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Video: An Operatic Honorary Degree
At the Morning Exercises , Harvard President Drew Faust conferred an honorary degree on Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg , L ’59. Fellow honorand Plácido Domingo sang the end of the conferral to her. View a video here: …
Yesterday’s News
1920 The football team, playing its first and last postseason game, defeats Oregon, 7-6, in the Rose Bowl. 1925 Five hundred students appear on January 10 for a final dinner in Memorial Hall before the University reluctantly closes the 50-year-old …
Issue: January-February 2025
History in Progress
September 11, 2001, split Richard Beck’s adolescence in two. Fourteen on the day of the attacks, he was old enough to remember life before—when anyone could walk up to an airport gate, when students learned in school that history was over. He came of age …
Issue: September-October 2024
Alexander Gassel’s “Painted Poetry”
At first glance, the more romantic paintings by Alexander Gassel could simply be storybook illustrations. Entranced lovers stand in a boat rocked by waves. Angels crane against a dark night. The swirling Madonna envelops her child amid blossoms. Yet the …
Issue: May-June 2021
American Solidarity
Like many Americans during this fractious election year, Cardinal Robert W. McElroy ’76 has been focused on politics and the state of the country. “We can idealize, as if times in the past were all graced with tremendous solidarity,” he says. “But I think …
Issue: May-June 2024
Clothes Overboard!
The first hot-air balloon trip across the English Channel began buoyantly. “We rose slowly and majestically from the Cliff,” wrote John Jeffries, A.B. 1763. A “beautiful assembly” cheered on the Boston-born medical doctor and his more expert partner, …
Issue: May-June 2021
Universities in a Polarized Era
Speaking at the first Faculty of Arts and Sciences meeting of the new semester this afternoon, President Lawrence S. Bacow addressed the polarization of American politics—including the assault on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, and fierce criticism of the …
HMS Names Barbara McNeil Acting Dean
Barbara J. McNeil, Watts professor of health care policy and professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School (HMS), has been appointed acting dean of the faculty of medicine beginning August 1, Harvard president Drew Faust and provost Alan Garber …
Putting the Music in Musical Theater
Last spring, during the height of the pandemic’s catastrophic first wave in New York City—the streets empty, the air full of ambulance sirens—musical-theater composer Zoe Sarnak ’09 wrote a new song. Titled “Storm” and commissioned by the Guggenheim …
Issue: July-August 2021
Brevia
Peak Professors John Y. Campbell John H. Coatsworth Justin Ide / Harvard News Office Justin Ide / Harvard News Office The Faculty of Arts and Sciences has recognized four members for excellence in undergraduate teaching and advising. Each becomes a …
Issue: July-August 2006
A New Day for Dunster
Smelling of fresh paint , and with the tags still dangling off the Herman Miller furniture, Dunster House welcomed students back on August 29 following 15 months of physical renewal. With construction under way since June 2014, the Dunster community had …
President Bacow’s Harvard Baccalaureate Remarks
Good afternoon, members of the Class of 2021, soon-to-be alumni of Harvard College. The role of the Harvard president in the Baccalaureate Service is to impart wisdom as you complete that last step in a long and sometimes difficult journey—the receipt of …
Curricular Conundrums
During the past decade, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) has labored mightily and at length to construct a workable general-education component for undergraduates’ course of study. At present, Gen Ed comprises eight courses intended to lift young …
Issue: March-April 2016
Plans for Winthrop House Renewal Include Expansion
Harvard has released broad sketches of plans for the renovation of Winthrop House ; the work is scheduled to begin in 2016 and end the following year. Winthrop will be the second full House, after Dunster , to undergo renewal as part of a $1-billion-plus …
A Net-Zero-Energy Victorian Home Makes History
Earth Day encourages all of us to reflect on how we can contribute to building a greener, cleaner environment. Cambridge is known worldwide as a center for innovation of all kinds, including net-zero-energy construction—the Harvard Graduate School of …