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A Living Treasure in Boston
With 281 acres of thriving trees, flowers, and bushes from around the globe, Harvard’s Arnold Arboretum is so much more than a walk in the park. The historic oasis was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted as part of Boston’s Emerald Necklace, and today still …
Issue: July-August 2020
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
Health Benefits to Cost 3.8 Percent More
After several years of significant increases in employee healthcare spending, Harvard’s overall healthcare costs will increase 3.8 percent in 2018 (down from last year’s 7 percent increase, and 7.3 percent the previous year). Employees’ monthly premiums …
Hip-Hop Art and French Innovators
The Museum of Fine Arts reopened for in-person visits this fall, and is celebrating its 150 th anniversary with three distinct shows. The major exhibition, “Writing the Future: Basquiat and the Hip-Hop Generation” (October 18-May 16) , gathers more than …
Issue: November-December 2020
Harvard and the Cult of Robert E. Lee
The new year has arrived, which means the Sons of Confederate Veterans will soon march down Main Street here in Lexington, Virginia, to celebrate the January birthdays of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. Two days later, a much larger Lexington crowd …
Developing a Diverse Faculty
“Harvard is at the beginning of a very long journey,” writes senior vice provost for faculty development and diversity Evelynn M. Hammonds in the first annual report issued by her office (published June 13; see the new “Faculty Affairs” website, …
Issue: September-October 2006
Spaces for Art, People, and Light
This winter, the entire Gund Hall lobby of the Graduate School of Design (GSD) was given over to various depictions, commentaries, and celebrations of the Herta and Paul Amir Building at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, which opened in November. Its designer …
Issue: May-June 2012
At Last, a Sweep
On Friday evening , an unusual sight greeted fans at Lavietes Pavilion: the 2018 NCAA men’s basketball national championship trophy was on display in the lobby, thanks to a promotion that is rotating the prize to one school in every conference in advance …
History-Making Astronaut
Stephanie Wilson ’88 lived out nearly every child’s fantasy when she soared aloft aboard NASA’s space shuttle Discovery in early July, making history as only the second African-American woman to venture into space. The Pittsfield, Massachusetts, native …
Issue: September-October 2006
Hoops: "Inadvertent" Violation
The Ivy League has announced that Harvard will self-impose recruiting limits for the 2010-11 academic year after acknowledging an inadvertent "secondary" violation of the NCAA's policies of recruitment of prospective athletes. Three years ago, assistant …
Harvard Cambridge Scholars
Three members of the College class of 2024 have won Harvard-Cambridge Scholarships to study at Cambridge University during the 2024-25 academic year. (A fourth student and scholarship had not been named by press deadlines.) Gaurav (Dhruv) Goel, of Lowell …
Issue: July-August 2024
Completing the Century
From photographer Berenice Abbott to labor activist Elaine Black Yoneda, from Wyoming governor Nellie Tayloe Ross (born in 1876) to Tejana singer Selena Perez Quintanilla (born in 1971), Notable American Women: A Biographical Dictionary Completing the …
Issue: January-February 2005
Three Harvardians among Time’s 100
Time ma gazine's annual "Time 100" issue, which lists 100 people "who most affect the world" includes three Harvard faculty members. One is Gottlieb professor of law Elizabeth Warren, who chairs the Congressional Oversight Panel investigating the …
Emma Dench
“I was very morbid as a child,” says Emma Dench, professor of the classics and of history. “I liked dead things and dead people”—and when she visited the Roman baths in Bath, England, at seven, she says, “I realized the Romans were very, very dead.” …
Issue: March-April 2010
How Harvard Handled the 1918 Flu Pandemic
On September 23, 1918, when Harvard College opened its doors for the new school year, the Spanish flu had infected hundreds of Cambridge residents. More than 3,000 local children—nearly a quarter of total school enrollment—were reported ill, and Cambridge …