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Closed Doors
Universities customarily are open places. There is security where required (dorms, labs, libraries and museums), but a visitor can get to most appointments without producing identification or passing through checkpoints. This porosity corresponds to the …
Issue: March-April 2020
Mark Zuckerberg to Speak at Harvard Commencement
The University announced today that Mark Zuckerberg ’06, co-founder and CEO of Facebook, will be the featured guest speaker at the afternoon exercises during Harvard’s 366 th Commencement, Thursday, May 25, in Tercentenary Theatre, following President …
Poise, in Spite of Everything
“You have to get the eyes right,” says portrait artist Nina Skov Jensen ’25. “You can mess up a lot of other things and it won’t matter, but the eyes have to be right.” That was one of the first lessons Jensen absorbed when she began teaching herself to …
Issue: May-June 2024
Nuclear Treaties and the Russo-Ukrainian Conflict
In this interview, Matthew Bunn , the Schlesinger professor of the practice of energy, national security and foreign policy at Harvard Kennedy School, discusses the evolution of United States nuclear policy. Bunn has been a leader of the Project on …
Brevia
Park Plans Proceed Although the University’s plans for completing its first science building in Allston remain uncertain, it is proceeding with community amenities promised to the neighborhood as part of the long-term ambition to develop academic …
Issue: September-October 2009
Pandemic in the Workplace
As U.S. states and economies worldwide take tentative steps toward reopening, a pertinent study from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health suggests that workplace transmission of the coronavirus accounted for 48 percent of the initial outbreaks in …
Behind the Scenes: Writing what only I can write
THERE’S A QUOTE MY FORMER WRITING PROFESSOR LOVES, from Isaac Bashevis Singer: “I only write what only I can write.” I keep that quote on a sticky note near my desk. Of course, as a journalist, I don’t always get to choose exactly which topics I write …
HAA Honors Alumni Clubs and SIGs
The honors, awarded at the Harvard Alumni Association’s winter meeting in February, celebrate both alumni and shared interest groups (SIGs) that have organized exceptional programs. Established in 2015 to “create a strong, connected, collaborative …
Issue: March-April 2018
Romare Bearden
On november 28, 1977, Calvin Tomkins’s biographical word-sketch of artist Romare Bearden appeared in The New Yorker . Prompted perhaps by his gallery, Bearden then decided to cast his own life as a sequence of collages. A 1979 exhibit displayed 28 works, …
Issue: January-February 2020
Sports Medicine Man
At around 14, Brant Berkstresser realized he wasn’t much of an athlete. “I grew up in a large high school,” he says, “and I was very small.” His goal was to graduate weighing more than 100 pounds. “I started my senior year at 98,” he says. “I graduated …
Issue: January-February 2020
Surpluses and Scholarship
A decade after the financial crisis overturned Harvard’s academic ambitions, the University has righted its financial ship, and then some: a $298 million surplus in the fiscal year ended last June 30, anchored by some $1.9 billion distributed from the …
Issue: January-February 2020
Erin McDermott Announced as Harvard’s First Woman Athletic Director
Faculty of Arts and Sciences dean Claudine Gay announced this afternoon that Erin McDermott will become the University’s new Nichols Family Athletic Director, the first woman to fill the role in Harvard history. McDermott will begin at Harvard on July 1, …
Makeda Best: What Does Landscape Photography Say About Our Politics?
WHAT DOES LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY SAY ABOUT OUR POLITICS? Makeda Best, curator of photography at the Harvard Art Museums and a visiting professor of Art, Film, and Visual Studies, shares her insights on landscape photographers, as well as …
A Letter to Our Readers
Dear Readers, This morning—after undergraduates who were able to leave departed campus by the College’s Sunday, 5:00 p.m. target—Harvard faculties and the administration began piloting remote work, away from campus, for as many employees as possible. …
John S. Rosenberg , Irina Kuksin
Sunil Amrith, Kate Orff, and Damon Rich Awarded MacArthur Grants
Sunil Amrith , Mehra Family professor of South Asian studies and professor of history, has been awarded a MacArthur Foundation fellowship (better known as the “genius grant”), a no-strings-attached award of $625,000 paid out over five years. The …