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Your independent source for Harvard news since 1898

March-April 2022

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Letters

Legacies, football, knitting

President Bacow on the Arnold Arboretum as a place for plants and people

Harvard’s post-pandemic workplace culture

The College Pump

John Harvard two-ounce, 56-cent stamp from 1986, honoring University’s 350th anniversary

Engineering for runners, the John Harvard stamp, tweaking Dr. Oz

Treasure

A cartoon of a man speaking on a telephone and workers at desks behind him

—The work is in full swing, but there’s a shortage of people!

Poster courtesy of the Davis Center/H.C. Fung Library/Harvard Library

How cartoonists powered the USSR propaganda apparatus

In this Issue

Black-and-white photo of a hill with bare trees

(Click on arrow to view full image) A sparse Bussey Hill in 1890

Photograph courtesy of the Arnold Arboretum Archives/ ©President and Fellows of Harvard College

A look back at the Arboretum's history—and the millennia to come

Jarvis Givens

Jarvis Givens

Photograph by Stu Rosner

Jarvis Givens rediscovers the underground history of black schooling.

Student photograph of Earl Brown in 1920, and baseball team photo with Brown in 1924

Right: Earl Brown from his Harvard transcript, c.1920.

Left: Team photo, captioned “Harvard Baseball Squad,” 1924, with Brown seated on ground far left.

Photographs courtesy of the Harvard University Archives

Brief life of Harvard’s latest major league baseball player: 1903-1980

Cappucci as a tornado carved through Lockett, Texas, on April 23, 2021. Hail shattered his windshield minutes later.

Photograph by Allen Chang

All images courtesy of Matthew Cappucci

The Harvard graduate is the fastest-rising star in weather.

Letters

Legacies, football, knitting

President Bacow on the Arnold Arboretum as a place for plants and people

Harvard’s post-pandemic workplace culture

Right Now

illustration of a black employee working and eating at his desk while colleagues go out to lunch

Illustration by Jungyeon Roh

Realizing the full potential of black employees

Blue-tinted illustration of a man holding his head and his smartphone above water.

Illustration by James Steinberg

A survey reveals suprising links between social media use and depression in adults.

A colored illustration of diverse voters in a ballot box from which the color is being drained

Illustration by Robert Neubecker

Efforts to keep census data private result in voter undercounting in diverse districts.

Harvard Squared

Gothic Revival front gate, 1865, designed by Charles Panter

Photograph by M.A. Kleen

Boston’s Forest Hills Cemetery is a welcome respite from the world.

Discolored trees over a vista

Blue Trees, 1945

Collection Neuberger Museum of art, purchase College, State University of New York. Gift of roy r. Neuberger, 1971.02.05. ©2021 Milton avery Trust/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photograph by Jim Frank

The American painter’s "playful use of color and diverse stylistic repertoire" on display in Hartford

Hands pouring steeped golden-colored tea from a ceramic pot

Enjoying the art of making and drinking tea, here featuring Ceylon and “Black & Green” leaves from Mem Tea

Photograph courtesy of Mem Tea

A world of artisanal teas in Somerville

Photo courtesy of Sam Kachmar Architects

Breathing new life into our domiciles

John Harvard's Journal

Portrait of President Lawrence S. Bacow

President Lawrence S. Bacow

Photograph by Rose Lincoln/Harvard Public Affairs and Communications

President Bacow on pandemic and academic Harvard

Staving off the surge

Emily Oken
Photograph courtesy of Harvard Medical School

Oken's path from archaeology to epidemiology

Photograph of Business School dean Srikant Datar in a classroom

Harvard Business School dean Srikant Datar

Photograph by Evgenia Eliseeva/courtesy of the Harvard Business School

Business School dean Srikant Datar’s priorities for a globally engaged, digital future

Drawing of Harvard Dental School giving John Harvard statue a dental check-up

Illustration by Mark Steele

Headlines from Harvard’s history

ARTS FIRST honorand Rubén Blades shown performing

Photograph by Johnny Louis/Getty Images

ARTS FIRST, Supreme Court affirmative-action review, fading role for standardized texts, and more

A natural- and artificial-intelligence initiative, Allston agita, shopping week, reckonings on visual culture and “denaming”

James Kitch on a trail, skiing in front of a competitor

Kitch competing in a mass-start (classic) 20k in Craftsbury, Vermont.

Photograph courtesy of Harvard Athletic Communications

James Kitch on his competitive mindset

Four polo players ride horses and one swings a mallet

Visiting student Georg Donhauser uses his mallet to block a Babson player in a maneuver called a near-side hook
Photograph by Stu Rosner

Human (and horse) athletes ride through pandemic setbacks

Montage

Bradley Scott Davis standing in front of a wall of frog paintings

Bradley Scott Davis in his studio with his collection of Daily Frogs

Portrait by Jeff Bukowski

Bradley Scott Davis's conservation-minded artwork

Photograph of the Lincoln Memorial

Like no other leader, Lincoln “created the space for mercy.”

Photograph by Steve Allen/Alamy Stock Photo

Michael Ignatieff on Abraham Lincoln on solace

Woodblock print based on The Tale of Genji

(Click on arrow to view full image) Utagawa Kunisada I (Toyokuni III) (Japanese, 1786–1864), from the series The Color Print Contest of a Modern Genji, 1852. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

William Sturgis Bigelow Collection, 11.20821. Courtesy of Museum of Fine Arts

Recent books with Harvard connections

Mike Schur on the set of The Good Place

Mike Schur’s How to Be Perfect, a humorous meditation on ethics, grew out of his work on the TV show The Good Place. Above: Schur on the show’s set

Photograph by Colleen Hayes/NBC

A humorous guide to ethics and philosophy, from the sitcom creator

Phillip Golub playing piano

Phillip Golub, performing with Layale Chaker’s band, believes collaboration is integral to his compositions.

Photograph by Little Olive Photography

Jazz composer Phillip Golub and the art of making magic

Photograph from staging of Eurydice, opera by Matthew Aucoin

Stacey Tappan as Little Stone, Erin Morley as Eurydice, Ronnita Miller as Big Stone, and Chad Shelton as Loud Stone in Matthew Aucoin’s Eurydice

Photograph by Marty Sohl/Met Opera

Matthew Aucoin on opera

Alumni

Abraham Riesman, at home in Providence with his cat, Barbara, writes about pop culture’s overlooked depths.

Photograph by Jim Harrison

Biographer Abraham Riesman plumbs the dark mysteries of the Marvel auteur

Portraits of the nine nominees for The Harvard Board of Overseers

Top row, from left to right: Monica Bharel, Sangu J. Delle, Scott Mead, Lauren Ancel Meyers, Cesar Conde; bottom row, from left to right: Todd Y. Park, Kim M. Rivera, Vikas P. Sukhatme, The Hon. Wilhelmina “Mimi” Wright

Photographs of the candidates were provided by Harvard Alumni Association.

Overseer and HAA elected-director nominees—and their views

The official notices for Commencement 2022 and Harvard Alumni Day

Melvin B. Miller in The Bay State Banner offices

Photograph courtesy of Melvin B. Miller

Countering misinformation and chronicling black success

The College Pump

John Harvard two-ounce, 56-cent stamp from 1986, honoring University’s 350th anniversary

Engineering for runners, the John Harvard stamp, tweaking Dr. Oz

Treasure

A cartoon of a man speaking on a telephone and workers at desks behind him

—The work is in full swing, but there’s a shortage of people!

Poster courtesy of the Davis Center/H.C. Fung Library/Harvard Library

How cartoonists powered the USSR propaganda apparatus