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These Student Speakers Have History to Share
Every year , three student speakers address the Commencement crowd in Tercentenary Theatre: the student “parts” that are an essential feature of Harvard’s graduation traditions. Here Harvard Magazine profiles the honored student speakers at the 374 th …
The Professor Who Quantified Democracy
In the weeks and months after Donald Trump’s second inauguration, the number “3.5 percent” kept showing up—like a mantra, or maybe a prayer—in different corners of the internet. It was repeated in social media posts, long Reddit threads, online …
Issue: July-August 2025
Nigerian Women Speak Out
HEAR WORD! Naija Woman Talk True, directed by Ifeoma Fafunwa (a current Radcliffe Institute fellow), is a dynamic performance piece inspired by a spectrum of true stories about women across Nigeria. Nigerian actresses combine dances, songs, and spoken …
Issue: January-February 2018
Harvard Commencement Day 2025
Harvard Yard could not have been lovelier than in the spring of 2025, as cool weather extended a lush period of bloom, and the rhododendrons’ display coincided with a late May Commencement. But the climate on campus did not always match. Just months after …
A Borrower Be
In late 2008 , at the depths of the financial crisis, the University borrowed $2.5 billion, expensively (at tax-exempt and taxable interest rates of 5.4 percent and 5.8 percent) to shore up its liquidity and provide flexibility within the endowment, and …
Issue: November-December 2015
Harvard’s Standoff: The Fight’s Key Players
Harvard Magazine has compiled key players on both sides of the conflict, from those in the Trump administration leading the crackdown to the Harvard faculty and administrators fighting back. Click here to read comprehensive coverage of Harvard in the …
Issue: July-August 2025
Phi Beta Kappa Speakers Don’t Shrink from the News
Donald Trump’s name was never spoken during Tuesday morning’s Phi Beta Kappa Literary Exercises, but you could still hear it loud and clear. It was perhaps loudest during a standing ovation for President Alan M. Garber. At the top of his oration, Rakesh …
Breaking Bread
In his new show on Bloomberg TV, Alexander Heffner ’12 uses the universal language of food to speak with governors and senators from across the country—and the political spectrum—about the divisive politics threatening the health of American democracy. In …
Back to the Bond Market
The University issued $601 million of tax-exempt bonds and $300 million of taxable bonds in early November. Because the former issues refinance existing debt and long-term borrowing under Harvard’s commercial-paper program, total debt outstanding rose to …
Issue: January-February 2011
“What Are You?”
Most bluntly , the question was, "What are you?" Usually posed by a defiant, cocked-hip, sandy-haired child on the local monkey bars, the strange question usually left me frozen in my Strawberry-Shortcake Tretorns. What I realized over time was that even …
Three Cheers
We’re proud to recognize three contributors to Harvard Magazine for outstanding work on readers’ behalf during 2022, and to confer a $1,000 honorarium on each. Lincoln Caplan Photograph by Susan L. Carney The McCord Writing Prize (honoring David T.W. …
Issue: January-February 2023
A Milestone for Asian-American Alumni
Organized by the Harvard Asian American Alumni Alliance (HAAAA), the three-day Asian American Alumni Summit on October 15-17 drew more than 400 people from six decades and all of Harvard’s schools ( http://summit.haaaa.net ). “We are immeasurably diverse …
Issue: January-February 2011
Pork Bao and Bubble Waffles
Chinatown's hip Shōjō serves addictive Asian-fusion tapas with a quirky Western twist. Japanese sweet-potato tots are dipped in miso tare aioli ($8). Chicken and Hong Kong bubble waffles (a popular street-food item) come slathered with five-spice butter …
Issue: January-February 2018
Medieval Disinformation?
A digital reconstruction of thirteenth-century ceramic floor tiles, now on display at The College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, helps reframe ideas about political agendas and artistic influences in medieval England. Found in heaps of fragments at the …
Issue: March-April 2023
Mahadevan, Huybers, and Others Named MacArthur Fellows
Applied mathematician Lakshminarayanan Mahadevan and climate scientist Peter Huybers have been named MacArthur Fellows. Mahadevan, who is Lola England de Valpine professor of applied mathematics, is popularly known for precisely explaining phenomena such …