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March-April 2012

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Letters

Touchpoints, tea party, theater's future, water woes, medieval literature, a life of faith, and more

The College Pump

Kahlil Gibran's likeness of Harvard president Charles William Eliot, drawn in 1910

The prophet (Gibran) and the president (Eliot), plus <em>Arnoldia</em> turns 100.

Treasure

Salubrious advice for January (Aquarius) and February (Pisces)…

A medieval manuscript illuminates monthly guides to diet and health.

In this Issue

The junior senator from Minnesota, in his Capitol Hill office

The satirist and comedian Al Franken has a new role: statesman.

Eric Mazur says learning interests him far more than teaching, and he encourages a shift from "teaching" to "helping students learn."

"Active learning" may overthrow the style of teaching that has ruled universities for 600 years.

Fanny Bullock Workman

Brief life of a feisty mountaineer: 1859-1925

Joseph Giacino (left) and Ross Zafonte

From causes to clinical applications and treatment, Harvard researchers investigate traumatic brain injury.

Time to restore American higher education’s lost mission

Letters

Touchpoints, tea party, theater's future, water woes, medieval literature, a life of faith, and more

Right Now

How people successfully dodge questions and how to prevent them from getting away with it.

Genetic alterations allow researchers to observe the electrical firing of a neuron (pink) as a flash of light, detectable by specially modified optical microscopes.

Harvard researchers create neurons that light up when they fire.

American inventor Marcellus Jacobs atop one of his wind turbines in the 1940s

Geoffrey Jones studies America's forgotten green entrepreneurs.

New England Regional

<i>#2690, </i> from the series <i>House Hunting,</i> 2000, by photographer Todd Hido, at the Harvard Art Museums

Early spring events at and around Harvard

Maine’s Baxter State Park offers rigorous climbs and majestic views, as seen above on First Cathedral.

New England mountain, river, and woodland adventures

Paddling on Long Pond with the Appalachian Mountain Club’s Gorman Chairback Lodge in the background

The Appalachian Mountain Club offers thousands of outdoor trips and activities.

Minimalist décor that is both restful and dynamic allows the food to shine.

Boston’s Audubon Circle offers terrific food in relaxed environs.

John Harvard's Journal

The <em>Rajpath,</em> or King’s Way, in New Delhi runs from the federal government complex to the India Gate monument (seen through morning fog in the distance). It is the route for the annual Republic Day parade.

President Faust's first visit to the South Asian nation highlights research and curricular connections old and new.

Joseph Aldy

Profile of a scholar and adviser to presidents on energy policy and climate change policy

<i>Untitled</i> (Night View of Trees and Streetlamp, Burgkühnauer Allee, Dessau), 1928

Displaying a fascinating body of work

Headlines from Harvard's history

<i>Nandina and Rooster</i> (c. 1761–1765)

Masterworks of Japanese painting on display for the Cherry Blossom Festival's centennial

Joseph B. Martin

Excerpt from Harvard Medical School Dean Joseph Martin's memoir

Competition for Allston development, College admissions, Old Leverett House renewal, primate care, and more

Discovering diverse concerns outside the bubble of campus life

Triple image of a double threat: Baskind stands between her two sports' goals

Lacrosse and soccer star Melanie Baskind scores with synergy.

Harvard’s 1912 baseball team. Wingate (front at left, holding cap) was Fenway’s first batter.

Account of the first game at Fenway Park in 1912, Harvard vs. Red Sox

New book shows how baseball words apply to all of life.

Montage

Anthony Amore at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, with empty frames that held venerable paintings before the 1990 theft

A new book shatters myths about art theft.

The only known photograph of the Rufus Buck gang, taken in the summer of 1895 in Indian Territory. Buck is in the middle.

A gritty Western depicts a brief, violent crusade.

Megan Amram

LA comedy writer Megan Amram has mastered the form of the Twitter joke.

Some of Megan Amram's twitter gems.

The cover image reproduces a sacred scene in a sacred landscape: “Radha and Krishna Walk in a Flowering Grove,” Kota Master, 18th century

Diana Eck on Hindus' sacred geography

A correspondence corner for not-so-famous lost words

America’s flawed criminal justice system

The “Enemy Alien Menace” looms over lower Manhattan: The <i>New York Herald,</i> March 28, 1918; cartoon by W.A. Rogers

Recent books with Harvard connections

Alumni

Anthony Malkin ’84 has transformed the Empire State Building into a model of “green” engineering.

How Anthony Malkin ’84 engineered the largest “green” retrofit ever

Reducing heating and cooling loads is the first step in the engineering design sequence of any energy efficient building retrofit

Nominations for Harvard Overseers and HAA Elected Directors

Honors for Harvard Club and Shared Interest Group stalwarts and innovators

A special invitation for reunion-year alumni and their families

Be The Change CEO Kevin Jennings ’85 speaks at Wintersession.

News from Shared Interest Groups

Tom Fields-Meyer with his son Ezra

Autism tightened the bond between Tom and Ezra Fields-Meyer and led to a moving book.

Tom Wooten and Utpal Sandesara

Utpal Sandesara and Tom Wooten uncover a dam-disaster cover-up.

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

The College Pump

Kahlil Gibran's likeness of Harvard president Charles William Eliot, drawn in 1910

The prophet (Gibran) and the president (Eliot), plus <em>Arnoldia</em> turns 100.

Treasure

Salubrious advice for January (Aquarius) and February (Pisces)…

A medieval manuscript illuminates monthly guides to diet and health.