The Caped Crusader

On a whim, Romolo Del Deo '82 sent a letter to his House master in 1979, looking for some makeshift studio space in Adams House so he could escape the cramped room in the Carpenter Center that he shared with another student artist.

The response from Adams House Master Robert J. Kiely '60, according to Del Deo, was "stunning": a key to the front door of Apthorp House, the Kielys' campus residence, and a room in the basement Del Deo could use at his discretion, 24 hours a day.

What made the response so surprising, however, was that the two men--one a sophomore visual and environmental studies concentrator and up-and-coming sculptor, the other a father of four and professor of English just six years into his term in the House--had never actually met. "I didn't know who he was at all--all I knew was that he was encouraging the arts," Del Deo says.

Kiely's only stipulation of the deal, Del Deo recalls, was that the young artist keep the master apprised of his progress. And over the five years that Del Deo would utilize the space and become closer to the Kiely family--first as a House resident and then as a House tutor--he would draw up a letter to Kiely with details of the week's work and leave it on Kiely's desk.

This sort of enthusiastic responsiveness to students, current and former House residents say, is the essence of the Kielys' tenure in the House--which will come to a close at the end of this academic year when Kiely and his wife Jana conclude a quarter century of service.

Willing to intercede on a student's behalf virtually whenever necessary--from securing art space, to helping curb discrimination--many say the Kielys, in an unobtrusive way, created a House atmosphere of tolerance that allowed a tremendously diverse, and often eccentric, group of students to flourish.

"Now that I'm older and look back, it was incredibly brave," says Del Deo, a self-described "perfect stranger" who worked in Apthorp late into the night, now an internationally known sculptor. "It completely changed my undergraduate experience. It was amazing that he did that for me."

In the Beginning

With such a rich history in the House, many say that for all practical purposes, the names Adams and Kiely are interchangeable--each one having come to represent so much of the other.

But it is both ironic and unsurprising that the Kielys--who many describe as both deeply religious and the epitome of sophistication--should have become symbols for the House that before randomization was known as a place for artistic, gay or simply eccentric students.

That Adams House had a reputation for anything, however, was news to the young Leverett House Senior Tutor Kiely, who was approached in 1973 by then Harvard President Derek C. Bok and asked to consider the post of Adams master.

His youngest daughter just three years old, Kiely says that when he and his wife accepted the job, they knew nothing about the House's "stereotypes"--which did not begin, but eventually thrived, under the pair's tenure.

Despite the couple's admitted naivete, it became obvious that just a few years after the massive political protests of the late '60s, the House was still a hotbed of radical political thought. According to Kiely, it had a reputation for drugs and a high number of Administrative Board cases, not to mention a student population that was artistic, literary, theatrical--both flamboyant and brooding.

But Kiely says he noted early on that, for all their talent and energy, House residents were stigmatized for breaking the traditional Harvard mold. "I think Adams House was thought to be different--not because I made it different...and not in a good way," he says.

Kiely says he began to hear a more pronounced bias from both students and Faculty on campus, who grumbled that Adams nourished nonconformists.

Student activists and artists, many gay and lesbian, made up a large proportion of the House's student population, Kiely says. That annoyed some.

Touching him on a personal level, prejudices against Adams students helped him crystallize his role in the House: to create an environment that was, above all, tolerant and even encouraging.

Jocks had Kirkland House and preps had Eliot--but there was no House for those on the margin, and that was troubling for Kiely.

"These were my students...and it hurt me when I heard them made fun of," Kielys says. "There seemed to be absolutely no choice when people from my own classes and House said, 'Can you help us? We're being discriminated against.' I felt that I had to stand up for them."

Tending to the Flock

But if "standing up" for students means actively shepherding them into his House--observers like Associate Dean for the House System Thomas A. Dingman '67 say the Kielys have embodied "the ideals of the Statue of Liberty"--Kiely hasn't exactly seen it that way.

He says he used his position to empower students who themselves chose to be in the House, offering both his personal support of their pursuits and the extensive resources he has had at his disposal.

He was deeply honored, then, when the College's first support group for lesbian and gay students surfaced in Adams and that the founders felt comfortable enough to ask him--a "straight and married" Catholic--to act as the adviser to the group.

And in the name of tolerance, he saw no religious or moral conflict in presiding over the commitment ceremony of two Jewish lesbians--Adams alumnae--who could find no area rabbi to officiate.

According to Alfred E. Alden '99, current co-chair of the Adams House Committee, Kiely's infamous empathy for the eccentric and off-beat has served as a powerful draw to many, including Alden, into the House community.

Alden remembers the very formal invitation he and his blockmates received as sophomores, inviting them to join "the queens of Adams House" for a formal garden tea party welcoming incoming sophomores. But when Alden and a few friends--all dressed in drag--arrived at the event, they were surprised to see that most everyone else was in black tie.

Still, Alden says Kiely--clad all in black, par usual-- came up to them, put his arm around Alden and welcomed the group into the House as if they were the most conventionally dressed people there.

"He was clearly happy to see a bunch of misfits," Alden says. "It was a nice first moment."

According to Thomas M. Lauderdale '92, who was a legend during his days at Adams for throwing the wildest parties around (including one bacchanalia that forced the closing of the House pool), Adams had the most "edge" of any House, precisely because the Kielys were willing to take in everyone--the socialists, beatniks and gays.

"The Kielys were unabashedly progressive, daring and supportive of an increasingly diverse, liberal and at times insane population of people," Lauderdale says. "It was an unspoken conspiracy between students and the House masters."

Lauderdale has taken his show on the road, now touring with his band Pink Martini in what he calls "Adams House on wheels."

Arts First

But among the most marginalized students on campus throughout the '70s, '80s--and some would argue '90s--were those involved in the arts at Harvard. Spending long hours in the lab, Kiely says, has always carried more prestige than, say, practicing piano for an equal amount of time each day.

Still, encouraging the arts--even if that meant letting students scrawl with paintbrushes along the walls of the labyrinthine tunnel system--bears fulfilling fruit.

"For 20 years, Adams graduates are a who's who in theater, music [and] journalism," Kiely boasts.

And House residents say they relished the Kielys' support of eccentricity and what that meant for artistic expression in the House.

Doug Fitch '82 says he was always amazed by the extent to which the Kielys would encourage his and other students' artistic pursuits, despite his somewhat bizarre projects and often disastrous results.

One particularly memorable project, he recalls, was a plan to create a foam rubber teapot, which necessitated something from which to make the mold. The answer: Kiely loaned him the House's silver teapot without flinching--"probably an heirloom," Fitch says. He never told Kiely about how the Plaster of Paris and other chemicals almost didn't come off the silver.

In addition, Fitch says no matter how unfortunate his art projects--the worst probably being the fiberglass bench and fountain combination that Kiely allowed him to display outside of the House--Kiely only wanted to know when he could expect a coffee table.

"It's hard to imagine a person who could take all that and still ask for more," says Fitch, now a professional artist and designer whose latest project involves edible art.

The Nutty Professor

Robert Kiely was never the typical Harvard professor--obviously.

He was, after all, the one visible administrator to stand outside University Hall after the 1995 randomization announcement, protesting alongside his students.

"The least diverse of our Houses are more than 100 times as diverse as University Hall--diversity is a relative matter," he told the crowd. "So you wonder, who are they to tell you to be diverse?"

He acknowledges today that he has been "a thorn in the side of U-Hall."

Whether he was ignoring College rules by smoking in the dining hall, turning a blind eye to after-hours skinny-dipping in the House pool or drinking Irish coffee at one of his Masters' teas, Kiely as a person, many say, managed to carry off the role of rebel with the utmost sophistication and panache.

At once a distinguished scholar in literature (he's published several books and is a regular contributor for The New York Times Book Review), Kiely is also the master who dressed up as a nun at drag night to sing "How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?" from The Sound of Music. On one hand, he is half of the debonair couple that always makes a splash at House waltzes and swings, and on the other is an enthusiastic participant in the festivities of St. Patrick's Day, serving Black and Tans and step dancing.

He was, as Farai Chideya '90, now an ABC-TV correspondent, fondly recounts, "the classy side of the craziness--the cool dad you never had."

But if his antics meant anything, they were a salient indication that it was okay to break the mold--if the Loker professor of English could do it, so too could anyone else.

"I wasn't out to break the rules, but I didn't think my life was driven by them," Kiely says.

For Chideya, that message was clear: "In Adams House, you had a lot of latitude to create your own persona," she says. "He allowed us to get crazy--but in safe ways. He understood that we were experimenting."

Leaving No Legacy?

But even after a quarter century at the helm of Adams House, Kiely is clearly uncomfortable with the notion that he is responsible for any particular House "legacy."

There can be no question, however, that he leaves a physical legacy at Adams--the most obvious being the gloriously renovated dining hall, a project that was completed under his direction. Few know that it was Kiely who also spent years fighting vigorously for the glass-ceilinged private dining hall next door. After several architects, Kiely finally found one who thought the challenge of enclosing the space in between two Adams structures was doable.

But sitting at a corner table in the room that he's responsible for creating, the silver-haired Kiely, with only a tie to complement his black shirt and jeans, bristles at the suggestion that he is responsible for the character that haunts Adams House from its days before randomization.

"I would feel it would be exaggerating to take too much credit," Kiely says. "Any master who thinks he has the ability to construct pyramids of legacy--I don't buy it."

And indeed when he assesses the effects of randomization on his beloved Adams, one knows he means it. While he says much of the talent that used to define Adams House still exists in individuals and smaller groups, he says the spirit of old is no longer.

"What has almost totally been lost is the self-perception of gestalt, of spirit and atmosphere that is created by people who choose to live here," he says. "They gave a certain kind of focus, energy and framing to the place."

But that doesn't mean Kiely does not appreciate the student body living in Adams, which for the first time in his Harvard career has had no say in its housing arrangements.

House leaders say it wouldn't be in the Kielys' style to make current students conform to any set ideal. According to former House committee co-chair Sean R. Peirce '98, the profound tolerance that Kiely sought to foster within the House dictated that even under the system of randomization that he so opposed, House residents should be made to feel comfortable in Adams.

"It was never like he had one vision that everyone had to agree with--it was very much flexible," Peirce says. "He didn't want some idealized version of the old Adams House. He didn't want that forced on anyone."

Instead it was what students describe as a cool, approachable feeling--chatting about a good book over lunch with Bob or starting up a conversation in French at a House tea with Jana--that will remain the Kiely legacy.

Even when Robert Kiely has packed his family's bags--a new book on his life's work due out in the next few months will keep him busy--it is far from trite to suggest he will be impossible to forget.

"The Kielys are Adams House," Peirce says. "Students cycle through every three years--but they are the one lasting guiding force."