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“He Found Himself at a Loss”
For the DeSanctis family, medicine had always been a way of life. Roman DeSanctis, M.D. ’55, was a renowned—and busy—cardiologist, and for his wife, Ruth, and four daughters, that often meant celebrating birthdays early in the morning, so that he could …
Faculty Honored for Teaching and Advising
At the May 5 Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) meeting, dean Michael D. Smith announced the following annual recognitions for teaching, advising, and mentoring. Harvard College Professors Recipients of FAS’s highest honor for faculty members who make …
Harvard Medical School Advances Research with $200-Million Gift
Harvard Medical School (HMS) will make major investments in imaging capabilities for structural biology, single-cell sequencing, and drug screening—all underpinnings for basic and clinically applicable research—with the support of a $200-million gift, the …
Cranberry Harvest Celebration
Long before cranberries were corralled and canned to zest up roasted turkeys, Native Americans used the indigenous North American fruit for food, medicine, and dyes. European settlers followed suit, yet it was not until 1816 that wild cranberries were …
Issue: September-October 2016
Honor Roll
We recognize four outstanding contributors to Harvard Magazine for their work on readers’ behalf in 2014, and happily confer on each a $1,000 honorarium. Adam Kirsch Contributing editor Adam Kirsch ’97—critic, essayist, poet—has long crafted beautifully …
Issue: January-February 2015
How the Enlightenment Led to Colonialism
It’s not immediately clear , as William Kentridge starts to play an excerpt from his 2005 animated film rendition of The Magic Flute , how the 1791 Mozart opera connects to the topic of his second Norton Lecture, “A Brief History of Colonial Revolts.” On …
John Lithgow on the Arts, and Life
Actor and author John Lithgow ’67, Ar.D. ’05, made some extended remarks on the arts, including personal reflections on his own childhood experiences with visual arts, at the first meeting of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences' Commission on …
Financing Climate Adaptation—and Deciding What to Let Go
What will happen when sea-level rise, wildfires, droughts, and floods begin to erode the tax base that cities and towns will use to pay for seawalls, firebreaks, and other expensive projects that could help them prepare for climate change? Financial …
Frank Gehry to Receive Arts Medal
Architect Frank Gehry , Ds ’57, Ar.D. ’00, creator of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and MIT’s Stata Center, will receive the Harvard Arts Medal at the opening event of the annual Arts First festival on April 28. The event’s host, actor John Lithgow ’67, …
Liquidity and Leverage
In one sense , the projected 30 percent decline in the value of the endowment is Harvard’s financial problem. If the invested assets earn the expected return over time, distributing funds from a $36.9-billion endowment at a typical rate (about 5 percent) …
Issue: July-August 2009
Destroying Childhood
A child has been killed in war every three minutes during the last decade. Many were not civilians. Irregular armies from Sudan to the Philippines, from Turkey to Colombia, from Kosovo to Iraq use child soldiers. They are the shock troops, the cannon …
Issue: September-October 2005
Harvard Professor Carla Martin on the Cocoa Crisis
Why have chocolate prices surged since before Valentine's Day, hitting an all time high around Easter? Some analysts have predicted that cocoa may reach highs of $10,000 a ton in this historic period of inflation, growing in value at a rate faster than …
Curiosities: Animating a New Species at the Peabody Essex Museum
PVC tubing and zip ties form the essential “bones” of Dutch artist Theo Jansen’s otherworldy yet mobile strandbeests (“beach animals”), eight of which are on display at the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) starting September 19. Included is his latest and …
Issue: September-October 2015
Arsenic and Old Lead
The Arnold Arboretum anticipated closing a deal last December to sell the Case Estates, its 62.5-acre property (complete with barn and two other structures) in Weston, Massachusetts, to the town of Weston for $22.5 million. But first the town “decided …
Issue: September-October 2007
Legacies’ Legacy
If legacy preferences in admissions—an advantage for alumni children applying to college—end soon, historians will identify two 2023 nails in the coffin. The first is the Supreme Court’s June decision outlawing affirmative action in admissions. Because …
Issue: November-December 2023