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Harvard Medalists
Five alumni—Charles J. “Charlie” Egan Jr. ’54, Michael E.A. Gellert ’53, Thomas W. Lentz Jr., Ph.D. ’85, Sandra Ohrn Moose, Ph.D. ’68, and Robert D. Reischauer ’63—received the 2015 Harvard Medal for “extraordinary service to the University” on May 28, …
Issue: July-August 2015
“Let Us Be Courageous Together”
On the eve of her installation as the thirtieth president, the Harvard Gazette asked Claudine Gay about the most significant possibilities she saw before the University she now leads. Alluding to her remarks last December 15 , when her election was …
Issue: November-December 2023
A Bumper Crop in the National Academy of Medicine
The National Academy of Medicine has elected 100 new members including a dozen Harvard faculty affiliates—an unusually large cohort, and more evidence of the University’s prowess in medicine, life sciences, and public health—plus a couple of other …
Lizabeth Cohen Appointed Radcliffe Institute Interim Dean
Jones professor of American studies Lizabeth Cohen will become interim dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study , starting July 1, President Drew Faust announced today . Cohen specializes in twentieth-century American social and political …
The Return of History
On the day Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, historian Serhii Plokhy was on sabbatical in Vienna, researching a new book about Chernobyl. He’d spent weeks sifting through documents in the archives of the International Atomic Energy …
Issue: September-October 2023
The Supreme Court Affirmative Action Rulings: An Analysis
Editor’s note: Harvard Magazine asked contributing editor Lincoln Caplan, a leading legal-affairs journalist, to analyze the Supreme Court rulings on affirmative action in college admissions. For almost half a century , race-conscious admissions have …
Realities of Empire
Empires fascinate. Not only scholars, but writers of fiction, geographers, sociologists, videogame and movie producers. We historians ask why and how they are they formed: by conquest, surely, though sometimes by marriage or alliances. How are they …
Issue: May-June 2022
Rethinking Libraries for a Digital Future
Harvard is rethinking libraries, librarians, and collection priorities, as described in this magazine’s May-June feature article Gutenberg 2.0. And it is actively digitizing its holdings to make them available to audiences within and beyond the Harvard …
Re-naming Lowell House?
As they prepared to assume the faculty deanship of the renovated Lowell House last summer, David Laibson and Nina Zipser announced they would relocate certain portraits—notably that of Abbott Lawrence Lowell, Harvard’s president from 1909 to 1933 , …
Music and Language, Reconciled
Readers of the New York Review of Books who are also lovers of music—and who have reached a certain age—will know that music-lovers in the past have been able to read the writings of some musical titans who also were superb prose stylists. I think in …
Issue: March-April 2022
Life After Brain Injury
Carolyn Gold’s memoir chronicling her long, slow recovery from a brain injury caused by West Nile encephalitis begins with a mosquito bite that she does not remember. It most likely happened sometime in August 2017, while Gold, M.Ed. ’85, was on vacation …
Creative Ventures
If any place exemplifies the pleasures of shopping locally, it’s Ouimille. The stores, in Cambridge and Boston, feel like a creative fête, a 24/7 kaleidoscopic fashion week array of audacious clothing and accessories. It’s a creative environment that …
Issue: November-December 2024
Harvard Students Protest Supreme Court Ruling
Two days after the U.S. Supreme Court banned race-conscious affirmative action in higher education admissions, Harvard Yard transformed into a rallying ground. Led by the Coalition for a Diverse Harvard, more than 100 students, alumni, and members of the …
Virtually Perfect
Summer is different this year thanks to COVID-19. But even though we can’t gather, shop, or dine in person doesn’t mean we can’t keep busy. We just have to be creative. These slower, languid days are ideal for home improvements. If you’ve decided to …
Issue: July-August 2020
Cambridge Scholars
Four seniors have won Harvard Cambridge Scholarships to study at Cambridge University during the 2014-2015 academic year. Gregory Kristof , of Scarsdale, New York, and Kirkland House, a philosophy concentrator, will be the Lionel De Jersey Harvard Scholar …
Issue: July-August 2015