Harvard Administrators Find Cures for the Summertime Blues

Collectively, Harvard's intrepid administrators earned more than $14 million this summer--for tasks such as interior decorating and buying coffee.

Of course, the summer wasn't all wall adornments and beans. Administrators stayed on campus, suffered in the sticky, sunny sauna that was Cambridge and continued the academic year grind amid the chaos of Yard renovations, benefits overhauls and talks of restructuring the College.

Still, while most kids were away, the grown-ups found a little time to play.

Secretary of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences John B. Fox Jr. '59 dug out an old project that had accumulated his inattention through the school year--he found a place for a homeless bust.

The image of W.E.B. DuBois, Class of 1890, was coming to Harvard this summer, and there was no place to put him until the bust's permanent location, the new Memorial Hall student center, opens next fall.

A summer of conferencing and consulting left Fox with a generally satisfying, albeit temporary, solution to the floating head conundrum--the bust will be set in Widener's reading room for the next 12 months.

"These things might seem random, but they don't come out of nowhere," Fox says. "They're things we have to do that we set aside. Then they have to happen during the summer months."

So it was sheer coincidence that the fun stuff happened months and miles away from most students' prying eyes?

"It's just the numbers and dates, that's how we decide what gets done when," says Director of Dining Services Michael P. Berry.

Berry spent much of his summer traveling around the country in search of the right coffee for the dining service's enterprise operations of catering, food stands and public cafes.

He checked out manufacturers in New York. San Francisco, Toronto, and even Paris and Berlin before he settled on what he thought was the best: Seattle's Best, now serving at the Greenhouse Cafe.

"I had a blast this summer getting into the coffee mystique," Berry says. "We had been working on this project for 14 months and it was incredible to finally see it come to fruition."

It took Berry less time to make a series of other decisions: sending all dining services chefs and bakers to cooking school, organizing a schedule for visiting chefs around the country and replacing dining hall checkers with card-key machines.

"Oh, and the thing students will love," Berry adds, "is that we're expanding the bag lunch program. You can get Caesar salads now."

From Seattle to summer homes, the traveling bug bit administrators hard. Dean of the College L. Fred Jewett '57 took off every Friday this summer to supervise the renovation of his house on the coast of Maine.

Jewett, who has announced that he will resign from his post at the end of this academic year, is converting his house on Southport Island's Newagen Cape into a year-round dwelling. He spent the rest of the summer in his University Hall office, writing reports he didn't have time for during the academic year.

Closer to home, Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles found summer inspiration on campus, "reveling in the grace and elegance of the marvels of Grays and Holworthy"--apparently despite the fact that both were covered with construction equipment.

Of course, there was another potential source of inspiration a bit closer at hand--the stuffed sun-bleached bunny which sits on Knowles' office window ledge, unlike most Harvard students, didn't abandon him for an internship after May finals.

Though he says he's not exactly "tanned, rested and ready" now that his summer is over, Knowles remains effusive. "It has simply been a splendid summer full of hard work and I look forward to the fall with great anticipation," he says.

For others, summer offered a chance to make the fall a less anxious time.

Dean of the Graduate School of Education Jerome T. Murphy says his most mundane summer activity was also the most unusual: planning for the year ahead. During his two years as dean, he's never had the chance to think that far ahead.

"I know it's sad and it shouldn't be that way, but it's just not something I've gotten to before," Murphy says. "But this summer I did well--I even taught myself to plan on my toes.

"I had a blast this summer getting into the coffee mystique," Berry says. "We had been working on this project for 14 months and it was incredible to finally see it come to fruition."

It took Berry less time to make a series of other decisions: sending all dining services chefs and bakers to cooking school, organizing a schedule for visiting chefs around the country and replacing dining hall checkers with card-key machines.

"Oh, and the thing students will love," Berry adds, "is that we're expanding the bag lunch program. You can get Caesar salads now."

From Seattle to summer homes, the traveling bug bit administrators hard. Dean of the College L. Fred Jewett '57 took off every Friday this summer to supervise the renovation of his house on the coast of Maine.

Jewett, who has announced that he will resign from his post at the end of this academic year, is converting his house on Southport Island's Newagen Cape into a year-round dwelling. He spent the rest of the summer in his University Hall office, writing reports he didn't have time for during the academic year.

Closer to home, Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles found summer inspiration on campus, "reveling in the grace and elegance of the marvels of Grays and Holworthy"--apparently despite the fact that both were covered with construction equipment.

Of course, there was another potential source of inspiration a bit closer at hand--the stuffed sun-bleached bunny which sits on Knowles' office window ledge, unlike most Harvard students, didn't abandon him for an internship after May finals.

Though he says he's not exactly "tanned, rested and ready" now that his summer is over, Knowles remains effusive. "It has simply been a splendid summer full of hard work and I look forward to the fall with great anticipation," he says.

For others, summer offered a chance to make the fall a less anxious time.

Dean of the Graduate School of Education Jerome T. Murphy says his most mundane summer activity was also the most unusual: planning for the year ahead. During his two years as dean, he's never had the chance to think that far ahead.

"I know it's sad and it shouldn't be that way, but it's just not something I've gotten to before," Murphy says. "But this summer I did well--I even taught myself to plan on my toes.