On the cover: President Lawrence S. Bacow. Photograph by Stu Rosner 

Letters

Cambridge 02138

Letters on faculty diversity, general education, advanced standing, and more

Beginning Again

President Bacow looks ahead to his new freshman year.

Allston Agonistes

Making the most of Harvard’s “ultimate option”

September-October 2018

On the cover: President Lawrence S. Bacow. Photograph by Stu Rosner 

Features

The Pragmatist

Lawrence S. Bacow, a career educator, is schooled in making decisions.

by John S. Rosenberg

William Morris Davis

Brief life of William Morris Davis, pioneering geomorphologist

by Philip S. Koch

The Political Solicitor General

The “Tenth Justice” and the polarization of the Supreme Court

by Lincoln Caplan

The Football Industrial Complex

Boosting the game, and The Game

by Dick Friedman

RIGHT NOW Harvard research and ideas

Fixing America’s Heartland

Could place-based policies solve regional economic and social problems?

Ranking Extinctions by Ecological Impact

New research on extinctions shows that their ecological impact can’t be measured in numbers of species lost.

Violent Innovations

In the antebellum South, slavery was paired with modern business practices.

John Harvard's Journal University news

Day One

With greetings to the community, and a major faculty appointment, new Harvard president Lawrence S. Bacow sets to work.

Litigating Admissions

New filings in a lawsuit against Harvard over admissions allege discrimination against Asian-Americans.

Durba Mitra

Harvard’s first professor appointed solely in gender studies

Yesterday’s News

Headlines from Harvard’s history

Thinking about Space

Design courses enlarge the College curriculum.

News Briefs

A Medical School real-estate deal, and a busy post-presidency for Drew Faust

A Time of Trauma

An exhibit on Harvard in 1969 opens at Pusey Library this fall.

Brevia

New FAS dean, biomedical momentum, and more University news

Take Care of Each Other

The Undergraduate looks at Harvard through an African filter.

New Fellows

The Ledecky Fellows provide an undergraduate perspective on life at Harvard.

Happy Returns

Justice Shelton-Mosley needs only the tiniest bit of space to go the distance.

Montage Books, creative arts, performance and more

Painter, Anew

Nell Painter reflects on leaving the ivory tower for art school at age 64.

“I Got Race”

A “first-gen” American explores race and assimilation in the United States.

“Little Shards of Dissonance”

An oratorio adapted from Langston Hughes

Slightly Supernatural

In Laura van den Berg’s fiction, the deeply strange is ordinary.

True Lies

Jill Lepore excavates the history of America, down to its bedrock values.

Off the Shelf

Recent books with Harvard connections

Harvard Squared What to do in Boston, Cambridge and beyond

The Fells

Just north of Boston, a wild park is filled with forests, lakes, and rocky hills.

Lowell Kinetic Sculpture Race

Watch human-powered machines prevail—or not—in Lowell.

The Dark Side of Boston

“Stories the Chamber of Commerce doesn’t want you to hear”

Comedor

An intimate place for Chilean-American food in Newton

Falling for Art

Creative Classes in Cambridge and Boston

Almuni Harvardians far and wide

Rebel Lawyer

Gerald López’s radical theory—and practice

“Building Strong Communities”

New HAA president Margaret Wang ’09

Hiram Hunn Award Winners

The admissions office honors alumni volunteers.

Aloian Memorial Scholars

Two seniors who help make Houses into homes

“For Exceptional Service…”

The 2018 Harvard Alumni Association Award winners

Changing the World

ClassACT HR73 rallies classmates to engage in social change.

NONapathetic

Recollections and Reflections from the Harvard class of 1957—a benchmark reunion project

A Lawyer for Art

Solving legal challenges at MoMA