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Your independent source for Harvard news since 1898

May-June 2019

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Letters

Letters on opioids, the Bauhaus, legacy admissions, and more

President Bacow on friendships formed among and between scholars and students

Students’ Top 10 list: it’s not academic

The College Pump

Click on arrow at right to see full image
Poster courtesy of Dumbarton Oaks Archives Ephemera Collection (AR.EP.PS.0669)

Resesarchers’ lengthy labors, “Diploma Riots,” supporting young scholars

Treasure

Click arrow at right for other images referenced in the text. 
A jar from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kongo culture, 1898 or earlier 

Object courtesy of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Photograph courtesy of the Harvard Art Museums ©President and Fellows of Harvard College

Pliable arts from across the continent

In this Issue

Rafael Campo
Photograph by Stu Rosner

Rafael Campo’s compassionate care

Bibliophile behind the footlights: Harry Widener (front row, far left) acted in high school in an English version of a French farce. 

Photograph courtesy of the Hill School Archives

Brief life of Harry Elkins Widener, theater-loving bibliophile: 1885-1912

Illustration by Kasia Bogdanska

Could inflammation be the cause of myriad chronic conditions?

After graduating from the College in 1861, Holmes obtained a commission as first lieutenant in the Twentieth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, known as the “Harvard Regiment.”

Photograph courtesy of the Harvard Law School Library, Historical & Special Collections

A new biography of Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. illuminates the Supreme Court during the centennial of his most momentous dissent.

Letters

Letters on opioids, the Bauhaus, legacy admissions, and more

President Bacow on friendships formed among and between scholars and students

Students’ Top 10 list: it’s not academic

Right Now

Illustration by Robert Neubecker

What the rare bright spots in American high-school education teach

Illustration by Dave Cutler

Corporate reports contain clues to predicting a firm’s future performance.

Illustration by David Plunkert

Ben Green warns against simple technological solutions for complex problems.

Harvard Squared

Garden in the Woods features the white spring ephemerals, such asTrillium grandiflorum,  during Trillium Week (May 5-11).

Photograph courtesy of Native Plant Trust and Garden in the Woods/Photography by Dan Jaffe

Springtime at New England’s native-plant haven

Woman Running to Escape a Sudden Shower, c. 1765-70, by Suzuki Harunobu
Image courtesy of the Harvard Art Museums ©President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Harvard’s enticing Japanese woodblock prints

Red Rocks Conservation Area, in Gloucester, Massachusetts

Photograph by Vladislav Sevostianov

Rock climbing in Greater Boston—and beyond

Log-based cavities host nesting bees at the Arnold Arboretum.

Photograph by Jessica Lau

Greater Boston’s bee cultures

Photograph by Jim Harrison

Speakers, ceremonies, and celebrations

Seafood ceviche at Celeste, in Somerville

Photograph courtesy of the restaurant

An eclectic array of favored restaurants in Greater Boston

Tatte Bakery’s pastry counter

bygabriella.co

A Harvard Squared local business roundup

John Harvard's Journal

Houghton Library’s redesigned exterior will feature a fully accessible entrance with ramped walkways.

Rendering courtesy of Ann Beha Architects

A renovation to make Houghton Library “open to all”

Jason Luke

Photograph by Stu Rosner

Harvard’s behind-the-scenes Commencement hero

Allan Bakke’s admissions suit began four decades-plus of protests and litigation.

Photographs from Bettmann/Getty Images

Closing arguments in the admissions lawsuit, and affirmative action in broader context

Winthrop House tensions and government department concerns

Illustration by Mark Steele

Demonstrating for equality…and other headlines from Harvard’s history

Click on arrow at right to see full chart
Source: Data from Office of Faculty Development & Diversity

A tenure track, resources for recruiting and retention, childcare, and more contribute to changes in the professoriate.

Transitions, appointments, and honors

A toehold for the arts in Allston 

Photograph by Clare O’Keefe

ART to Allston and dual-degree decision

Timothy R. Barakett and Mariano-Florentino (Tino) Cuéllar
Photograph courtesy of Harvard Public Affairs and Communications

New Corporation members, renewing Adams House, and more University news

Howard Gardner and Wendy Fischman, now analyzing interviews from 10 campuses

Photograph courtesy of Howard Gardner

Howard Gardner and colleagues release a seven-year study of higher education in the twenty-first century.

After missing the first few games of the 2019 season with a concussion, Skinner has been among the Ivy League leaders in on-base percentage.

Photograph courtesy of Harvard Athletic Communications

 

For speedy center fielder Ben Skinner, slowing down is key.

Click arrow for full image: Kieran Tuntivate ’20, shoeless and in the lead

Photograph by Gavin Baker/Sideline Photos

7,700 meters of grit and pain

Noah Kirkwood ’22, the Ivy League Rookie of the Year, emerged as one of Harvard’s top offensive threats.

Photograph by Gavin Baker/Sideline Photos

Basketball teams fall short of NCAAs again.

Montage

Jocelyn and Chris Arndt, siblings from Fort Plain, New York, balanced a full-time tour schedule and undergraduate life.

Photograph courtesy of Shore Fire Media

For two Harvard siblings, studying and songwriting went hand in hand.

Harper Lee

Photograph by Donald Uhrbrock/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images

Casey Cep’s debut book, on a murder trial and Harper Lee

Accidental comics writer Amy Chu
Image courtesy of Amy Chu

Graphic novelist Amy Chu

An untitled 1900 ink and color work by an unidentified artist, exhibiting the strikingly modern “eight-brokens” style

Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Recent books with Harvard connections

National Women’s Party members picket the White House, 1917. In the years leading up to the Nineteenth Amendment’s passage, the protesters were a regular presence in Lafayette Square.

Photograph courtesy of the Library of Congress

Fresh portraits of U.S. foot soldiers for women’s right to vote

Modern psychiatrists revived the effort to link mental illness to biology, begun in the 1840s by scientists like Emil Kraepelin.

Photograph Wikipedia/Public Domain

A history of psychiatry’s troubled search for the biology of mental illness

Correspondence on not-so-famous lost words

Alumni

Moffett—who has trekked across the globe in search of unusual creatures—with an ants’ nest in Australia

Photograph courtesy of Mark W. Moffett

Naturalist Mark W. Moffett investigates insects—and now, evolving human societies.

The official 2019 slates

Philip Lovejoy

Photograph by Will Halsey/Courtesy of the Harvard Alumni Association

The HAA’s Philip Lovejoy looks ahead

Shared Interest Group gatherings in Cambridge

The College Pump

Click on arrow at right to see full image
Poster courtesy of Dumbarton Oaks Archives Ephemera Collection (AR.EP.PS.0669)

Resesarchers’ lengthy labors, “Diploma Riots,” supporting young scholars

Treasure

Click arrow at right for other images referenced in the text. 
A jar from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kongo culture, 1898 or earlier 

Object courtesy of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Photograph courtesy of the Harvard Art Museums ©President and Fellows of Harvard College

Pliable arts from across the continent