Timely Snow

Rachel Keen, of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, recorded a message that was played at the service. She clearly falls into the category of someone whose life was changed by Harold’s intervention. She came to Minnesota planning to get a master’s degree, but was steered toward her career as a research scientist through Harold’s insistence that she consider that path. The photograph is really remarkable—the baby in the picture veritably glowed. I don’t know how that was done, but it’s a great photo for an infancy researcher to have.

Dan Wagner of the University of Pennsylvania, was a student of Harold’s. Like many people, he talked of the way that Harold backed him as he developed his interest in cross-cultural research.

Patricia Gurin was chair of the Psychology department during Harold’s last years at Michigan, and was another person who developed an interest in Chinese psychology through Harold’s efforts.

Mayumi Karasawa read messages from Hiroshi Azuma (shown in the picture with Harold) and other Japanese psychologists.

Twila Tardif passed along messages from some of the Chinese psychologists with whom Harold’s career was intertwined.

Willard Hartup, who succeeded Harold as director of the Institute of Child Development, with a picture of Shirley Moore, whom Harold hired as the lead teacher in the preschool that was an integral part of the Institute.

Henry Wellman did much of the work organizing the service and picking photographs to present. This one shows Harold as a young serviceman/student in World War II, at a Japanese language school where his interest in Japan and expertise with the language began.

I’m finally getting around to posting some pictures from the memorial for Harold Stevenson held on the U of M campus on August 28th. Appropriately for Harold, it was a very visual event, with some beautiful photographs that can be seen dimly in the ones I post here. It’s hard to pick a favorite, but I think this is mine.

I’m testing something called Foldershare as a means of keeping my home and office desktop machines and my Tablet synchronized.

Watching the double tragedy of hurricane Katrina unfold, it’s been eery to see how much the bumbling of the war in Iraq predicts the course of the second tragedy—the one where the U.S. government fails to meet minimum standards of competence. The same lack of communication between people on the ground and those who have centralized decision-making power, in both cases leading to needless deaths. If so, it suggests that one can predict what will happen next.