Search
Edwin Binney, 3rd
Few realize that the sale of Binney & Smith Crayola crayons, those staples of so many childhoods, helped fund one of the largest physical donations of art in the history of Houghton Library’s Harvard Theatre Collection (HTC). The 1986 bequest of 10,000 …
Issue: January-February 2021
A Sunny Celebration
Greater Boston had a cream-puff of a winter—particularly in comparison to the relentless battering of 2014-2015, when icicles by the ton made it hazardous to walk near many of the Yard’s buildings. But the spring was very poky: it snowed on April 3 and 4, …
Brevia
Robert E. Rubin U.S. Treasury Coming Attraction The Harvard Alumni Association's guest speaker on Commencement afternoon will be former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Robert E. Rubin '60, earlier of Goldman, Sachs and now chairman of the ex-ecutive …
University People
Doctor in the House Harvey V. Fineberg, Harvard’s provost, began a medical leave and underwent surgery December 16 for what was described as an early-stage cancer of the prostate. Fineberg, himself an M.D. (’71, as well as an A.B. ’67, M.P.P. ’72, and …
Mastering the “Hidden Curriculum”
A new student heard a classmate mention choosing a gift from a bridal registry for a friend. “What the hell is a bridal registry?” she wondered. As she tried to choose courses, she had to visit the library to explore what unfamiliar subjects were , before …
Issue: November-December 2017
Lorenzo Tañada
“Have you known how it feels to be tear-gassed?” the 86-year-old former senator shouted at police chiefs and generals after a September 1985 demonstration in Manila. Lorenzo M. Tañada, LL.M. ’28, had joined what he called “the parliament of the streets,” …
Issue: November-December 2020
The Quiet Campaign
The contested election for Harvard’s Board of Overseers seems anomalous in this noisy U.S. presidential election year. There are no airport rallies, no televised attack commercials or Super PACs, no polls. The voters—Harvard degree-holders—are dispersed …
Graduate-Student Squeeze
Harvard graduate students will receive stipend increases of 1.5 percent next year, dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) Xiao-Li Meng wrote in an email to students this week. The increase represents a significant reduction from previous …
Endowment Overhaul
Beginning his eighth week as president and CEO of Harvard Management Company (HMC), N.V. Narvekar on January 25 announced sweeping changes in how the University’s $35.7-billion endowment will be invested. Change was expected. HMC’s average annualized rate …
Issue: March-April 2017
What’s in the New Dining Workers’ Contract?
Harvard dining workers are celebrating the end of their 22-day strike this week, following a Wednesday vote of 583-1 approving the new contract between the University and UNITE HERE Local 26, the union that represents Harvard University Dining Services …
Greg Stone, An Emerging Novelist at 70
Greg Stone ’75 was in a hospital bed four years ago when the idea came to him for the murder mystery he’d always wanted to write. After a major back surgery, complications had landed him in the ICU, where he spent a week recovering in a medicated haze, …
Issue: January-February 2024
Governance Reform and Shared Value
How can business help mend the broken U.S. political system—and even step up to fulfill the social needs government fails to meet? Lawrence University Professor Michael Porter, perhaps the best-known scholar of corporate strategy, turned his attention …
Embracing AI
“Thank you, weirdly informative robot,” wrote a student taking Harvard’s introductory computer science course this summer, after receiving help from an AI-powered avatar. The development of generative artificial intelligence, which can create and …
“We Will All Be Arguing”
During this semester ’s opening exercises, University leaders were at great pains to encourage the Harvard community to live up to its ideal of forthright discussion, at a time when the wider society seems to be losing the habit. Appearing at these …
Lydialyle Gibson , Jonathan Shaw
Issue: November-December 2022
How to Make a Mammal
“What a mess ,” Sharad Ramanathan thinks, contemplating a group of cells growing in a glass dish. There are different cell types everywhere, the random “daughter cells” produced by a stem cell population. A mathematician and physicist by training, he …
Issue: January-February 2024