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Your independent source for Harvard news since 1898

May-June 2023

Letters

Readers’ views about healthy diets, teachers off the tenure track, mitzvot, and more

Taking his leave, President Bacow concludes that truly, “At Harvard, wonders never cease.” 

As President Bacow passes the baton to President Gay, work remains in Allston, online education, FAS planning, and admissions

The College Pump

The John Harvard statue, with books at hand

John Harvard statue, with books at hand

Photograph by Brian Snyder/Reuters/Alamy Stock Photo

John Harvard’s reading matter, a scholar poet, the towering John Fox

Treasure

Realistic diorama of an old growth forest

Photograph by Jim Harrison

Scenes of an ever-changing forest, in miniature

In this Issue

A rendering of MASS Design’s proposal to reclaim the waterfront and renew Poughkeepsie’s center

A rendering of MASS Design’s community-informed proposal to reclaim the waterfront and renew Poughkeepsie’s center

Image courtesy of MASS Design Group

MASS Design’s healing architecture

Matthew Potts in Harvard's Memorial Church

(click on image to view full photograph)

Matthew Ichihashi Potts in Memorial Church

Photograph by Stu Rosner

The ministry of Matthew Ichihashi Potts

Archibald Henry Grimke in 1927

Archibald Henry Grimke in 1927

Courtesy Schomburg Library, New York Public Library

Brief life of a Black Harvard Law School graduate: 1849-1930

Photograph of giant tube worms living near a hydrothermal vent in the Gulf of California

Giant tubeworms take up chemicals from a hydrothermal vent 6,200 feet deep in the Gulf of California (the Girguis lab is world-renowned for research on these worms).

Photograph courtesy of the Schmidt Ocean Institute

Peter Girguis probes life on the ocean floor.

Letters

Readers’ views about healthy diets, teachers off the tenure track, mitzvot, and more

Taking his leave, President Bacow concludes that truly, “At Harvard, wonders never cease.” 

As President Bacow passes the baton to President Gay, work remains in Allston, online education, FAS planning, and admissions

Right Now

Illustration of a dollar bill with a head on one side and a heart on the other, exchanging hands

Illustration by Paul Garland

How psychological insight can make altruism more rewarding and effective

Illustration by Katie Edwards

A Harvard Business School professor turns the stage lights on the supporting cast that facilitates unethical acts

Illustration of a translucent human head showing the brain within, with an exploded view of a cancer cell killing another cancer cell within the brain.

Illustration by Stephanie Cowan Dalton

A novel immunotherapy turns cancer against itself.

Harvard Squared

Boardwalk by Taunton River and Braga Bridge overhead

Fall River Heritage State Park’s boardwalk

Photograph by Sanghwan Kim/istock

“A good place to be pleasantly surprised”

portrait of young girl surrounded by ornate gold-painted frame

Portrait of Petronila Méndez (1763), by Diego Antonio de Landaeta

Image courtesy of the Carl & Marilynn Thoma Foundation/ photographs by Jamie Stukenberg

Contextualized Spanish colonial works at the Harvard Art Museums

sunny patio with umbrellas over tables

 Orinoco’s patio haven

Photograph courtesy of the restaurant

A selection of celebratory spots

Harvard students in caps and gowns

Celebratory students at Commencement 

Photograph by Jennifer Beaumont/Harvard Magazine

Speakers, ceremonies, and celebrations

Pick up trucks filled with colorful flowers

Delivering the gorgeous goods

Photograph courtesy of Fivefork Farms

Cultivating local blooms in Upton, Massachusetts

Coquette at The Omni Boston Hotel at The Seaport

Photograph courtesy of Richard Cadan

Where to sleep, sup, and sip in Harvard Square and beyond this spring. 

John Harvard's Journal

President Bacow speaking with Ruth Simmons at Prairie View A&M University

After announcing her appointment as senior adviser on HBCUs, President Bacow spoke with Ruth Simmons at Prairie View A&M University.

Photograph by Nicholas Hunt/Prairie View A&M University

A campus memorial, a senior adviser on engaging with HBCUs, reaching out to descendants, and teaching what has been learned

A thank you for years of dedicated service

Roger Fu sits in front of a display case of rock samples

Roger Fu

Photograph by Stu Rosner

A paleomagnetics scholar who uses ancient rocks to peer into the early lives of Earth and Mars

Cartoon of Harvard Band’s large drum

Illustration by Mark Steele

Headlines from Harvard’s history

James Stock

James Stock

Photograph by Sarah Bastille

Teams of Harvard researchers have developed concrete proposals for addressing specific climate impacts.

Organizers hold signs advocating for a union of non-tenure-track workers during a February rally in Harvard Yard

Organizers advocating a union of non-tenure-track workers rallied in Harvard Yard in February.

Photograph by Lydialyle Gibson

Organizing efforts and tough wage negotiations on campus

Tom Hanks, Ophelia Dahl, and Mary Louise Kelly

Tom Hanks, Ophelia Dahl, and Mary Louise Kelly

From left to right: Photograph by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP,  photograph courtesy of Ophelia Dahl, photograph by Mike Morgan/NPR; montage by Niko Yaitanes/Harvard Magazine

Commencement speakers, women's hockey investigation, visual-culture curator, and more

Candidates for Overseers and HAA elected directors

Montage

Jimmy Tingle holding a microphone and performing on stage

Jimmy Tingle

Photograph courtesy of Jimmy Tingle

Jimmy Tingle’s political humor in a polarized era

Susan Rubin Suleiman with her parents in 1949; her mother is wearing the silver pin discussed in the book excerpt.

Susan Rubin Suleiman with her parents in 1949; her mother is wearing the silver pin.

Photograph courtesy of Susan Rubin Suleiman

Susan Rubin Suleiman’s memoir of a life in Nazi Hungary—and after

Screenwriter Julian Breece working with a colleague on set

Screenwriter Julian Breece (right) working with a colleague on set

Photograph courtesy of Julian Breece

Screenwriter Julian Breece on “writing from the soul”

Vintage Harvard Square: a view in 1960

Vintage Harvard Square: a view in 1960, when people dressed formally and there was no MBTA station

Photograph courtesy of Harvard University Archives

In love with Harvard Square, the invention of ICUs, Seamus Heaney

V.V. Ganeshananthan

V.V. Ganeshananthan

Photograph by Sophia Mayrhofer

Novelist V.V. Ganeshananthan on writing diasporic fiction

Vladimir Lenin

Through warlike economic mobilization, Vladimir Lenin’s Soviet “Project-State” sought to remake institutions, cultures, psychology, end even desires.

Photograph from wikipedia/in the public domain

Interpreting politics through the rise of technocracy, morality, and the “web of capital”

University People

Usha Thakrar standing in the greenhouse production center at Stonefield Farm

Usha Thakrar in the Gleaners’ produce-packing center at Stonefield Farm

Photograph by Stu Rosner

Boston Area Gleaners fights hunger from the ground up.

Victor A. Lopez sits in a boxing ring

At a recent boxing fundraiser, Victor Lopez-Carmen wore a beaded bear claw bolo tie in honor of his great-grandfather in the Hunkpati Dakota Nation, Chief Mato Wanagi (Chief Bear Ghost).

Photograph by Stu Rosner

Future physician Victor A. Lopez-Carmen fights for Indigenous healthcare equity

Illustration by Mike Ellis

An undergraduate perspective on the gathering crisis

The College Pump

The John Harvard statue, with books at hand

John Harvard statue, with books at hand

Photograph by Brian Snyder/Reuters/Alamy Stock Photo

John Harvard’s reading matter, a scholar poet, the towering John Fox

Treasure

Realistic diorama of an old growth forest

Photograph by Jim Harrison

Scenes of an ever-changing forest, in miniature