Eyes on the future
To Leila Fawaz, Harvard isn’t just where she launched her academic career in Middle Eastern studies; it’s also where she learned to swim in the waters of Blodgett Pool under the eye of a Harvard Swim Team member. To Robert Shapiro, Harvard isn’t just the source of his bachelor and law degrees; it’s a place where he experienced the turmoil of the Vietnam War era as an undergraduate and where, through his continued involvement as an alumnus in very different times, he has never really left. Fawaz and Shapiro today are decades removed from their student days, but they remain important members of the Harvard community. The two are among the 30 alumni elected to sit on the Board of Overseers, one of Harvard’s two governing boards. Fawaz, Fares Professor of Lebanese and Eastern Mediterranean Studies at Tufts University and a recent Carnegie Scholar, is the board’s current president. Shapiro, a lawyer...