Donovan receives Coles Award
“We celebrate public service and its importance to this University,” Harvard President Drew Faust told an audience of 200 students, faculty, staff, and alumni, at the Memorial Church on Friday. “Phillips Brooks House Association (PBHA) is the heart of these efforts at the College. … It is essential to fulfilling the public trust.” So, in a tradition that is still young, Faust presented the seventh annual Robert Coles Call of Service Award to U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan ’87, M.Arch. ’95, M.P.A. ’95. Donovan’s service to the country has deep roots at Harvard. He once worked at the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter, the nation’s first student-run homeless shelter, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary. Donovan also studied with Coles ’50, a professor of psychiatry and medical humanities emeritus in the Department of Psychiatry and a longtime champion of underprivileged children, who was sitting in the front row. Coles’ legacy,...