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Your independent source for Harvard news since 1898

September-October 2015

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Letters

A letter from the editor

On Mary Sears, Gen Ed, football concussions, and more

A letter from President Faust

The College Pump

The 1927 baseball team. Zarakov is fourth from left in the front row, elbow to elbow with Mitchell.

Courtesy of the Harvard Club of New York

How Jim Connor got to Harvard, and Isadore Zarakov’s home run

Treasure

Sheet VII of Rock’s map of the “Cho-Ni” territory
Map courtesy of the Harvard Map Collection

An adventuresome Arnold Arboretum botanizer's heroics in 1920s China

In this Issue

In Nigeria, Tomato Jos hopes to help improve farmers’ practices and sales, to boost their incomes.
Photograph courtesy of Tomato Jos

Addressing human needs at the base of the economic pyramid through private enterprise

Andrew Bujalski
Photograph by Jay L. Clendenin/Contour by Getty Images

The perfect pitch of filmmaker Andrew Bujalski

With her 1964 screenprint the juiciest tomato of all, Corita Kent created a word portrait of the Virgin Mary as a tomato. This print seems to establish the artist nun as an apostate: in fact, she was responding both to liberalizing changes taking place within the Catholic Church as part of the Second Vatican Council and to Pop art’s appropriation of commercial language, images, and symbols to create fine art.
Collection of Jason Simon, New York, TL41302. © Corita Art Center, Immaculate Heart Community, Los Angeles; Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of John and Kimiko Powers, M15531. © / courtesy of the Harvard Art Museums/ © President and Fellows of Harvard College

A Harvard exhibit situates her work in the Pop art movement.

An 1849 portrait of Bond by Cephas Giovanni Thompson

Portrait courtesy of Harvard University Portrait Collection, H180. Image: Imaging Department © President and Fellows of Harvard College

Brief life of Harvard's first astronomer: 1789-1859

Letters

A letter from the editor

On Mary Sears, Gen Ed, football concussions, and more

A letter from President Faust

Right Now

Illustration by Mike Lester

Overly aggressive physicians account for significant healthcare cost, according to a recent study.

Fossil river deltas on Mars, such as this one in Eberswalde Crater, bear many similarities to river deltas on Earth. Such features suggest that Mars once had flowing liquid water on the surface, motivating study of the planet’s early climate.

Photograph by NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

Researchers suspect ancient Martian climate was cold and icy.

Illustration by Tom Chitty

According to two HBS studies, sharing can benefit individuals but hurt businesses.

Harvard Squared

The Crane Estate’s palatial abode and hillside Casino Complex

Photograph Courtesy of the Trustees

Restorations revive the grand spirit of a North Shore estate.

Masks, mariachi music, and sugar skulls at Harvard’s Peabody Museum
Roger D. Metcalf/Courtesy of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology

The Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology highlights the holiday on November 1.

Cambridge Carnival dancers on parade

Photograph by Paul Byran/Cambridge Carnival

The Cambridge Carnival celebrates food and culture.

Animaris Adulari (2012)

Photographs courtesy of Theo Jansen

Dutch artist Theo Jansen's otherworldly strandbeests

The Hull Lifesaving Museum is housed in the original, Victorian-era Lifesaving Station on Boston's South Shore.

Photograph courtesy of the Hull Lifesaving Museum

The South Shore's Hull Lifesaving Museum reflects more than a century of rescues at sea.

John Harvard's Journal

Heavy construction under way in the Harvard Kennedy School's (former) courtyard
Photograph by Harvard Magazine/JC

Overhauling the Kennedy School campus, the Business School’s new executive-education center, and College House renewal

On the first day of the new curriculum’s launch, Gordon professor of medical education Richard Schwartzstein (at far right, and in subsequent photographs) leads an orientation in a large group classroom equipped with interactive technologies that facilitate case-based collaborative learning.

Photograph by Stu Rosner

Harvard Medical School's new curriculum emphasizes the process of learning to learn rather than rote memorization.

Catherine Brekus/Photograph by Stu Rosner

Catherine Brekus

Photograph by Stu Rosner

A Harvard Divinity School specialist on women in early America 

Douglas W. Elmendorf, Harvard Kennedy School dean-designate

Photograph by Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Public Affairs and Communications

The Kennedy School’s new dean, Alice in Wonderland exhibition, the late James F. Rothenberg, and more

Robin J. Ely

Photograph by Kris Snibbe/Harvard Public Affairs and Communications

The Business School looks at gender effects within organizations—and its own walls.

Illustration by Mark Steele

From the pages of the Harvard Alumni Bulletin and Harvard Magazine

Illustration by Sarah Hanson

The undergraduate finds an unexpected route to well-being.

 Bailey Trela ’16 and Jenny Gathright ’16

Photograph by Stu Rosner

The magazine’s Ledecky Fellows provide an undergraduate perspective.

Montage

Cover of "Wonder Woman" by Cliff Chiang

One of Chiang’s covers for Wonder Woman
Image by Cliff Chiang

A comics artist tries his hand at a new story.

Forrest O’Connor (at left), Kate Lee, and Jim Shirey

Photograph by Wayne Ebinger

A folk trio finds their harmony, on the road.

Ceridwen Dovey, author of Only the Animals and Blood Kin
Courtesy of Ceridwen Dovey

What animals can teach us

Illustration by Michael Witte

A Harvard humorist reveals her superpower.

Correspondence on not-so-famous lost words

Olmsted's 1867 plan for “Fort Green or Washington Park, in the city of Brooklyn,” New York Plan from Design for Laying Out Grounds Known as Fort Green or Washington Park, in the City of Brooklyn, 1897

Courtesy of the Prospect Park Alliance

Olmsted's parks, Putin and Ukraine, climate shock, and more

Illustration by Gaby D’Alessandro

Two practitioners consider the enterprise of pure mathematics.

Alumni

Record Hospital veteran Peter Menz tests a rock-and-roll 45.
Photograph by Stu Rosner

For 75 years, WHRB has moved beyond the “warhorses.”

An 1840 etching of the alumni procession during Harvard’s bicentennial celebration in 1836

Courtesy of the Harvard Universty Archives

The Harvard Alumni Association celebrates its founding.

Paul L. Choi ’86, J.D. ’89 

Photograph by Jim Harrison

A short profile of Paul L. Choi, the new president of the Harvard Alumni Association 

Erin Moore and her bicultural guide (below)
Photograph by Fiona Saunders

Erin Moore ’98 clarifies Britishisms and Americanisms in That’s Not English.

Did you take VES 130 or VES 150 during spring term 1967?

The College Pump

The 1927 baseball team. Zarakov is fourth from left in the front row, elbow to elbow with Mitchell.

Courtesy of the Harvard Club of New York

How Jim Connor got to Harvard, and Isadore Zarakov’s home run

Treasure

Sheet VII of Rock’s map of the “Cho-Ni” territory
Map courtesy of the Harvard Map Collection

An adventuresome Arnold Arboretum botanizer's heroics in 1920s China