Cabot House
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| Cabot House | ||||||||||||||||
| Harvard College | ||||||||||||||||
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| Full name | Thomas and Virginia Cabot House | |||||||||||||||
| Latin Name | Domus Capoceus | |||||||||||||||
| Motto | Tres Pisces—Cor Unum | |||||||||||||||
| Translation | Three Fish—One Heart | |||||||||||||||
| Named after | Thomas and Virginia Cabot | |||||||||||||||
| Previous Names | South House, East House | |||||||||||||||
| Established | 1901 | |||||||||||||||
| Sister College | Trumbull College | |||||||||||||||
| Freshman Dorm | Wigglesworth Hall | |||||||||||||||
| House Master | Jay and Cheryl Harris | |||||||||||||||
| HoCo Chairs | Ajay Kumar '08 and Katherine Jonas '08 | |||||||||||||||
| Undergraduates | 358 | |||||||||||||||
| Called | Cabotoix, Cabotians, Caboteers | |||||||||||||||
| Tutors | 18 | |||||||||||||||
| Location | 60 Linnaean Street | |||||||||||||||
| http://www.cabot.harvard.edu | ||||||||||||||||
Cabot House is one of twelve undergraduate residential Houses at Harvard University. Cabot House derives from the merger in 1970 of South and East House, which took the name South House (also known as "SoHo"), until the name was changed and the House reincorporated in 1984 to honor Harvard benefactors Thomas Cabot and Virginia Cabot.[1] The house is composed of six buildings surrounding Radcliffe Quadrangle; in order of construction, they are Bertram Hall (1901), Eliot Hall (1906), Whitman Hall (1911), Barnard Hall (1912), Briggs Hall (1923), and Cabot Hall (1937). All six of these structures were originally women-only Radcliffe College dormitories until they were integrated in 1970. Along with Currier House and Pforzheimer House, Cabot is part of the Quad.
The current Masters of Cabot House are Jay Harris and his wife Cheryl. Prior Masters include then-Radcliffe President Mary Bunting and New Republic publisher Martin Peretz.[2]
Famous alumni include Benazir Bhutto, Stockard Channing, Lindsay Crouse, Rivers Cuomo, Greg Daniels, Jim Koch, Ellen Goodman, Soledad O'Brien, Bonnie Raitt, Mira Sorvino, Jeffrey Sachs, and Edward Zwick.
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[edit] History
[edit] The Great Experiment
In 1970, Harvard began to experiment with co-educational housing. 150 men from the River (including current Dean of Harvard College Benedict Gross) switched places with 150 women from the Quadrangle. Ten years later the experiment was taken to its logical conclusion, as the last all-male dorm, Straus Hall in Harvard Yard, went co-ed. Today, all Harvard dormitories, including the three Houses of the Quadrangle, house both men and women.
[edit] Shield
The Cabot House shield was adopted when South and East House became Cabot House, in 1984. The shield is the coat of arms used by the Boston Brahmin Cabots after whom the House is named, though, ironically, the shield is not truly their heraldic achievement; the coat of arms actually belongs to the French family Chabot, to whom the Boston Cabots have no relation.
Cabotoix have a unique affection for their shield, its red fish (freshwater perch, or chabots) in particular. They are the inspiration for the common House cheer, "Go Fish!"—a play on the popular card game. Cabotoix feature their coat of arms on various apparel, including polo shirts, rugby shirts, and hooded sweatshirts. The standard coloration is used, or its inverse, as in the shield shown in the infobox accompanying this article (at right). A variation incorporating a white chevron, is also used; the chevron is a reference to the Harvard College shield, which is crimson with a white chevron.
The House Office also has an antique copy of the Cabot Shield which had been hanging in the dining hall before the renovations. Oddly, this shield's colors are drastically different, although the shield still features the same general design and motto: the field is black and the perch are silver, and the crest is a white scallop shell. While the origin of this scheme is unknown, it is interesting to note that these colors are identical to those of Trumbull College, Cabot's sister college at Yale.
The standard arms are described heraldically as follows: field, or, with three chabots, gules.
[edit] Motto
The Cabot family motto is 'Semper Cor' or 'Semper Corcabut,' roughly translating to 'Always Heart.' The Cabot House motto is slightly different, though related to the family motto: 'Tres Pisces, Cor Unum,' or 'Three Fish, One Heart.' The motto refers to the three perch on the Cabot Shield and to the strong sense of community and pride within the House.
[edit] Colors
The House colours, red and gold, are derived from the House shield; black, one of Radcliffe's colors, is a kind of unofficial color, featured in much House apparel. The Cabot House academic scarf featuring the House colors is, by coincidence, identical to that of Clare Hall, University of Cambridge; they have no affiliation.
[edit] Community and Traditions
Cabot House, above all, is known for its extremely strong sense of community and camaraderie. The unique features of the House and its unusual traditions in particular contribute to Cabot's well-known esprit de corps.
[edit] The Dining Hall
Cabot's Dining Hall is very different from those at the River. Unlike other House Dining Halls, Cabot's is not enormous, paneled in mahogany and decorated with oil paintings, marble busts, and medieval tapestries. Some might see this as a comparative deficit, but in reality, it is considered one of the House's greatest assets. The dining hall—completed during the 1987 renovations of the Quad, replacing what is now the JCR as the House's cafeteria—is an intimate and bright space. Located beneath the Moors Hall (Pforzheimer House) terrace, the three-tiered room is painted white, its floors carpeted; as the long wall facing the Quad is almost entirely glass, it is bathed in natural light throughout the day. The servery likewise is bright and airy, with knotty pine walls and earthenware tile floors. It is one of the most recently renovated House serveries, completed in 2002.
More than serving merely as the House cafeteria, the Dining Hall is the center of House activity. Aside from being the site of hours-long, social dinners, each evening the Dining Hall fills with students who work together on problem sets and projects for various subjects. The sunken-in eating area on the outside of the dining hall, known as The Dugout, is also a popular gathering place for undergraduates to drink beer and socialize.
[edit] Stein Club
Cabot House Stein Club is the Junior Common Room beer-appreciation society to which every member of the Junior Common Room (that is, all House residents) automatically belongs. Every other Thursday evening throughout the school year, Stein Club meets in one of Cabot's six Living Rooms, usually in Briggs or Barnard Hall. At each meeting, students socialize over various types of ale, purchased by the House Committee. Each year, ceramic steins are ordered which bear the House insignia and the name of the owner. Stein Club attendance is very high in Cabot; tutors and the House Master are also known to attend for a beer and fraternization.
[edit] Intramural Sports
Cabot fields a strong intramural sports squad each year. Cabot Crew, in particular, had an excellent season last year; the Men's A boat took first place among the Houses. Kevin Wecht '07 is this year's IM representative, in charge of organizing teams to take on the other Harvard Houses. Cabot holds the record for most consecutive Straus Cups (awarded to the House with the most intramural points accrued during the school year) with seven wins between 1994 and 2001.
[edit] The Cabot Cotillion
The Cotillion is the annual Cabot House spring formal, and is one of the classiest events of the school year. The Cotillion is a black-tie event—white-tie strongly encouraged. The House Committee usually commits several thousand dollars to an open bar at the Sheraton Commander ballroom.
[edit] The Dutch Auction
To raise money for student events, the House Committee holds a Dutch Auction each spring. A poster is prominently placed in the House dining room where students can offer a service or object to be auctioned. In past years, students have offered to write theme songs for individual House members, to clean rooms, to go on a date, and so on; Cabot alum Rivers Cuomo offered an autographed copy of Weezer's new album during his senior year.
The Auctioneer for the Dutch Auction is usually a prominent member of the House or the House Committee. Dutch Auctions are known for being wild events, with heated bidding wars and drunken revelry. The Dutch Auction is also known for the annual Lambing.
[edit] The Lambing
The Lambing is an unusual House tradition which takes place each year at the Dutch Auction. The highest bidder for the Lambing gets to name a House member who will be "lambed" at the following year's auction. The student who is lambed is ceremonially covered in oil, then flour, and then pieces of lamb, all in front of the cheering crowd in the House Junior Common Room. The student is not eaten or cooked—merely seasoned deliciously.
Although the Lambing has long been a tradition, it appears to have been carried out more in spirit, than with actual lamb, in recent years.
[edit] The Legend
Cabot House has its own ghost story, passed down from one generation to another by each year's House Committee chair.
[edit] Festivus
A newly-adopted tradition popularized by Seinfeld, Festivus is a very popular dinner during the month of December featuring cuisine from a multitude of cultures around the globe.
[edit] The Masters, Dean, Tutors, and Staff
The current Cabot House Masters are Jay and Cheryl Harris. A Barnard College grad, Cheryl is a school psychologist at Sharon (Mass.) High School. Jay received his PhD at Columbia University, and is the Harry Austryn Wolfson Professor of Jewish Studies in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Literatures at Harvard; he is also the director of the Center for Jewish Studies at Harvard. Jay and Cheryl eat with students in the dining room at least once a day, often accompanied by one of their three children. Both are known for being warm and parental, and are extremely well-liked by Cabot students and tutors alike. Jay is also a fixture on the Cabot House Intramural Basketball Team.
Susan Livingston, the Assistant to the Masters, has been a part of Cabot for 17 years. She handles much of the day to day business of the House, in addition to directing the Cabot House Theatre—the house drama club. The House Theatre stages a musical in the spring of each academic year in the JCR.
Allston Burr Resident Dean Stephen Kargère is Lecturer in History and Literature at Harvard, teaching in the field of Modern France and Britain. As Resident Dean, Stephen oversees advising in the House, and is likewise responsible for the academic and general well-being of Cabot students. He is a native of France, and is often seen chasing after his three children with his wife, Karen (an academic Rheumatologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston). Stephen is also known for his sardonic and witty sense of humor.
The assistant to the Resident Dean, Susan Borneuf, handles the House files, and has been at Harvard for twelve years.
The offices of all mentioned above are located in A-Entryway, the main lobby of Cabot House (sometimes called the "Grand Entryway").
Resident Tutors are graduate students who live in the House and provide academic and general guidance to House residents. The Resident Tutors for Cabot are:
| Name | Field |
|---|---|
| Stephanie Aktipis | Biology |
| Michael Aktipis | International Relations, Law |
| Aaron Burkowitz | Music |
| Wally Bethune | Medicine |
| Alexander Boni-Saenz | Law |
| Monique-Adelle Callahan | Comparative Literature |
| Fiery Cushman | Psychology |
| Bev Foulks | Religion and East Asian Studies |
| Ashley Fure | Music Composition, SCR |
| Surbhi Grover | Medicine |
| Sumin Koo | Medicine |
| Ha Yan Lee | Economics |
| Lucas Nivon | Biophysics, Fellowships |
| Ryan Taylor | Law |
| Thomas Barnet-Lamb | Mathematics |
| Therese Leung | Government and Sociology |
| Andrew Levin | Medicine |
| Sam Lipoff | Chemistry |
[edit] Constituent Halls
Cabot House is comprised of the following six halls:
- Cabot Hall
- Whitman Hall
- Briggs Hall
- Barnard Hall
- Bertram Hall
- Eliot Hall
Cabot, Whitman, Briggs and Barnard are connected by a series of tunnels in the basement. The Dining Hall, JCR, and Grand Entry also serve to connect these buildings above ground. Bertram and Eliot Halls, the oldest, are not connected to the rest of the house, but are a short distance away, co-located on the Radcliffe Quadrangle. The Master's Residence and Resident Dean's Residence, 107 and 103 Walker Street, respectively, are located directly across the street from the rest of the house, and are the only such residences in the Harvard House system not to be physically connected to the rest of the house.
