Yes, Master

So Harvard is going to ban the phrase “Master” because of its “associations with slavery”:

The “Masters” of Harvard’s undergraduate residential houses are senior faculty members who serve as the chief administrative officers within the houses. They are responsible for shaping the cultural and intellectual life of these smaller student communities, and also play a role in giving each house a distinctive character.

Ivy League institutions adopted the term from British schools, notably Oxford and Cambridge, where “master” survives as a shorthand for “schoolmaster” or “headmaster.” But in the American context,  the “Master” moniker, which is also used at Yale and — until very recently — Princeton, has been criticized for its associations with slavery.  Students and faculty alike have pointed out the title’s unsettling historical connotations. Its elimination has figured among demands from student protesters at Harvard and Yale.

Now, even the Washington Post story points out the obvious: The “associations” with slavery are being imposed by the students (and faculty). This is Harvard. Last I checked, people there took themselves pretty seriously. And yet they lack the intellectual maturity to make this obvious distinction? This is the equivalent of twelve-year-old boys tittering and snickering during sex-ed class.

Moreover, if the biggest racial problem minorities at Harvard face is the use of the term “House Master,” then there are no serious racial problems at Harvard. And if there are serious racial problems at Harvard — I’m agnostic on the question — changing the title “House Master” to “Residence Facilitator” or “Indoctrination Minister” or whatever will do absolutely nothing to address those problems. In other words, this is entirely about power-assertion for its own sake and nothing more. No wonder the administration is caving in to this. It’s like giving an employee a new title instead of a raise; it don’t cost nuthin’ and it distracts from having to do anything serious. 

Well, that’s not exactly true. It does have costs. First, what little charm Harvard had left as an old and venerable institution shrunk just a bit more. And second, it costs time. 

The Post reports:

Harvard College Dean Rakesh Khurana announced in an email to students Tuesday night that leaders of the university’s undergraduate residences have agreed to forgo the title of “Master.”

“I write on behalf of myself and my fellow residential House leaders to let you know that the House Masters have unanimously expressed desire to change their title,” the email said. “In the coming weeks, the College will launch a process in which members of the House leaders’ docket committee, working with senior College team members and the House leadership community as a whole, will suggest a new title that reflects the current realities of the role.”

What a vital use of everyone’s time. Surely Harvard has nothing better to do that to sit around tables arguing about what to call its glorified RAs. 

But I hope they don’t get too bogged down on just this one issue, not when there are so many other important items on the agenda. What will Harvard call its “Master’s degrees” now? Maybe they should cancel classes to deal with that pickle. And what of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five? Hie thee to the airbrushes fair Harvard!  

I jaunted over to Wikipedia and typed in the word “Master.” Here’s what I found:

• Master’s degree, a postgraduate or sometimes undergraduate degree in the specified discipline
• Master (college), head of a college
• Schoolmaster, presiding officer of a school
• Master (form of address), a title used for boys and young men, in formal correspondence
• Master (judiciary), a judicial official in the courts of common law jurisdictions
• Master (martial arts)
• Master (naval), a former naval rank
• Master (Peerage of Scotland), the male heir-apparent or heir-presumptive to a title in the Peerage of Scotland
• Chess master, a rank of chess player
• Master, the Captain of a ship
• Master craftsman in the Medieval guilds
• Master-at-arms, a naval police officer, often addressed as “Master” in the Royal Navy
• Master of Ceremonies, or MC (emcee), the host of an official public or private staged event or other performance.
• Masters of the Ancient Wisdom (Theosophy), reputed to be enlightened beings originally identified by the founders of the Theosophical Society
• Old Master, a term for a recognised Western painter active before about 1800
• Station master, formerly the person in charge of railway stations
• Venerable Master, the master of a French freemasonic lodge
• Worshipful Master, the governing authority over a Masonic Lodge

Fictional characters[edit]

• Master (Manos), the head villain in the horror movie Manos: The Hands of Fate
• Masters (The Tripods), a fictional race of beings in John Christopher’s The Tripods trilogy
• Master of the Land of Fiction, a villain from the Doctor Who serial The Mind Robber
• Master (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), a recurring villain in the fantasy television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• Master (Fallout), a character in the computer game Fallout (video game)
• The Master (Doctor Who), a recurring villain in the science fiction television series Doctor Who
• The Master, the player’s character in the SNES game ActRaiser and its follow-up ActRaiser 2
• The Master, an optional three-time boss Toad Sensei in Paper Mario
• The Master, a title character in the novel The Master and Margarita
• The Master, the main (and mostly absent) villain from Power Rangers Mystic Force
• The Master, a character from the adult swim television series The Venture Bros.

Film and television[edit]

• Master (film), a 1997 Telugu-language film
• Masters (film), a 2011 Malayalam thriller
• The Master (1980 film), directed by Lu Chin Ku
• The Master (1989 film), directed by Tsui Hark
• The Master (1995 film), a Syrian documentary film by Omar Amiralay
• The Master (2005 film), directed by Piotr Trzaskalski
• The Master (2009 film), a Turkish film
• The Master (2012 film), a film by Paul Thomas Anderson
• The Master (2015 film), a Chinese film directed by Xu Haofeng
• The Master (Australian quiz show), a 2006 Australian quiz show
• The Master (Indonesia TV series), a 2009 magic show Television series
• The Master (TV series), a 1984 television series starring Lee Van Cleef

Literature[edit]

• The Master, an 1895 best-selling novel by Israel Zangwill
• The Masters (novel), a 1951 novel in the Strangers and Brothers sequence by C. P. Snow
• The Master: An Adventure Story, a 1957 science fiction novel for children by T. H. White
• The Master (novel), a 2004 novel by Colm Tóibín

Music and audio[edit]

• Master (American band), a Czech-American death metal band
• Master (Russian band), a Russian thrash metal band
• Master (Doctor Who audio), a Doctor Who audio drama
• The Master (1961–1984), a box set album by Marvin Gaye
• The Master (album), a 1999 album by Rakim
• The nickname of Bojan Adamič, a Slovene film score, jazz and pop composer

Sport[edit]

• Australian Masters, an Australian golf tournament
• Masters athletics, a competition age classification used by many sports
• Masters Cup (disc golf), an annual event on the disc golf PDGA tour
• The Masters (darts), a darts tournament in the Professional Darts Corporation
• Masters football, a football league in Britain contested by retired footballing legends
• Masters Rugby League, a derivative of rugby league for semi-retired and non-competitive players and officials
• Masters (snooker), a prestigious tournament held in London
• Masters Tournament, one of golf’s four major championships
• Winmau World Masters, the world’s oldest darts tournament
• “Master Masami” Hirosaka, Japanese radio-controlled racer
• The Master, wrestler King Curtis Iaukea’s name held in 1995.

Tennis[edit]

• ATP World Tour Finals (used to be called Tennis Masters Cup), the season ending men’s professional tennis tournament
• ATP World Tour Masters 1000, a series of prominent mid-season tennis events on the men’s professional tour
• WTA Tour Championships, season ending women’s professional tour tournament; sometimes informally called “Masters” in analogy of the men’s year-end event.

Other uses[edit]

• Master, Iran, a village in Markazi Province, Iran
• Master recording, the original of a visual or sound recording
• master-slave paradigm in technology and computing
• Sega Master System, an 8-bit cartridge-based video game console
• Master Lock, a brand of padlock
• Renault Master, a van
• Alenia Aermacchi M-346 Master, an Italian military transonic trainer aircraft
• The Masters School, an independent school in New York
• Master (BDSM), the dominant partner in a relationship
• Miles M.9 Master, a British 2-seat monoplane advanced trainer built by Miles Aircraft Ltd for the Royal Air Force and Fleet Air Arm during the Second World War
• Masters Home Improvement, an Australian Home Improvement Retailer
• List of Battle Arena Toshinden characters#Master, a character in the Battle Arena Toshinden fighting game series

That should keep Harvard busy for quite a while.