New House Masters Bring Twin Interests to Mather

Some on campus may joke that Mather House is “the box that Dunster came in,” but this jab does not stop incoming Mather House Masters Christie A. McDonald and Michael D. Rosengarten from appreciating the building’s concrete beauty.

“We actually really like the architecture in Mather,” McDonald says. “Inside, the spaces have incredible windows and light, and... there are these spaces designed for people to get together in small groups that are absolutely terrific.”

The Three Columns Gallery—the art showcase near the Mather dining hall and across from the Junior Common Room—earns particular admiration from McDonald, a French language and literature and comparative literature professor who studies literature’s relationship with art and the social sciences.

With her husband Rosengarten—McGill University associate dean of the Center for Continuing Health Professional Education—by her side, McDonald says she hopes to infuse the House with her love for art.

This goal—and the broader aim of becoming House Masters—is not a capricious whim of the couple, they say.

Rather, it is a long-standing desire, and perhaps even a logical next step in both of their careers, which have allowed them to traverse various academic and administrative roles across national borders.

A HARVARD VETERAN

The House Mastership is one of the few roles McDonald has yet to hold at Harvard.

Her vast administrative and managerial experience ranges from chairing the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures to participating in myriad faculty committees.

“Everybody always complains about administration, but in fact, it’s actually great to be working with your colleagues,” McDonald says.

Her extensive involvement in faculty life has introduced the couple to other Masters, including Kirkland House Masters and fellow French professors Tom C. and Verena A. Conley, Leverett Masters Howard M. Georgi ’68 and Ann B. Georgi, and Lowell Masters Diana L. Eck and Dorothy A. Austin.

McDonald works with Eck and Austin as a member of the Lowell House Senior Common Room, and she says she exercises with Verena Conley—though not as often as they should, McDonald is quick to add.

These friendships have given the pair a glimpse into a House Master’s daily life, which McDonald says will serve as a valuable model when she and her husband begin their first year as Mather Masters.

FRANCOPHILES FOREVER

A native of Montreal, Rosengarten earned his Bachelor of Engineering in 1966 at McGill University—a top-tier university in Quebec known in jest as the “Harvard of the North.”

He subsequently earned a medical degree from the University of Ottawa, which led him through various residencies, research fellowships, and practices. Rosengarten currently serves as an associate professor of medicine in addition to his position as associate dean at McGill.

As associate dean, Rosengarten says he has aimed to create a medium for three-dimensional photography online, an initiative that hearkens back to his childhood hobby of photography. In classes he taught at McGill, Rosengarten introduced both videotaping and live-streaming.

Born on the other side of the border in New York City, McDonald grew up in Greenwich Village, a neighborhood in Manhattan. But when she was 16, she traveled to France for the first time, an experience that she says shaped the rest of her career.

A newfound passion for France would lead her to study abroad for a year at the Université de Paris before she graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 1964. She later earned her Ph.D. from Yale University in 1969.

McDonald’s fervor for all things French was one of many factors that united her and Rosengarten in matrimony 23 years ago in Montreal. They both love France, and to this day, they say they go regularly—especially to Paris.

“It’s another lifestyle. It’s just such a wonderful city of people that are all different,” Rosengarten says. “There’s so much culture and so many things going on.”

France would attract both of them in different ways. A technician and cardiologist, Rosengarten researched human heart-rate variability for two years in Paris and, one summer, worked at French technology company Saunier Duval.

Meanwhile, for McDonald the literature aficionado, France provided a wealth of material—most important to her were lengthy volumes of Marcel Proust, she says.

“I’ve reread and reread and reread Proust,” McDonald says. “Once you get into it... it’s all-enveloping.”

A DREAM DEFERRED

The thought of being House Masters first struck McDonald and Rosengarten about a decade ago, but they say that a particular family arrangement prevented the thought from becoming reality.

In his role at McGill, Rosengarten spends his time in Cambridge only every other week. But that commuting arrangement, which disrupted Master-related plans in the early 2000s, is set to end in July. McDonald says this “dovetailed perfectly” with the House Master search.

“We both have great careers, so we actually were able to maintain the two careers simultaneously, but after 15 years of commuting, I’ve sort of had it,” Rosengarten says.

“So when we were offered this position and the opportunity to work with young people and young minds, it just seemed like there was no choice,” he adds.

Rosengarten says he is unsure about his future at McGill. He says that he hopes to continue his efforts to expand the use of three-dimensional imagery on the Internet in a technical advisory role.

In any case, the transition might not be seamless for McDonald and Rosengarten, given the 18-year-long tenure of their predecessors, Mather House Masters Sandra F. Naddaff ’75 and Leigh G. Hafrey ’73.

“They’ve been such great Masters so it’s going to be a hard act to follow obviously,” McDonald says. “So we’ll want to make sure to continue all the things that people care about in the House that they’ve built up.”

“It’ll be a learning curve, and some say a steep learning curve,” she adds.

Rosengarten, with a seemingly restrained but relentless sense of humor, immediately chimes in.

“We’re counting on a long honeymoon phase as well,” he says.

—Staff writer Danielle J. Kolin can be reached at dkolin@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Naveen N. Srivatsa can be reached at srivatsa@fas.harvard.edu.