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The blue regions are oil palm plantation, while the forest regions (yellows and greens) are colored by tree height, which is a proxy for carbon.
Image courtesy of Global Airborne Observatory, ASU Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science.The world needs tropical forests—but rainforest destruction continues unabated, and it may be even worse than you thought.
Loeb House, where the University's governing boards meet
Photograph by Harvard Magazine/JCThe coronavirus pandemic threatened to disenfranchise alumni balloting.
University Hall
Photograph by Harvard Magazine/JC“We cannot proceed as if nothing has changed,” FAS dean Claudine Gay wrote. “Everything has changed."
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The blue regions are oil palm plantation, while the forest regions (yellows and greens) are colored by tree height, which is a proxy for carbon.
Image courtesy of Global Airborne Observatory, ASU Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science.The world needs tropical forests—but rainforest destruction continues unabated, and it may be even worse than you thought.
Karen Dynan
Photograph courtesy of Karen DynanThe severe economic fallout, in context
Tommie Shelby, chair of African and African-American studies
Photograph by Melissa BlackallSpeakers discuss history, progress, hope, and home.
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Photograph courtesy of Lauren Spohn
“We are the generation that is coming of age in the COVID-19 crisis,” writes Lauren Spohn ’20. “We can we build? What can we sacrifice? What risks can we take?”
Professor and platform: William C. Kirby logs on to Zoom from home for his first remote teaching session.
On taking a Harvard Gen Ed class remotely with William C. Kirby
Photograph by Allison Kern/Harvard Magazine
“I feel lucky that I took for granted my Harvard experience before its abrupt end.”
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Loeb House, where the University's governing boards meet
Photograph by Harvard Magazine/JCThe coronavirus pandemic threatened to disenfranchise alumni balloting.
Tommie Shelby, chair of African and African-American studies
Photograph by Melissa BlackallSpeakers discuss history, progress, hope, and home.
Tracy P. Palandjian ’93, M.B.A. ’97, chair of the Harvard Alumni Association Committee to Nominate Overseers and Elected Directors, and Philip Lovejoy, HAA executive director
Photographs: Courtesy of Tracy P. Palandjian and Will Halsey/Courtesy of the Harvard Alumni AssociationOn the eve of a contested election for the governing board, looking under the hood of the nominating process
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At The Homestead
Photograph by Norman Eggert/Alamy Stock Photo
Delving into the world of Emily Dickinson
Photograph by Ryan Carollo
Contra dancing, Balkan music, sea chanteys—and more!
At the French Windows. The Artist’s Wife, (1897), by Laurits Andersen Ring
Courtesy of the Bruce Museum
Images that help unveil the truth of what we can see
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Photograph courtesy of Lauren Spohn
“We are the generation that is coming of age in the COVID-19 crisis,” writes Lauren Spohn ’20. “We can we build? What can we sacrifice? What risks can we take?”
Photograph by Allison Kern/Harvard Magazine
“I feel lucky that I took for granted my Harvard experience before its abrupt end.”
Photograph by Drew Pendergrass
“What will it mean to end our time on this campus with no closure, no time to reflect on what it all meant?”
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Our editors curate their favorite literary stories in Harvard Magazine.
Ken Liu
Photograph © Lisa Tang LiuKen Liu’s speculative fiction on maintaining and transcending humanity
At The Homestead
Photograph by Norman Eggert/Alamy Stock Photo
Delving into the world of Emily Dickinson
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2020 Ivy foil champion Geoffrey Tourette '21 celebrates a point.
Photograph courtesy of Harvard Athletics Communcations
A focus on process leads Harvard fencers to an Ivy championship.
At his seventieth Harvard-Yale game, in 2012, Paul Lee ’46 proudly carried the replica Little Red Flag. Steve Goodhue ’51 is beside him; Spencer Ervin ’54 and Jeff Lee ’74 stand behind.
Photograph courtesy of Judy Goodhue
Are you eligible to carry the (replica) Little Red Flag?
Matt “Happy” Gilmore smiles behind the wheel. Zamboni-driving takes focus, but Gilmore says that he loves waving to children in the crowd and making their day.
Photograph by Jim HarrisonHarvard’s Zamboni operators’ quest for the perfect sheet of ice
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At his seventieth Harvard-Yale game, in 2012, Paul Lee ’46 proudly carried the replica Little Red Flag. Steve Goodhue ’51 is beside him; Spencer Ervin ’54 and Jeff Lee ’74 stand behind.
Photograph courtesy of Judy Goodhue
Are you eligible to carry the (replica) Little Red Flag?
Samuel Eliot Morison
Photograph by Alfred Eisenstaedt/The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty ImagesMorison, Handlin, and a new view of the Mem Hall fire
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Tom Nichols
Photograph by Stu RosnerThe Mirage of Knowledge
Tom Nichols dissects the dangerous antipathy to expertise.
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January-February 2019
Letters
Letters on admissions, academic presses, the solicitor general, and more
President Larry Bacow on Truth
Affirmative action, donor and staff preferences, and other Harvard College admissions challenges
With appreciation to two Harvard Magazine artists
The College Pump
Photograph by Harvard Magazine/JC
Re-landscaping Massachusetts Hall, making the entrance to Harvard Yard more welcoming
Treasure
Journal from Houghton Library/Photograph by Harvard Library Imaging Services
Houghton Library, MS Eng 1610, vol. 2, frontispiece
…and a possible clue in the stacks
In this Issue
Photograph by Amélie Benoist/Science Source
Daniela Lamas and the practice of post-ICU care
A formal wartime portrait
Photograph from the Mathew Brady Collection/Library of Congres
Brief history of the image of a hero: 1822-1885
Illustration by Taylor Callery
Ethics and the dawn of decision-making machines
Philip J. Deloria
Photograph by Jim Harrison
Philip Deloria studies American Indians and the contradictions that made America.
Letters
Letters on admissions, academic presses, the solicitor general, and more
President Larry Bacow on Truth
Affirmative action, donor and staff preferences, and other Harvard College admissions challenges
With appreciation to two Harvard Magazine artists
Right Now
Illustration by John Holcroft
Economist William Kerr argues for streamlining immigration to attract high-skilled talent from abroad.
Illustration by Robert Neubecker
Cherubic features benefit black male CEOs, but not other groups, underscoring the complexity of social disadvantage.
Illustration by Pete Ryan
The immune systems of “elite controllers” point to HIV’s vulnerabilities.
Harvard Squared
A serene and snowy moment in historic Portland
Photograph courtesy of Corey Templeton Photography
Enjoying Portland, Maine, in the “off-season”
An example of a quipu from Peru's Nazca Province
Gift of Robert Woods Bliss, 1942 © President and Fellows of Harvard College, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, PM# 42-28-30/4532
“Cecilia Vicuña: Disappeared Quipu,” at the MFA
A miniature version of a New England high-post bed (ca. 1750-1765), with historically accurate bed furnishings by Natalie Larson
Object on loan courtesy of Natalie and Bruce Larson
Photograph courtesy of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art
A Wadsworth Atheneum and Museum exhibit reveals how we once slept.
Tubing at Nashoba Valley Ski Area
Photograph courtesy of Nashoba Valley Ski Area
Best snow-tubing spots around Greater Boston
John Harvard's Journal
Photograph from the OxBlue Construction Cameras
Alongside a huge applied-sciences center, a toehold for art-making
Supporters of affirmative action protested in Harvard Square the day before SFFA v. Harvard went to trial...
Photograph by Liu Jie/Xinhua/Alamy Live News
The lawsuit that could determine the fate of affirmative action
Ruth Okediji
Photograph by Jim Harrison
A Nigerian-born professor who brings unusual perspective to intellectual-property law
Coming together: Greater Boston biomedical and life-sciences panelists (from left) Eric Lander (Broad Institute), Vasant Narasimhan (Novartis), and Laurie Glimcher (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute), with moderator Susan Hockfield (MIT)
Photograph by Kris Snibbe/Harvard Public Affairs and Communications
A $200-million gift from the Blavatnik Family Foundation paves the way.
Source: Harvard University Fact Book
A survey of the University’s annual financial report
A growing, and more scientific, professoriate and a budget breakthrough
Illustration by Mark Steele
When the Law School made thin ice…and other headlines from Harvard’s history
National Academy and NIH notables, and a pioneering Crimson leader
Tomiko Brown-Nagin
Photograph by Rose Lincoln/Harvard Public Affairs and Communications
New Radcliffe dean Tomiko Brown-Nagin has a blueprint for action.
Policing and students, Title IX changes, and public opinion toward higher education
Mohsen Mostafavi
Photograph by Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Public Affairs and Communications
Harvard design dean departs and other news
Illustration by Michael Parkin/Folio Art
The Undergraduate considers the composition of Harvard College.
Cook’s tour: Harvard wideout Jack Cook leaves Yale’s Deonte Henson in the dust on a third-quarter, 15-yard touchdown. The score gave the Crimson a 28-24 lead, which it would not surrender.
Photograph by Tim O’Meara/The Harvard Crimson
A resilient, crowd-pleasing football season, with talented sophomores surfacing
Montage
After the harvest, Kelby Russell, who makes cold-climate white wines, stands in a vineyard overlooking New York’s Seneca Lake.
Photograph by Robyn Wishna
Why the vineyards of New York called Kelby Russell home
A boat cast adrift: visualizing the text, “Though the orange tree isle / Remain fast in its color, / ’Tis not such change, / But this drifting boat’s whither / That is beyond all knowing.”
Image courtesy of the Harvard Art Museums Imaging Department ©President and Fellows of Harvard College
A magnificent set of images, published—and exhibited
Liz Glynn
Photograph by Evelena Ruether/Liz Glynn Studio
In Liz Glynn’s massive installations, big questions about the meaning of value
Correspondence on not-so-famous lost words
Bess Wohl
Photograph by Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images
Bess Wohl writes plays from an actor’s perspective.
Making scant (and mute) evidence tell its story: the empress Sabina, sculpted A.D. 136-138
Photograph by Carole Raddato/Wikimedia
Recent books with Harvard connections
Illustration by Matt Kenyon
Economists revisit an unsettled economic policy.
Alumni
Cellist and teacher Laurence Lesser is celebrating his forty-fifth year at the New England Conservatory of Music.
Photograph by Andrew Hurlbut
A cellist and conservatory teacher who has never stopped learning
Degree-program affiliates now number 53, with 15 in the Senate and 38 in the House.
The College Pump
Photograph by Harvard Magazine/JC
Re-landscaping Massachusetts Hall, making the entrance to Harvard Yard more welcoming
Treasure
Journal from Houghton Library/Photograph by Harvard Library Imaging Services
Houghton Library, MS Eng 1610, vol. 2, frontispiece
…and a possible clue in the stacks