PBHA Grants ‘Call of Service’ Award to Vivek Murthy, Honors Robert Coles’ Legacy

Former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy ’98 said he wished more college graduates pursued service-oriented careers in remarks at the 20th annual Robert Coles Call of Service Lecture and Award on Friday.

Murthy, this year’s award recipient, spoke about his own journey into service and the advice he would give to current students. The event also served as a memorial for Coles, who died in June at 97 after more than 70 years of involvement with the Phillips Brooks House Association, the organization backing the award.

“I would love to see more and more people when they graduate from college approaching their careers with that service mindset, recognizing that success is not money, power, and fame. Those are fine, but success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure,” he said.

“Right now, there are people all across our country who are struggling with that sense that something is missing in their lives,” Murthy added. “I know this because this is what I kept encountering.”

Murthy’s remarks focused on the importance of community to living a meaningful life — something he emphasized in his two terms as surgeon general under U.S. Presidents Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden. He later went on to found the Together Project, an initiative dedicated to fostering social connection and community building nationwide.

Associate Dean of Culture and Community Alta Mauro said in remarks on Friday that it was “only fitting” that the Mattering Initiative co-sponsored this year’s lecture honoring Murthy.

“When students feel that they matter, they deepen connections. They have a sense of meaning and purpose. They’re less likely to experience loneliness, anxiety, and depression,” Mauro said, comparing the Mattering Initiative’s mission to Murthy’s work promoting “individual, social, and communal well-being.”

The Mattering Initiative was launched in spring 2025 by the Dean of Students Office to increase feelings of belonging among students — a goal some students were skeptical would succeed in Harvard’s pre-professional culture.

Murthy said Friday that he wishes he had worried less about his academic performance in college — and spent more time connecting with others.

“I didn’t make a lot of my friends when I was here because I was always in the library studying. This is one of the reasons why it’s extremely difficult for me to walk by the Lamont Library because I have such painful memories of being there freshman fall all the time,” he said, to laughter from the crowd.

“I wish I had invested more in people,” he added.

Following Murthy’s lecture, multiple Harvard affiliates gave speeches honoring Coles’ memory.

A psychiatrist and famed civil rights activist, Coles received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998. His ties to Harvard included a notable course he taught for years: General Education 105: “The Literature of Social Reflection.” At one point, the course enrolled more than 800 students.

In an interview with The Crimson following the event, Murthy said that Coles had been an “extraordinary inspiration” to him both before and after college.

“To be able to be back here at Harvard, and just be able to celebrate his memory with other people who have also walked in his footsteps and created a life of service, it just means so much to me,” Murthy said. “I hope that this spirit of service continues to strengthen and grow stronger after his passing.”

The event came months after a Faculty of Arts and Sciences-wide restructuring hit Phillips Brooks House — the College’s center for student public service and the umbrella organization housing PBHA — especially hard. Nearly half of its staff were either laid off or moved into changed roles, which also affected more than 60 staff across the College.

At a September open forum, Harvard College Dean David J. Deming acknowledged the difficulty of the summer’s layoffs, but said that student programming had been largely unaffected.

In the interview, Murthy said that he had been inspired by his interactions with current Harvard students engaged in service.

“This time left me with hope for the future,” he said. “Hope is to be found most readily in people, and the people here are dedicated to humanity, and that’s what we need.”

—Staff writer Sebastian B. Connolly can be reached at [email protected] or on Signal at sbc.23. Follow him on X @SebastianC4784.

—Staff writer Summer E. Rose can be reached at [email protected] or on Signal at ser.85. Follow her on X @summerellenrose.