Wish I Were There

A broken ankle snaps a Commencement streak.

Even in the hospital, Gifford Combs celebrated Commencement.

Gifford Combs ’80 took an unfortunate tumble on some steps in midtown Manhattan a week and a half before Commencement, breaking his left ankle in two places. He has been hospitalized since.

Because Combs had attended every Commencement since the spring of his freshman year (except in 1982, when he was living in China), his Weld Hall and Eliot House roommate, David Scheinberg ’80, offered to recruit a team of classmates to wheel Combs and his hospital bed into Tercentenary Theatre for today’s ceremony. Combs decided he’d better stay in bed in New York, where his ankle is on the mend, but the photograph he forwarded shows where his heart lies. And, he reported, his surgeon, John P. Lyden ’61, is in Cambridge this week, celebrating his fiftieth reunion.

 

Sub topics

You might also like

Harvard Releases Antisemitism and Anti-Muslim Task Force Reports

University publishes findings from thorough examinations of campus conditions.

Harvard Renames Diversity Office

The decision follows pressure from the Trump administration to eliminate DEI practices. 

Centralizing University Discipline

Harvard establishes new disciplinary procedures for campus protest violations.

Most popular

Harvard Releases Antisemitism and Anti-Muslim Task Force Reports

University publishes findings from thorough examinations of campus conditions.

Harvard Renames Diversity Office

The decision follows pressure from the Trump administration to eliminate DEI practices. 

The New Gender Gaps

What to do as men and boys fall behind

Explore More From Current Issue

The Trump Administration's Impact on Higher Education

Unprecedented federal actions against research funding, diversity, speech, and more

89664

Jessica Shand—Math and Music at Harvard

Jessica Shand blends math and music.

89677

Paper Peepshows at Harvard's Baker Library

How “paper peepshows” brought distant realms to life

89684