In 2009, Radcliffe launched Academic Engagement Programs with the purpose of increasing the ways in which Radcliffe fosters new intellectual ventures at Harvard University and thereby strengthens ties to faculty and students. Led by faculty from several of Harvard’s schools, it engages Radcliffe fellows and Harvard faculty and students from different schools and disciplines in new scholarly and research endeavors. Through Academic Engagement Programs, intellectual paths merge that may not have otherwise intersected. Academic Engagement Programs also increases public understanding of research and scholarship at the frontiers of knowledge through public lectures, conferences, and symposia. Complementing the Fellowship Program and the Schlesinger Library, Academic Engagement Programs is a third core program at the Institute.
Building on Existing StrengthsFundamental to the Radcliffe Institute’s values are the importance of advancing knowledge across disciplinary boundaries and creating an intellectual community that inspires new perspectives and transforms research and scholarship. As a school at Harvard, one of the Institute’s goals is to foster cooperation and collaboration among faculty from different Harvard schools and units, helping to make the University greater than the sum of its individual parts.
Academic Engagement Programs strategically integrates and expands on the Institute’s early success with faculty-led initiatives. Drawing in particular on Radcliffe’s science program model, Academic Engagement Programs fosters intellectual ventures at Harvard through programs that are designed and led by Harvard faculty in the humanities and arts, social sciences, and sciences. Established in 2001, Radcliffe’s science program has helped shape research and the student experience at Harvard—seeding new activities and drawing together diverse groups of scientists as fellows, speakers, and researchers. Through this program, Radcliffe has forged connections with nearly every school at Harvard and enriched the student experience with activities such as lunches with speakers, poster sessions at science symposia, and discussions over tea with Radcliffe fellows. By expanding the science program model to other disciplinary areas, Radcliffe’s Academic Engagement Programs is extraordinarily well-poised to contribute to Harvard’s goal of harnessing the power of a unified University—leveraging expertise across the University and enriching faculty collaboration and student experience.
Leadership: Harvard Faculty Associates
Six faculty, drawn from several of Harvard’s schools, lead Academic Engagement Programs:
Ewa Lajer-Burcharth, Senior Advisor to the Humanities Program at the Radcliffe Institute and William Dorr Boardman Professor of Fine Arts in Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Brigitte Madrian, Senior Advisor to the Social Sciences Program at the Radcliffe Institute and Aetna Professor of Public Policy and Corporate Management at the John F. Kennedy School of Government
Leah Price, Senior Advisor to the Humanities Program at the Radcliffe Institute and Professor of English and Harvard College Professor in Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Robert J. Sampson, Senior Advisor to the Social Sciences Program at the Radcliffe Institute and Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Dimitar D. Sasselov, Senior Advisor to the Science Program at the Radcliffe Institute, Professor of Astronomy in Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and Director of the Harvard Origins of Life Initiative
Rosalind A. Segal, Senior Advisor to the Science Program at the Radcliffe Institute, Professor of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School, and Member of the Department of Pediatric Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Creating an Intellectual Community: Fostering Multidisciplinary Collaborations
Faculty associates have designed a variety of activities thus far, including:Engaging faculty, students, and public audiences
Ewa Lajer-Burcharth worked with Mohsen Mostafavi, dean of the Graduate School of Design; Diana Sorensen, James F. Rothenberg Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and dean for the humanities in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS); and faculty from across the University to design a conference focusing on intersections between gender and space. The “Inside/Out: Exploring Gender and Space in Life, Culture, and Art” conference, held April 15–16, 2010, brought together humanities scholars, social scientists, scientists, and artists to address the ways in which gender affects how we experience, construct, and use physical and personal spaces, and how notions of space influence the way we think about gender.
Dimitar D. Sasselov and Rosalind A. Segal planned the “Patterning in Nature” science symposium, held April 30, 2010. It convened leading scientists to discuss patterns in developmental and evolutionary biology, mathematical models, materials, and astronomy.
Leah Price and Ann Blair, former faculty associate and the Henry Charles Lea Professor of History at FAS, worked with faculty from across the University to develop an October 28–29, 2010, conference on the history and future of the book, titled “Why Books?” The conference brought together speakers from a variety of disciplines—from literature and history to sociology and computer science—to probe the form and function of the book in a rapidly changing media ecology.
Engaging faculty, fellows, and students
Working together and with Radcliffe’s Fellowship Program, Sasselov, Segal, Sampson, and Madrian have planned cross-disciplinary roundtable discussions of Radcliffe fellows and Harvard faculty on pressing issues of public policy.
Sasselov and Segal have also organized a Meet the Investigator lunch series where Harvard students can interact with faculty members. In the fall of 2009 this series featured dual-career couples, beginning with Segal and her husband Michael E. Greenberg, chairman of the Department of Neurobiology at Harvard.
Workshops and research
A series of workshops with faculty and students were held during the 2009–2010 academic year to address in more depth various topics related to the conference, “Why Books?” There was also a series of workshops on topics such as medicine and society, the social impact of the financial crisis, and educational inequality.
Madrian and Sampson are working with Harvard faculty from across the University to design a “City as Social Science Laboratory” that scholars may use to conduct research with data collected from governmental agencies in Boston on crime, education, housing, and other indicators in an effort to help inform public policy.
These activities and the benefits of Academic Engagement Programs extend to:
Faculty and fellows: Helps scholars and researchers take intellectual risks while working with colleagues from different fields to define new questions, test hypotheses, and advance knowledge.
Students: Engages graduate and undergraduate students in new intellectual ventures and intimate exchanges with some of the finest artists, scholars, and professionals in the world. Students also have opportunities to share and discuss their own research.
Public community: Engages public audiences through lectures, symposia, and conferences that illuminate pressing issues and cutting-edge approaches.
