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Yesterday's News
1920 The physical examination of all 700 Harvard freshmen, in connection with a new system of compulsory freshman athletics, has been completed, with each student classified according to his “bodily mechanics” (posture). Only 7.5 percent of the class …
Existence as Resistance
“Guess who was the most photographed American of the nineteenth century.” Fletcher University Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., director of the Hutchins Center for African and African-American Studies, prepares for the surprise on my face. As it turns …
Museums, Making Their Way
James Cuno, Ph.D. ’85, president of the J. Paul Getty Trust in Los Angeles, was at the Museum of Diego Rivera in Mexico City, in mid March, when he heard that California governor Gavin Newsom had shuttered all non-essential state businesses and ordered …
The Undergraduate: The Scientist’s Daughter
My mother has a theory on exactly where she went wrong. We can pinpoint the moment precisely: I was eight, and she brought home an oversized, illustrated children’s anthology of Greek myths. I became obsessed. During long car rides, I would retell the …
Issue: July-August 2015
Meet the Candidates
The Harvard Alumni Association (HAA) nominating committee has announced the 2022 candidate slates for the Board of Overseers (one of the University’s two governing boards) and the HAA’s own elected directors. Balloting is open from April 1 through May 17. …
Issue: March-April 2022
Topping Off
The final beam of the Science and Engineering Complex in Allston was lowered into place on an unseasonably warm day this November. For years, I have watched the building come into focus in artist renderings and architectural blueprints. Standing at its …
Issue: March-April 2018
Being on “The Bachelor”
One evening in the fall of 2021, a Harvard graduate stepped out of a stretch limousine wearing nothing but a doctor’s coat, red stethoscope, and red lingerie to match. Thirty-two-year-old Kira Mengistu ’11, an internal medicine physician at the University …
Abortion Rights Advocacy: Past and Present
In 1970 , when Mary Summers ’70 and three other women’s rights activists—Jane Pincus, Karen Weinstein, and Catha Maslow—made a documentary about illegal abortion, they saw it as an organizing tool for state-by-state legalization efforts. Fifty-two years …
Teaching the Harvard Slavery Report
Not quite a year after Harvard laid bare its historic ties to slavery in a detailed 134-page report , a small group of faculty members and teaching staff gathered on campus late last week for a two-day seminar on how to integrate that report’s findings …
Reforming Misdemeanors
Thirteen million times each year, American prosecutors file criminal misdemeanor charges. These crimes are often described as “minor,” ranging from “victimless crimes” (jaywalking and loitering) to harmful infractions (domestic violence and drunk …
Issue: January-February 2025
Toward a Zika Vaccine
Researchers have made a surprising discovery in their search for a vaccine against Zika, a virus that can cause pregnant women to bear children with small heads (microcephaly) and other birth defects. The disease has infected more than 5,000 people from …
Albanian Joins the Language Curriculum
Harvard has an addition to its language courses: Elementary Albanian I classes began this semester, housed in the Near Eastern languages and civilizations (NELC) department, which also offers Aramaic, Persian, Turkish, Yiddish, and more. Edona Cosovic, a …
Take a Break
Anyone taking a late-day stroll in search of coffee or tea and something sweet would notice that Harvard Square has moved happily beyond the multiple Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts outlets—but almost to a ludicrous point. Most lavish are newcomers Tatte …
Issue: May-June 2017
Rebuilding or Reloading?
It was either sheer inertia or a heartfelt tribute to Tim Murphy that made the voters in the Ivy League’s preseason football poll place two-time defending champion Harvard on top again for 2016. More likely it was the latter; in his 22 seasons on the …
Issue: November-December 2016
Final-Clubs Battle Rejoined
Following a year of sharp debate within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) over the proposed sanctioning of undergraduates who join final clubs or other unrecognized single-gender social organizations (USGSOs) , the divisions now appear likely to …