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Your independent source for Harvard news since 1898

January-February 2018

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Letters

Readers comment on unequal university resources, educational effectiveness, final clubs, and first-generation students

President Drew Faust on the enduring struggle to assure access to education.

Thoughts on the coming reconstruction of Harvard Square—and the University’s front door

The College Pump

Photograph by Nancy Greep

 

Ship of state, margin call, dioramas, and Dan Aaron

 

Treasure

Photograph by Harvard Library Imaging Services

Amusements to dispel the winter blues

 

In this Issue

The Arnold Arboretum’s Michael Dosmann with a Rodgersia leaf and plumes of Astilbe grandis

Photograph by Jonathan Shaw

The hunt for rare plants in China

 

Mercer and his beloved dog, Rollo
Courtesy of the Mercer Museum & Library

Brief life of an innovative ceramicist: 1856-1930

 

Fred Moten
Photograph by Robert Adam Mayer

Fred Moten’s subversive black-studies scholarship

Norbert “Nubbins” Wiener, shown here in boyhood, was 14 when he matriculated at Harvard in 1909.

Photograph courtesy of the MIT Museum

Parents and superkids, then and now

 

Letters

Readers comment on unequal university resources, educational effectiveness, final clubs, and first-generation students

President Drew Faust on the enduring struggle to assure access to education.

Thoughts on the coming reconstruction of Harvard Square—and the University’s front door

Right Now

Illustration by Sam Ward

The United States is finally in a position of energy dominance, but its ability to harness this boom is fraught with challenges. 

An osteoarthritic knee, the polished femur clearly visible, from a 600-year-old skeleton housed in the Peabody Museum.

Photograph by Jim Harrison/©2018 President and Fellows of Harvard College, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, PM# 968-10-40/N9174.0

 

Neither increased obesity nor longevity explains the doubling of knee osteoarthritis since World War II.  

Illustration by Øivind Hovland

 

An increasing consolidation of ownership in health care 

Harvard Squared

Michael Frank and Louise Sacco with the stylish doggie stars of Blue Tango (acquired from an Indiana thrift shop) at the Somerville museum.

Photograph by Jim Harrison

A Somerville museum highlights art “so bad, it’s good.”

Photograph courtesy of the ART

 

HEAR WORD! portrays the lives of Nigerian women.

A scene from Newport’s dramatic Cliff Walk

Photograph courtesy of Discover Newport

Visiting Newport, Rhode Island, during the winter

Pork bao at Shōjō

Photograph courtesy of Shōjō

 

Asian-fusion food with a Western twist at Chinatown's Shōjō restaurant

John Harvard's Journal

A view of the renewed Kennedy School from within its courtyard

Photograph ©Peter Vanderwarker.

 

A campus remade in the course of the capital campaign

After another surplus, cautions about the University’s future financial constraints

Megan Sniffin-Marinoff

Photograph by Stu Rosner

The University archivist on what it means to “document Harvard”

Congressional tax bills aim at universities’ endowment income.

George Q. Daley, dean of Harvard Medical School

Photograph by Stu Rosner

One year into his deanship, George Daley shares his vision for Harvard Medical School.

The dean of freshmen departs, Rhodes and Marshall scholars, and more

Final-club regulations and preventing preprofessionalism

Samuel Huntington

Photograph by Jon Chase/Harvard Public Affairs and Communications

A memorial minute on the eminent political scientist

Illustration by Mark Steele

“Reading period” debuts, the Maharishi visits, a blizzard shuts down the University, and more from the Harvard Alumni Bulletin and Harvard Magazine

Photograph courtesy of Tawanda Mulalu

Teaching rap in a Chinese high school, and contemplating one’s blackness

Photograph by Stephanie Mitchell

The University Marshal retires, MacArthur fellows, diversifying freshman pre-orientation, and more

Recognizing outstanding authors and artists for serving our readers

He’s gone! Against Lafayette, junior Justice Shelton-Mosley scored on an 85-yard punt return.

Photograph by Tim O’Meara/The Harvard Crimson

A humbling defeat in The Game caps Harvard’s dreariest season in 17 years.

Building on last year’s record-setting rookie season, Dean Farris is still finding out just how fast he can go.

Photograph by Jim Harrison

No longer a “skinny kid,” swimmer Dean Farris ’20 builds on his breakout rookie season.

Montage

Jonathan Bailey Holland

Photograph by Robert Torres

Composer Jonathan Bailey Holland on finding his musical voice

 

Photograph by iStock Images

A doctor’s take on the destruction of medicine

Colin Jost (left) with his co-host, Michael Che, at the Weekend Update desk for Saturday Night Live

Photograph by Will Heath/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images

Comedian Colin Jost, from Shouts and Murmurs to Saturday Night Live

Dara Horn

Photograph by Michael B. Priest

 

Dara Horn breathes life into classical Jewish sources.

Portraits of James Madison, 1816, by John Vanderlyn and of Dolley Madison, 1804, by Gilbert Stuart

Paintings courtesy of the White House Historical Association

Lincoln Caplan reviews Noah Feldman’s The Three Lives of James Madison: Genius, Partisan, President

Correspondence on not-so-famous lost words

Recent books with Harvard connections

Alumni

Father Columba Stewart

Photograph by Guytano Magno/Hill Museum & Manuscript Library/Saint John’s University

A globe-trotting monk with the Benedictine “survival gene” seeks out treasured manuscripts.

Nancy Churnin’s biographies for children span time and space. 

 

 
 

Nancy Churnin’s picture-book biographies for children span time and space.

The College Pump

Photograph by Nancy Greep

 

Ship of state, margin call, dioramas, and Dan Aaron

 

Treasure

Photograph by Harvard Library Imaging Services

Amusements to dispel the winter blues