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Inhaling Distress
After 40 years of scientific and news reports on tobacco's hazards, smoking today may be a fundamentally irrational act. But is it linked with genuine psychological disturbance? Perhaps so, according to a new study that asserts that mentally ill smokers …
Urban Enchantment
Twinkling lights, decorated storefronts, snowy sidewalks, candlelit brownstones: There’s nowhere quite like Boston for the holidays. In Cambridge, Harvard Square’s Charles Hotel ( charleshotel.com ) officially marks the season with their annual tree …
Issue: November-December 2024
Why Ivy Athletes Score in Careers
What role should athletics play in Ivy League college admissions? Do athletes merely take spots from more academically qualified applicants? Or does participation in sports build a special kind of human capital that isn’t taught in classrooms, one that …
Issue: November-December 2024
Forecourt Phenoms
In the world of college squash, Harvard was once a perennial national champion. The Crimson have bagged 30 such titles, far more than any other college, and reeled off seven consecutive national nine-man championships as recently as 1991 though 1997. But …
Issue: January-February 2007
Endowment Value Rises to $32.7 Billion
HIGHLIGHTS: Endowment valued at $32.7 billion as of June 30, up $2.0 billion (6.5 percent) from $30.7 billion a year earlier. Harvard Management Company records 11.3 percent investment return on endowment assets during fiscal year 2013, after negative …
Sculpture That Breathes
“In sculpture , you are always fighting the deadness of a thing,” says Murray Dewart ’70, paraphrasing Victorian critic Walter Pater. “The secret of sculpture is getting the feeling that the life force is pushing from the inside out. You get it in bread.” …
Issue: November-December 2013
Why We Eat What We Do
In the spring of 1910, the freshmen of the Harvard Class of 1913 sat down at New American House in Boston, white tablecloths and all, for a typically extravagant meal. The first course: a Cotuit cocktail, made with local Cotuit oysters. The eighth: …
Surplus Surprise…and the Endowment’s Evolution
The University’s financial report for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2018, published on October 25, revealed a fifth consecutive budget surplus—nearly $200 million—in part reflecting continued U.S. economic growth and the benefits accruing from the …
Issue: January-February 2019
Speeding in the Lanes
Last February, the powerhouse Harvard women’s swimming and diving squad rolled into Princeton for the three-day Ivy championship meet, hoping to seize its first Ivy conference title since 1992. (The meets alternate between Harvard and Princeton, the only …
Issue: March-April 2006
Claudine Gay Named Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences
President Lawrence S. Bacow announced this morning that Claudine Gay—Cowett professor of government and of African and African American studies, and dean of social science within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS)—will become dean of FAS August 15. …
Scanning Species
On June 26, 1974, merchandise tracking was revolutionized with a 10-pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit chewing gum. The gum package, today sequestered in the Smithsonian, was the first nationally barcoded item to be scanned at a supermarket checkout (in Troy, …
Issue: September-October 2005
The 2013 Centennial Medalists
The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Centennial Medal, first awarded in 1989 on the occasion of the school’s hundredth anniversary, honors alumni who have made contributions to society that emerged from their graduate study at Harvard. It is the …
Own Goals
Harvard had enough problems last academic year without making matters worse for itself. Yet after handling the pro-Palestinian encampment in the Old Yard from April 24 to May 14 reasonably well (the locked gates isolated the protest, and after some talks …
Issue: September-October 2024
Debating the Moral Status of the Embryo
Should stem-cell scientists be able to destroy even early-stage human embryos in order to advance medicine? That question has been framed in many different ways. When does life begin? At conception? At implantation? When the heart starts to beat at 22 …
Issue: July-August 2004
Arts' Rising Place
The practice of the arts is in the ascendant at Harvard. And even though there is not now enough space to contain this explosion of student talent and creativity, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), in a move that bodes well for future artistic …
Issue: May-June 2004