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Ashton Carter Named Deputy Secretary of Defense
The White House has nominated Ashton B. Carter, the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer, as the next deputy secretary of defense, reports the Boston Globe . The Obama administration noted that Carter’s nomination indicates the importance the White House places …
Can Slime Molds Think?
Slime mold doesn’t look like much , really. The bright yellow protist goes by many names: ninth-century Chinese scholar Twang Ching-Shih called it “demon droppings”; Carl Linnaeus referred to it as “rotting mucus”; and Dallas residents who watched slime …
Issue: November-December 2021
Faculty Tensions II: Battling over Benefits
At the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) meeting on November 4, a rare standing-room-only crowd of professors raised objections to two recent University actions they associated with the central administration. The first, concerning research that …
“Cut Missal Up…”
W hen a colleague chanced upon a stray medieval manuscript page in the Harvard Theatre Collection in 2018, then-Houghton Library curator William P. Stoneman knew whom to call: Peter Kidd, a medieval-art expert. Kidd’s detective work identified the page as …
Issue: March-April 2020
Personal History
Adams University professor emeritus Bernard Bailyn, Ph.D. ’53, LL.D. ’99, remains a giant among early-American historians, and among the ranks of Harvard University citizens. Illuminating History: A Retrospective of Seven Decades (W.W. Norton, $28.95) …
Issue: March-April 2020
Time to Tax Carbon
Next year , representatives from nations around the world will meet in Paris to discuss a global climate-change agreement that would take effect in 2020. Central to those discussions will be setting a price on carbon and its equivalents—a figure that …
Issue: September-October 2014
The Three Principles of Transformation
On May 22, presiding over her final Baccalaureate ceremony, President Drew Faust spoke to the graduating seniors of 2018 about transformation—both theirs, and her own. While recounting the transformations that had taken place at Harvard during the class’s …
Bruce Jenkins
As an undergraduate working for the New York University cinema studies department, Bruce Jenkins operated a technological device that has changed but little in the last century: the film projector. "I love it--it's the last vestige of the machine age in …
Adams House Will Be Renewed after Lowell
Adams House will be the sixth undergraduate residence to be renewed, House faculty deans Judy and Sean Palfrey announced in an email today. The renewal, like the renovations of other undergraduate Houses, will make Adams wheelchair-accessible, add new …
Cranes Crescendo
The already torrid pace of construction around campus is about to intensify. The renovation and expansion of Winthrop House, the largest undergraduate-residence “renewal” to date, will surge toward completion in August—and the even larger Lowell House …
Issue: May-June 2017
Harvard Reports a $298-Million Surplus and Details Endowment Changes
Harvard has recorded its sixth consecutive budget surplus, some $298 million, up from a $196-million surplus in the prior year, according to the University’s financial report for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2019, published today. From fiscal 2014 …
John Lewis Named Harvard Commencement Speaker
Congressman John Lewis, LL.D. ’12 —a towering figure in the U.S. civil-rights movement who has represented Georgia’s Fifth District in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1986—will be the principal speaker at Harvard’s 367th Commencement, on May 24, …
Vermont Folk Songs, Plugged In
The Green Mountain State does not leap to mind when the subject of indigenous American music comes up. Yet Vermont has bred American folk music, and your name in secret I would write ( http://yournameinsecretiwouldwrite.blogspot.com ) , a recent CD …
Issue: May-June 2012
Downsizing: Arsenal Buildings Sold
athenahealth , a healthcare computer-services company, and the lead tenant in the Arsenal on the Charles office complex, announced on December 5 that it has agreed to purchase the property from Harvard for $168.5 million to accommodate its headquarters …
“The Busiest Man in Poker”
In 2003 , when a complete amateur named Chris Moneymaker won the $2.5-million first prize at the World Series of Poker (WSOP), the game’s highest-profile event, Bernard Lee ’92 had already been playing poker with buddies in his hometown of Wayland, …
Issue: November-December 2012