SATURDAY OF SYMPOSIA

 

Annual Saturday of Symposia: December 5, 2015

The Harvard Club of Boston and Harvard Alumni Association cordially invite all members, Harvard University alumni and alumnae, and guests to our Saturday of Symposia on December 5, 2015. The program will be held at the Back Bay (main) Clubhouse, 374 Commonwealth Avenue.

First offered 35 years ago, the Saturday of Symposia features Harvard faculty members doing research across the University in fields ranging from social and natural sciences to the humanities. The program is not only a longstanding tradition of the Harvard Club and HAA, but also an enormously popular one among graduates of the College, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and professional schools. As it tends to sell out, please make your reservations early.

8:30 am   Registration and Coffee, Tea, and Muffins

 Session One — 9:15 am to 10:30 am

 Please choose one of the following two lectures:

BENJAMIN M. FRIEDMAN, William Joseph Maier Professor of Political Economy and former Chairman of the Department of Economics, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University.

“Debt: Economic Consequences and Their Moral Implications”

The world’s economies in 2015 experienced extraordinary turmoil. The Greek crisis shook Europe’s political unity and challenged the existence of the European common currency.  Slowing growth in China and the collapse of Chinese stock prices triggered extreme volatility in financial markets nearly everywhere. Here in America, millions of homeowners remain under water on their mortgages, and there is increasing concern over what will happen as the Federal Reserve normalizes monetary policy and how the U.S. Government will meet its future obligations to retiring citizens. In each case the accumulation of debt, explicit or implicit, raises the prospect of financial instability and threatens economic growth. And as events have already begun to show, continuing stagnation of living standards could potentially undermine the political, social, and, ultimately, the moral character of these societies as well.

 REGINALD TUCKER-SEELEY, Assistant Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard University, and Assistant Professor, Center for Community-Based Research at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

 “Health and Hardship: How Financial Well-Being Impacts the Public’s Health”

Research on health disparities has moved from describing disparate outcomes across socioeconomic categories towards attempts to eliminate such disparities. Traditional socioeconomic measures are not enough to fully understand how the economic standing of a family affects its members’ overall health. Even for families with health insurance, cancer care can impose a significant financial burden and substantially interrupt household spending patterns, causing additional distress. Drawing on research across the continuum of chronic disease from prevention to end-of-life care, Professor Tucker-Seeley will explore open questions on how and when to measure and intervene on household financial well-being.

Session Two — 10:45 am to 12 noon

 Please choose one of the following two lectures:

JOYCE E. CHAPLIN, James Duncan Phillips Professor of Early American History, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University.

 “Around the World in 500 Years”

Are we more “global” today than people in the past were, better able to span and understand the entire planet? Planetary consciousness, our awareness of living on a globe with finite resources, did not begin with those luminous, exquisitely beautiful Apollo 8 photographs of the Earth taken from space in 1968, as is often asserted. Rather, it began with the now 500-year-old tradition of going around the world, the longest human activity done on a planetary scale. Around-the-world travelers’ long and self-aware tradition of engagement with the planet questions our sense of uniqueness and may teach us something worth knowing about why we think of the Earth the way we do.

CAROL R. SAIVETZ, Research Affiliate, Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, and Associate, Ukrainian Institute, Harvard University, and Research Affiliate, Security Studies Program, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“After Ukraine: What’s Next for U.S.-Russian Relations”

It is almost two years since demonstrators on the Maidan Square forced the ouster of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich. Between then and now, Russia annexed Crimea, fomented instability in Eastern Ukraine, and increased intrusions into western airspace and waters. The West has responded with sanctions (met with Russian counter-sanctions) and with beefed up military support to our Baltic allies. Professor Saivetz will discuss the ramifications of the Ukraine crisis and whether or not the new nadir in US-Russian relations is indeed a new or renewed Cold War.

Luncheon and Keynote Address — 12 noon to 2:30 pm

PETER K. BOL, Vice Provost for Advances in Learning and Charles H. Carswell Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University.

“Three Million Learners Later: HarvardX and Harvard’s Global Future”:

HarvardX, the University’s strategic initiative to advance learning through technology, was created in May of 2012. In just three years, HarvardX has produced sixty online courses that have garnered two million registrations around the world. The “One University” effort draws upon faculty from ten different Harvard schools, represents disciplines from classics to computing, and incorporates materials from Harvard’s museums and libraries.

Now on track to produce the equivalent of forty courses and modules per year, HarvardX has become one of the leading providers of high-quality online learning opportunities. What have we learned from this? What does it mean for residential students? For alumni? And what does it portend for Harvard as the world’s leading institution for higher education?

While serving as Harvard’s first Vice Provost for Advances in Learning, Professor Peter Bol continues to build his direct experience with online learning through ChinaX, an eighteen month long course covering the history of China.

Member Price per person: $54 (inclusive)

Non-Member Price Per Person: $65 (inclusive)

To register for the Saturday of Symposia, Harvard Club of Boston members please click here. Harvard alumni who are not members, please contact Jennifer Cleary, Member Events and Marketing Manager for the Harvard Club of Boston, at 617-450-8493 or at jcleary@harvardclub.com and have your credit card information ready.

Continental breakfast, all Harvard faculty presentations, and three-course luncheon are included. As always, a portion of the proceeds will benefit the Harvard Club of Boston Scholarship Foundation.

 

  • Marlene R. O’Brien, AB ’82, JD ‘85, Chair, Saturday of Symposia Committee