Search
Greetings from Elmwood
This is the first of my letters written from home. Right now, Adele and I are suffering through what we hope will be the worst of our COVID-19 symptoms—something that feels a lot like the flu, not fun but also not life threatening. We feel fortunate. Many …
Issue: May-June 2020
General Education under the Microscope
General education —the flagship program in the College’s curriculum, consisting of courses from eight categories designed to assure that undergraduates acquire some breadth of intellectual exposure, as well as some grounding in ethical reasoning and the …
The GOP’s Return to Ideas?
At the 2020 Republican National Convention, the GOP did not release a platform, instead saying that it “enthusiastically supports President Trump.” The quadrennial presidential nominating conventions typically serve as a chance for Republicans and …
On Not Going It Alone
How powerful is the United States , and how should it relate to the rest of the world? Is America a new version of the Roman Empire? These questions are increasingly debated around the world in the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq. Some neoconservatives, …
Issue: July-August 2006
Radcliffe Announces Knafel Center and Fund
The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study today announced that the Radcliffe Gymnasium has been renamed the Knafel Center in honor of venture capitalist Sidney R. Knafel ’52, M.B.A. ’54, whose most recent gift—the $10.5-million Knafel Fund—will support …
Synthetic Biology’s New Menagerie
In the summer of 2009, a team of Cambridge University undergraduates built seven strains of the bacterium Escherichia coli , one in each color of the rainbow. Red and orange carotenoid pigments were produced by inserting genes from plant pathogen Pantoea …
Issue: September-October 2014
Living Collections
I am more of a runner than a rambler— measuring my time outdoors in miles rather than moments—but life in pandemic mode has forced me to slow down and look for opportunities to exit my COVID cocoon and engage with the world. The best walk I have taken …
Issue: March-April 2022
Students’ Teacher
As a teacher , George Dickey West ’72 lives “to learn something new every day.” He believes his profession requires “living with a clear head, without preconceptions”—which, he adds, “can be a challenge in the classroom.” He did not reach that classroom …
Issue: January-February 2013
Democracy
E very day, my presidency is infused with Harvard history. I work in Massachusetts Hall, a sturdy brick building where John Adams rested his head and George Washington quartered his troops. I live in Elmwood, a stately home built by a loyalist to King …
Issue: March-April 2020
Christine Lagarde to Speak at Kennedy School
The first woman to lead the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Christine Lagarde , will be the speaker at this year’s Harvard Kennedy School commencement ceremony on May 23, the school announced today. Lagarde, who replaced Dominique Strauss-Kahn as IMF …
Faust Receives Indian Welcome
Associate editor Elizabeth Gudrais reports from Mumbai: The world may be flat, with technology enabling robust international collaboration and commerce, President Drew Faust told an audience at the University of Mumbai today, alluding to Thomas Friedman’s …
From Borneo to Rodeo
D erring-do. Peter Ashton, a pioneer in the study of Asian tropical forests—particularly of the towering dipterocarps that dominated the canopy he investigated on foot in Borneo in the late 1950s, before they were largely felled—served as director of the …
Issue: January-February 2020
Greater Boston’s Season of “Social Trust”
In late May, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health assistant professor Joseph Allen put it bluntly: “This is going to be a very different summer.” Even as many parks and preserves that closed in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic began reopening …
Issue: July-August 2020
University People
Dean Dench Emma Dench Rose Lincoln/HPAC McLean professor of ancient and modern history and of the classics Emma Dench , the interim dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences during the current academic year, will assume that post on a regular basis …
Issue: May-June 2018
Reenacting Early Action
Starting this fall, students will again have the option of applying to the College under a nonbinding early-action program. In 2006, the College decided to eliminate early action for applicants as of the fall of 2007 and move to a single January 1 …
Issue: May-June 2011