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Your independent source for Harvard news since 1898

November-December 2011

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Letters

Harvard @375, Mary Berenson, energy options, colleges in crisis, and more

The College Pump

One of the earliest American football posters, done for <i>Harper’s</i> in 1894 by Edward Penfield. This example, in B+ condition, sold at a Swann Galleries auction August 3 in New York City for $1,320, including buyer’s premium. In 1894 Yale beat Harvard 12-4.

Robert J. Kiely on gay rights at Adams House, plus the Harvard M.B.A. Indicator

Treasure

Is this a dagger which I see before me…? Not primarily.

In this Issue

Ginkgo specimens in their ancestral setting: Shan Jiang village, Guizhou Province, in the People’s Republic of China

Peter Del Tredici’s search for the wild ginkgo and the secret of its uniquely long survival

Two scholars of higher education buck the negative tide.

A miniature portrait of Craigie in his prime, this watercolor on ivory, painted around 1800, is attributed to Archibald Robertson.

Brief life of a patriot and scoundrel: 1754-1819

The <i>Invention of Book Printing</i> comes from <i>Nova Reperta</i> (New inventions and discoveries of modern times), by Stradanus (Jan van der Straet), the first such illustrated compendium of postclassical innovations (ca. 1599- 1603). The ability to print many copies of such works revolutionized communication of ideas in the sixteenth century.

An exhibition at the Sackler reveals the connections among Renaissance art, invention, and the evolution of science.

Former Hollywood filmmaker Michael Rich of HMS studies how media affect youth.

Letters

Harvard @375, Mary Berenson, energy options, colleges in crisis, and more

Right Now

Psychology professor Daniel Wegner has found that access to information online changes what people remember.

Skewed Preferences: From left to right: the wealth distribution Norton’s respondents said would be ideal; how they estimated wealth was currently distributed; and the actual distribution of wealth in the United States.

Harvard Business School professor Michael Norton finds Americans prefer a more equal distribution of wealth.

George Church has developed tools for large-scale editing of the genome as fast and easy as word processing.

Astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics confirm the presence of a black hole in the constellation Cygnus.

New England Regional

Dance Freedom in Cambridge draws a crowd for its free-style, barefoot boogies.

New England offers numerous forms of dance for body, mind, and soul.

New England Dance Resources

An abundance of shopping carts, from the Peabody Museum’s “Trash Talk” lecture series

Events at and around Harvard, November-December 2011

Evoo’s earthy food is served in a modern, open interior with a view of the kitchen.

One of Cambridge’s locavore leaders thrives in Kendall Square.

John Harvard's Journal

The Mahindra Humanities Center erects eight “poetry posts” to prompt reflection about loss and recovery.

The Allston Work Team's development recommendations have been endorsed by the Harvard Corporation.

The College redistributes aid among lower- and higher-income undergraduates, and introduces a new family financial-planning tool.

Headlines from Harvard's history

Dean Michael D. Smith presents his draft annual report: budget, faculty growth, and more

Rebecca Henderson

The newly minted McArthur University Professor co-directs the Business and Environment Initiative at Harvard Business School.

William A. Graham

Divinity School dean William A. Graham steps down, Nobel Prizes awarded to seven alumni, Dumbarton Oaks’ expansion, MacArthur Fellows announced, and other Harvard news.

The author with some of her grade eight math students

An undergraduate travels to Namibia in the hope that, by flinging herself to a faraway place, she will figure things out.

The 2011 Onaway counselors at the top of Mount Cardigan (the author is fourth from left)

An undergraduate wonders if the College could be more like camp.

Backup quarterback Colton Chapple ably directed the Crimson offense in a 24-7 victory over Brown, completing 15 passes for 207 yards and two touchdowns in a rainstorm.

This year's football team is tough, physical, and resourceful.

Two basketball co-captains with a nose for the hoop

Montage

Puddles of water, a leitmotif in <i>Foreign Parts,</i> fill the rutted streets of Willets Point in Queens, a mecca for auto repair and parts.

The documentary film "Foreign Parts" explores Willets Point, a vanishing junkyard neighborhood in Queens.

Grilled shrimp adds color to The Omega, a salad with avocado, corn, and cilantro.

Erin Wade's Vinaigrette salad bistro serves organic, home-grown greens in Santa Fe.

Menzie Chinn and Jeffry Frieden review recent U.S. economic woes in the context of the “capital flow cycle.”

A scene from Meredith James’s video <i>Day Shift </i>, starring James herself

Meredith James '04 creates surrealist videos and sculptures that challenge perceptions.

Illustration by F.D. Bedford for J.M. Barrie’s <i>Peter and Wendy.</i> As the children sleep, Peter crosses the sill in the glow of Tinker Bell’s light.

Gordon S. Wood on the birth of the United States, Steven Pinker on declining violence, Jack M. Balkin on "Living Originalism," and a dozen others whose recent books have Harvard connections

Brent R. Stockwell

David Nathan reviews Brent R. Stockwell's "The Quest for the Cure"

Alumni

Top from left: Helen Snively, Tom Southwick, Carol Sternhell, and Deborah Johnson

The class of 1971 reflects on the coeducational living experiment.

Marcel Moran and Anne Douglas

Anne Douglas ’12, of Adams House, and Marcel Moran ’11, of Eliot House, are the 2011 David and Mimi Aloian Memorial Scholars.

Top row from left: Zaid al-Rifa'i, Barbara Fischbein Berenson, Stephen G. Hoffman, John Paul Kennedy, and Paul G. O'Leary. Bottom from left: Claire Stuart Roth and Jody Cukier Siegler

Seven alumni received Hunn Memorial Schools and Scholarships Awards in 2011.

Top row from left: Michael A. Cooper, Judith A. Dollenmayer, Philip C, Haughey, Thomas G. McKinley, and Walter H. Morris Jr. Bottom: June Storey

The Harvard Alumni Association Awards recognize outstanding service to the University through alumni activities.

Peter Winship (left) and Bill Christian examine photographs recalling their days as student researchers in the village of Chanzeaux, under the tutelage of the late Laurence Wylie.

Alumni join in to help British filmmaker Elizabeth McKay with her forthcoming documentary, ”Harvard at Chanzeaux: A Tribute to Laurence Wylie.”

Happily at home: Brian Buckley, Katherine Hunter, and their children in the family’s poetry bookstore in Boulder.

The Innisfree Poetry Bookstore and Café in Boulder, Colorado, sells beverages, pastries, and poetry—nothing else.

Tay and Johnson

"No Look Pass," a documentary film about Harvard basketball player Emily Tay ’08, was written, produced, and directed by Melissa Johnson ’00.

Rebecca Cooper (left) and Lily Erlinger at a Socks for America distribution event

Two alumnae travel across America to distribute socks and document the plight of homeless youths.

News from Shared Interest Groups

The Boxing Club aims to build an alumni network.

Harvard alumni may sign in to view class notes and obituaries.

The College Pump

One of the earliest American football posters, done for <i>Harper’s</i> in 1894 by Edward Penfield. This example, in B+ condition, sold at a Swann Galleries auction August 3 in New York City for $1,320, including buyer’s premium. In 1894 Yale beat Harvard 12-4.

Robert J. Kiely on gay rights at Adams House, plus the Harvard M.B.A. Indicator

Treasure

Is this a dagger which I see before me…? Not primarily.