Search
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
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
The Mystery of Smell
In the early weeks of the pandemic, as scientists and physicians scrambled to find the edges of this new, dangerous disease—how it spread from person to person, how it behaved inside the human body, and how they might be able to stop it—one emerging …
Issue: November-December 2021
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 …
Biggest Loser Contestants Share Tips
Two former contestants on the popular television show The Biggest Loser, in which obese men and women compete to lose the most weight and win a prize of $250,000, came to the Malkin Athletic Center on January 19 to give motivational speeches on health …
Healthy Plate, Healthy Planet
F rank Hu and Kentucky Fried Chicken arrived in Beijing around the same time. Hu, a recent graduate of Tongji Medical University, in Wuhan, had never seen a restaurant like it. Three-floored, gleaming, and distinctly Western in atmosphere, KFC proved …
Issue: March-April 2020
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
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
Inside Harvard’s Taylor Swift Class
If Loker professor of English Stephanie Burt had her way, record stores would sell copies of Alexander Pope’s 1735 poem “Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot” with a snake—the symbol of Taylor Swift’s album Reputation— embossed on the cover. Swift released Reputation …
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 …
Stories from Botswana
Statistics and journal articles do not begin to convey the human toll of HIV. Lasker professor of health sciences Myron “Max” Essex has seen that toll firsthand, working in Botswana since 1996. As a relatively successful country with a functioning …
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 …
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
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
Climate Change
Universities are among the most creative and powerful forces for shaping the future. At our best, we prepare students to devote their lives to causes larger than themselves. We bring together scholars whose insights help illuminate and address society’s …
Issue: September-October 2019