Three House Masters Named

A popular professor of Middle Eastern studies, an expert in business ethics and a former member of the National Security Council will fill vacancies in three out of the 12 Houses next year—the most significant turnover in masterships in the past few years.

Wolfson Professor of Jewish Studies Jay M. Harris, Kaneb Professor of National Security Stephen P. Rosen and Shad Professor of Business Ethics at Harvard Business School Joseph L. Bacaracco will be the new masters of Cabot, Winthrop and Currier Houses, respectively.

After nearly seven months of dinners, tours and meetings, Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis ’68 announced the appointments yesterday.

While Rosen and Harris have been highly involved in undergraduate life—teaching large Core classes—Badaracco is a less well-known, but highly recommended, presence at the College.

Badaracco said he and his wife learned about the duties of House masters primarily from business school students who had graduated from the College and hung out in his office after he was nominated to be a candidate.

But Badaracco said he has interacted with undergraduates over the years by giving lectures, hosting discussions and teaching some classes in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

“I’m sure there will be some things to learn but we’ve really been surrounded by students for many, many years and we enjoy it,” Badaracco said.

He said he and his wife are excited to enter the realm of undergraduate House life for the first time.

“We learned about it on Thursday and we haven’t talked about much else since then,” Badaracco said.

Harris also said it was the idea of closer contact with Harvard’s undergraduate body that motivated him to pursue the mastership.

“I really do very much enjoy students and interaction, particularly in a small department where you don’t have a lot of concentrators,” said Harris, who teaches the popular Moral Reasoning 54, “If There Is No God, All Is Permitted: Theism and Moral Reasoning.”

“That’s why I teach Core classes. Having contact with students is the most interesting part of the job,” he said.

H. Michael Rosenberg ’05, a member of the Cabot advisory committee, said Harris and his wife represent an ideal couple to share the mastership because of their different qualities.

“His wife is a school psychiatrist at a local high school...both offer a different side of the coin there,” Rosenberg said.

Rosenberg said he looks forward to the active participation of the new masters in House life.

“Jay’s promised us a lot of barbecuing. He said he’d get right on that,” said Rosenberg.

Rosen, who is currently co-teaching Historical Studies A-12: “International Conflict and Cooperation in the Modern World,” wrote in an e-mail that he and his wife looked forward to living in Currier, where his father lived as a member of the class of 1942.

“He’s not the stuffy professor that sits in his closet all day,” said Daniel B. Tomlinson ’03, a member of the Winthrop search committee.

Tomlinson said he thought Rosen and his wife would complement each other as masters, as he is more “outgoing” and she is “quiet and reserved.”

Winthrop House Senior Tutor Courtney B. Lamberth expressed enthusiasm over the selection of Rosen, calling him and his wife, Mandana Sassanfar, “acclaimed teachers,” “easy to talk to” and “totally unpretentious.”

The three new master couples will bring a total of nine children into the Houses with them.

The appointments will not diversify the current pool of masters. Boskey Professor of Law Lani Guinier ’71, who would have been the first black House master and was the only female and only minority candidate, was not selected.

Lewis—who made the final decisions with the incoming dean of the College and Dean of Undergraduate Education Benedict H. Gross ’71, Dean of the Faculty William C. Kirby and University President Lawrence H. Summers—said filling the three slots in one year meant the selection process was “a huge amount of work.”

Lewis said in addition to the interviews and tours, the search involved checking the reputations of the candidates in the CUE Guide.

But Lewis says he is happy about both the pool that applied and the three who will take on the masterships.

“We had a very deep pool of master candidates and I am excited and pleased about the people who accepted offers,” said Lewis.

The search process kicked off in September with Winthrop House Masters Paul D. Hanson and Cynthia Rosenberger’s announcement that they would leave in at the end of the year.

The Currier masters, William A. and Barbara S. Graham, announced their retirement from the House at the beginning of January and Cabot Masters James H. and Janice Ware sent their own farewell e-mail by the end of the month.

Each House then formed its own advisory committee, composed of resident tutors, students and Senior Common Room members, to interview each candidate over dinner, lead them on a tour of the Houses and advise the deans on the final selections.

—Staff writer Elisabeth S. Theodore contributed to the reporting of this story.

—Staff writer Laura L. Krug can be reached at krug@fas.havard.edu.