Headlines from Harvard’s history

When the Law School made thin ice…and other headlines from Harvard’s history

Illustration by Mark Steele

1934

The College funds five $1,000 fellowships for prospective freshmen who live and attend school in the Midwest: an experiment by President James B. Conant to attract “the most promising young men throughout the whole nation.”

1939

“The Undergraduate Week,” by William R. Frye ’40, reports: “If Harvard ever was composed solely of the ‘upper crust’ of society, it is not so composed now”: the Student Employment Office, organized to provide jobs for men facing financial difficulties, is serving nearly one-third of the undergraduate body.

1964

Harvard opens a housing office; its first task is assigning apartments in one section of Peabody Terrace that has been finished nine months ahead of schedule.

1969

A faculty committee chaired by professor of economics Henry Rosovsky proposes a degree program and research center for Afro-American studies.

1984

The Law School faculty approves a pilot program to provide about $125,000 in loans to supplement the earnings of first- and second-year law students who take low-paying, law-related jobs in the public-service or public-interest sector during the summer.

2004

Dean of the Law School Elena Kagan decides on the spur of a frozen January moment to flood the field by Harkness Commons to form a skating rink that will remain open, she says, “until it melts.” 

2009

Harvard men’s basketball records its first win over a nationally ranked opponent, Boston College (which had beaten the nation’s top team only a week before), as shooting guard Jeremy Lin ’10 scores 27 points and makes eight assists and six steals.

Related topics

You might also like

They Might Be (Harvard) Giants

Two tales of University greats—and an encounter with a Tiger

A Harvard President’s VW Beetle That Kept On Giving

Derek Bok donated his car for a good cause.

The Year a Beat Poet Squatted at Harvard

In 1954, Gregory Corso moved into Eliot House. How he stayed there is a literary legend.

Most popular

How Philosophy at Harvard Saved Itself

As humanities shrink across higher education, one department is flourishing. Is its success a fluke, or a roadmap?

Crimson Football: Harvard 41, Cornell 29

Erasing an early deficit, the unbeaten Crimson roll to an Ivy win.

Harvard Stabilizes Finances With Strong Endowment Returns, Philanthropy

Small operating surplus is dwarfed by reduced federal research support and endowment tax liabilities.

Explore More From Current Issue

A woman jogs on a path beside a boy riding a bicycle, surrounded by trees.

Why Harvard Medical School is training physicians to think more like coaches

Illuminated hanging sculptures resembling organic forms, casting warm light in a dim space.

Artists Enzo Camacho and Ami Lien turn a colonial symbol from Cambodia inside out.

Colorful icons representing sleep, fruit, speech, and a mind with a water lily.

Check back soon to take our survey!