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January-February 2023

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Letters

Readers’ views on the Supreme Court, reparations, the humanities, and more

The endowment data drought, and the FAS dean’s downsized report

President Bacow on conversations with students

The publisher and editor on changes in the magazine’s design—and its evolving service to readers in its 125th anniversary year

A salute to a writer and two artists who served readers especially well in 2022

The College Pump

Cover of Chinese edition of book, Harvard A to Z

Harvard A to Z

Course catalog redux, a Chinese take on Harvard “glitz and glamour,” and the mathmetician-movie buff

Treasure

Three men juggle while roller-skating

Image courtesy of the Harvard Theatre Collection/Houghton Library

Vaudeville's mysterious Ader Brothers

In this Issue

Along a city street, mural on a concrete wall shows two men shaking hands, with a large pair of watchful eyes in the background.

ArtLords covered Kabul’s concrete blast walls with brightly colored murals denouncing corruption and promoting peace and human rights. This one depicted the famous handshake that followed the signing of the United States-Taliban agreement in February 2020 to end the war in Afghanistan and withdraw American troops.

Photograph courtesy of ArtLords

Harvard’s Scholars at Risk Program helps endangered artists and scholars

Photo of the rising artist as a student at Rhode Island School of Design in the 1950s

The rising artist as a student at Rhode Island School of Design in the 1950s

Image courtesy of Felipe Pereda

Brief life of an abstract painter: 1924-1984

Illustration of book like a sinking ship, emblematic of problems in the humanities

Illustration by Dave Cutler

What is lost in the precipitous decline of the arts and humanities

Arthur Brooks stands behind a chair in his office, smiling

Arthur Brooks

Photograph by Jim Harrison

Arthur Brooks moved beyond policy—to something deeper.

Letters

Readers’ views on the Supreme Court, reparations, the humanities, and more

The endowment data drought, and the FAS dean’s downsized report

President Bacow on conversations with students

The publisher and editor on changes in the magazine’s design—and its evolving service to readers in its 125th anniversary year

A salute to a writer and two artists who served readers especially well in 2022

Right Now

Romanian children in a Bucharest orphanage, circa 1995

Romanian children in a Bucharest orphanage, circa 1995

Photograph by Romano Cagnoni/Getty Images

Neglected children’s neurodevelopmental impairments persist into young adulthood.

Illustration of pill bottles, and the long shadow of higher drug prices supported by coupons

Illustration by Gary Neill

Pharmaceutical companies subsidize the cost of their drugs to keep prices high.

Illustration showing that a blend of working from home and in the office leads to better-performing and happier employees

Illustration by Nathan Daniels

A business school study finds hybrid workers generate more novel and useful information.

Harvard Squared

Plates of chicken, potatoes, seafood from Brockton restaurant

Luanda's Angolan-Cape Verdean-Portuguese food

Photograph courtesy of Luanda Restaurant & Lounge

 

Exploring Cape Verdean and Caribbean cuisine

People playing dodgeball on indoor trampolines

A rousing game of trampoline-dodgeball

Photograph courtesy of Launch

Trampoline parks—fun for all ages 

Repeated images of a ballet dancer warming up amid a teal background

Photo-multigraph #1 (long mirror and socks on teal), by Heather Rasmussen

©Heather Rasmussen/ Courtesy of The Pit, Los Angeles.

Inspiring new exhibit at the deCordova Museum and Sculpture Park

Children singers performing on stage with purple lighting
Boston Children's Chorus performs year-round, with special concerts celebrating  Martin Luther King Jr. and Christmas. 

Photographs by Gretjen Helene/courtesy of the Boston Children’s Chorus

Boston Children's Chorus 2023 season

Photograph courtesy of Canyon Ranch Lennox

Places to start the new year off right 

John Harvard's Journal

Student protestors outs the Supreme Court, demonstrating in favor of affirmative action in admissions

Passions ran high as the Supreme Court heard the Harvard and University of North Carolina cases on race-conscious admissions October 31. Shown here: demonstrators outside the Court

Photograph by Chip Sommadevilla/Getty Images

The Supreme Court hears the Harvard and UNC admissions cases.

Karin Oberg

Karin Öberg
Photograph by Stu Rosner

This astrochemist studies the chemical antecedents of life in the universe.

Illustration of Cambridge in deep snow, not cleaned up

Illustration by Mark Steele

Headlines from Harvard’s history

Henry Rosovsky

Henry Rosovsky

Photograph by Jim Harrison

Remembering Henry Rosovsky

Thomas J. Hollister, vice president for finance

Thomas J. Hollister, vice president for finance and CFO
Paige Brown, Courtesy Tufts Medical Center

A huge budget surplus, but a down year for the endowment

The dean’s annual report, plus updates on the faculty and its finances

Photo of Sara N. Bleich, responsible for implementing recommendations from Harvard slavery report

Sara N. Bleich

Photograph by Stephanie Mitchell/HPAC

Rankled about rankings, acting on the slavery report, and more

Harvard’s Truman Jones (90) and Khalil Dawsey corral Yale running back Joshua Pitsenberger.

DOUBLE TEAM Harvard’s Truman Jones (90) and Khalil Dawsey corral Yale running back Joshua Pitsenberger. Defensive lineman (and Crimson captain) Jones led the team with six sacks and was named to the All-Ivy first team.

Photograph by Juilian Giordano/The Harvard Crimson

Kings of the road, the football team struggled at home—and in The Game.

Montage

Image of plans for Ford’s Michigan Central Park

Rendering courtesy of Mikyoung Kim Design

Landscape architect Mikyoung Kim’s healing arts

Conflicting cultures in Africa: “The Missionary burns the House of a Witch,” ca. 1750, from the book, Images on a Mission in Early Modern Kongo and Angola

Conflicting cultures in Africa: “The Missionary burns the House of a Witch,” ca. 1750

Courtesy of the Biblioteca Centrale, Turin, Italy

Recent books with Harvard connections

Reid Parsons stands in a greenhouse amid plants

Reid Parsons

Photograph by Ben E. Collins

Singer-songwriter Reid Parsons on the irreplaceable instrument

Elif Batuman

Elif Batuman

Photography by Dan Tuffs/Alamy Stock Photo

On Elif Batuman’s fictions

University People

Blyth Lord

Photograph by Stu Rosner

“You work in the hope space, and you tend to the grief.”

Finn Bamber and Clay Oxford sit beside a sound board with a theater set behind them

Finn Bamber (left) and Clay Oxford (right) at the control boards for In the Heights.

Photograph by Stu Rosner

Theater technicians Finn Bamber and Clay Oxford bring Harvard theater to life.

Illustration by Jessie Lin

The complicated return to campus post-pandemic

The College Pump

Cover of Chinese edition of book, Harvard A to Z

Harvard A to Z

Course catalog redux, a Chinese take on Harvard “glitz and glamour,” and the mathmetician-movie buff

Treasure

Three men juggle while roller-skating

Image courtesy of the Harvard Theatre Collection/Houghton Library

Vaudeville's mysterious Ader Brothers