Portrait: Jay M. Harris

At first, the Victorian homes lining the street behind Cabot House seem the same. But then you hear the laughter coming from a patio surrounded by blooming azaleas, and you know you are at the home of House Master Jay M. Harris.

The laughter comes from six seniors—the blocking group which won the prize at the senior auction to have dinner with him and his wife.

Harris always seems to be surrounded by students.

When Thomas R. Benson ’09 and his blocking group came to Cabot for dinner as freshmen shortly after Housing Day, they were sitting by themselves—but Harris, who already knew some of their names, approached and asked if he could join them.

“It was nice just to know that someone cared that deeply about us before we even met him,” Benson said.

In his backyard, Harris fills students’ plates with falafel and homemade hamburgers. But this year more than most, the House master, department chair, senior adviser to the College dean, and leader of the General Education committee has had his own plate full.

HUMMING WITH PURPOSE

An indefatigable worker, Harris has gotten four to five hours of sleep every night since high school.

“I’m not a good sleeper, and that’s the way it is,” he said. “If you’ve got to be awake, you better fill your time.”

“I enjoy being busy,” he added.

Every morning, Harris gets up at 4:50 a.m., goes to the Cabot House gym at 5:50 to weight-lift and use an arc trainer, takes his daughter’s two-year-old dog Tikvah for a walk at 6:50, and returns home to actually begin his day at 7:50.

Every other Thursday morning, Harris hosts the Gen Ed committee in University Hall. The meetings are usually relaxed.

This year, the committee has approved 45 courses. They hope to have 128 courses by 2010.

“He runs the room with an iron fist. I’m kidding,” said committee member John M. Sheffield II ’09. “Meetings are pretty informal.”

When an existing course seems like it might not get approved, Harris often asks students—either on the committee or in Cabot House—about their opinion of the course, according to committee member Alexander N. Chase-Levenson ’08.

Harris is also known among colleagues for his sense of humor.

“We laugh a lot, but there isn’t any particular thing we laugh about,” said Stephanie H. Kenen, assistant dean of the College and a committee member. “There are just people you know that you laugh with all the time.”

Even so, Harris’ jokes occasionally are duds.

Once, he tried to imitate a New Jersey accent in an e-mail, but Kenen—a New Jersey native—said she didn’t understand what he was trying to do.

A BIBLICAL SCHOLAR

The author of two books, Harris works in a sparsely decorated, gray office in University Hall and an office in the Semitic Museum, lined with books about modern European history, Jewish history, religion, and philosophy in English as well as Hebrew, German, Dutch, and Yiddish.

Now chair of the Near Eastern languages and civilizations department, Harris grew up in what he called a “religiously eclectic” Jewish family in New York. He earned a bachelor’s degree and a Ph.D., both in religion, from Columbia.

Harris teaches a popular Moral Reasoning class entitled, “If There Is No God, All Is Permitted,” but when asked whether he believes in God, Harris replied, “I never answer that question.”

Harris said the reading list for the class is inspired by his experience in Columbia’s more rigid general education program, known there as the Core Curriculum.

He praised Columbia’s system for providing a “common experience” for students. Although he does not believe that such a standardized program would be feasible at Harvard, he said he is looking into whether a great books program—like that at Columbia—could become an option for some Harvard students.

True to form, Harris relies upon bagels and lox to provide fuel for the members of the Gen Ed committee. For his own busy life, Harris abstains from coffee—he said he doesn’t like the taste. Instead, he drinks vanilla chai and Diet Coke: “the drug delivery system of choice.”

—Staff writer Bonnie J. Kavoussi can be reached at kavoussi@fas.harvard.edu.