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Balanced Budget, Benefits Battle
Following two years of modest deficits, Harvard closed its books on fiscal year 2014, which ended last June 30, some $2.7 million in the black: operating revenue increased 4.8 percent to $4.409 billion and operating expenses rose 3.9 percent to $4.406 …
Issue: January-February 2015
Downtown Oasis
On a Sunday afternoon , the airy lobby of the Mattatuck Museum in downtown Waterbury is alive with sound. The Connecticut Accordion Association Orchestra, back by popular demand, plunges into “Moonlight Serenade” as listeners nod along or enjoy a late …
Issue: November-December 2022
The Payout Payoff
Following two years of high investment returns on endowment assets, the Harvard Corporation has approved an increase in funds distributed to support University operations in fiscal year 2006, beginning July 1 -- but with a new twist. During the current …
Issue: March-April 2005
An Intellectual Entente
“Stamp collectors” was the derisive term future Nobel laureate James Watson applied to Harvard biology professors involved in classification and anatomy in the 1950s. The co-discoverer of DNA’s double helix structure, then in his twenties, had little …
Wendy Lesser's "Threepenny Review"
Wendy Lesser ’73 is hesitant to say very much about the new book she’s been working on. “It’s a tiny little embryonic thing at the moment,” she demurs. But she’s clearly excited by the idea: a collection of essays about 15 now-dead writers who were her …
Issue: July-August 2022
Straws in the Wind?
As the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) determines how Harvard College, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences will operate this fall —residentially, remotely, or some mixture—three very different …
Making Space
There were two ways that Junko Yamamoto, M.Arch. ’17, could get to elementary school from her childhood home in Japan’s Gunma Prefecture: she could take a flat, paved path—what she calls “the civilized road”—or she could walk the long way through the …
Issue: March-April 2024
Unprecedented
When people who are steeped in our institutional history hear the word “unprecedented,” they are understandably skeptical. There isn’t much that hasn’t happened at the University at one point or another over the past 383 years, and our Class of 2020 is …
Issue: July-August 2020
Klarman Hall Breaks Ground
Under a dazzling spring sky, with just a hint of cirrus on the horizon—temperatures in the 70s, shadbushes and weeping cherries in full bloom, and leaves bursting to unfurl from every bush and tree on campus—Harvard Business School (HBS) this afternoon …
Committee Recommends a More Transparent Tenure Process
In 2020 , fifteen years after the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) adopted the current form of its formal tenure procedures, FAS dean Claudine Gay announced a review of the pressure-filled process, which has sparked controversy in recent years. The …
From Punk to the Silver Screen
As an editor at Mademoiselle magazine in New York, Carter Burwell’s mother used to chase down writers like Truman Capote and Dylan Thomas to get their overdue pages. She loved going to jazz clubs and staying till closing time. When the musicians went …
Issue: January-February 2022
Adam Falk Address to PBK
The Price of the Pin, Adam Falk, Harvard Literary Exercises, May 23, 2023 It’s truly an honor to have been invited to offer some remarks at this august gathering. I’ve spoken in public more times than I can count, but I’ve never before been invited to …
Cambridge 02138
Harvard and Liberal Arts I am responding to Brian Rosenberg’s “Is Harvard Complacent?” (September-October, page 47). I appreciate his perspective, but I do not share it, at least with regard to Harvard College. He addresses whether studying English, for …
Issue: November-December 2021
As Coronavirus Spreads, Harvard Cancels Athletics
After University administrators informed College students that they must move out of their dorms by 5 p.m. on Sunday, Harvard Athletics began to make its own cancellations—a prudent decision, but a brutal blow to athletes, coaches, and staff. On …
Harvard Graduates Leave No One Behind
THROUGHOUT HIS TWO DEPLOYMENTS TO AFGHANISTAN as an Air Force officer, Phil Caruso, J.D.-M.B.A. ’19, worked closely with an Afghan informant who collected information on behalf of the United States, risking his life in the process. “He was the most …
Issue: May-June 2022