“[Dean of Undergraduate Education Benedict H. Gross ’71] asked if I’d be interested in teaching a freshman seminar, and I said ‘Sure,’” he says.
When asked about the difference between HBS students and undergraduates, Badaracco says he thinks a large change occurs in the seven to ten years of work experience that most incoming HBS students have.
“The [HBS] students are amazingly well-organized, but…they can spend two years at this amazing university and focus heavily on school, courses, their job and closely-related social activities,” he says.
In contrast, he says undergraduates are much more open to a wider range of experiences.
“My impression of undergrads is that they don’t have this overwhelming purposefulness,” Badaracco says, “so many undergraduates are out trying all sorts of different things, which I think is just what they should be doing.”
Badaracco and O’Brien have four daughters. Maria, 22, is teaching at Boston’s Home for Little Wanderers, a non-profit family service agency. She will be leaving for the London School of Economics in July. Anna, 20, and Louisa, 17, will be at Northwestern University this fall.
“It’s a great school, and they’ve been very happy to go there, but for the first couple years they just live in a dorm with an R.A. [residential advisor] down the hall…There’s nothing resembling these Houses which take something big and anonymous and make it into something more personal,” Badaracco says.
The couple’s fourth daughter, 10-year-old Gabriella, will also be moving into Currier.
“Gabriella…has been to the House several times and a number of people have been really nice to her,” Badaracco says. “In some ways she thinks students in Currier will be substitutes for her older sisters.”
O’Brien says she expects her youngest daughter to flourish in Currier.
“I think she’s just going to thrive having so many smart, talented, interesting people around her,” she says, “we think it will be a wonderful way for her to grow up.”
Badaracco and O’Brien say that Currier House is well-designed to foster a strong community.
“Our impression of Currier is that partly by virtue of its location in the
Quad, it may be more of a cohesive social unit,” says Badaracco, “Unlike the older Houses, everyone goes in the front door, and everything is organized off the big corridor.”
He adds that he is excited to revive the lapsed tradition of the annual House musical.
According to Shasa R. Dobrow ’97, a tutor in Currier House, the new masters are already involving themselves in House life—even joining the outgoing masters and the House tutors in a “Joe Millionaire” spoof at this year’s senior dinner.
The skit, called “Joe Riverhouse,” was the story of potential masters interviewing for what they thought was a river House when in fact they were interviewing for Currier.
“I thought that was very impressive, that they were willing to come with no rehearsal and play themselves in our senior skit,” Dobrow says, “I think that bodes well for our future here.”
—Staff writer Michael A. Mohammed can be reached at mohammed@fas.harvard.edu.