CLASSACT NEWS

Register

Culture Counts: The Arts and Humanities in Our Time

Monday, 1/26 7:00 - 8:30pm ET on ZOOM

As museums and libraries scramble for funding, and binge-watching supplants reading, ClassACT HR73 has stepped into the void to launch its newest focus group on culture. The classmates who have joined this committee have begun to consider challenges like our society’s emerging anti-humanistic strains, as well as the algorithmization of our personal cultural choices, a trend that threatens to separate us all from each other.

To begin the conversation about what the humanities and arts mean in a time when tech lords and influencers seem to talk over us all, the committee will present the online forum “Culture Counts: The Arts and Humanities in Our Time.”

Culture Counts is honored to include the world-renowned multi-media artist Laurie Anderson as a panelist. Anderson’s musical compositions and performances, her stage presentations, and her drawings, videos and sculptures have expanded the frontiers of the arts. In 2021 she gave the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures at Harvard, and in 2024 she received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

The forum’s panel also includes the award-winning playwright, storyteller and educator Mfoniso Udofia, whose plays have been produced by San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theater and the Huntington Theater in Boston, and whose screenwriting credits include Pachinko and Lessons in Chemistry. Joining her will be the socially-engaged comedian Hari Kondabolu, who has written for Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell and has appeared regularly as a panelist on NPR’s “Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me!” Visual artist and environmental activist Alexis Rockman, whose paintings and drawings depicting the effects of climate change have been exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, completes this extraordinary panel.

Moderating the forum and heading the new Culture Counts working group is renowned jazz guitarist/bass guitarist Jerome Harris ’73. Jerome has published scholarly essays, toured on six continents, recorded with klezmer clarinet virtuoso David Krakauer, and worked with three NEA Jazz Masters including the legendary tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins. 

-By Jacquelyn Swearingen '73 and Jerome Harris '73

Missed our 12/9 Meet Our Bridges webinar introducing KidsCareEverywhere? You can watch the recording (edited by Rick Brotman '73) here, and view Ron Dieckmann '73 and Margie Hogan's slides from the webinar here. 

December 2025 ClassACTions Newsletter

Highlights Include:

-Voices of Democracy: Our Classmates and Friends, with Ryan O'Connell '73 and Peter Olney '73

-Environment & Climate Change Working Group Updates

-Save the Date: 1/26 Culture Counts: The Arts and Humanities in Our Time Forum

Read

In case you missed our Forum last week titled “The Changing Role of the US Military," we enlisted three military experts to discuss the normative aspects of US military history, current deviations from those norms, and ways in which military and non-military citizenry alike can champion the US armed services’ commitment to their founding principles. 

We write with some materials from the forum, which include:

1. Recordings from the forum, a full version and an 11 minute version, edited by Rick Brotman '73. We encourage you to share with your friends!

2. Panelists' calls to action from the forum (you can scroll down the linked webpage to access these).

3. Resources from the Forum: we asked our panelists to provide us with links pertinent to their talks, and additionally gathered material from our audience in the webinar chat. We have organized these materials by topic and provide links to them all here.

Read

Highlights Include:

-Coats for Kids Drive: Ole & Nu Fellas Social Aide & Pleasure Club

-From HR85: 11/19 An Alumni Climate Action Town Hall With Harvard Overseer Nathaniel Keohane

-From IMPACT '75: 12/4 Creating New Pathways to More Effective Democratic Action in Low-Income Communities Webinar

REGISTER

In order to help our Bridge Partners to further their objectives, we are offering assistance in a variety of skills related to the success of non-profits via the Bridge Toolbox Series. These webinars are recorded and archived on our website for public use. 

Many nonprofits derive almost all of their funds from cash gifts. This webinar will discuss alternative fundraising vehicles that can enhance charitable giving and are easy, readily available options for donors.

Julie Wilson Sakellariadis '78 and Nick Sakellariadis '73 are the volunteer leaders of planned giving both at Harvard  and at the New York Botanical Garden. Among other topics, they will cover the potential impact of estate gifts, the donation of appreciated securities,  and the power of gifts from IRA’s for those over 70.

REGISTER

As National Guard and regular troops appear in support of Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel on the streets of America’s largest cities, ClassACT HR73 is hosting an online forum to address “The Changing Role of the US Military.” The panel discussion takes place on November 11, 2025, at 7:00 pm and will focus on the Trump Administration’s deployment of the armed services within US borders. Examples include the policing effort in response to this past summer’s anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles and subsequent interventions of both National Guard and regular troops in Washington, DC, and other major urban centers. Panelists will also consider the deployment of troops in newly created “national defense areas” along the southern border to support operations of US Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

The US military has historically been seen as an apolitical force committed to defending the Constitution, whatever party holds Congress and/or the White House, and has assumed a domestic policing role only in cases of extreme unrest. The current administration’s rhetoric and its engagements, whether actual or intended, suggest that that historical standard no longer holds. Forum panelists will assess the normative aspects of US military history, current deviations from those norms, and ways in which military and non-military citizenry alike can champion the US armed services’ commitment to their founding principles.

Our panelists for the evening include three distinguished national security experts:

• LTG (Ret.) David W. Barno, Professor of Practice at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and co-author of Adaptation Under Fire: How Militaries Change in Wartime
• Juliette Kayyem, Belfer Senior Lecturer in International Security at Harvard Kennedy School, CNN Senior National Security Analyst, and author most recently of The Devil Never Sleeps: Learning to Live in an Age of Disasters
• Kori Schake, Director of Foreign and Defense Policy at the American Enterprise Institute and author of Safe Passage: The Transition from British to American Hegemony

The panel will be moderated by Leigh Hafrey ’73, Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, ClassACT HR73 Board Member, and author of War Stories: Fighting, Competing, Imagining, Leading.