Word: backgrounder
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...other pole, Danehy and Vellucci loudly proclaim their intention to hire someone versed in the rough and tumble of Cambridge government for the job. Crane, with a master politician's instinct for the middle, stays silent, but is thought to strongly prefer a manager with a Cambridge background polished with professional training--someone like his old friend Curry, who was a headmaster of a local school before appointment to the manager's post...
...days of such shuffling, a new council is finally elected. Few Cambridge residents outside of political circles understand the mechanics of the system; all the politicians know its implication--the way to get elected is to seize and hold a band of "number ones," usually through ethnic and neighborhood background...
...result of this diversity of background, the Council, which under Cambridge's Plan E. charter is supposed to set policy for the City, usually doesn't even do that. The direction of the City's government is set either by the manager himself, as it was in the DeGuglielmo regime, or by one councillor with the ear of the manager--a role which Crane fulfilled skillfully during the Curry administration. At present, Crane appears to be developing the same sort of close working relationship with Dunphy. An arrangement like this probably necessary if the City...
...Purchase of Two Decades" exhibit shows, there has been no simple pattern to Coolidge's acquisitions. Morris Louis' "Color Barrier" (1961) hangs across from a Japanese painted screen of Magnolia blossoms against a gold background, and a Rembrandt is close to a Persian miniature. The exhibit (and Coolidge's purchasing pattern) is heavy on 17th century Dutch works because few gifts have been received from that period, and light on Impressionist paintings, which Harvard received in abundance from the Wertheim bequest...
...than any of his more outspoken predeccessors. He has sought to reconcile growing demands for greater specialization and advancement with the need for general education. He has operated within Harvard's traditional system of government to bring change and flexibility to a student body with changing views and varied background...