John Harvard's Journal
Yesterday’s News
From the pages of the Harvard Alumni Bulletin and Harvard Magazine
1921
The Commencement audience witnesses for the first time a “considerable group” of women standing to be declared graduates of a relatively new department of the University, the School of Education.
1936
The United States Senate has approved a bill providing for a series of Harvard Tercentenary postage stamps as the University continues to prepare for its forthcoming anniversary.
1961
College diplomas are printed in English for the first time, rather than engraved in Latin, provoking protest from students and alumni. President Pusey compensates by conferring the degree in Latin for the first time since 1895.
1971
What is believed to be the first campus drug raid carried out by Cambridge police occurs after a potted marijuana plant is sighted on a dormitory windowsill.
1971
Susan Cochran ’73, manager of the ski team, becomes the first Radcliffe student to win a Harvard H.
1986
Professor Walter J. Kaiser, marshal of Harvard’s Phi Beta Kappa chapter, instructs his charges to enter Memorial Hall “boustrophedonically.” Brandishing his silver-tipped baton, he adds, “I should tell you that Life magazine will be taking pictures of the procession. So do make a special effort to look intelligent.” (Classics professor emeritus Mason Hammond informs bemused nonclassicists that boustrophedonic is a Greek term meaning “as the oxen turn at the end of a plowed furrow.”)
1991
Derek Bok leaves office and donates his 1969 red, semi-automatic, sun-roofed VW bug, with 45,718 miles on it, to the Phillips Brooks House Association. PBH ultimately decides to auction off the car.
1991
The new head of University Dining Services, Michael P. Berry, impresses undergraduates with such culinary initiatives as themed dinners, more vegetarian options, and environmental awareness: “Cereal now comes in bulk dispensers instead of wasteful ‘snack packs.’” A grateful senior class honors him with a picture of themselves.
