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Your independent source for Harvard news since 1898

January-February 2020

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Letters

Gun violence, drug laws, climate change and more

President Bacow on Nobel honorands and curiosity-driven research

On the University’s fiscal position and academic aspirations

The College Pump

Photograph of Peter Ashton and field team in Borneo

At left: The field team included (from left) Asah, Naban, Ashton (note his indispensable leech socks), and Ladi.
Photograph by Timothy Whitmore/Courtesy of Peter Ashton and Arnoldia.

Trekking, shuttling, and semi-friending

Treasure

A Hasty Pudding Theatricals poster from 1910 showing a debutante curtseying

Click on arrow at right to see full image
Hasty Pudding Theatricals art from 1910, advertising Diana’s Debut
Image courtesy of the Harvard Theatre Collection

“Shingles” and other art of the Hasty Pudding from the Harvard Theatre Collection.

In this Issue

Photo of James Collins in his lab

James Collins
Photograph by by Jim Harrison

For synthetic biologists, there appears to be no limit to what they can build.

An illustration of a handgun with bullets

Illustration by Gary Neill

David Hemenway advocates a pragmatic, public-health-based solution to gun homicides and suicides.

Photo of abandoned newspaper vending boxes

Photograph by Marc F. Henning / Alamy Stock Photo

New models for newspaper journalism in the Internet era

Photograph of artist Romare Bearden standing by an easel c. 1940

Bearden’s stance in this ca. 1940 photograph prefigures his self-portrait in his collage Artist With Model in Studio (shown below), painted three decades later.
Photograph by Sam Shaw, ca. 1940s / Courtesy of the Romare Bearden Foundation

Brief life of a textured artist: 1911-1988

Letters

Gun violence, drug laws, climate change and more

President Bacow on Nobel honorands and curiosity-driven research

On the University’s fiscal position and academic aspirations

Right Now

A double-helix image, in red, framing a man in military camouflage, crouched, seated, holding his head, and

Illustration by Taylor Callery

A potential “paradigm shift” in developing new diagnostic tests in mental health

An illustration showing money being deposited via funnel into a columned building labeled "college"

Illustration by Adam Niklewicz

David Deming says existing federal higher-education subsidies, if redeployed, could make public colleges free.

Illustration of elderly Chinese participating in activities at a senior center

Illustration by Jungyeon Roh

Can technology coupled with cultural understanding improve the health and wellness of the elderly?

Harvard Squared

Provincetown harbor in the winter

Provincetown’s winter harbor
Photograph by Age Fotostock/Alamy Stock Photo

Just enough art, culture, terrific food, and lively conversation....

Clay head over wooden pill bottles with wires representing the impact of opioids on human beings

John Christian Anderson’s Sacrificial Lamb

Photograph by Will Howcroft

Revealing sculptures at the Fuller Craft Museum, in Brockton

Harvard Mount Washington cabin in the snow

Built in 1962, the off-the-grid, one-room cabin is popular among ice climbers and back-country skiers.

Photograph by David Leonard

The Harvard Mountaineering Club’s Mount Washington cabin

Scene from "Gloria, A Life," showing women marching in solidarity with protest sign

From the New York City production
Photograph by Joan Marcus

“Gloria: A Life,” at the American Repertory Theater

Cozy Map Room Tea Lounge with books, bar, and vaulted ceiling

The casual Map Room Tea Lounge offers “bar bites,” like the charcuterie board and tartines
Photograph by Binita Patel

 

The Boston Public Library’s cozy winter hideout

Hands holding coins

Opportunities for self-improvement, and fun, at and around Harvard

John Harvard's Journal

Photograph of major construction projects in Harvard Square

Photograph by Jim Harrison

A familiar place’s new faces

Photograph of Harvard graduate students during their strike

Walking the line: Graduate Student Union picketers in Harvard Yard on December 3, the morning their strike began.
Photograph by Jonathan Shaw/Harvard Magazine

HGSU-UAW members go out on strike two days before reading period. 

Photograph of art historian Shawon Kinew

Shawon Kinew
Photograph by Stu Rosner

Connecting European Old Masters with the new landscape of art history 

A faculty debate, and a challenge slate for the Board of Overseers

Drawing of Harvard and Oregon football players at the Rose Bowl, with the goalposts depicted at two long-stemmed red roses with a bar between them

Illustration by Mark Steele

Headlines from Harvard’s history

An appreciation for outstanding work

Harvard’s fiscal year 2019 endowment returns by asset class

An analysis of the annual financial report, and of Harvard Management Company’s transformation

Photograph of Harvard athletics director Robert L. Scalise

Robert L. Scalise
Photograph by Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Public Affairs and Communications

Sexual-misconduct survey results, and the athletics director to retire

Online summer programs get students ready for inclusive M.B.A., J.D., and M.Ed. studies.

Nobel laureates, HBS dean stepping down, Allston options, and more

Imaginative drawing of a student contemplating mathematical concepts floating above his head

Illustration by Wenting Li

The Undergraduate finds beauty in the complexities of applied science.

Photograph: With Yale’s Melvin Rouse II in vain pursuit, Harvard’s Aidan Borguet heads for the goal line.

Four score: With Yale’s Melvin Rouse II in vain pursuit, Harvard’s Aidan Borguet heads for the goal line. Against the Elis, the Crimson freshman back rushed for a series single-game record 269 yards and amassed four touchdowns on only 11 carries, a performance that helped earn him the Ivy League Rookie of the Year award.
Photographs by Tim O’Meara/The Harvard Crimson

Dreadful defeats—and a heartbreaking Game—produced the Crimson’s first losing season of the century.

Photograph of athletic and sports medicine trainer Brant Berkstresser

Brant Berkstresser
Photograph by Jim Harrison

Brant Berkstresser aims to ensure sound bodies for Harvard’s student athletes.

Montage

Dancers on stage

The Kupermans choreographed the 2019 musical Alice By Heart, a retelling of Alice in Wonderland set during the London Blitz
Photograph by Deen Van Meer

The brothers Kuperman—choreographers, directors, and storytellers

Historic photograph of President Lyndon Johnson meeting with impoverished Fletcher family in Kentucky in 1964

When the president cared about poverty: LBJ visits Tom Fletcher in Inez, Kentucky, April 24, 1964—an iconic image from the Great Society era
Photograph by Bettmann/Getty Images

The world’s richest nation tolerates “basically the highest child poverty rates in the developed world.”

Illustration showing innovators going underground rather than assaulting an established fortress

Illustration by Stephen Collins

In her new book, Rosabeth Moss Kanter thinks “outside the building.”

A procession of women heading toward a lake

At the 2019 Artlake Festival in Germany, Chen (in red skirt) and artist Annique Delphine (pink skirt) lead Heal Her, a traveling workshop of collective storytelling and art for sexual-violence survivors.
Photograph by Molly Baber

Lena Chen transforms trauma into art and performance.

Photograph of American urban life, Mulberry Street, New York, c. 1900

From early on, Americans held urban ideals: Mulberry Street, New York City, c. 1900.
Photograph courtesy of the Library of Congress

Recent books with Harvard connections

Portrait photograph of mathematician and author Francis Su

Francis Su
Photograph by Mark Skovorodko for Quanta Magazine

Teaching and learning math as a human endeavor

Alumni

Photo of Geoffrey Fowler with old and new smartphones

Fowler, with phones old and new. The dozens in his desk drawer are useful when reviewing current models. “I put a lot of work into trying not to fall into the trap of buying a thing because it’s new,” he says.
Photograph by Patrick Tehan

Geoffrey Fowler tackles the “great reckoning” with privacy.

Alumni describe their challenges in leaving home and coming to the College.

Photograph of Annette Samuels in the Harvard Art Museum

Annette Samuels, caught between classes
Photograph by Jacob Sweet/Harvard Magazine 

Annette Samuels ’55 goes back to class.

The College Pump

Photograph of Peter Ashton and field team in Borneo

At left: The field team included (from left) Asah, Naban, Ashton (note his indispensable leech socks), and Ladi.
Photograph by Timothy Whitmore/Courtesy of Peter Ashton and Arnoldia.

Trekking, shuttling, and semi-friending

Treasure

A Hasty Pudding Theatricals poster from 1910 showing a debutante curtseying

Click on arrow at right to see full image
Hasty Pudding Theatricals art from 1910, advertising Diana’s Debut
Image courtesy of the Harvard Theatre Collection

“Shingles” and other art of the Hasty Pudding from the Harvard Theatre Collection.