Coit notes the significance of the portrait of Rulan C. Pian, a former professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations and Music, that now hangs in Cabot House. “It makes a strong statement to anyone who sees it, which is that she was a woman of Asian heritage, and that she made a contribution to Harvard,” Coit says.

The portrait of Pian was the result of an initiative launched in 2002 by S. Allen Counter, director of the Harvard Foundation. The Harvard Foundation received $100,000 from Summers to fund its Minority Portraiture Project, which commissions portraits of underrepresented members of the Harvard community. Former Dean Archie C. Epps III and former Director of the Bureau of Study Counsel Kiyo Morimoto are among those that Coit has painted.

While the Harvard Foundation has focused on diversifying portraiture more generally, Mansbridge has focused her efforts on the inclusion of women.

In addition to Ida B. Wells, Mansbridge has overseen the commissioning of a portrait of Abigail Adams. A potential portrait of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the president of Liberia and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, is being discussed. Sirleaf received a Masters of Public Administration from the Kennedy School in 1971 and served as last year’s commencement speaker.

Mansbridge says that at times it has been difficult to secure funding for the project. Because the Kennedy School has fewer discretionary funds than other schools, Mansbridge has had to rely on the president’s fund and the Women’s Leadership Board of the Kennedy School.

“Students from the Kennedy School go out and try to make the world a better place, which is not always a lucrative thing to do, so money for these projects can be tight,” says Mansbridge.

RECASTING GENDER ROLES

The obvious lack of women in Harvard’s art is largely paralleled in the makeup of its current faculty.

Part of the gender imbalance is due to the fact that women have long been deterred from entering fields that are perceived as more “masculine” than others, according to Mansbridge.

For example, international relations is an area that has long been dominated by men. But just as Harvard’s walls are being shaken up by women, so is the field of international diplomacy.

“International affairs are no longer just state to state, and diplomacy is no longer just men in ties sitting around mahogany tables,” says Cathryn A. Clüver, executive director of the Future of Diplomacy Project at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

In her tenure as president of APSA, Mansbridge said she hopes to redefine and diversify disciplines such as international relations and political economy—a field where all 10 tenured HKS faculty members are men.

“If you define international relations in the old way—when it was thought of as ‘bombs and bullets’—you’re going to get a predominantly male field of applicants,” says Mansbridge. “But if you open it up and make it more about human rights, you’re going to attract more women.”

Nicole Carter Quinn, associate director for finance and administration at the WAPPP, says that the art initiative plays a critical role in both recognizing the values of women leaders and broadening attitudes about women in traditionally male-dominated sectors of politics.

“Jenny [Mansbridge] is someone who really embodies the mission of the Kennedy School, which is ‘ask what you can do,’” says Quinn. “She’s worked tirelessly to make change and get some deserving women on our walls.”