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An Obligation to Dignity
“If it was a paperback, it sounded damn near like birds’ wings fluttering.” That’s how Reginald Dwayne Betts, speaking at the Graduate School of Design on Tuesday evening, described the underground library that inmates had built in the prison where he was …
China’s Excess Wind Energy
There’s a problem with sustainable energy, and it will only grow with time. Now that wind and solar have become cheaper sources of electricity than fossil fuels in some places, the problem is intermittency—what to do when the wind dies or the sun goes …
Issue: November-December 2021
Hypervelocity Stars
The center of the Milky Way galaxy is a crowded, busy neighborhood: clusters upon clusters of pulsating young stars, giant clouds of gas, dying stars exploding, and, in the middle of it all, a massive black hole. So powerful is the gravitational pull of …
Issue: November-December 2010
“Authentic” Versus “Constrained” Choices in the Classroom
A professor in an introductory science course discovers that some students are falling behind in their work, apparently because they haven’t bought the textbook. “Buy the book, don’t be cheap,” he exhorts. For students who have a parental credit card, or …
What They Earned
As a nonprofit organization, Harvard is required to submit Form 990 to the Internal Revenue Service each year. The fiscal year 2018 documents for the University and for the Harvard Management Company (HMC), which invests the endowment, were released …
Matthew Nock Appointed Professor of Psychology
Matthew Nock , previously Loeb associate professor of the social sciences, has been granted tenure and is now professor of psychology. Nock , whose study of suicidal children was featured in the 2009 Harvard Magazine article " Helping Those Most in Need …
On the Road with Death
In a world where buses are "flying coffins" and "moving morgues" and pedestrians should tremble, pulblic-health experts take on a neglected epidemic. by Christopher Reed On June 23, 1998 , Michael Reich, vacationer, was driving with his family in a rented …
Issue: November-December 2002
Encouraging Esperanto
Cu vi parolas Esperanton? (Do you speak Esperanto?) For many, the answer may be surprising: more than two million people worldwide do, including Ruth Kevess-Cohen ’78. Esperanto, devised by Ludwig Lazarus Zamenhof and introduced in an 1887 booklet, is the …
Issue: January-February 2016
Self-Definition
From the book Joel Derfner’s new book reveals some hidden depths. “In theater, things move very slowly and it’s difficult to get anything done,” says Joel Derfner ’95 . That’s why the song writer and author calls his decision to produce a book largely …
Issue: September-October 2008
Off the Shelf
Painting with Monet, by Harmon Siegel, Ph.D. ’21, JF (Princeton, $65). A Junior Fellow in the Society of Fellows performs the incredibly useful service of opening even untutored eyes to the ways artists work. Drawing on the results of Claude Monet’s …
Issue: July-August 2024
Q & A
Listen to the live audio recording. [video:http://harvardmagazine.com/sites/default/files/media/0605-Woods.mp3 width:220 height:20] Anthony Christopher Woods, M.P.P. ’08, of the Harvard Kennedy School, delivers his Graduate English Address, “Q & A,” at …
A Workable Democracy
Justice Stephen G. Breyer, LL.B. ’64, sometimes says that his job and that of other members of the Supreme Court is to speak for the law. He does not mean that justices are Platonic Guardians, with ironclad power to impose their will on the nation despite …
Issue: March-April 2017
From Corporate Lawyer to Waffle Entrepreneur
By the time Emily Cole Groden, J.D. ’15, was 10 years old, she knew what she wanted to do for the rest of her life: practice corporate law. She didn’t know exactly what that entailed, but she was resolute in her decision. “My dad was a corporate lawyer, …
When Farmers Met Foragers
A question mark has long hovered over human transitions from hunting and gathering to farming: did agriculture spread by communication—in archaeological parlance, by diffusion? Or did the early practitioners of farming migrate, carrying their technology …
Issue: January-February 2008
University Arts Initiative Launched
President Drew Faust made the inaugural performance at the New College Theatre, on November 1, the setting for her announcement of a University-wide arts initiative. A faculty task force involving several Harvard schools has been chartered to examine in a …