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Admissions Equity
Several years ago, a journalist at Harvard as a Nieman Fellow whispered a pitch for what he thought an explosive story: that Harvard gave admissions preference to “legacies”—children of alumni. I knew that, I replied. I had in mind M. Elaine Mar’s vivid …
Issue: November-December 2006
The “Scandalous Mansion”
Built between 1899 and 1902, the Ayer Mansion on Commonwealth Avenue is a rare surviving residence designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany. It was an outlier, commissioned by outliers. The textile magnate and marketing savant Frederick Ayer was a self-made man …
Issue: January-February 2017
Challenges to Harvard’s President: An Update
The following are developments since the confrontational Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) meeting following the announcement of the forthcoming resignation of Dean William C. Kirby. At that meeting, faculty members criticized President Lawrence H. …
John Harvard, Reader
T ourists adore John Harvard, the statue, for their Yard photo ops. Development officers revere the man for his cash-giving precedent. Now, Richard Dey ’73, who was poetry editor for The Harvard Advocate , has performed the seemingly impossible act of …
Issue: May-June 2023
Designing Good Lives
MASS Design’s domestic initiatives address the basic elements of a good life: housing, health, food, and sustainability. Most are led from MASS Design’s Boston office, the firm’s operational hub. Though he served as lead architect on The Embrace memorial, …
Issue: May-June 2023
Seeking Climate Solutions
The University has entered a new phase of engagement with the global climate-change problem, as the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability funded its first substantial grants to five interdisciplinary, cross-school research clusters. The …
Issue: May-June 2023
Saving Money, Oil, and the Climate
The United States is in urgent need of a comprehensive, rational, and—above all—honest policy to guide its energy future, a policy that addresses two key, interrelated objectives: reducing dependence on vulnerable sources of imported oil and reducing …
Issue: March-April 2008
News Briefs
Police—and Student—Conduct The committee appointed by President Drew Faust last spring to review the April 13 off-campus arrest of a black undergraduate by Cambridge police—video evidence showed the physical force used to restrain him—completed its report …
Issue: January-February 2019
Philadelphia's Story
Philadelphia stands as the perfect prototype of the broken urban school system that federal regulators were trying to fix. For decades the school district, beset by powerful unions, rampant cronyism, and bureaucratic sclerosis, has shown little capacity …
Issue: September-October 2016
Making Space
Just as I was sitting down to write this column before the Thanksgiving break, amidst grim reports of a rapidly spreading virus, welcome news about the work of a recent graduate crossed my desk. TIME had named Upsolve—a nonprofit co-founded by Rohan …
Issue: January-February 2021
Update: Harvard versus Yale
A 10-0 defeat of Yale, meted out under arctic conditions at the Stadium on November 22, gave Harvard a 9-1 football season and an Ivy League co-championship. Harvard shares the Ivy laurels with Brown, which won a 24-22 squeaker in the teams' first league …
Diabetes: A Looming Epidemic—and Solutions
In 1985 in the United States, there were only eight states where more than 10 percent of adults were obese. By 2001, not a single state had prevalence below 15 percent. The map below shows how obesity has increased in the United States from 1985 to 2007. …
Issue: November-December 2008
Making a Case against the Courts
How will Americans know that their Supreme Court is truly dedicated to interpreting the Constitution as the Founding Fathers would wish? Attorney, activist, and author Phyllis Schlafly, A.M. ’45, offered some guidelines while discussing “The Culture War …
Issue: January-February 2008
21,000 Hours
Harvard College began holding a Freshman Convocation ceremony in 2009—a formal public greeting of new freshmen by the president and deans, and the only occasion when the students gather as a class before graduation. This year’s Convocation took place on …
Business School’s Guiding Light
Jay O. Light , an expert in finance and investment management, was named dean of Harvard Business School (HBS)—the ninth since its founding in 1908—by President Lawrence H. Summers on April 24. Light, D.B.A. ’70, had been acting dean since August 1, 2005, …
Issue: July-August 2006