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Grade Deflation
Jawboning works. That's the import of a letter to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) from Benedict H. Gross, dean of undergraduate education. He reports that even before FAS-enacted changes in College grading and the awarding of academic honors take …
Issue: May-June 2003
A Bouquet for Nature-Lovers
The Rarest of the Rare: Stories behind the Treasures at the Harvard Museum of Natural History (HarperResource, $22.95) is a delightful armchair tour through the packed museum with an agreeable guide, staff writer Nancy Pick, who points out scores of …
Issue: November-December 2004
The Language of Movement
I n the finale of the Netflix series Living with Yourself, Paul Rudd’s character gets into a fight with himself—or, rather, with a clone of himself. That new-and-improved version has spent the previous seven and a half episodes tormenting the original, a …
Issue: January-February 2020
Harvard Unveils Plans for Science and Engineering Center
University officials have now released designs for the long-anticipated Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) complex in Allston—a 586,000 square-foot, six-story building expected to be completed in 2020. The …
Running Radcliffe
President Drew Faust on April 28 appointed Higgins professor of natural sciences Barbara J. Grosz to the deanship of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study (RIAS). Grosz, a computer scientist who has been a Harvard faculty member since 1986 ( …
Issue: July-August 2008
Sarah Whiting Named Dean of Graduate School of Design
Sarah Whiting, dean of the Rice University School of Architecture, has been named dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD), effective July 1, 2019. She succeeds Mohsen Mostafavi, who has served as dean for the past 11 years, and will be the …
Ski Team, Waxing
In the north country of New Hampshire, skiers from Dartmouth, the current NCAA champions, reign supreme, while the Green Mountains are home to the University of Vermont ski team, another perennial powerhouse. On the intercollegiate ski trail, Harvard has …
Issue: January-February 2008
Africa in Clay
Clay artworks are as varied as the populations of the world: “There are dozens of different typologies of clay,” says Clowes professor of fine arts Suzanne Blier , corresponding to different colors and textures found throughout the earth’s river banks. …
Issue: May-June 2019
"Crossing Boundaries"
Historian Drew Gilpin Faust, founding dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, will become Harvard’s twenty-eighth president on July 1. She was elected by the Corporation, Harvard’s senior governing board, with the consent of the Board of …
Issue: March-April 2007
Off the Shelf
Why Flying Is Miserable: And How to Fix It, by Ganesh Sitaraman ’04, J.D. ’08 (Columbia, $17 paper). High fares, reduced service to small cities, and rotten consumer experiences are a choice, not an inevitability, writes the Vanderbilt law professor. He …
Issue: November-December 2023
Inclusive Design, Incisive Art
Amy Yoshitsu ’10 has been working on a mind map, a document that resembles a street map representing math, dreams, and a spreadsheet of the economic and social resources that go into the art she creates. Main arteries labeled “Systems,” “Racism,” and “The …
Issue: November-December 2023
$tellar Swan Song
Ending his 15-year run as president of Harvard Management Company, Jack R. Meyer, M.B.A. ’69, and his investment colleagues turned in a rousing finale. For the fiscal year ended June 30, total investment return of 19.2 percent brought the value of …
Issue: November-December 2005
Music and Medicine
When Toussaint Miller ’25 arrived at Harvard, he figured he was done with music. He’d loved playing trumpet in his high school jazz band, but now it was time to focus on his books. He wanted to go to medical school, maybe become a surgeon. “I was like, …
Issue: March-April 2025
Teen Grind Culture
Like it or not, children and teenagers today are live participants in an unprecedented experiment, as the sudden ubiquity of smartphones and hyper-engaging social media influences their development. Parents and educators who are not as digitally savvy …
Issue: March-April 2025
Making Voters Care About Climate Change
One day about four years ago, John Marshall’s youngest son came home from a class on climate change at Harvard Extension School and told his father, “Dad, you have to do something about this.” The 17-year-old (now a junior at Harvard) had been learning …