John Harvard's Journal
Yesterday's News
From the pages of Harvard Alumni Bulletin and Harvard Magazine
1923
Ninety-six women with degrees from the School of Education have been listed in the new Harvard Alumni Directory. “To publish their names,” the Bulletin points out, “is simply an unavoidable recognition of their standing…it does not invite them to attend meetings of the Associated Harvard Clubs nor necessitate a ladies’ dining room in the Harvard Club of New York or Boston…there is no reason to assume the admission of women to a professional school is the ‘entering wedge’ of coeducation throughout the institution.”
1958
An informal survey of drugstores in and around Harvard Square the morning following The Game finds them entirely out of aspirin.
1963
Dean of students Robert Watson criticizes lax undergraduate attitudes toward parietal rules, insisting that Harvard “must be concerned that its students do not set an example for the relaxation of morals among youth…fornication must also be understood as an offense punishable by the University on the same grounds as thievery, cheating, and lying.”
1973
In response to the energy crisis, a new University-wide energy-conservation program lowers the temperature in all Harvard offices and student rooms from 75 degrees to 68 degrees.
1983
Forty coin-operated word processors have been loaned to Harvard in a trial; if enough students demonstrate interest, “additional word processors and possibly computer equipment will be installed on the same basis.” An hour of operation costs $2.
1988
Harvard drops its objections to the conduct of the preceding spring’s union election (the victory margin was 44 votes), clearing the way for the National Labor Relations Board to certify the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers as the collective bargaining agent for more than 3,000 support-staff members after a 13-year struggle.
1993
The Yard is wired to 2.7 million feet of fiber-optic cable, prompting the editors to note that the class of 1997 is “the first in Harvard history to be bonded electronically….Many students correspond daily by E-mail.” (The Quad and Lowell House are to be hooked up by midyear, the river Houses in the spring.)
