The Venerable Extension School

by Christopher Queen

In his annual Commencement remarks to new degree recipients and their families, Dean Michael Shinagel takes pleasure in observing that the Harvard Extension School is neither the youngest nor the smallest school at Harvard University, having been founded in 1909 and enrolling nearly 14,000 students in 2001. Indeed, the Harvard Schools of Education, Dentistry, Design, Public Health, and Government were founded more recently, and only half the Harvard schools graduate more students each year than the Extension School.

But these bracing facts of history and demography only touch the surface of the Extension School's growth and importance in the constellation of Harvard's educational preeminence. The larger fact that "learning never ends" is enshrined as the Extension School's motto and embodied in the working adults, young professionals, Harvard employees, commuters, foreign nationals on student visas, married students, parents, grandparents, and retirees who attend its classes. Some have begun their college education immediately after high school, but most are returnees. Harvard archaeology professor C. C. Lamberg-Karlovsky, a 25-year-veteran Extension School instructor, speaks for many faculty members when he says, "I particularly like teaching those who have been out of school for a period of time. Often, something along the way has happened, sometimes very serious, to interrupt their formal training. But now they are back with a passion for learning that is different from that of my students in the College. Many of them will not miss a class, or even a word."

In this edition of the Alumni Bulletin, we offer a sampling of life at the Extension School during the millennial year, 2000-2001. Still buoyant after last year's celebrations of the Extension School's ninetieth birthday and Dean Shinagel's twenty-fifth anniversary, our students, faculty, staff, alumni, and alumnae are presented in speeches and lectures, feature articles, memoirs, profiles and media stories, Commencement coverage, and Alumni Association news. We begin with the Lowell Lecture by one of the Extension School's most beloved instructors, Boston historian and best-selling author Thomas O'Connor. As if to punctuate Professor O'Connor's "Highlights of Boston History: A Personal Perspective," Ruth Voutselas Gove, ABE '67, a charter member of the Harvard Extension Alumni Association (HEAA), recalls the circumstances surrounding the HEAA's auspicious yet "simple beginning."

We follow the Lowell Lecture with profiles of Harvard archaeologist Lamberg-Karlovsky; four ALB graduates; Dan McCarron, ALM '94, pilot and traveler extraordinaire; Santiago Crueheras, the indefatigable recipient of two ALM degrees and the CSS certificate in 2001; and internet guru Len Evenchick, head of distance learning at DCE.

Our Commencement coverage includes the student speaker and newly elected HEAA Vice President Anthony Lorizio, ALB '01, who addressed Extension School degree candidates on the rigors of continuing education, and Gail McGovern, president of Fidelity Personal Investments, who addressed graduate certificate candidates on the challenge of balancing personal and professional lives in a competitive world. Academic and teaching awards and a splash of graduation photos illustrate the excellence and the merriment of this year's graduating class.

The Harvard Extension Alumni Association looks back on a year of service and sociability, as we review the five meetings of the Association, which now numbers more than 6,000 members. Photos of the Alumni Banquet--our last at Quincy House as guests of Dean Shinagel, who, with his wife Marjorie North, stepped down as co-masters this year--are followed by the 25-year honorand speech, alumni(ae) news, a tribute to the more than 400 alumni(ae), friends, and matching-gift employers who contributed to our scholarship and endowment funds, the announcement of our new officers, our new website, and sad notice of the death of some of our members. Extension in the News features the Newsweek story on Latanya Sweeney, Extension alumna and distance instructor; a museum studies graduate in the Braintree news; the Boston Herald story on older students returning to school; and distance learning director Len Evenchick on WGBH Television.

On behalf of all who contributed their writing, photography, and graphic talents to this issue of the Bulletin, I invite you to enjoy this annual snapshot of the Harvard Extension School.