I know I am running woefully behind on posting, and my ideas for posts are backing up. Once my schedule becomes a little more squared away with school, work and family I promise to keep back on top of things, but I have to share this.
The above picture is of Harvey Cox and a cow grazing in Harvard Yard. (The cow was grazing not Dr. Cox.) Dr. Cox is the Hollis Professor of Divinity, which is the oldest endowed professorship in the country. Established in 1721, part of the gift stipulated that the holder of the chair would have the right to graze his cattle in Harvard Yard. As Professor Cox is retiring, he decided to claim this right and acquired "faith" (her actual name is pride, which of course is a sin everywhere else but at Harvard) in order to graze his cow in the yard.
One of the lessons to be learned here is to think very carefully about what you want people to be doing in perpetuity. I'm sure that Mr. Hollis never even imagined that people would not still need to graze their cattle in the future, but look at what's happened. It would be like saying a professor had a guaranteed parking space (thank you Professor Gomes) and then not knowing what to do with that 300 years in the future.
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