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.)

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