What Matters to Adams House Scholar John Muresianu?

John M. Muresianu ’75 orders his day around rituals: he writes two essays a day on “liberal arts” and “thinking citizen” topics for an Adams House mailing list. Because of his congestive heart problems, he likes taking an hourslong walk every day after eating lunch. But, to Adams residents, he is perhaps best known as the person who asks about students’ cultural backgrounds, then regales them with a song in that language in the House’s dining hall.

When I first talked with him on the phone, he began by asking me questions about myself and where my family is from — “do they live in Mainland China or Taiwan?” — before singing a famous Chinese poem.

His interest in singing cultural songs started in 2007, and has now ballooned into “39 Songs: Humanities Curriculum for the World,” a lesson he created as a presentation for the Adams House Senior Common Room, where he has been a member since 2008. As Muresianu writes in the presentation description: “Music unites. The opportunity cost of any other curriculum is infinite. Why not give every 18 year old the keys to hearts of seven billion people?”

Muresianu’s process for choosing songs is utilitarian: he always thinks about what music might bring the most joy. “When I meet someone from a country whose language I don’t know, and I don’t know the language, I say, gee, I don’t know any Korean. What’s your favorite song? You tell me, I go to YouTube. Three hours later, I’m singing that song.” According to him, the ‘big three songs’ he sings — which are in Mandarin, Sanskrit, and Arabic — are so widely known that they can bring joy to 4.4 billion people.

Besides his melodic singing, Muresianu is also known for organizing the Adams House What Matters Table, where he comes onto campus once a week to facilitate student discussion.

The What Matters Table, according to the sign I see upon arriving in Adams House Dining Hall, is “a place to make friends from around the world and exchange ideas” or to “meet people across the political spectrum and respectfully challenge each other” as a means of “finding common ground.”

Muresianu is surrounded by stacks of custom Canson notebooks printed with a sticker showing religious and cultural symbols — to help unite the entire world, he says — and little maroon copies of the Constitution. He hopes students will use them to write about what they’ve learned and hope to remember this week. I take one of each.

While each session of the What Matters Table has a different topic, from Science to Foreign Policy to Sports, “Every day is Humor, Food, and Travel Day!,” according to Muresianu’s flyer advertising the event. Muresianu’s bold, bright-orange polo, popped at the collar in a fun, ’80s fashion, seems to share this sentiment.

Muresianu tells me that there could be any number of people attending a What Matters Table. Some nights he sits alone. Other evenings there are so many students that they have to pull up chairs to listen in. At 11:30 am on a Tuesday, right before the lunchtime rush, it’s just me and him.

Outside of his role at the Adams Senior Common Room, Muresianu’s life and career has brought him to a myriad of places. After graduating magna cum laude from Harvard with a focus on French and Spanish History and Literature, he was an assistant history professor at Knox College and a top analyst and portfolio manager at Fidelity Investments.

He briefly ran for the Senate in 2018 under his own Education First Party, because, according to one of his bios on the Adams House Website, “no one else step[ped] up to the plate”.

“Basically, I’ve had the messiah gene since I was five years old,” he says when asked about why he chose to run for Senate. “Whenever it’s a question of doing the right thing versus what is expected by an institution, I do what I think’s right. And that’s how I ended up running.”

The What Matters Table reflects upon John’s broader interests in education of all kinds, especially General Education, at Harvard and beyond. He tells me about publishing “A Common Sense Guide to Section Teaching at Harvard” in 1982.

He’s especially excited to tell me about an education tool that makes him “the Einstein of education.”

“There’s the E equals MC squared,” he says. “I got the equivalent, and it’s graphic and it’s simple, and I’ve written a lot about it.”

He never gets around to telling me what this tool is.

Still, Muresianu seems enthusiastic about everything that he does in life, from singing to hosting the Adams House What Matters Table. And with everything he’s discovered in his educational journey, he’s always looking to learn from those around him.

As Muresianu says in the preface of his daily essays: “Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.”

—Magazine writer Jona P. Liu can be reached at jona.liu@thecrimson.com.