Good Evening and welcome to the Sidney Harman Writer-in-Residence’s
Program Fall 2013 reading by the distinguished author, Gish Jen, the 31st
writer to join us since we launched the program in the fall of 1998.
This is the Harman Program’s Sweet Sixteen year and there is much to
celebrate. For those of you here for the first time, a little bit of history is
definitely in order.
It all began with a little breakfast talk by Baruch alumnus Dr. Sidney
Harman, class of 1939, who was expected to give a speech on management
techniques but who instead entertained an audience at the Century Club by
calling for more “poets as managers,” quoting from memory long passages
of his favorite writers, including Rudyard Kipling and Alfred Lord
Tennyson.
I was in the front row, scribing into my reporter’s notebook, dated fall 1997.
I found the book the other day and there were the words in large block
letters: Poets as Managers? Baruch’s the perfect place! Beneath that, I had
written: The Sidney Harman Writer-in-Residence Program. Happily, Sidney
Harman agreed with my scribing, and over the last sixteen years, the
Harman Writer-in-Residence Program has brought an astonishing roster of
writers to Baruch to teach writing workshops to Baruch undergraduates:
Brilliant poets –Yehuda Amichai, Agha Shahid Ali, Charles Simic and
Major Jackson; Gifted playwrights: Edward Albee and Tony Kushner.
Compelling fiction writers: Anita Desai, Colum McCann, Susan Choi,
Francine Prose, Jhumpa Lahiri. Important journalists and critics: Philip
Gourevitch, George Packer and Hilton Als. To name just a small sample of
the writers who have shared their wisdom and expertise with Baruch student
writers.
Small, intimate, hands-on workshops where, as one student wrote in a class
evaluation: of a poetry class: “Charles Simic. He drops gold coins in my
ears.” I’ve saved for the Harman records Jhumpa Lahiri’s critiques of her
student’s stories: typed, single space commentaries, often running two pages
in length. Saved, too, is the announcement of the publication of the debut
novel of a Harman alumnus, Bill Cheng’s Southern Cross The Dog, a book
that received excellent reviews.
Half-way through our sixteen years, the Harman Family Foundation,
directed by Sidney’s daughter, Dr. Barbara Harman, funded the Harman
Enhancement Program, a grant that complemented the Harman Endowment
by providing creative writing prizes for students each semester (in
collaboration with the college literary magazine Encounters, stipends for
literary internships at Poets and Writers Magazine and, honoraria for visiting
writers. The generous award to the Harman Enhancement Program this year
will enable us to expand all of these activities, and, in spring 2014, for the
first time, bring a Harman writer to campus for a one week visit.
Let me make a little public confession. I did not celebrate my own Sweet
Sixteen, choosing instead I suppose to work my way through the shelf of
Russian novels in the local library. So, I am quite moved to be celebrating
the Harman Program’s 16th birthday this evening. We have so much to be
proud of in our past and we have so much to look forward to in our future.
The Harman Advisory Committee has grown this year—with Professors Ely
Shipley and Esther Allen joining Professors Bridgett Davis, Andrea Gabor,
Grace Schulman, John Brenkman, and Weissman School of Arts and
Sciences Dean, Jeffrey Peck. They all deserve profound thanks. Let me also
thank photographer Glenda Hydler and our Harman student assistant,
Alessandra Rao, who has brought the Harman Program into the world of
social media.
We are poised at a fine, forward-looking moment and, in keeping with the
theme of Sweet Sixteen, it is time to hand the keys to the car to a new driver.
I am proud and happy to be able to announce that my friend and colleague
Prof. Bridgett Davis will be taking over as Director in Spring 2014. A
novelist, and a filmmaker, Bridgett Davis will, I am sure, put her own
imprint on the Harman Program.
Let me conclude by returning to the words of our very first Harman writer,
the poet Yehuda Amichai:
God Has Pity On Kindergarten Children
God has pity on kindergarten children,
He pities school children -- less.
But adults he pities not at all.
He abandons them,
And sometimes they have to crawl on all fours
In the scorching sand
To reach the dressing station,
Streaming with blood.
But perhaps
He will have pity on those who love truly
And take care of them
And shade them
Like a tree over the sleeper on the public bench.
Perhaps even we will spend on them
Our last pennies of kindness
Inherited from mother,
So that their own happiness will protect us
Now and on other days.
And now it is my privilege to introduce Prof. Eva Chou, chair of the
department of English. Prof. Chou will introduce Gish Jen.