the flags of the U.S., the U.K.—in honor of Prince Charles’ keynote speech—and Harvard, with its classic Veritas insignia.

The yard had been transformed, according to James D. Solomon ’87, a Crimson editor who covered the 350th anniversary. White chrysanthemums, grown specifically for the event, covered the steps of Memorial Church and four students, two boys and two girls, had been recruited to guard them.

“It was a very serious job, guarding the mums,” recalled Justine A. Harris ’90, the only freshman of the four. “A lot of people wanted to take them, walk off with the Crimson mums.”

“But we did our job and guarded them well,” she added with a laugh.

Yellow chrysanthemums also covered the ground beneath the feet of the John Harvard statue.

In his time at the University, spanning from when he was a student in the late 1950s to the present, John P. Reardon Jr. ’60, director of the Harvard Alumni Association, said he had “never seen” such an elaborate display.

The second day of festivities was intended to close with an extravagant dinner in Memorial Hall organized for the University’s distinguished guests, including alumni, administrators, and faculty members. However, this event never came to be. A group of between 70 and 100 students, alumni, and faculty members calling for Harvard to divest from apartheid South Africa orchestrated a protest, creating a human barricade at the front of the entrance. When the event attendees were unable to pass through the line of activists, the dinner was canceled, the food donated to a nearby homeless shelter, and the already opened wine poured down the drain.

On the third and final day of the celebration, Joanne “Jody” R. Dushay ’89 acted as a standard bearer, representing her class in the Alumni Day procession. After receiving a letter in the mail asking her to be a part of the festivities, she carried a sign with her class year, 1989—one that she has kept to this day.

“When I was in that parade and holding that sign, it was very special,” Dushay said. “And I do remember seeing a woman and saying, ‘that’s very cool, she’s from the oldest class.’”

The standard bearers bore signs with graduation years dating back to World War I, with the oldest coming from the Class of 1918.

Students, community members, alumni, and faculty members alike noted the magical aura on campus.

“You see all the other classes. It’s a unique opportunity to pass through the walls and get an awareness of all the classes that came before you,” Dushay said.

Such a momentous event also called for a large budget. As a student, Charlene H. Li ’88 remembered calling stores to ask for donations in the form of cake, ice cream, and punch—whatever they could offer.

“I just remember how aghast I was,” Li said. “My impression as a student was ‘You want me to call up these people and ask them to donate?’ I didn’t know they would be happy to.”

A REGAL VISIT

Rumors and lore shrouded the visit of Prince Charles of Wales, according to Solomon.

“Someone told me that the prince traveled with a taster,” he said. “I heard it was an old vestige of the monarchy and that a person had to sample the prince’s food before he ate it so that he wouldn’t be poisoned or something.”

Solomon said that he caused hysterical laughter in the British Consulate General when he called to ask the information officer if this rumor was true.

Fifty chosen students were given the opportunity to personally interact with the much talked about Prince after the British Consulate asked the University to invite individuals whose interests overlapped with those of the Prince to attend a reception with him, according to a Crimson article at the time. Students who enjoyed “polo playing, architecture, music, student government, or third world issues” were in luck.

In his speech, Prince Charles acknowledged a possible lack of enthusiasm surrounding his visit, noting that “at least one American newspaper had said it was a definite mistake to invite someone as appallingly undemocratic as The Prince of Wales.”

Before he arrived, Prince Charles was rumored to be an “incredibly stiff” figure, according to Solomon.

Yet, his speech was a tremendous hit.

“He happened to be fantastic,” Solomon said. “He charmed the entire campus, especially with his humor.”

Michael D. Nolan ’88 agreed.

“He actually gave remarks that the listeners really enjoyed and responded to well,” he said.

Despite the criticism he had received, Prince Charles kept the tone of his address light and humorous.

“Have no fear, ladies and gentlemen, I am used to being regarded as an anachronism,” he told the crowd.

“In fact, I am coming round to think it is rather grand—although parents, has it ever crossed your mind as to how you educate an anachronism?” he added. “Perhaps during the course of this address you will find out that it has proved to be a fruitless task.”

A CELEBRATION OF HISTORY

The motivation behind Harvard’s 350 celebrations were “pretty simple” at the end of the day, according to Reardon.

“It was the celebration of a great American icon,” Reardon said, “and [it was] to show the strength of the place.”

He recalled sitting next to a secret service officer during the address of then Secretary of State George P. Shultz when a plane passed overhead.

“A secret service officer turned to me,” Reardon recalled, “and said, ‘Well, that won’t happen again.’”

Sure enough, no second plane ever passed.

“I suppose that you could say,” Reardon said, “that the 350 was telling the world that Harvard was a mighty place.”

“It’s still a mighty place,” he added.

With three convocations, 106 symposia, a ball, and an event attended by 27,000 spectators at Harvard stadium that featured the Boston Pops, the sequence was intended to celebration the University’s expansive history.

“There were all kinds of dinners and things of that sort. There were fireworks like I never saw, showing ‘Veritas’ up in the sky,” said Reardon, referring to the stadium extravaganza. “I remember that [University] President Bok was concerned about what that was going to be like.”

Reardon said that he thought the celebration was an opportunity to enjoy the rich history of the institution.

“I think that people wanted to say, ‘You know, we’ve had a great run as a university. We’re 350 years old and we’re very strong today and we want to celebrate that,’” Reardon said.

—Staff writer Sabrina A. Mohamed can be reached at smohamed@college.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Alyza J. Sebenius can be reached at asebenius@college.harvard.edu.

Even after Harvard tried to placate critics with a policy of “selective divestment,” student activists continued to protest any investment in South Africa.

Activist pressure played a key role in pushing the University to reduce its South African holdings significantly, ultimately leading to a decrease of $230 million in South Africa-based holdings between June 1986 and January 1987.

Although Harvard never did fully divest from South Africa, 25 years later the student participants look back proudly on the small role they played in the downfall of the apartheid regime.

THE SPIRIT OF THE TIMES

South Africa’s system of apartheid was first instituted after World War II, and worldwide opposition to the system of forced racial segregation developed quickly.

In the late 1970s, a significant movement to divest from South Africa began. It aimed to use economic isolation to pressure the apartheid government to change its policies.

As the movement spread throughout the United States, Harvard resisted calls to withdraw its investments and the original movement eventually lost momentum.

However, Harvard activists in the late 1980s were reinvigorated by Jesse Jackson’s visit in April of 1985.

In front of thousands of Harvard students and onlookers, Jackson denounced apartheid and urged students to “choose the moral high road,” according to a 1985 Crimson article.

“We as undergraduates realized that this was a national movement and that what happened at Harvard mattered,” said Jonathan E. Martin ’88, reflecting on Jackson’s speech.

In some ways, the anti-apartheid movement at Harvard stood out in what was a “fairly apathetic time,” said John N. Ross ’87. “This was not like the 1960s where the whole campus was up in arms.”

Rebecca K. Kramnick ’87, who covered the anti-apartheid movement as a reporter for The Crimson, remembered divestment as being “the issue that got students motivated.”

Douglas C. Rossinow ’88 said he stumbled into campus activism as a freshman at Harvard, arriving on campus in the fall of 1984 as a “neo-conservative student from Long Island.”

Believing that opposition to apartheid South Africa was consistent with his belief in individual rights, Rossinow joined the South African Solidarity Committee, or SASC, exposing him to an organization with somewhat of a “radicalist streak.”

“It was not that ideologically diverse,” said Rossinow, laughing. “As far as I know, I was the only one in the group who had voted for [President Ronald] Reagan.”

Within a year, though, Rossinow found his political alliances shifting. “When I saw that organized, vowed conservatives were such enthusiastic supporters of this despicable regime, that basically severed my ties to Conservatism as a political identity,” he said.

As one of the largest campus groups trying to increase awareness about apartheid, SASC used sit-ins and protests to urge the University to divest from companies in South Africa.

THE ORIGINAL OCCUPIERS

Anti-divestment protests came to a head in April 1986 when SASC led the construction of a symbolic ‘shantytown’ in the middle of Harvard Yard.

Over 200 activists carried the components of the shantytown and their symbolic, 16-foot tall “Ivory Tower” under the cover of darkness, completing their work at 2:15 A.M. on April 16, 1986.

“I wasn’t sure how many people would show up,” said Ross, recalling how he was surprised at the level of support for the protest. “This was the world before internet and email. It just went through the grapevine.”

The shantytown became a living protest, with students sleeping in the settlement and some professors and teaching fellows even holding classes there.

Although many students were sympathetic towards the cause, not everyone was on board. The settlement received a bomb threat on April 18, and on April 22, the Conservative Club built a ‘Gulag’ in the Yard to draw attention to University investment in the Soviet Union.

But as Commencement loomed closer, some students called for the activists to dismantle the settlement to avoid interfering with the event. Ultimately, one-fourth of the Class of 1986 signed a petition calling for its removal.

Meanwhile, the University and the activists were at a standoff; student activists were unwilling to dismantle the shantytown unless the University fully divested, but the University was steadfast in its opposition to doing so.

However, in their treatment of the protestors, according to Ross, the University was “terrified of clamping down too hard and provoking more student sympathy.”

Although SASC members voluntarily removed most of the shanties two days after Commencement, they left some of the larger structures standing.

Administrators took down the last remnants of their protest without the group’s consent, clearing the area where present-day Occupiers would set up a ‘tent city’ 25 years later in the fall of 2011.

“When I read about the Occupy movement, it made me think back to the tactical debates we had within SASC,” said Rossinow. “The shantytown attracted a lot of attention, but I think the group hadn’t really thought through about how it was going to end.”

Despite the controversy surrounding their actions, these students looked back on the shantytown as one of the most successful of their initiatives.

“It made the University administration pay attention,” Ross said. “They had to look over their shoulders.”

REBUILDING THE MOVEMENT

After administrators dismantled the shanty town, anti-apartheid activists were left questioning how to best proceed against staunch University opposition to their demand for full divestment.

Sit-ins and protests continued, coming to a peak a year later.

On March 24, 1987, members of SASC once again seized the limelight when their “symbolic blockade” of the Science Center ended in controversy and an unexpectedly strong administrative backlash.

South African Vice Consul Duke Kent-Brown had begun his speech in the Science Center when around 20 members of SASC left their seats and blocked off the two bottom exits of the auditorium, according to a 1987 Crimson article.

The students, who sang and interlocked arms while blocking the exits, claimed their goal was simply to ensure that Kent-Brown walked through an ongoing rally outside the Science Center.

But Harvard University police officers intervened and escorted Kent-Brown out of the building as he reportedly shouted, “I better not be touched.”

Harvard administrators were prepared for the blockade and suspected that the students would attempt to protest at the event. Harvard Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III had organized numerous meetings with the students throughout the semester to remain informed of their plans.

Fourteen of the students were later found guilty by the Administrative Board of disrupting the speech and were placed on disciplinary probation. Originally, Epps filed up to six charges against each of the undergraduates, although some of the charges were eventually dropped.

FADING ACTIVISM

According to Mitchell A. Orenstein ’89, what was supposed to be a standard, run-of-the-mill protest became an overblown controversy. For some participants, the resulting controversy over disciplinary action and freedom of speech soon overshadowed their anti-apartheid efforts.

Overall, Harvard’s largest student movement of the 1980s began to die down in spring of 1987, and enthusiasm for the movement was not as strong as it once was.

“The energy in an activist group is never continuous at the same level. It kind of ebbs and flows, and there are all sorts of reasons why that could be,” said Rossinow.

By the spring of 1987, Harvard had sold most of its stocks and bonds in Texaco, Shell, Mobil, and Ford, cutting its investments in South Africa nearly in half.

The move reduced Harvard’s South Africa-linked holdings to their lowest level since 1983.

The decision was partly due to pressure from the activist community, Treasurer of the University Roderick M. MacDougall ’51 said at the time.

Although activists insisted it was not enough, Harvard’s decision to selectively divest from companies in 1987 “[took] a toll” on the student movement, said Orenstein in 1987 to the Crimson.

“I would say that South Africa as an issue was sort of fading,” said Brooke A. Masters ’89, a reporter for the Crimson who covered the Duke-Kent protest. “Harvard had done the obvious thing to do.”

By May of 1987, University President Derek C. Bok asserted that divestment activism had declined, an observation that was affirmed by a spokesman for SASC. “A lot of intellectuals are rethinking if divestment is responsible,” said Orenstein to the Crimson at the time.

LIFE AFTER HARVARD

Just seven years after the Class of 1987 marched at Commencement—crossing the very ground where the shantytown had stood the year before—Nelson Mandela was elected President of South Africa. For student activists, this was a monumental milestone that helped to validate their efforts at the College.

“It was a tremendous joy to see Mandela’s election,” Ross said. “I’m guessing that all of us felt like we had made a small contribution to that.”

Thomas J. Winslow ’87 did not participate in the protests at the time, aside from visiting the shantytown in Harvard Yard once to watch an educational video. After graduation, however, he moved to South Africa, where he witnessed the South African Air Force flying a salute to the newly-inaugurated president in 1994.

Looking back, he recognized the powerful role student activism played in the anti-apartheid movement.

“It simply could not have been done without the international solidarity movement working closely with democratic forces inside South Africa,” said Winslow. “I now appreciate the role of student activists and the international solidarity movement much, much more than I did at the time.”

After graduating, Grossman traveled to South Africa several times, allowing him to observe the country’s transition.

“It’s very fulfilling to know you are on the right side of history,” Grossman said.

—Staff writer David W. Kaufman can be reached at davidkaufman@college.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Michael C. George can be reached at mgeorge@college.harvard.edu.

When news of the Iran-Contra affair in 1986, Harvard professors believed that President Ronald Reagan’s powerful hold over American politics would come to an end in light of the scandal.

For months, Washington was consumed by the fallout from the revelation that President Ronald Reagan’s administration had violated two Congressional impositions—surreptitiously selling weapons to Iran and then using that money to fund the Contras, an anti-communist rebel group located in Nicaragua.

“I think [the affair] marked the end of the Reagan Administration,” said Assistant Professor of Government Laurie Mylroie in a Crimson article published at the time. “It’s going to be a black mark. It’s not going to be forgotten.”

But the Iran-Contra scandal seemingly failed to become the “black mark” on the Reagan administration’s legacy that Harvard professors speculated it would be. And though the furtive affair captivated the nation, Harvard’s fairly liberal campus seem insulated from much of the buzz surrounding the scandal.

FALLOUT AND SPECULATIONS

The initial shock seemed to shake Reagan’s image on the national stage, according to Harvard professors.

“There was a sense of shock—President Reagan had framed his foreign policy in moral terms, and had argued against dealing with terrorists,” said Joseph S. Nye Jr., a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School. “Both faculty and students were surprised to discover the discrepancy between his words and actions.”

The Iran-Contra affair began as an arms-for-hostage exchange, set into motion when Iran secretly asked to purchase weapons from the U.S. in 1985. The Reagan administration was divided on the issue, as some saw this proposal as an opportunity to bring home seven American hostages held by a terrorist group with Iranian ties.

Reagan administrators, following the plan created by Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, ultimately decided to make the sale and then diverted profits from the weapons sales to support the Contras, despite Congress’s restrictions.

“One issue that people wondered about was whether the President knew about the efforts to get the Iranians involved,” said Marvin Kalb, a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School.

The Reagan-appointed Tower Commission investigated the scandal and found Reagan to have had no knowledge of the dealings, though his back-seat management style of the White House had facilitated the exchange.

Reagan’s connections to the scandal led to a significant dip in his popularity.

“What the hearings showed us was that Ronald Reagan was not exactly micromanaging things at the White House,” said Frank E. Lockwood ’89, a former Crimson editor. “Staffers there had gone rogue, and it seemed to be flying under his radar.”

At the time, Nye believed that the Iran-Contra scandal had weakened Reagan’s presidency.

“At one point, before his open acknowledgement, there was even talk of impeachment,” Nye said.

Lockwood said the dangers to Reagan’s administration were particularly strong in light of the Watergate scandal, a highly controversial political cover-up that forced the resignation of Reagan’s predecessor in the Oval Office, Richard Nixon.

“There was a sense for a time that the Reagan presidency could be in jeopardy. This was only a few years after Watergate,” Lockwood said.

In the end however, conversations about the most recent political scandal made Reagan’s flaws seem small in comparison.

“President Reagan had made mistakes, but he was no Nixon, not even close,” Lockwood said.

A POLITICAL ANOMALY

Carrying 49 of 50 states in the 1984 presidential election, Reagan was a well-liked president in almost every corner of the country. Harvard, however, proved to be an exception.

“Harvard was one of the few places in the country where Ronald Reagan wasn’t popular,” Lockwood said. “There was a lot of opposition to President Reagan from the time he entered office to the time he left.”

The Iran-Contra affair only added to Harvard students’ widespread dissatisfaction with Reagan.

When the news of the scandal broke, liberal students reacted with astonishment.

“Among the people that were more left-oriented, it was kind of shocking,” said Mitchell A. Orenstein ’89, a former Crimson editor. Orenstein recalled that liberal students were concerned that the clandestine affair might escalate to a proxy war in Latin America, presumably under the guise of “fighting communism.”

Conservatives’ response to the scandal was tempered by their relatively small numbers on campus. “Republicans would’ve been a lot more sympathetic [to Reagan], but they were heavily, heavily outnumbered on campus,” Lockwood said.

Harvard Republicans did not place much emphasis on the Iran-Contra issue and chose to focus on United States’ relationship with the Contras, according to Kris W. Kobach ’88, president of the Harvard Republicans Club when the scandal came to light.

Even on a campus where Reagan was overwhelmingly unpopular, the Iran-Contra affair failed to attract significant attention among the student body. “When it became clear that [Reagan] had no personal knowledge of the affair, the scandal moved from outrage to the back burner,” Kobach said.

“I don’t remember that there was any great reaction on campus to the story,” said Kalb. “There were certainly a number of questions asked in class at the Kennedy School, but they were asked in a way that suggested more curiosity and interest than anger.”

Many Harvard students were mobilized by issues such as the South African apartheid, but the Iran-Contra affair did not elicit a similar response.

“The Contra stuff didn’t take off nearly to the same extent as the anti-apartheid movement,” said Orenstein. “There were people who tried to get things going, but it wasn’t something that had a huge amount of activism.”

Some political groups still engaged with the issue of U.S. involvement with the Contras, but the Reagan scandal took a subsidiary role.

“The question of whether the U.S. should be supporting the Contras was the number two issue on campus, but the Iran-Contra affair itself wasn’t really a big issue,” Kobach said. “It didn’t generate its own student protest...[or] major debates.”

LASTING DAMAGE?

Despite speculation from Harvard professors and students that the scandal’s damage to Reagan’s legacy would be lasting, many today admit that Reagan’s reputation has survived the initial attacks.

“I don’t think that the public impression of the Reagan administration was forever soiled by the public response to the Iran-Contra,” Kalb said. “Yes, at the time, it was a major story and an embarrassing story. But Reagan had a quality about him that did not encourage flamboyant criticism.”

Nye found that Reagan’s effective damage control after the scandal won back favor.

“By owning up to the problem, and changing the personnel in the White House, Reagan was able to recover his balance in the last two years of his presidency,” Nye said.

More than two decades after the incident, Reagan is seen as a beacon of contemporary conservatism, ranked as one of the most popular presidents in history according to a 2011 Gallup poll.

“Obviously there were people who disagreed with him and thought it was a very foolish mistake,” Kalb said. “But Reagan was a Teflon president,”

Reagan’s ability to recover from the scandal was also helped significantly by his reputation as a personable figure.

“Ronald Reagan had real charm, real charisma. They called him ‘The Great Communicator,’” Lockwood said. “People just flat-out liked him.”

—Staff writer Victoria Fydrych can be reached at fydrych@college.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer David Song can be reached at davidsong@college.harvard.edu.

The preliminary plan provided to The Crimson, designed by Ann Krsul Architecture and funded by the HSBA, was drafted by a committee of stakeholders including representatives of the Coop, Cambridge Savings Bank, Harvard University, and other businesses in the HSBA, according to John P. DiGiovanni, the president of the HSBA.

The planning committee has met recently with many elected and unelected Cambridge officials to discuss and review the plans.

Mayor Henrietta J. Davis said the plans will be vetted by community members and city leaders before moving forward, and City Manager Robert W. Healy cautioned that funding for the renovation has not been solicited or allocated yet.

“There are some things I liked about it, some things I didn’t like,” Davis said. “It’s very good that the businesses got out there and did some work. Sometimes you have to propose an option before people really decide to do something.”

21ST-CENTURY IMPROVEMENT

The discussion of the plans follows the completion of the third phase of an ongoing city improvement project that has brought repaved streets and new sidewalks to several parts of Harvard Square since it began in 2006.

Sheldon Cohen Island, the central gateway to Harvard Square that is home to the Pit and the Out of Town News kiosk, has been left untouched since the MBTA rerouted the Red Line 20 years ago. Now it will see construction next year when the MBTA renovates the elevator located there to meet court-mandated accessibility standards.

“As the rest of the area around the plaza really began to be upgraded and look nice, the plaza really became clear it needed some more attention,” DiGiovanni said.

DiGiovanni, who leases properties on Church Street, in the Garage retail complex on JFK Street, and in other parts of the Square, has been a leader in the beautification projects in the Square since the publication in 1998 of a document published by the HSBA called “Polishing the Trophy,” which suggested improvements to the streets, sidewalks, and lighting in Cambridge’s preeminent tourism hub.

He likened today’s 15-page document outlining the new vision for Sheldon Cohen Island to the landmark publication of 14 years ago, which eventually led to major construction projects.

“Just as ‘Polishing the Trophy’ started, we thought, ‘Let’s do something that can begin the discussion,’” DiGiovanni said. “Some images and renderings can help stimulate some creativity and hopefully some collaboration.”

The new plan would model the busy heart of Harvard Square on the look and feel of New York City’s Times Square, DiGiovanni said.

The document says, “The primary goal of this plan is to continue to use this world-recognized and beloved urban space as a meeting place while enhancing its communal features and uses.”

Artistic renderings in the proposal depict a new “Red Line Theater”: stadium seating looking down on the Pit and the double-sided LED screen standing behind the seating overlooking the entrance to the T station.

The five-foot-tall screen would project news, show videos of past and present activity in the Square, and broadcast special events like Harvard’s Commencement, DiGiovanni said. Other additions include tables and chairs, greenery, and bicycle racks.

City Manager Robert W. Healy said that it might be time for a refresher for the area but expressed hesitation about the ambitious plan’s cost.

“That’s a focal point of Harvard Square that needs some sprucing up,” he said. “I think it’s a nice project. My worry is, how do we finance it?”

Funds have not been allocated for refurbishing Sheldon Cohen Island in the current five-year capital planning, but Healy said he was interested in fine-tuning the design and exploring public-private partnerships to enable it.

TRANSFORMING THE PIT

Sheldon Cohen, a legendary presence who has been called the unofficial mayor of Harvard Square, sold the newsstand on the brick island that now bears his name to Hudson News in 1994 after 39 years manning the kiosk.

Hudson News decided not to renew its lease in 2008, but the stand found a new owner, Muckey’s Corp. When that company’s lease ends in 2013, the city could tear down the kiosk to make room for the new interactive glass-walled building depicted in the plan.

“The kiosk is really an icon of the Square. It’s a natural meeting place, and we all feel that there should be something that reflects that,” said Jeremiah P. Murphy ’73, president of the Coop and vice president of the HSBA.

The stand has long struggled to survive despite the decline of print media sales. Murphy said that converting the kiosk to an interactive information area with a wraparound news ticker would better serve the modern-day public.

As the main entrance to the MBTA station, Sheldon Cohen Island serves as a crossroads for tourists, students, and residents alike.

“It can create a cloud of social interactions,” said Laura E. Donohue ’85, the owner of Bob Slate Stationer on Brattle Street.

DiGiovanni said that he expects Harvard will be a partner in funding and envisioning any renovations, as it has been in the last 15 years of planning and construction spurred by “Polishing the Trophy.”

“Harvard is one of many stakeholders working together to maintain and enhance the unique character of Harvard Square,” Christine M. Heenan, Harvard’s vice president for public affairs and communications, wrote in an email. “Harvard looks forward to a being part of a very healthy partnership with city government, local residents, and the Harvard Square Business Association that care about Harvard Square.”

—Maya S. Jonas-Silver contributed to the reporting of this story.

—Staff writer Kerry M. Flynn can be reached at kflynn@college.harvard.edu.

Business School spokesperson Brian Kenny said Bihlmaier was in Portland with two friends to celebrate their impending graduation.

Bihlmaier went missing Saturday evening after being asked to leave Ri Ra Irish Pub, a waterfront pub near the Maine State Pier, for being visibly intoxicated, according to the Associated Press.

Authorities have been searching for him since Sunday morning.

Portland Police Chief Michael Sauschuck told the Associated Press that divers are searching harbor waters near where Bihlmaier was last seen, using a sonar to aid their search.

Monday afternoon, police reported that they had found an article of clothing near the State Pier. Kenny said while it is unclear whether the article of clothing belongs to Bihlmaier, investigators were “focusing their search” on where it was found.

The police intend to renew their search efforts on Tuesday.

Kenny said several students and family members had come to Portland to join the search and comfort Bihlmaier’s wife, who is currently pregnant with the couple’s first child. Business School Dean Nitin Nohria, Associate Dean Youngme E. Moon, and a number of other administrators were among those who traveled from Cambridge to Portland Monday to help with the search effort.

The graduate school hosted a prayer service on Bihlmaier’s behalf Monday afternoon, Business School spokesman James E. Aisner ’68 wrote in an email.

“Needless to say, everyone in this community is very concerned,” Aisner wrote. “We are all hoping and praying for the best.”

—Staff writer Hana N. Rouse can be reached at hrouse@college.harvard.edu.