It’s sad that blogs.harvard.edu is shutting down. There, I can easily find interesting blogs from people at Harvard. It says in full:

After a successful twenty-year run, we are decommissioning the blogs.harvard.edu platform effective June 30, 2023 in order to pivot to new challenges at the Berkman Klein Center in a time when blogging platforms are ubiquitous and widely available.  

Users of the blogs.harvard.edu platform who are current Harvard community members and who wish to continue blogging under the Harvard.edu domain are asked to migrate their blog(s) to the new HUIT platform, sites.harvard.edu, hosted on CampusPress and managed by Harvard Web Publishing (HWP). Users can request assistance from HUIT and HWP to create a new site and migrate content from blogs.harvard.edu. More information starting this process can be found in HUIT KB article KB0018446. 

Users of the blogs.harvard.edu platform who are not current Harvard community members and would like to save the contents of their site, should export their content prior to June 30. We recommend migrating to a free WordPress.com site. Helpful information on importing a site on to WordPress.com or more general information on moving and/or exporting your site and its content can be found on WordPress.com’s support pages. 

In 2003, the Berkman Center for Internet & Society (now the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society) began an unusual experiment: we launched a blogging platform. That seems quaint today in the age of ubiquitous access to services that facilitate the sharing of user-generated content. But it was an uncommon achievement at the time. 

Twenty years in, a blogging platform is no longer an experiment. Blogging platforms are ubiquitous on the internet, content hosted and created on the WordPress platform makes up more than 40 percent of all websites, and gaining access to a blogging platform is easier than ever for people and organizations wanting to create an online presence. 

The blogs.harvard.edu platform has undergone various changes in its management and now exists in an environment where users have innumerable ways to put content online, including for free. Blogs.harvard no longer offers a unique opportunity for online engagement. In addition, it is antiquated in its policies for customization and available extensions when compared with contemporary, streamlined platforms. 

We look back on the early days of the platform with a measure of nostalgia, and echo the enthusiasm expressed in 2004 about the role the platform played in the birth of podcasting, or in providing a platform to former students like Ory Okolloh (who went on to found Ushahidi), or—generally—in allowing an extraordinary array of “students, faculty, fellows, staff and alumni of Harvard” to “cut their teeth” by posting, commenting, and engaging with one another. From Creative Commons, to Global Voices, to PRX, the Center has specialized in playing the role of incubator, where new platforms and other technologies can be piloted before they are spun out to operate in the proverbial wild. It is bittersweet to close an era of blogging on blogs.harvard.edu.

Does Harvard have no soul? In his book Excellence Without a Soul, Harvard College’s former dean, Harry Lewis, is convinced that “Harvard today tiptoes away from moral education” (Lewis, page 96). Like anything else, Harvard isn’t perfect. The first time Harvard let female students study in its halls wasn’t because it believed in gender equality but because men were drafted during the Second World War. But we must acknowledge that despite Harvard’s dark past, it keeps moving forward to become a better, more caring institution. We can acknowledge this through the words and example of Lawrence S. Bacow, Harvard’s 29th and current president, who is the son of a Holocaust survivor. He serves as shining proof that Harvard has a soul; that much is reflected in his letters. Naturally, I chose him as the subject for my CEO rhetorical analysis because, as the president of a local coding school, I want to learn from such a successful yet humble president. I believe it’s beneficial to learn President Bacow’s rhetoric at a time when strong yet humane leadership is needed more than ever. From his passive yet vivid voice that unites his readers to his skillful uses of pointer words that illuminate a case by answering the so what? and who cares? questions, this rhetorical analysis analyzes how Bacow’s rhetoric makes him sound relatable and, by extension, helps lend the image of a caring patron to Harvard. Three selected letters for this study are: “Climate Change: Update on Harvard Action,” “Message from President Bacow to Imam Khalil Abdur-Rashid,” and “What I believe.”

His candid and vivid letters seek to unite people without blaming others. There’re a few grammatical errors in his brief letters written in plain, clear English. Blaise Pascal, a mathematician best known for Pascal’s triangle, once concedes when addressing a letter to the Jesuits: “The present letter is a very long one, simply because I had no leisure to make it shorter” (Pascal et al., page 392). Writers know it takes longer time to write less and still convey information effectively. Bacow’s letters are concise at around 600 words on average; he cares what he writes. His sentences are mostly right-branched, meaning a subject precedes a verb. For example, his climate change letter convinces: “Climate change is the most consequential threat facing humanity” (Bacow 2021). Interestingly, all of his letters’ openings are right-branched, specifying who (or what) does what, which indicates an active voice. For comparison, the opening of his letter to Imam Khalil upholds: “The horrific shootings at the mosque in Christchurch shock the conscience” (Bacow 2019). Again, the subject is established early on. This active voice helps build the image of a confident and credible writer. Moreover, he uses a strong verb like “shock” instead of a weaker one, such as is shocking. Yet he also uses passive voice for a rhetorical effect to dramatically highlight the action’s target while keeping his readers united, such as when he points out: “Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated” (Bacow 2020), or how shocking “the senseless killing of yet another black person—George Floyd—at the hands of those charged with protecting us” (Bacow 2020). Incidentally, or perhaps not, both individuals are people of color. Those are sensitive issues, yet he focused more on the victim and less on the perpetrator to make himself relatable to all spectrums. Consequently, he unites his readers for a cause by avoiding blaming games that divide them into camps. Notwithstanding, his indirectness is compensated by vivid language that helps us extrapolate the subject.

President Bacow also presents himself as if he and his readers are partners, making him even more relatable. To ensure that he and his readers share some level of understanding about an issue, he furnishes pointing words with an appropriate noun and a sensory adjective. That is, he is hesitant to let words like this or that go unseasoned. For example, in a letter about the Christchurch mass shooting, President Bacow conveyed how “this heinous act is not just an offense against Islam, it is an offense against all people of faith” (Bacow 2019). Though he could have written this is not just an offense against Islam, he specifically describes the act as heinous. No moral being will think a cold-blooded massacre of unsuspecting civilians is all right. He argues that the act is an offense against all people of faith. He felt the pain as if it were his own. A soulless Harvard won’t have a president who bothers to address a case happening in a faraway land that hardly disturbs the experience of the majority at Harvard. This way, again, he presents himself to be relatable and all-embracing. He is like you and me while being president of an elite, privileged, honored university.

Other than making the case clear (the so what? question), the overall surrounding sentences around the furnished pointer words are written in such a way as to let the reader empathize early on by addressing the who cares? question. Looking back again in his “What I believe” letter, he advances a case and makes himself relatable as he affirms: “In the midst of this incomprehensible loss, our nation has once again been shocked by the senseless killing of yet another black person—George Floyd—at the hands of those charged with protecting us” (Bacow 2020). The word senseless is an intense adjective that means wildly foolish. Again, we can see his pointer words are decorated in a format we can expect: an intense adjective followed by a noun. To boot, his vivid remark of “the senseless killing of yet another black person” answers the so what? question by maintaining that an injustice has been done repeatedly. This sentence also answers the who cares? question being the American nation. His rhetoric masterfully answers both the so what? and the who cares?questions, effectively helping his readers to empathize and connect from the get-go.

President Bacow makes his writing even more relatable to the reader by using the rule of three to drive home his argument. The rule of three refers to a trio of words, phrases, or sentences that deliver vividly comparable cases. His use of the rule of three falls into one of two objectives, the first being simply laying out some evidence. In his climate change letter, for example, he elaborates on how “[t]he last several months have laid at our feet undeniable evidence of the world to come—massive fires that consume entire towns, unprecedented flooding that inundates major urban areas, record heat waves and drought (sic) that devastate food supplies and increase water scarcity” (Bacow 2021). His skillful use of the rule drives home as much relevant experience as possible to make his case relatable. Thus, even if the reader doesn’t have a first-hand experience of being choked by haze, Bacow’s rhetorical strategy enables them to feel that the weather has been getting hotter for years. In another example, he invites his readers to understand that America was not at her best as he enumerates: “Cities are erupting. Our nation is deeply divided. Leaders who should be bringing us together seem incapable of doing so” (Bacow 2020). His second use of the rule of three is to construct parallels so that his readers feel that they are in this together. After referring to the shooting as a heinous act, for example, President Bacow pleads: “Whether something like this occurs at a church in South Carolina, a synagogue in Pittsburgh or a mosque in New Zealand, acts of hate and violence touch us all” (Bacow 2019). Notice how he splices three Abrahamic religions into the list to make a parallel. True, there must be readers who don’t subscribe to any of those religions—or any religion at all. Still, since Christianity and Islam are the two largest religions by the number of adherents alone, with Judaism having a significant presence in places like Harvard, most readers should feel directly related to a given issue. If that sounds like an exaggeration, readers should at least understand that the issue cannot be seen in isolation. This skillful use of the rule of three helps his arguments ring as truly and as closely as possible to the reader’s heart.

After he advances a case while making himself relatable to his readers, his concluding paragraph seeks to deliver a shared vision in a forward-looking tone by offering hope. However, when the mood is bleak, the president would extend his empathy instead. Regardless, a shared vision will be shaped. This concluding paragraph should convince both within and outside the Harvard community that Harvard has a soul. In his letter about climate change, for example, he states: “I believe that any problem caused by people can be solved by people too. If that seems overly optimistic, so be it. We are going to need a little optimism to preserve life on Earth as we know and cherish it today” (Bacow 2021). By saying so be it, which is an ironic understatement, a litotes, he assures his readers to be as optimistic as himself. In fact, this statement challenges his readers to be more optimistic than him. The by people highlights the fact that we humans are unique in that we have the agency to be both troublemakers and problem solvers. Also, this is an anaphora, a repeated use of words such as “go big or go home” that can strengthen a message by making it more persuasive. A shared vision with direct references to Harvard is sometimes put literally, such as when he acknowledges that Harvard has a role to play when he maintains: “Those of us privileged to work or study at a place like this bear special responsibilities” (Bacow 2020). Harvard, if soulless, would not compel its community to reflect on their privilege, let alone ask them to use their agency to make a positive impact.

Though many view Harvard as belonging in a stratosphere of its own, that doesn’t mean Harvard should detach itself from the grassroots. Lawrence S. Bacow, who holds a special position as a president of Harvard University, exemplifies this. His message is all-embracing and relatable, written in a language most people understand. We cannot trace any superior, churlish tone in his letters. Indeed, as most people would consider his words and that of Harvard synonymous, his rhetoric ultimately lends Harvard the image of a caring patron. More than just talks and no actions, under his leadership, Harvard initiated the Harvard and the Legacy of Slavery movement. He also led Harvard in defending international students from unjust immigration rulings that sought to deport them during the COVID-19 pandemic. He cares about social issues, from terrorism to climate change. Whatever he did, he has proven that Harvard has a soul. That a person of such a humble origin can earn Harvard’s confidence shows the kind of soul the institution has. Now, to copy President Bacow’s rhetoric: may Harvard stays in truth.

Works Cited

• Bacow, Lawrence S. “Climate Change: Update on Harvard Action.” Harvard Office of the President, 9 Sept. 2021.
• Bacow, Lawrence S. “What I Believe.” Harvard Office of the President, 30 May 2020.
• Bacow, Lawrence S. “Message from President Bacow to Imam Khalil Abdur-Rashid.” Harvard Office of the President, 15 Mar. 2019.
• Lewis, Harry R. “The Eternal Enigma: Advising.” Excellence Without a Soul: Does Liberal Education Have a Future?, Public Affairs, New York, NY, 2007.
• Pascal, Blaise, et al. “Letter XVI.” The Provincial Letters of Blaise Pascal: A New Translation with Historical Introduction and Notes. Hurd and Houghton, New York, NY, 1866.

I never thought there are writing techniques. Using those techniques, I have become a much better writer. I learned those rhetorical techniques by taking expository writing classes such as EXPO-15, and primarily EXPO-34. I am planning to take other EXPO classes as well. In EXPO-34, which is Business Rhetorics, I learned many things, among which is how we should divide the writing process into three stages following the Can Do Writing technique:

1. Analysis stage (first stage) -> select the right facts, organize points into sentence outline
2. Composing (2nd stage) -> learn the formats for introductions, summaries, and abstracts
3. Editing (3rd stage) -> mechanical stage ensuring the our document has purpose, is logical, well organized, clear, concise and easy to read

This post is heavily influenced by the Can Do Writing book, but the EXPO-34 class I took with Prof. Randy Rosenthal is more than just that. I am glad I took his class.

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Everyone in a community should feel a sense of belonging. Yet, there are pervasive biases that can make others feel unwelcome. The Winter Dreams by F. Scott Fitzgerald offered us a glimpse of some of those biases, such as how we are never satisfied, causing crises in the process. Unfortunately, those crises have disadvantaged many due to wars, racism, slavery, colonization, and the most recent social upheaval of our time: climate change, to name a few. To put a stop to those crises, we must escape this evolutionary glitch where our communities tend to place the privileged over the rest of nature, race, gender, and even society itself.

Across taxonomy classes, it has been demonstrated that many animals—including humans—tend to want to feel that they are in charge. The sociological term for that is known as agency. We can see this in action when Dexter, the main character, decided to want to quit being a golf caddy. He said, “I don’t want to caddy anymore” (1) before arguing that he was too old. But, Dexter was not even fourteen; he was young. As everyone’s favorite caddy, he easily earned a monthly stipend of which the amount will not be made elsewhere. Indeed, it was quite a folly of Dexter to quit the job. But, to understand his behavior, we can see it from the perspective of agency. Many times over, those who are under the agency of others have no choice but to be put under the mercy of their superiors. The story recounted how Miss Jones comically treated her nurse, Hilda, to the point that Dexter “could not resist the monstrous conviction that the little girl was justified in beating the nurse.” Dexter himself was once exhorted by the caddy master “what you standing there like a dummy for?” Not only that the question is disparaging, but it also highlights the fact that Dexter does not have an agency in his work. This lack of agency morphing into a lack of respect must be among the reasons why Dexter decided to quit. Indeed, such a strongly implied hierarchical structure can push one to want to increase their agency.

There are many ways to increase the scale of one’s agency, the surest path of which is by being wealthy. To that end, the privileged few like Dexter can use their cultural and/or social capital to an advantage. For example, Dexter increased his wealth by owning the largest string of laundries in town at an extremely young age. The capital to fund such an enterprise was not obtained from his prosperous father but was borrowed from “his college degree and his confident mouth” (2). But the fact is that, it is very unlikely for people with no or fewer capital under their belt to be able to borrow money from outside sources at such a young age, let alone be financially sound before their twenty-seventh birthday. Without a doubt, private wealth ownership has always been concentrated in the hands of the few. Many government policies in place have deliberately been made to gatekept specific people. In a way, whether intended or not, that has advanced the legacy of racism and widened the wealth gap. This neglect of the greater to the advantage of the few is not unique in America. While in the past this would mean European settlers exploiting enslaved people and freshly appropriated lands from the native communities; today, a great many developing countries like China, Indonesia, and India are all-out to catch up with their developed peers by committing to horrendous exploitation without much regard for the Earth if at all in their pursuit to advance their agency.

But the desire to command an agency is not unique amongst men and nations and states alike. It would be naive to assume that this obsession with agency has left women fully innocent in perpetuity. The text recounts how the-most-beautiful Judy Jones was concerned to a great deal that her boyfriend “was poor as a church-mouse” (5). She must have thought that her beauty is an honored privilege on which she can capitalize to find the most well-rounded man to mate. Although to fall into that is acceptable on an individual level, our society as a whole must not risk either overvaluing or soft-pedaling others simply by privileges, such as education, race, skin color, nationality; nor outward appearances such as religion, sexual orientation, accent and so forth. However, those biases are so hard to overcome that we were rightly reminded not to judge a book by its cover, cliché regardless. Yet, in a world increasingly global, everyone must be afforded the same rights and the same sense of belonging in a community. Throughout history, a lot of injustice has been pushed on those who are different. But, we can end this cycle.

The truth is, those sharing the same values, grew up in the same neighborhoods, and even having the same skin tone can still feel left out of a community, let alone those having different frequencies. Our modern society is still learning to live with each other in peace. Even Dexter—himself so financially accomplished through his own labor, and his dad owned the second-best grocery store in town—felt like a trespasser when he played golf with the rank of Mr. Hart, Mr. T. A. Hedrick, and Mr. Sandwood. He had to ensure himself that it was not necessary “to remark that he had once carried Mr. Hart’s bag” (3) when he was still a 14-years-old golf cady. It’s lucky that Dexter can get richer through his labor. Indeed, being rich is something that we can always try. But, many of us may have a degree of insecurity from something that is completely out of control, such as skin color, stature, age, sexual orientation, family background and so forth. Yet, society must graciously function beyond such superficial marking so that no one feels disempowered for being different, that no dissenting voice should be ignored, and that social cohesion shall be maintained for the better. The framework governing our communities must be written to suit all of its members, not only those most politically active or the richest 1% benefactors. Such a framework should be designed to see a human as a human, assessing us not by our skin colors but their effects on other people, their communities, nature and the Earth.

A society where everyone feels a sense of belonging is essential if we want to respond hand in hand to our time’s most pressing challenges. A community should be a place where its members can feel a warm interpersonal relationship regardless of capital or privileges. Make no mistake: we cannot deny nor dismantle anyone’s privilege. Yet, we cannot afford to value some humans over the others. We must have an open-ended, adaptive framework written by, from, and for those in the community where people are assessed by their effects on other people, their communities, nature and the Earth. Otherwise, we will continue to lack the moral compass in our relationship with one another if we still judge one another by their outward appearances, capital or privileges.

Today, we ended the class a little bit earlier than scheduled due to some circumstances. Actually, the class I got assigned to is a mix of students from 4 different classes namely the ICP, U1, U2 and U3. Students from U1 needed to leave 20 minutes earlier, as such, I have to call it a day. I have been informed of that even before the class started so it’s not surprising to me. But do you know what’s surprising to me?

What surprising to me is my students’ reaction when I made an announcement that the class has to end. Non-U1 students were not exactly happy to learn about that. They complained like “nooooo…” or something like that in English. But again, we should not leave anyone behind, so it has to be ended.

I am not sure what that translate to, but it seems they really like this class. Their eyes has always been wide open since day 1. They raised their hand to ask whenever they’re a bit lost instead of having a “meh… whatever it doesn’t matter to me” attitude. And imagine when 2 or 3—sometimes even 5—students doing that at the same time. Indeed, the class can be busy. Extremely busy. But it was fun!

Their enthusiasm is just impossible to ignore.

For instance, today’s material was about variable and it was quite a challenging concept for most. We learned about how to name a variable, its purpose, how we can assign data to it, how they can be used in various different scenarios, and so on and so forth. Even if all of the concept is in Indonesian, when I asked the whole class if this is difficult, some shouted “no” affirmatively while the others would say like “yeah it’s fairly difficult than the previous topic.”

But, even at that challenging topic, no student was afraid to ask me. It’s that level of enthusiasm. But, I guess, that was also the moment when I see it for myself that it’s not easy to judge a student’s interest in a given topic. For example, a student being quiet in the class than their peers doesn’t mean he/she is not interested in the subject as much as a louder student is. It happened over and over and over again that this quiet student always raised their hand to ask me, wanting me to remove their doubt as soon as they have one.

All of them are, so far, that enthusiastic.

Their eyes has always been wide open since day 1.

I noticed that, the class would be extremely quiet whenever I presented something new. To reinforce what I said, I’d ask them to type some code from the slide. Then, they will ask me more questions. Some students may then run into problems, and those students won’t hesitate to ask me too. That’s the class normal cycle and pace.

My benchmark is, if students shout “aaaaaaah……. right!” then I know they were in a eureka! moment. Listening to that eureka made me so happy.

Ultimately. For me, I hope when they think of what they want to be in the future, and they see software engineering, they can gauge what it is about. At least, they can say: “oh! software engineering! I did that when I was much younger. It’s not that hard and it was fun. It challenged my way of thinking. It’s a doable field for me. I wanted to be one!”

Or, even if they say: “it is not for me!” it’s totally fine. At least they are far better-informed of what they want to be, what the field is like, and so on. Not everyone has to be a software engineer. Although, I did say that in the future, almost everything we do in life can hardly be separated from the use of technology.

As much as I can’t wait to get my own “aaaaah… I see” moments when I study on-campus, I will without doubt feel a little bit sad to no longer be able to see those students of mine. Or by indirectly put this program on hold for awhile. But, I will work harder to ensure that this program doesn’t stand still even if I will have to go to Harvard to study on-campus. Even if I am not in Indonesia for yet another time, Indonesians students must be able to study computer science and software engineering whenever wherever with or without me.