Harvard Notables Passionate for Arts

With the American economy in crisis and once attractive investment and consulting jobs looking less than their best, students are exploring diverse career options, and the University wants to help. Instead of focusing on the well-known possibility of a move to Wall Street after graduation, the two-day event “Passion for the Arts” will explore the broad range of careers in the arts and humanities. The event begins today at 4:30 in Sanders Theatre with speakers Yo-Yo Ma ’76, President Drew G. Faust, and Professor Stephen J. Greenblatt followed tomorrow by a career panel and student group fair in the Science Center.

Diana Sorensen, the Dean of Arts and Humanities, and her department spearheaded the event, sensing a need to provide possible careers in the arts a more visible position on campus.

“One of the things we could do better is connect the kinds of courses we teach with a life after Harvard,” Sorenson says, “and show how people who have studied in the arts or humanities have gone on to productive careers.” Sorensen wants students to explore the best this liberal arts university has to offer, which includes engaging in opportunities from the natural sciences to the performing arts. Sara Oseasohn ’74, GSD ’77, the Associate Dean for Administration for the Arts and Humanities, hopes that they can host a similar event every year to help students who are trying to decide what concentrations, courses, and activities to participate in.

The Arts and Humanities office has hosted smaller events geared toward putting students in dialogue with people who have careers in the arts and humanities, but this year they wanted to expand their outreach by staging a larger event. On the heels of his inauguration performance, Ma will kick off the event this afternoon as he discusses his career in the arts.

“Yo-Yo Ma’s invitation is connected with his incredible charisma as a musician,” Sorensen says, “but also the wonderful things he has to say about the world of the arts not only in education but in promoting cultural exchange and a different sense of understanding the world.” Ma’s participation in the event is a continuation of his involvement in the arts at Harvard as an undergraduate and with the Task Force, and as the inspiration for Greenblatt’s “English 127: A Silk Road Course: Travel and Transformation on the High Seas: An Imaginary Journey in the Early 17th Century” and Harvard’s other Silk Road courses. Ma’s Silk Road Project brings together musicians from all over the world and influenced these courses, which focus on global expressions of art.

President Faust and Professor Greenblatt will continue the discussion with a focus on the future of the arts at Harvard, exploring the ways in which the recommendations of the Task Force will be implemented. Although the event’s focus is on the career possibilities in the arts and humanities, Greenblatt notes that the development of course offerings is tied to career choice.

“The first goal of the Task Force is to move art-making from the extracurricular sphere to the curricular sphere,” Greenblatt says. “The purpose of doing that is connected to many things, including the careers of students.”

Students will also have the opportunity to learn more about student groups that are involved in the arts and humanities after Saturday’s career panel. Over 40 student groups will be in the Science Center lobby, available to provide information about their organizations. Further opportunities to explore career options in the arts and humanities can be found through the Office of Career Services (OCS), a co-sponsor of the event. This past fall, OCS began an initiative with the theme of “turning up the volume” on diverse career options.

“The reason we call it ‘turning up the volume’ is from all the ads you see in The Crimson of investment banks and consulting firms,” OCS director Robin Mount says, “and they make a lot of noise, so we wanted to turn up the noise on the other side too.”

Particpants in the career panel include sports journalist Sally Jenkins, filmmaker Gary Ross, and law professor Noah R. Feldman ’92, who is helping to draft the Iraqi constitution.

Beyond the opportunities to learn about careers in the arts and humanities, Greenblatt is excited about today’s event as a valuable opportunity to hear from Yo-Yo Ma.

“Much as I admire, as I do deeply, Drew Faust, and as much as I take myself seriously, I think the first reason to go is to encounter Yo-Yo Ma,” Greenblatt says. “He is a truly astonishing figure and a really great musician and a great human being. That is just an occasion by itself. That’s certainly what I’m in it for. Any time spent with Yo-Yo Ma is time well spent.”

—Staff writer Melanie E. Long can be reached at long2@fas.harvard.edu.