Word: gavin
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Harvard is a pretty exasperating institution to work with," says Carney Gavin, the museum's current curator. "It's like dealing with the Catholic Church, or the U.S. Government." Gavin arrived here in the late 1960s as a doctoral candidate in Syrio-Palestinian archaeology and took an immediate interest in the large and dusty collection of artifacts he found locked away in the basement at 6 Divinity Ave. That jumble of clay figurines and broken pottery on plywood shelves was the Harvard Semitic Museum: nearly 10,000 objects tucked into 3467 square feet of space. Trying to locate anything...
Graduating into the position of de facto curator of the museum in 1973. Gavin promptly took it upon himself to lead the forgotten institution out of exile...
...then learned just how exasperating Harvard could be: "I tried to find the seat of power--formally, informally... I tried very hard." Gavin found nothing but what he saw as inertia and indifference. All the while, he was preparing a list of embarrassing questions to ask the administration: What part had Lowell's widely recognized personal prejudices played in the apparently systematic sabotage of Semitic studies at Harvard during the '20s and '30s? Why was the University no longer picking up the tab for heating and maintenance as Eliot had promised in 1903? How did Bundy almost get away with...
...Gavin posed some of his most aggressive queries in the newsletters he began producing in the early '70s, nestled in innocuous cloud-balloons in the corners of his whimsical covers drawings: "Does Harvard's treatment of Mr. Schiff's gift warn would-be donors?" The great philanthropist had died bitter and disappointed in 1920 after seeing the University turn its back on his generosity...
Despite his language gap, Rabb is regarded by other Western diplomats in Rome as energetic and highly visible, if somewhat unversed in Italian politics and culture. Toon, however, may have a point about the standoffish Gavin, who keeps a low profile and is known for his hot tem per in dealing with staff and press. Refer ring to his country's best-known comedian, one Mexican official suggested...