Your independent source for Harvard news since 1898

Your independent source for Harvard news since 1898

July-August 2016

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Letters

Readers respond to articles on robots, final clubs, comparing campuses, and more.

President Faust writes about Harvardians’ tradition of military service.

How Harvard might discuss liberal-arts education more fruitfully

The College Pump

The long-gone Dudley Gate, caught with no hands on its clock

Photograph courtesy of the Harvard University Archives

A nitty-gritty guide by a Nieman Fellow and his team.

Treasure

Photograph courtesy of the Harvard Semitic Museum

“Experimental archaeology” at the Harvard Semitic Museum

In this Issue

Franklinia alatamaha

Photograph by Jon Hetman/The Arnold Arboretum

Collecting expeditions race the anthropocene extinction to sample wild botanical diversity.

In this 1835 portrait by Charles Osgood, Bowditch sits with the first two volumes of his Mécanique Céleste translation, as a bust of Laplace looks on.

Image © 2006 Peabody Essex Museum/Photograph by Mark Sexton

Brief life of a mathematician and businessman: 1773-1839

Leonard speaking at the most recent Sundance Film Festival, where he served on the jury
Photograph by Andrew Toth/Getty Images

Turning the Black List into a business, to modernize Hollywood’s dream machine

Photographs clockwise from top left: Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images; Laura Buckman/Bloomberg via Getty Images; Jason Redmond/AFP/Getty Images; David McNew/AFP/Getty Images; Cem Ozdel/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images; Joe Raedle/Getty Images

 

How super PACs actually shape U.S. presidential politics

Letters

Readers respond to articles on robots, final clubs, comparing campuses, and more.

President Faust writes about Harvardians’ tradition of military service.

How Harvard might discuss liberal-arts education more fruitfully

Right Now

Illustration by Dan Page

Welfare promotes entrepreneurship, finds HBS researcher Gareth Olds.

Illustration by Michael Witte

A new study finds that the most successful research teams are grounded in a group identity.

Illustration by Chris Madden

Sex preserves beneficial mutations, and allows harmful ones to be purged.

Harvard Squared

The evocative entrance to Winslow Farm Sanctuary

The evocative entrance to Winslow Farm Sanctuary

Photograph by Stu Rosner

Debra White built the Winslow Farm Animal Sanctuary in Norton, Massachusetts.

The saunas are steps from Furnace Pond, where a raft beckons swimmers.

The saunas are steps from Furnace Pond, where a raft beckons swimmers.

Photograph by James Ahola

The benefits of sweating at a traditional Finnish sauna in Pembroke, Massachusetts

A taste of The Landscape Architect’s Guide to Boston.

An early illustration by Winslow Homer, now on display in Belmont.

Image courtesy of the 1853 Homer House

A mansion promotes artist Winslow Homer’s roots in Belmont, Massachusetts.

The dining room, although refined and calm, could use a splash of warmth from the upstairs lounge.

Photograph by Wayne E. Chinnock/Courtesy of Parsnip

Parsnip restaurant is a handsome replacement for Upstairs on the Square.

John Harvard's Journal

Law School graduates flaunt their profession’s symbol of authority.

Law School graduates flaunt their profession’s symbol of authority.

Photograph by Jim Harrison

Harvard goes Hollywood for Commencement, with sunny scenery, but sober talk.

Back row from left: Arnold Rampersad, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, El Anatsui, Elaine Fuchs, and Martin Rees. Front row from left: David Brion Davis, Stephen Spielberg, President Drew Faust, Mary L. Bonauto, Provost Alan Garber, and Judith J. Thomson Photograph by Stu Rosner

The honorands of 2016

Steven Spielberg
Photograph by Stu Rosner

Commencement oratory from Steven Spielberg, Drew Faust, and others

Rashida Jones
Photograph by Jim Harrison

Speakers making funny at the 365th Commencement

Joshuah Brian Campbell

Joshuah Brian Campbell

Photograph by Stu Rosner

A multitalented student, political zingers, a retiring Commencement directors, final-club ribbing, and more

From left: Nitin Nohria and Francis J. Doyle III
From left: Photograph ©Susan Young/Harvard Business School;
Photograph by Eliza Grinell/School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

Amid an Allston building boom, the first new academic ties between Harvard Business School and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

College classes will cross the Charles.

How to improve class scheduling—now, and when College classes cross the Charles River for the new engineering complex in Allston.

Dustin Tingley Photograph by Jim Harrison

Political scientist Dustin Tingley studies the politics of everyday life.

New Currier House faculty deans Latanya Sweeney and Sylvia Barrett with their son, Leonard

Photograph by Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Public Affairs and Communications

Currier House chiefs, Harvard College Professors, top teachers, and more

Congressional inquiry reveals insights into Harvard's endowment-management costs, financial aid, and other schools' policies.

Illustration by Mark Steele

From the pages of the Harvard Alumni Bulletin and Harvard Magazine

Members of all-female social clubs protest against new sanctions on single-gender organizations.

Photograph by Kit Wu/The Harvard Crimson

Final-club sanctions, a new Corporation member, medical conflicts of interest, MIT capital campaign, and improving student writing

Photograph by Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Public Affairs and Communications

Slaves at Harvard, an early-childhood education initiative at HGSE, Air Force ROTC returns, climate change, the Extension School, and more

Illustration by Eric Hanson

Pre-Commencement, the Undergraduate assesses his unfinished works.

Sprinters Gabby Thomas (left) and Ngozi Musa are teammates, close competitors, and best friends.

Photograph by Jim Harrison

First-years Ngozi Musa and Gabby Thomas help set the pace for track and field.

Montage

Elizabeth Claire Walker in “Arabian Dance” from The Nutcracker
Photograph by Reed Hutchinson/Los Angeles Ballet

A ballet career, earned through college and cattle calls

Photograph by iStock

Strong words from a combatant in the childbirth wars

Tsurumi at work in her studio

Image courtesy of Andrea Tsurumi

In Andrea Tsurumi's comics and illustrated work, life is observed and shown as absurd.

A star is born (in glass): a juvenile common sea star, Asterias rubens.

A star is born (in glass): a juvenile common sea star, Asterias rubens.

Photograph by Guido Mocafico/Courtesy of the Natural History Museum of Ireland

Recent books with Harvard connections

An iconic motif: Aeneas and the Sibyl (at upper left) in the Underworld, c.1530 (a plaque with enamel and gold on copper)

Image from the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom / Bridgeman Images

A new translation from the Aeneid

Correspondence on not-so-famous lost words

Alumni

Commercial fisherman Russell Sherman still admires the fishermen he worked for in his early days: “Strong, and strong-willed, independent men. Most were veterans of World War II, and had been through a lot—they had tremendous work ethic. And I wanted nothing but to earn their respect.”

Commercial fisherman Russell Sherman still admires the fishermen he worked for in his early days: “Strong, and strong-willed, independent men. Most were veterans of World War II, and had been through a lot—they had tremendous work ethic. And I wanted nothing but to earn their respect.”

Photograph by Stu Rosner

How Gloucester’s Russell Sherman got hooked

Top row from left: Thomas G. Everett and Roger W. Ferguson Jr. Bottom row from left: John H. McArthur and Betsey Bradley Urschel

Top row from left: Thomas G. Everett and Roger W. Ferguson Jr. Bottom row from left: John H. McArthur and Betsey Bradley Urschel

Photograph by Stu Rosner

For “extraordinary service to the University”

The four winners will begin study in the other Cambridge this fall.

Ruth Rabb and Leon Starr

Ruth Rabb and Leon Starr
Photographs by Jim Harrison

The oldest graduates at Commencement

From left: John O’Malley, Cecilia Rouse, David Mumford, and Francis Fukuyama

Photograph by Tony Rinaldo/Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

Honorands whose contributions to society emerged from graduate study

Candidates nominated by the Harvard Alumni Association drew the most votes.

Megan White Mukuria and her tools

Megan White Mukuria and her tools
Image courtesy of ZanaAfrica

An alumna’s novel approach to helping Kenyan tweens

Forward-turned-author Bill Keenan
Photograph courtesy of Bill Keenan and Skyhorse Publishing

 

The post-Harvard hockey tales of Bill Keenan

The College Pump

The long-gone Dudley Gate, caught with no hands on its clock

Photograph courtesy of the Harvard University Archives

A nitty-gritty guide by a Nieman Fellow and his team.

Treasure

Photograph courtesy of the Harvard Semitic Museum

“Experimental archaeology” at the Harvard Semitic Museum