Thursday, October 18, 2012
FDR on Romney
This really is oddly prescient, whether you think it is fair or not! Oh for the days when politicians could give campaign speeches in whole sentences.
Off to Korea and Hong Kong
I'm headed to Asia for some intense lecturing. Here is the quick rundown on the schedule.
25 October, 9:30am, Korean Educational Development Institute, Seoul: "Higher Education in the Age of the Internet"
26 October, 10:00am, Keimyung University, Daegu: "The Moral Role of Higher Education"
29 October, 12:15pm, Asia Society, Hong Kong: "Globalization of Education, US and Asia" (panel discussion)
29 October, 3:00pm, Hong Kong Science Park: "Innovation and Venture Acceleration in the Digital Era"
30 October, 12:30pm, Hong Kong University: "Flipping the Classroom"
30 October, 5:30pm, Hong Kong University: "Excellence With a Soul: What you should get from your university education"
25 October, 9:30am, Korean Educational Development Institute, Seoul: "Higher Education in the Age of the Internet"
26 October, 10:00am, Keimyung University, Daegu: "The Moral Role of Higher Education"
29 October, 12:15pm, Asia Society, Hong Kong: "Globalization of Education, US and Asia" (panel discussion)
29 October, 3:00pm, Hong Kong Science Park: "Innovation and Venture Acceleration in the Digital Era"
30 October, 12:30pm, Hong Kong University: "Flipping the Classroom"
30 October, 5:30pm, Hong Kong University: "Excellence With a Soul: What you should get from your university education"
What ever happened to Dinesh D'Souza?
Survivors of the culture wars will remember D'Souza's 1991 anti-political-correctness manifesto, Illiberal Education: The Politics of Race and Sex on Campus. His career as a a conservative had begun suitably enough a decade earlier while he was an undergraduate at Dartmouth College. He continued to publish best-selling books, which I suspect were (unlike IE) read mostly by those who already accepted their affirming bottom lines: Capitalism is good, patriotism is good, Christianity is good, Ronald Reagan was good. D'Souza was a go-to guy for educated conservatism in many venues and fora. Here, for example, is an anti-gay-marriage piece he wrote a few years ago.
I lost track of D'Souza a few years ago; turns out he had become president of Kings College, a small evangelical college housed in the Empire State Building. He was an odd choice, since he is Roman Catholic, or was. And it was an equally odd choice for him, unless it was a sinecure that gave him a place to stand from which he thought he might move the earth.
Well, he resigned yesterday following a bit of messiness that began when he turned up somewhere with a lady who was not his wife of twenty years, but whom he introduced as his fiancé.
I don't care about his sex life, but there you go again. What a judgmental hypocrite.
I lost track of D'Souza a few years ago; turns out he had become president of Kings College, a small evangelical college housed in the Empire State Building. He was an odd choice, since he is Roman Catholic, or was. And it was an equally odd choice for him, unless it was a sinecure that gave him a place to stand from which he thought he might move the earth.
Well, he resigned yesterday following a bit of messiness that began when he turned up somewhere with a lady who was not his wife of twenty years, but whom he introduced as his fiancé.
I don't care about his sex life, but there you go again. What a judgmental hypocrite.
Thursday, October 4, 2012
A 30th Anniversary Family Photo
We often talk about the "Harvard Family," a phrase that rings hollow to some who find Harvard expressing the family love more passionately during fundraising season than other parts of the year. But after you've been teaching for awhile, it is impossible not to have a family love for people you knew years before, when they (and you) were younger and less formed. Santayana expresses beautifully the joy of working forever with the young, and yet seeing some of them in their maturity. "While we are young," he says, "and as
yet amount to nothing, we retain the privilege of infinite potentiality. The
poor actuality as not yet taken its place, and in giving one thing made
everything else forever unattainable." That seems a bit sour for a Harvard professor, even given that Harvard admissions did not have the standards in his day that it has in mine. In any case, today's students have enough job changes that they can certainly count on more than one realization of their potentiality.
A few years after I started teaching, I started maintaining a list of my teaching fellows. I work with these students, including many undergraduates, very closely. Of course I pick only people who have already shown their promise in Harvard coursework, and then mentor them about taking responsibility for teaching and grading and helping each other be the best. It's a pretty amazing alumni club, including professors of computer science at Harvard, Yale, MIT, Stanford, Cornell, and a bunch of other top CS departments, as well as some prominent scientists in industry. The full list is posted here. I don't think there are any errors, but there are some lacunae in the early years; if by chance anyone out there can fill in the gaps I would greatly appreciate it.
Many of these people stayed friendly with each other and with me long after that intense teaching experience. In fact two marriages (that I know of) emerged from the intimate experience of designing and grading problem sets and sharing teaching tricks. I haven't had any children of TFs as TFs, though I have certainly had some children of students as students!
In the fall of 1982, I taught CS50, intro CS (it was then called AS11 and was a Pascal programming course). This was only the second year the course existed; today it has become legendary (see this lovely tribute to today's CS50 posted by an HBS student). We graded the hour exam on Halloween and after we were done doing that, the TFs were invited over to my house for dinner. One of them got the bright idea to get up in Harry Lewis Halloween costumes. I snapped this picture, which will be 30 years old in a few weeks.
And here, including the people who did not make it into the picture, are their current affiliations as far as I know. Some of them are informed guesses. Again, if anyone can supply better pointers I would love to have them.
Beth Adelson: Professor of Psychology, Rutgers U.
Jonathon Amsterdam: Software engineer, Google
Eric Carter: Cardiologist, Utah
Melissa Chase: Department head, MITRE
Michael Cote: Deceased
Larry Denenberg: Software engineer, Tripadvisor
Christoph Freytag: CS Professor, Humboldt University, Berlin
Boo Gershun: Lives in Boston area
Adam Gottlieb: Lost
Lisa Hellerstein: CS Professor, NYU-Poly
Charles Hurd: Team Lead, Instruments Data Systems Group at Susquehanna International Group (SIG)
Philip Klein: CS Professor, Brown U.
Larry Lebowitz: Chief Investment Officer, The Investment Fund for Foundations
Joe Marks: previously head of Mitsubishi Lab in Cambridge and Disney Research, now with a startup
Michael Massimilla: Senior Director, Software Architect at DealerTrack
Ted Nesson: Senior Director of Engineering at Pegasystems
Craig Partridge: VP for Network Research, Raytheon BBN
John Ramsdell: MITRE
Rony Sebok: VP, Operations, 1 Beyond
Margo Seltzer: CS Professor, Harvard
Phillip Stern: FPGA Design Verification Lead, Teradyne
John Thielens: Chief Architect, Cloud Services, Axway
Anders Weinstein: Senior Research Programmer, Robotics Institute, CMU
A fabulous group and I am proud to know them all, including the ones I have not seen since shortly after the photo was taken. But there are two who deserve special mention. One is Margo Seltzer, who improbably wound up (after realizing a few other actualities) my wonderful colleague, a few doors down from mine in Maxwell Dworkin. She deserves a shout, if for no other reason, because she organized this Halloween-costume stunt.
The other is Larry Lebowitz. TIFF, which he now heads, is an investment fund whose investors are nonprofits. So it is possible that the modest endowment of your favorite small college or museum is under his management. Larry came to this post recently having headed a big hedge fund in Texas. He is not of an age to be slowing down, but he is of an age where he is thinking about how to do good in the world, using both his energies and his skills. I have kept in touch with him over the years because we are both Roxbury Latin School alumni; he has served RLS as trustee and we spent time together on that board.
It has just been announced in Harvard Magazine that Larry has given a chair to the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, a stunning act of generosity. A few weeks ago I got a call from the Harvard development office explaining that I had to approve the name of the chair. Why? I asked. Because it is going to be named for me and Marlyn (my wife, Marlyn McGrath, another alum and longtime servant of Harvard).
It is the greatest honor that I have ever received, and Marlyn and I are moved beyond words. Thank you!
Here is the announcement. Our names will not be attached to the chair until we retire; until then it will be the Charles River Professorship. The chair has been awarded to Rob Wood, our amazing micro-robotic engineer. It is a great choice.
A few years after I started teaching, I started maintaining a list of my teaching fellows. I work with these students, including many undergraduates, very closely. Of course I pick only people who have already shown their promise in Harvard coursework, and then mentor them about taking responsibility for teaching and grading and helping each other be the best. It's a pretty amazing alumni club, including professors of computer science at Harvard, Yale, MIT, Stanford, Cornell, and a bunch of other top CS departments, as well as some prominent scientists in industry. The full list is posted here. I don't think there are any errors, but there are some lacunae in the early years; if by chance anyone out there can fill in the gaps I would greatly appreciate it.
Many of these people stayed friendly with each other and with me long after that intense teaching experience. In fact two marriages (that I know of) emerged from the intimate experience of designing and grading problem sets and sharing teaching tricks. I haven't had any children of TFs as TFs, though I have certainly had some children of students as students!
In the fall of 1982, I taught CS50, intro CS (it was then called AS11 and was a Pascal programming course). This was only the second year the course existed; today it has become legendary (see this lovely tribute to today's CS50 posted by an HBS student). We graded the hour exam on Halloween and after we were done doing that, the TFs were invited over to my house for dinner. One of them got the bright idea to get up in Harry Lewis Halloween costumes. I snapped this picture, which will be 30 years old in a few weeks.
Here are the people in the picture, in their approximate positions:
John Thielens Michael Cote
Craig Partridge Penny Chase Phillip Stern John Ramsdell Ted Nesson
Anders Weinstein Lisa Hellerstein Larry Lebowitz Phil Klein Rony Sebok Beth Adelson
Christoph Freytag Michael Massimilla Jonathan Amsterdam
Margo Seltzer
And here, including the people who did not make it into the picture, are their current affiliations as far as I know. Some of them are informed guesses. Again, if anyone can supply better pointers I would love to have them.
Beth Adelson: Professor of Psychology, Rutgers U.
Jonathon Amsterdam: Software engineer, Google
Eric Carter: Cardiologist, Utah
Melissa Chase: Department head, MITRE
Michael Cote: Deceased
Larry Denenberg: Software engineer, Tripadvisor
Christoph Freytag: CS Professor, Humboldt University, Berlin
Boo Gershun: Lives in Boston area
Adam Gottlieb: Lost
Lisa Hellerstein: CS Professor, NYU-Poly
Charles Hurd: Team Lead, Instruments Data Systems Group at Susquehanna International Group (SIG)
Philip Klein: CS Professor, Brown U.
Larry Lebowitz: Chief Investment Officer, The Investment Fund for Foundations
Joe Marks: previously head of Mitsubishi Lab in Cambridge and Disney Research, now with a startup
Michael Massimilla: Senior Director, Software Architect at DealerTrack
Ted Nesson: Senior Director of Engineering at Pegasystems
Craig Partridge: VP for Network Research, Raytheon BBN
John Ramsdell: MITRE
Rony Sebok: VP, Operations, 1 Beyond
Margo Seltzer: CS Professor, Harvard
Phillip Stern: FPGA Design Verification Lead, Teradyne
John Thielens: Chief Architect, Cloud Services, Axway
Anders Weinstein: Senior Research Programmer, Robotics Institute, CMU
A fabulous group and I am proud to know them all, including the ones I have not seen since shortly after the photo was taken. But there are two who deserve special mention. One is Margo Seltzer, who improbably wound up (after realizing a few other actualities) my wonderful colleague, a few doors down from mine in Maxwell Dworkin. She deserves a shout, if for no other reason, because she organized this Halloween-costume stunt.
The other is Larry Lebowitz. TIFF, which he now heads, is an investment fund whose investors are nonprofits. So it is possible that the modest endowment of your favorite small college or museum is under his management. Larry came to this post recently having headed a big hedge fund in Texas. He is not of an age to be slowing down, but he is of an age where he is thinking about how to do good in the world, using both his energies and his skills. I have kept in touch with him over the years because we are both Roxbury Latin School alumni; he has served RLS as trustee and we spent time together on that board.
It has just been announced in Harvard Magazine that Larry has given a chair to the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, a stunning act of generosity. A few weeks ago I got a call from the Harvard development office explaining that I had to approve the name of the chair. Why? I asked. Because it is going to be named for me and Marlyn (my wife, Marlyn McGrath, another alum and longtime servant of Harvard).
It is the greatest honor that I have ever received, and Marlyn and I are moved beyond words. Thank you!
Here is the announcement. Our names will not be attached to the chair until we retire; until then it will be the Charles River Professorship. The chair has been awarded to Rob Wood, our amazing micro-robotic engineer. It is a great choice.