Dean Discusses Debates on Race

Freshmen crowded into Emerson Hall yesterday for one of their first chances to hear new College Dean Evelynn M. Hammonds.

Her talk, “The Science of Mixed Peoples,” was academic in nature but provided at least one small window into her approach to conflict.

When asked whether she thinks race is a social construction or a biological trait—a contentious issue in her field—she said, “Whenever there’s a big fight like this, I turn into an anthropologist and sit in the back and watch.”

Hammonds took over the College’s highest office on June 1, though she was named to the position in March. Prior to her appointment, she was the University’s senior vice president for development and diversity.

Hammonds’ address covered the history of race mixing in the United States. The talk was co-hosted by the Harvard College Women’s Center and the Freshman Dean’s Office as the 10th Annual Ann Radcliffe Trust Lecture.

“It offers the first year class the opportunity for exposure to a prominent female member of the faculty,” Susan Marine, the women’s center director, said of the lecture.

Sticking mostly to scholarly concerns, Hammonds did touch upon current affairs, including the rise of mixed-race presidential candidate Barack Obama. She discussed the norm of using phenotypic, rather than genotypic, racial identification. Obama is just as much Caucasian as he is African American, she emphasized, though he is identified as the latter because of his appearance.

Tenured in both the History of Science department and the African and African American studies department, Hammonds showed that she is settling in to her new position of prominence within the College: she began her talk seven minutes late, the time undergrads are allowed to stroll into class.

—Staff writer Aditi Balakrishna can be reached at balakris@fas.harvard.edu.