We extend warmest thanks to three outstanding contributors to Harvard Magazine during 2011, and happily award each a $1,000 honorarium for superb service to readers.
John T. Bethell ’54 is a lifelong Crimson football fan. Since concluding his distinguished service as editor of this magazine at the end of 1994, he has continued to follow the team and to report, as “Cleat,” on how it fares. In this historic season (see “Scoring Spree,” page 66), it is a fitting pleasure to recognize his deft dispatches—rich in game-day detail, grounded in gridiron tradition—with the McCord Writing Prize, named for David T.W. McCord ’21, A.M. ’22, L.H.D. ’56, whose legendary prose and verse, composed for these pages and for the Harvard College Fund, it honors.
Robert Neubecker created especially intelligent, communicative illustrations to accompany “Colleges in Crisis” in the July-August issue. When we subsequently published a near-companion essay, “Bullish on Private Colleges,” in the November-December magazine, Neubecker if anything topped himself in the accompanying art.
Recognizing contributing editor Jim Harrison for his vivid, humane portraits and many other photographs published here has become routine—because he never treats any assignment routinely. His cover images of evolutionary biologist Daniel Lieberman and blogger Andrew Sullivan, his portfolio of leading scholars in the 375th anniversary issue, and his amazing, lively record of the sodden anniversary celebration itself, on October 14 (see “Soaked, but Spirited,” page 52), suggest his range and abilities.
