Internal Affairs

Ah, summer on campus. While it is no less busy at Harvard, faculty and students (save for the summer ones and those buried deep in the labs) are far more scattered.

For administrators, the invisible "third" semester is a time for getting to all the other projects that fell by the wayside---and for planning. (And all that countless deferred construction.)

In our case, we have grand visions enhancing our internal communications, with an emphasis on community building.

Faculty member George Carrier during, presumably, the good old days.

Since I have been at SEAS, I have been regaled with tales about the days when everyone knew everyone else; when you could get up-to-speed about everything from applied physics to politics over a cup of coffee in the faculty lounge; and when having face time (among students, faculty, and staff) was not mediated by Facebook and Twitter.

Our community has grown in the past few decades---ballooned, actually, in the past 8-10 years. At around 1,500 we are not exactly a bustling city, but sizable and far-flung enough to mean that weeks can go by before one colleague encounters another colleague simply by chance.

Here's a typical exchange:

Me to a faculty member I haven't seen in months: "Hey, have you been on sabbatical?"
Faculty member: "Well, I was out at Berkeley,  but that was more than three months ago."
Me: "Oh!" ... And then, trying to avoid embarrassment, changing the topic to the ever safe ... "So, what's new in terms of research..."

Moreover, the classic flag pole rule (at least what we called it at my alma mater, Kenyon College) has long been abandoned. The rule stated that faculty (and in many cases, staff) could live no more than a mile or two from campus. The Cambridge real estate market, however, had and continues to have a slightly different idea about the rules for residency, namely, the need for a lot of $.

With longer commutes, kids, and other complications, hanging out after work has become a luxury---and even sharing a lunch (which many skip so as to leave early to beat the traffic) is a chore that even Google calendar cannot solve.

The dean's door (in this case, when Frans served as interim).

Many of us try to keep our doors open---a philosophy set by the prior dean. That works, so long as you are not in a meeting, dealing with private matters (or documents), or having to hunker down and concentrate.

Meaning, apart from the light sneaking out, most doors remain closed more than open by necessity.

Others (who can and have the time) continue another tradition he espoused: leading by walking around. In communications, chatting everyone up is actually a fantastic way to convey information and to find out what's going on (and what the concerns are).

You also pick up on chatter, rumors, and gossip. I myself am a hallway roamer and end up solving a lot of problems en route from the kitchen to my office. I like to say that I am always working (but that may just be to justify my wanderlust).

That said, for many who spend their days dealing with payroll, writing up dreaded letters about academic probation, processing invoices, dealing with complex management or personnel issues---all critically important functions---staying put is the mandate. These are strictly non-walking activities (even with VPN-enabled mobile devices at the ready).

The solution to reaching all the windswept dandelion seeds is, tah-dah, digital: internal e-newsletters, websites, social networking sites, and digital signs. (As for the latter, does anyone really read those flashing "ads" or, like me, think, "Wow, what a waste of a fantastic television," or "Wouldn't Mario Kart 64 be utterly fantastic on a screen that big!")

Dean Cherry A. Murray at an "All Hands" meeting.

We, of course, supplement the virtual with the real, hosting periodic "all hands" meetings to update our community on progress and future plans. In the coming months, we plan to bolster these meetings with more population-specific events.

We already have faculty-only meetings; senior-administrative staff only meetings; academic area- (our version of departments) fairs and fests; and a joint council (that bridges union and non-union staff and managers and staff). Now there are plans to add general staff meetings (dedicated to administrative issues).

The dean was so keen on building internal community she offered funding (that anyone in the school could apply to receive) for activities to support such efforts. As a result, one clever administrator introduced the wildly popular faculty chalk talks (faculty discuss their research in lay friendly terms to staff); faculty and students created everything from science soirees to a seminars series dedicated to first year graduate students trying to figure out what lab/research area they wanted to latch onto; and I and a team of colleagues made an attempt at SciFi Movie Nights (which, at least, we enjoyed.)

A t-shirt from the SEAS launch (worn with pride).

To gauge our progress we scrutinize analytics (from open rates to visit stats); conduct surveys (formal and informal); convene focus-groups; look at industry standards/benchmarks; and consult colleagues about what works in their departments or schools. (I also like to see how many folks are wearing things with our name/logo.)

We have found that the more you communicate, the less progress it seems you are making. Until a few years ago, we had almost NO specific internal communication vehicles. Now that we have an intranet site, an internal newsletter, more letters from deans and administrators; and meetings galore, what we hear is that we are not communicating enough (or clearly enough).

That may be a sign of progress, as there are now means for people to communicate about internal communications (and vehicles for community members to assess). It is really hard (endless) work.

Figuring out what your community wants isn't easy.

When I have spoken to my communications colleagues in others schools about internal communications most of them respond with a shudder. It's one of those have-to-dos that everyone tries to pawn off on some other department.

The rewards are far less glorious (or visible) than a scoring a New York Times article, hosting a SRO event, or wiggling your way out of some potentially damaging publicity.

This dilemma, at first blush, is trying to give people information that they want and will use. Then again, maybe the goal is to connect folks to the larger aims of the school. Or, is it ensuring that every community member feels understood and listened to. Last but not least, it could be making people feel part of the family (as in the good old days).

The answer is "all the above" (and more). And thus, the work of internal communications is never done.

A more realistic (and sobering) assessment can be found in one of my favorite articles by Russell S. Powell. In "Your Best Ambassadors" he writes:

There is often a perception that the administration — of which you are a member — exists in a bubble, apart from the fray of classroom attendance, lost dorm keys, and late registrations. People are reassured when they see you as a person genuinely interested in their concerns rather than as some shameless huckster from the mysterious and detached world of marketing.

http://chronicle.com/article/Your-Best-Ambassadors/44837/

 And that bit of wisdom applies to everyone in the administration. 

"Let's talk, let's ta-a-alk"

Well I feel like they're talking in a language I don't speak
And they're talking it to me
(Coldplay, "Talk")

I use that lyrical snippet in a presentation I give to incoming graduate students about the importance of public relations. That may sound presumptuous, but my goal is practical.

I encourage students to learn how to convey their research in a media/public-friendly way and seize any opportunity they have to get involved in crafting a press release or working with the media. Plus, it's fun. (For proof, watch graduate student Naveen Sinha cook.)

Communicating with clarity and creativity helps with securing funding, collaborating with other faculty and researchers, teaching, and explaining to parents, friends, partners, or anyone who played a role in supporting the academic journey, exactly what it means to work on meta-materials or Solid Oxide Fuel Cells or control theory.

Erez Lieberman '10 is a media maven.

To drive home the point I use my best exemplars, like dynamo Erez Lieberman '10 (Ph.D.). I just finished up yet another photo shoot with him for a future piece in Nature on 'culturomics'.

The photographer took me aside and said, "Wow, this guy's like a genius and I think I actually understand what he does!"

Admittedly, I have my own (and the school's) interests also at heart. I want a student to contact my office well before s/he ends up quoted in the New York Times or appears as a talking head on CNN waxing poetically about an innovation in synthetic biology that could unleash the apocalypse. As our dean recently said, "I am a handler" (or better, a worrier.)

Nanobristles "hugging" a polystyrene ball

Perhaps my favorite example to help inspire students who are more comfortable in the lab than the studio comes from biomimetics pioneer Joanna Aizenberg.

She uses imagery to convey the power and beauty of engineering and champions the importance of basic research for its own sake. Her sense of humor helps too.

Here's a passage from a profile I wrote of her.

As for showing value, she described her self-assembled bristles as “a unique structure reminiscent of modern dreadlocks or mythical Medusa” and invited comparisons to the Andy Francis Cutti sculpture “The Kiss” (two intertwined slabs carved from a granite staircase). She ended her chat with [NPR's Ira] Flatow by suggesting that a fantastic use of the nanobristles was “just to hang them on the wall.”

Aizenberg, in fact, makes it a point for everyone on her team to learn how to communicate well, even when writing fairly technical papers. One of her current postdoctoral students even wrote an article for one of our newsletters.

Others adopt different means to convey their work like photography (see below) or video.

Grad student Katie Hoffman's bot has lots of legs.

Of course, not every researcher will end up being the next Neil DeGrasse Tyson, the astrophysicist and host of NOVA, or Lisa Randall, a physicist who makes extra dimensions somehow make sense. (And hey, both Tyson and Randall have Harvard degrees!)

That's not the point, unless a student does want to end up hosting a television show, like Harvard Design School grad Danny Forester.

Learning how to explain, say, a key advance in nanowires in a way that anyone other than an electrical engineer can understand, takes practice. Students are not without resources.

• At SEAS, we co-host a short course with science writer Cornelia Dean.
• Through MRSEC/NSEC we host an annual holiday lecture for kids (and I know the organizers are always looking for help in finding ways to make science accessible to tweens and pre-tweens.)
• At Harvard Extension, stem cell expert Bill Anderson teaches "Newsworthy Topics in Contemporary Life Sciences." (I took this course, and as a warning, it is not light on the science---there are real tests.)
• At HMS, Ph.D. students run Science in the News.
• The Center for Astrophysics used to (and may still) run science movie nights. We hosted a similar event at SEAS (exploring nanotechnology and Red Dwarf and robotics and Transformers.)
• HarvardScience collects the various releases issued by the Harvard public relations offices.

Moreover, as journalism is in a free fall of sorts, those who actually conduct the research may be more and more responsible for explaining it (and thus, justifying its value to the public).

Kit Parker with VP Joe Biden!

The payoff can be huge, as in the case of our own Kit Parker, who has pushed research on traumatic brain injury in part by being so fantastic at getting people on board like former congressman Patrick Kennedy and Vice President Joe Biden.

And no doubt, L. Mahadevan attracted the attention of the MacArthur folks (they give out the "genius" awards) because of his facility in explaining the science behind the mundane, from how honey coils to how a Venus flytrap snaps.

(As an aside, he also won a 2007 Ig Nobel award for the study of wrinkle patterns on sheets. Mahadevan took it in stride, saying, "there's no reason good science can't be fun.")

Michael Brenner, an applied mathematician at SEAS (who somehow also found the time to co-teach and co-create "Science and Cooking" last year), offers an axiom that is worthy of a refrigerator magnet (well, the kind of magnet that would be stuck on a fridge in a lab near a favorite printout from xkcd or Piled Higher and Deeper).

If you really understand something in science, you can describe it in a sentence as precise as an equation. It’s as simple as that.

The Potential Perils of the Profile: Part 2

A recent copy of the Kenyon College Bulletin.

While busy studying in the modern Gothic library late one evening, I wondered what it would be like, a few years (or decades) after graduation, to be one of those lucky alums the college higher-ups deemed profile-worthy. Imagine making the cover of the Bulletin!

The subhead might read: Redefining the American novel. Taking medicine to new heights. Leading the new wave of philanthropy. Making business 2.0 connect. Building the nanotechnology future.

Instead of being one of those profiled, however, I ended up writing profiles.

In academic communications, we love to celebrate our alumni. The aim is to inspire current students, and quite frankly, to show off what a quality institution can do by making an overly generous (or less than verifiable) connection between education and future success.

An engineering course inspired Elizabeth Nowak '10 to
visit Africa, which turned out to be a life changing decision.

To establish a connection, in our alumni profiles we always ask questions like: "How did Harvard change your life?"; "What did you get out of Harvard?"; "What are some of your fondest memories of your time here?"

(Sometimes, as I mentioned in an earlier post, alumni surprise us by reporting that, in fact, their best times at our hallowed institution were spent outside the classroom or far outside the institution itself, as in the case of a summer experience in Africa or a winter term program in Brazil.)

Then again, sometimes the questions lead to the "desired" answer. Hynd Bouhia '98 (Ph.D.), now General Director of the Casablanca (Morocco) Stock Exchange, is a case in point.

She is quick to credit Harvard’s part in her success. “I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to study at Harvard,” she said, giving particular credit to her mentor Peter Rogers, Gordon McKay Professor of Environmental Engineering. “I believe that my degree was surely instrumental to any international recognition.” Bouhia’s success in helping to bring a $700 million U.S. development grant to Morocco in 2007—something she lists among her proudest achievements—likely swayed the Forbes editors as well.

Go us! A more nuanced response was given by Gary Schermerhorn '85 (A.B.), the CIO at Goldman Sachs.

While I wrestled with philosophy or abstract computing theories, I was concerned that students at other universities were receiving a more practical, technical education. But I gained a much broader perspective on technology. I am very analytical and tend to search for root causes in most problems in my private and professional life. I can’t say that it’s only the Harvard approach that has made me this way, but I would be against diluting the foundational approach to technical learning to expand the practical.

In engineering in particular, the purpose of the profile goes beyond eliciting some "rah-rah for Harvard." We also want to showcase how practical the degree can be. In short, we produce world class engineers and technologists. In the case at SEAS, I should make a caveat. The aim of our dean is to show that we train leaders in ALL fields, from famed bakers to HUD secretaries. To wit:

We need to bring a deeper level of analytical thinking and a new set of social and leadership skills to their education. By doing so, engineers will gain a well-deserved seat at the grown-ups table.

Yet, are we really that ends driven? Is our primary aim to ensure that we generate a bevy of amazing alumni who go on to make the world a better place and do amazing things? Granted, fostering better selves is not an unworthy purpose for any institution.

Computer scientist and former College Dean
Harry Lewis argues that "the fundamental
purpose of undergraduate education is to turn
young people into adults who will take
responsibility for society."

Taking a cue form the nuanced response of Gary Schermerhorn, that is not the entire story. Our alumni profiles, thanks in part to communicators like myself, are biased towards a certain kind of success.

When is the last time you read an alumni profile that didn't focus on an impressive job (CEO!), major accomplishment (purified the entire water system in Nigeria!), or loathed as I am to admit (as it is one of my personal favorites), the unexpected path (from engineer to an acrobat for Cirque du Soleil!)

If not achievement, then what are we supposed to venerate?

Frank Donoghue, a columnist for the Chronicle of Higher Education, who has been wrestling with how to save the humanities, provides a vital clue in his discussion about John Henry Newman’s The Idea  of the University (1852, 1858).

Newman, painted into a political and religious corner after being made rector of the newly established Catholic University of Ireland, made the simple point that a college education ought not to make a person better, but should just make them smarter.

Ah, yes. Whatever a student's concentration, we want to ensure that they leave with more robust and active neural networks than when they entered. Our own Harry Lewis wrote a thoughtful book, Excellence Without a Soul, that delves into this question even deeper.

One could argue that the alumni profiled who garnered those impressive jobs must, by virtue of those very accomplishments, be smarter or more responsible. Case closed. Alas, along comes a spider to ruin our happy picnic:

According to a recently published book titled "Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses," 36 percent of students showed no significant increase in learning after four years in college, and those that did progress displayed a modest increase. (http://www.centralfloridafuture.com/college-education-bubble-ready-to-pop-1.2598182)

A cynical view of this finding could be as follows. Even those CEOs and world leaders we tend to profile may not have college to thank for their success---and worse, may have been helped along their path by a faulty expectation (they must be smarter, better, stronger, faster because they went to institution x).

Instead of tackling the outcomes debate, I am going to end this discussion on profiles with something anecdotal and personal---and optimistic.

My wife's 15th Harvard reunion took place at Eliot House.

A few weeks ago, I attend by my wife's 15th Harvard College reunion. I always feel like the equivalent of a "purse" when attending such events, especially as I have to admit that, "No, I didn't attend, I just work at Harvard."

My wife, however, admitted that she too was a reluctant party-goer. Her career path, from publishing to body work to communications training, has more twists and turns than a hedge maze. What she does is not easy to explain and doesn't neatly fall into the standard categories of, "doctor, investment banker, executive, entrepreneur, screenwriter, lawyer, etc."

Also, we do not have kids (yet), so we could not while away with the reunion with iPhone shots of the urchins. She does have a book contract, so she was pleased to offer that up as her explanation for "what I did with my fantastic Harvard degree!"

Fortunately, we didn't need to worry about feeling unimpressive or having to justify our place in the world. Sure, there were very impressive people at her reunion who had done and/or were doing very impressive things. Yet, the focus was far less on accomplishments and careers.

I spent the evening talking about Middle Eastern politics and the state of Egypt; laughing about the horror of home repair and remodeling; debating the ethics of drug company marketing tactics; questioning the value of the LinkedIn IPO, and with my neighbor who lived two houses down from me when I was growing up, discussing the trials of a public prosecutor.

I was even more impressed by how many stay-at-home-moms I met (who were pleased to be stay-at-home moms and didn't regret leaving their once impressive jobs); dads with amazing sounding titles who admitted that raising kids was their true joy; mid-career professionals who decided to get off the ladder and pursue other passions; and in one case, a former consultant who was leaving the rat race to take some time off and ask the big questions about what he really wanted out of life.

As I am always thinking about work (and at the reunion, I was virtually still at work), something struck me. We need to profile alums based upon a wider set of criteria. As communicators, we are not doing a particularly good or accurate job of representing the varied successful outcomes of higher education.

While I am not exactly sure how to do it, we should strive to profile individuals who are still passionate about learning (outside the context of work); dedicated to raising their children; and those who are simply content and feel fulfilled in their lives.

Or at the very least, we should ensure we ask a different set of questions to all those we highlight (no matter what their position/accomplishments).

While idealistic, moving in this direction would be better for parents and prospective students who are obsessed by understanding what a particular college can do for them. Such profiles might also take a bit of pressure off current students who, from day one, feel that they have to map out the rest of their lives.

(And yes, I know I am being elitist, as many students do not have the luxury of learning for just learning's sake---but let's save that for another time.)

To end, I will turn to Harvard's Louis Menand. Here's his take on the purpose of a college education.

I could have answered the question in a different way. I could have said, “You’re reading these books because they teach you things about the world and yourself that, if you do not learn them in college, you are unlikely to learn anywhere else.” This reflects a different theory of college, a theory that runs like this: In a society that encourages its members to pursue the career paths that promise the greatest personal or financial rewards, people will, given a choice, learn only what they need to know for success. They will have no incentive to acquire the knowledge and skills important for life as an informed citizen, or as a reflective and culturally literate human being. College exposes future citizens to material that enlightens and empowers them, whatever careers they end up choosing.

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2011/06/06/110606crat_atlarge_menand#ixzz1OSDtJ1mj

Few thinkers talk about the aspirations of the academia with such beauty.

Now it is up to communicators like myself to to show how higher education empowers our alumni. To celebrate enlightenment and knowledge. To capture the joy, excitement, and passion of lives lives outside of work. To praise active parenting and the passing on of the love of learning.

And there may be no better vehicle to show this than the (revised) alumni profile.

The Potential Perils of the Profile: Part 1

A Boston University admissions brochure with plenty of profiles.

Being profiled by an academic institution sounds sinister.

Profiles---of students, faculty, and even staff---are, however, are one of the major tools used for positioning and branding.

We use them at SEAS! And Harvard, in general, loves them. Even corporate America uses them in major ad campaigns, such as "I am an IBMer" or Intel's famous rock star advertisements.

Before I arrived at college, I had a sense of what the students might be like from the then ubiquitous glossy print admissions materials. Or at least I thought I did. The grab bag of admits I met were not so readily packaged or as preppy (to my relief) as the photos suggested. Admittedly, a lot of my classmates did live by the J. Crew catalog.

At Harvard I have heard that the throngs of tourists visiting the campus often accost students in the Yard with the aim of trying to figure out what made them special enough to have "gotten in." The lucky 6% become accidental celebrities, which may explain why the Yard seems filled more with tourists than students (who are safe behind the gates of their houses out of range from the camera eyes).

Of course, future students (and parents) hoping to attend Harvard (or anywhere) want to know, "Will I fit in? Will I meet people like me? Am I smart enough and good enough to make it if I do get in?" (The movie Accepted provides an ironic take on the entire college admissions saga.)

Just the other day a group of PIOs (Public Information Officers) were discussing the University's longstanding perception problem---the belief that Harvard today still looks/acts like it did in the 1950s.

Harvard engineering students working in the undergraduate labs.

The concerted efforts to diversify the community, especially the student population, has begun to pay off and is shockingly visible if you take the time to look.

When we do photo shoots---of undergraduate engineering students mind you---they almost look staged. Too good to be true! Could we really have such a wide mix of people hovering over the 3D printer?

Granted, we are still working on attracting more women to the field and the diversity story changes depending upon the area of study and population, e.g., graduate students versus undergraduates or computer science versus engineering sciences.

The Crimson, which loves a good headline, was a bit less generous: SEAS Struggles to Attract Minority Students.

That said, the push for financial aid at Harvard has been game changing at the undergraduate level. Again, there is, of course, still (a lot---and I mean, a lot) of work to do. To wit, here's a profile of a future Harvard student as reported by a local newspaper, the Chester Herald.

Tyreke White had never considered attending Harvard University. But in his second year of high school he had an epiphany. His aunt had just left for Afghanistan with her Army unit, and White and his mom moved from Chester to Annapolis, Md., to house-sit while she was away.

In the hallways at Annapolis Senior High, White heard students talk about attending universities like Stanford and Carnegie Mellon. "The kids up there ... it's like they thought out of the box more," he said. "That was the point I thought, 'Well, maybe I could do that too.'"

Read more: http://www.heraldonline.com/2011/06/02/3114693/whites-next-stop-harvard.html#ixzz1O7aJAA11

In the case of Tyreke White, a Harvard-produced profile of a student "just like him" must not have ended up on his doorstep. Instead, he was motivated by fellow students, who ironically, were not like him. Therein lies the challenge, and hints at why changing perceptions is no easy task.

At SEAS, we have the added chore that some (less and less!) students think that Harvard does not have engineering, or more generously, that science and engineering students are an outcast population in a sea of lit, history, and econ majors, or not as technically minded as those at more "technical" institutions, and so it goes. (In fact, I am convinced some days that many who work at Harvard still think this.)

We use profiles, and increasingly video profiles, as a way to try to counter that perception and build up the notion of the "liberal arts" engineer. And we aren't simply spinning---this is really what students report back to us or, even better, self-report, as in the case of Madhura Narawane ’12:

I chose to come to Harvard because I wanted to have the opportunity to engage in cutting-edge research as a sophomore, learn from professors who are passionate about their students, row on the Charles as part of the novice crew team, learn Spanish, and pursue my interest in technology at the same time.

When done well, the purpose of a profile is to offer an honest and unvarnished look at the kinds of people who comprise an institution. While we do edit things out (e.g., less than kind remarks about other institutions), we do our best to leave in as much in as possible or to use first-hand accounts, untouched by our editorial oversight. (Colby College, in fact, offers what appears to be a 100% student created admissions site. The site actually seems more marketing-focused than if Ogilvy and Mather had been brought in for a consult.)

A few years ago, I wrote an alumni Q&A with Chelsey Simmons '06 (now at Stanford in graduate school) in part because she didn't seem like your typical Harvard, let alone, engineering, student.  Here's a highlight:

So even a sun-loving Gator fan from Florida can adapt to Cambridge culture?
I did feel like I fit in, and I think that's the beauty of Harvard. I think that misconceptions about the sort of students at Harvard do exist, but the most important thing is to recognize what those misconceptions might be and then break them down entirely. Once I'm in a classroom or boardroom, I can confidently show that I mean business, and people recognize that and respect that.

Try as we might, as communicators we can only facilitate the process of shattering misconceptions, and its a tough sell, more viral than veritas-driven.

And there is the real risk that profiles will have the opposite effect. Imagine a prospective student reading about how wonderful a Harvard student is. Instead of being inspired, they are utterly intimidated.

Ultimately, students like Tyreke White are left to find their own epiphanies. That's a good thing.

Yet, don't be too surprised if a few years from now he ends up appearing in one of our student profiles.

**

As I really like this topic, stay tuned for more...


While busy studying in the modern Gothic library late at night, I wondered what it would be like, a few years after graduation, to be one of those lucky alumni the college higher-ups deemed profile-worthy.  Imagine making the cover of the Bulletin...