COMING FULL CIRCLE


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Published: May 28th 2011
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My cousin Natalie at the dining table, coffee in hand, doing the Sunday NY Times puzzle - a picture for 50 years
There are times in your life when all the elements seem to come full circle and you are struck by the patterns and pathways that have formed you. This past week certainly has been that.

As a young child one of my favorite places to visit was to my mother’s cousin Natalie Frohock and her husband Brick, a professor at Harvard, in Cambridge, MA. They lived in what seemed to be a huge home near Harvard and there was always a somewhat mysterious air in the house – Brick was in his third floor study doing serious, intellectual work, Natalie had just come back from a trip to the gourmet grocer Savenour’s and was cooking something marvelous in the kitchen and my two cousins Natalie and Sarah were off and about in Harvard Square, seemingly much more independent and adult than my sister and I. Today my cousin Natalie still lives in this house and it is my last remaining place that links to my mother – I can see us all sitting at the marvelous dining table, coffee cups at the ready, finishing up the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle in record time (three major brains at the table working on it), Brick fussing over his peonies, Sarah squirming to get out of the house and I sitting back and observing. I can almost feel their presence here. Natalie is selling the house and so this is my last visit and with the events of this week it comes full circle and seems appropriate that Lauren is graduating from Harvard at the time I cut my last link with this home.

This has been a stimulating, emotional week, full of ceremony, music, pride, laughter, exhaustion. I have had so many thoughts of my family this week – how proud my mother would have been of her granddaughter following in her footsteps in the world of education. In cleaning out some of my mother’s files over the winter, I came across material about the College Bound Program that my mother founded in the New York City school system in the late 1950’s which focused on providing academic and cultural support to students who came from backgrounds and homes in which they had little expectation that they would attend college. It was something that she was passionate about and she put her heart and soul into the work. I
Widener LibraryWidener LibraryWidener Library

The flags of Harvard proudly waving at Widener
remember her telling me in November 1963, a couple of days after JFK had been assassinated, that one of her College Bound graduates, a young Puerto Rican man, was a freshman at Harvard that fall and was living in JFK’s freshman dorm room and he had called her that afternoon in tears as the one person he could talk to who would know how to succor him. My mother saw education as an imperative and brought its beauty and light to a generation of young New Yorkers. This week her granddaughter continued her passion, receiving her Master’s Degree in Education in Higher Education, fueled by a focus and commitment to open the doors of elite academic institutions to all students.

Wednesday’s convocation at the Harvard Graduate School of Education was a joyous introduction to an infectious group of young, brilliant minds – over 700 of them – that will help change our world and insure that a quality education is available to all. Michael Clark, a young father of two from the Caribbean, spoke passionately about his commitment to the future of his children and all children – and what courage it must have taken to leave his family
HGSE and its Sesame Street emblemHGSE and its Sesame Street emblemHGSE and its Sesame Street emblem

Each graduate school struts its stuff at the graduation ceremonies with its own emblematic item
for a year, travel to Cambridge, and endure its snowy winter, all in his ardent pursuit of education. An unexpected flash mob of students in the Technology, Innovation and Education Program broke out into song and dance as their cohort leader, Joseph Blatt, received the faculty teaching award. Jared Jones, the student speaker, spoke passionately about his commitment to international education, acknowledging that what he learned at Harvard was a foundation, and not a solution.

“Our accomplishments, if they mean anything, will not be measured in the programs we implement, the influence we wield or the citations we accumulate, but in the dignity, compassion and opportunity we contribute to the world through the lives we touch.”

For those of us with grey in our hair, the faculty speaker, Richard Murnane, wove together five decades of educational studies on school effectiveness and synthesized them into five key challenges for this year’s graduates. Sadly, many of the themes that were being heralded in these past decades are still challenges in today’s decade.

-Make equality of educational opportunity a reality
-Use money so it affects students’ daily experiences
-Create schools that prepare students for the future
-Make school choice work
An only at Harvard momentAn only at Harvard momentAn only at Harvard moment

Placido Domingo serenading Ruth Bader Ginsburg
for the most disadvantaged
-Create school accountability systems that improve education for all children

The speaker who made my heart sing and my mind electric with listening was Timothy Knowles, awarded the alumni award to contributions to education. He works at the University of Chicago Urban Education Institute and has brilliantly combined empirical research and data with a passion for improving educational outcomes. He quoted a study done by his group in 2006 that identified that fewer than 7% of students who enter Chicago public high schools will have received a four year college degree by the time they are 25; for African American males the number tumbles to 2%. Facing this challenge, his institute opened a charter high school in 2007, open to all Southside students by lottery, and this year 98% of the first class of graduating seniors have been accepted at four year colleges. This is why passionate educators do what they do.

Harvard doesn’t think one graduation ceremony is enough but rather produces a trifecta of ceremonies. Lauren tried to convince us that we needed to get to the morning ceremony early – after all, nearly 40,000 people were expected to attend. But who
The proud graduateThe proud graduateThe proud graduate

Finally, a sighting of Lauren as she entered the graduation ceremonies at HGSE
would have expected that crazed parents and friends would start lining up at 5 a.m. for gates that didn’t open until 6:45….with the ceremony starting at 9:45? We thought we were being good parents by leaving the house at 7 a.m. for the five minute walk to Harvard Yard, only to be greeted by the throngs of thousands who had beat us to the ritual. After enduring bag searches and wanding (shades of TSA) we found seats under the shade of century old trees and settled in with coffee and the NY Times. But the excitement was infectious and boisterous and you were surrounded by a blaze of humanity, representing a United Nations of languages and faces, all encompassed within the vale of Harvard with Widener Library on one end and Memorial Church on the other. Bands played, choirs sang, children squirmed, bagpipers piped, graduates laughed, sunlight glinted through trees (rumor has it that it has never rained on a Harvard graduation), the flags of the undergraduate houses and graduate schools flapped in the light breeze and all 7,000+ graduates and faculty proudly processed into Tercentenary Theatre, the open air arena between the two buildings, in a blaze of colorful
Proud parentsProud parentsProud parents

Quietly and wildly proud
medieval academic costumes, reflecting the rich international heritage of the university faculty.

Only at Harvard would the graduation addresses begin with one in Latin and continue with one from a Member of Parliament graduating from the Kennedy School. As each school’s graduates were recognized and President Drew Faust conferred the degrees with words that have been handed down through the generations, the graduates waved emblems of their experience – for the Ed School it was Sesame Street picture books, in memory of the late Professor Gerald Lesser. Fortunately this year the B School graduates choose not to wave their traditional $100 bills, rather waving small B school flags….

You always read about the honorary degrees that Harvard confers to world renowned names and leaders but to be there and see it first hand was quite an experience. Two of the honorees were instrumental in creating the world that Lauren knows today. Sir Timothy Berners-Lee, the founder of the World Wide Web, and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whose legal career focused on equality for women, impacted Lauren in ways that even she doesn’t know. Imagine the world without the richness of the Internet (whereby this blog comes to you)
Higher Ed cohortHigher Ed cohortHigher Ed cohort

A wonderful group of friends and colleagues
and the contributions of women…and thank these two for their work. However, in an only at Harvard moment, shortly after the great tenor Placido Domingo was awarded his Honorary Doctorate in Music, he rose to serenade Ginsburg, a great opera lover, upon receiving her Honorary Doctor of Laws degree. This is not to slight the six other honorary degree recipients, ranging from a Noble Laureate in chemistry to an arts writer who has changed the face of arts criticism – it seems to me that there was more collective brilliance gathered here this morning that I will ever be a part of again (albeit a very minor part).

Onto ceremony #2, we trooped back to the Ed School, still without a sighting of Lauren, surrounded by a sea of black and crimson clad graduates and proud parents, partners and friends. My cousin Natalie met us with sorely needed lunch provisions at the Ed School – she is a three time graduation attendee, having celebrated with Lauren at Hotchkiss, Bates and now Harvard. To insure that we continued to come full circle, the lunch provisions were courtesy of Savenours. As the 700+ graduates of the Ed School proudly processed in, with glistening smiles, we finally had our first glimpse of Lauren on this august day. Dean Kathleen McCartney opened the ceremonies, quoting from a Leonard Cohen song “Anthem”

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets through

As each graduate proudly crossed the stage to receive the hard won diploma, I saw the commitment of families, the help of spouses and partners, the adoring glances of children as their mother or father received the degree (only at the Ed School can your children accompany across the stage as you receive your degree), and burden of debt that so many students have taken on to pursue their educational path, and most importantly, the brilliance and determination of a new generation of educators who will insure equity of access to quality education for all children of the world. And as the first speaker at the convocation yesterday said, this is not a picture of the white man coming to save the world, but rather was a rainbow collation of nationalities, cultures and languages, as education becomes an international imperative and equalizer.

And then to the
Done!Done!Done!

Relaxing and listening to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
celebration with these young minds (and not all so young, as I was glad to see some grey hairs among the graduates) with Lauren and her gleaming smile leading the way. What a pleasure to see such a wonderful cohort of friends and colleagues she has formed this year – they study together, they party together, they obsess about finding jobs together, and, as Lauren has wryly noted, they are dorks together, happily discussing educational policy trends over beers at the weekly happy hour at John Harvard’s.

Did you think we were done – remember, this is a trifecta of graduation celebrations. After long goodbyes to friends from the year, we slowly trooped back over to Harvard Yard, found some chairs under the leafy trees, and collapsed to watch Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, President of Liberia and a Kennedy School alum, speak passionately about her role in re-establishing the life of Liberia.

What a few days this has been – a whirl of experiences, celebratory meals with Lauren, having her firmly escort us around Harvard and seeing it through her eyes, and watching proudly the woman she has become. Steve and I have so often this week exchanged silent glances of pride, and my eyes have teared up too many times to recount. Lauren has become the woman she is today by her own determination and we can only stand behind her in awe and wonder. As I sit here writing this blog on the dining room table that dwells deeply in my memory at 10 Shady Hill Square in Cambridge I am emotionally connected to the full circle of life and love. Lauren is well and truly launched on her life path and we are quietly and wildly proud.


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20th June 2011

You've put us there
What a terrific account of an amazing day. I was absolutely entranced as I read your words. Lauren has accomplished something wonderful and you and Steve have been full partners in getting her there. What fabulous parents, what an amazing family. Kudos to you all.

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