The K-School by any other name...
Samantha Power didn't get the memo! Nor, apparently, did retired John F. Kennedy School of Government - sorry, Harvard Kennedy School - professor Francis Bator. Both have been using the K-School's "old" name in communications of late. The Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, whose "discussion papers" stare up at me from the bottom of my wastebasket, is still using the no-longer operative moniker, "John F. Kennedy School . . . etc., etc."
What's going on? A ridiculous, $300,000 "rebranding" of Harvard's venerable school of government, founded in 1936 as the Graduate School of Public Administration. Renamed after the slain president in 1965, the school's cumbersome name has provoked considerable confusion in the intervening decades. "Having worked here for a number of years, I can't tell you how many calls we get for the Kennedy Center," says communications chief Melodie Jackson. That's a performing arts center in Washington, D.C. Other wrong numbers: The Kennedy Library, and The Kennedy Institute at Georgetown University.
Jackson explains that the name change is the "branding part" of a "strategic communications initiative." The new, shorthand name "HKS," situates the K-School within the universe of Harvard's other grad schools, e.g., the law school (HLS), the medical school (HMS), the business school (HBS), and so on. The website adopted the new name a couple of months ago, and the various centers and institutes at the KSG - sorry, HKS - will rebrand when it comes time to buy new stationery.
And don't call it a name change! The long, old name, is still the "official" name. The new name is, um, the new name. Confused? Me, too.
Wait . . . haven't I seen this movie before? Yes, it was a 1981 boffo comedy starring then-dean Graham Allison. That fall, students and faculty arrived on campus to discover the school had been renamed the Harvard School of Government. Then-associate dean Ira Jackson told the Globe's Robert Levey that the name change was merely "a bureaucratic adjustment," and Harvard president Derek Bok was trotted out to deny that any name change was in the works at all.
At the time, outsiders assumed that Harvard wanted to ditch the Kennedy name to facilitate fund-raising in the Ronald Reagan era. "It looked like a sneaky way of getting around the fact that rich guys don't like the name Kennedy," the late Globe columnist David Nyhan wrote. "When you're trying to raise $9 million for your school, you go to rich people. And rich people and the name Kennedy don't mix."
The 1981 rebranding, which never took place, had one lasting consequence. The Cambridge City Council, inflamed by the notion of a de-Kennedy-ization movement in their backyard, promptly renamed Boylston Street as John F. Kennedy Street. So for many years, the John F. Kennedy School of Government fronted on John F. Kennedy Street.
But no more.
The Dirty Digger's Daily
It's a fact: the Wall Street Journal has improved under Rupert Murdoch's stewardship. The news coverage is faster, better, and broader. It certainly helps them that the tanking economy is the number one story in the land. The political coverage, always good, is still fine.
The paper hasn't lost its investigative edge, and has even preserved the winsome "A-hed" features at the bottom of Page 1. Ever wonder how those lunkheads on the lacrosse team get so rich? Other lunkheads hire them into lucrative jobs on Wall Street trading desks, as this feature reported last week.
Everyone is watching the China coverage for signs of softness, which I haven't yet detected. (Murdoch notoriously bootlicks the Butchers of Beijing.) Though I certainly haven't seen the kind of long, narrative sociological take-outs about ordinary Chinese life that I read a few years ago. Everyone has a beef with the editorial page. Not me. I don't read it.
Technology for Everyman, aggressive medical and Big Pharma coverage, and aviation news for the little men (and women) with briefcases - it's all there. The literary and cultural stories, and the excellent weekend special sections - said to be heading for the guillotine - remain nonpareil. I read only the print edition, though I hear they are strong on the Web, too.
I'm sure the chronic malcontents at the Journal are still chronically malcontented. They're journalists, after all. But their always-good newspaper just got a little better.
Alex Beam is a Globe columnist. His e-dress is beam@globe.com.
