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Reefs at Risk
Contemporary photographs by David Arnold Shallow-water coral reefs are best known for their beauty, and as home to rafts of colorful fish. That these complex ecosystems support a quarter of all marine species is less commonly appreciated. If the …
Issue: July-August 2011
Shaina Taub Shares Suffragists in Song
New York Times music critic Stephen Holden’s line about Shaina Taub—that she is a gravitational force “around whom others cluster like filings to a magnet”—came powerfully to mind on Monday night inside the Radcliffe Institute’s Knafel Center, where the …
Harvard’s 2016 Honorary-Degree Recipients
During the Morning Exercises of the 365rd Commencement, on May 26, Harvard planned to confer honorary degrees on six men and three women. Among them are: a lawyer who has pioneered cases ending discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation (now also …
Coming Apart Together
Like many writers , Shane McCrae, J.D. ’07, remembers clearly when he first took an interest in words, when the urge—and then the need—to write first grabbed him. It happened all at once, on October 25, 1990. He was 15 years old, living in Aloha, Oregon, …
Issue: November-December 2018
Highbrow Lingerie
Lingerie and literature don’t come together that often, but when naming her intimates brand, fashion designer Laura Mehlinger ’01 turned to Vladimir Nabokov. Lola Haze™ alludes to Lolita , the subject of Mehlinger’s senior honors thesis in English. “Lola” …
Issue: May-June 2010
A Collage of Colleges
“Why should all of the creative and liberating ideas for liberal education be left to the small residential liberal arts colleges?” That is the question, posed by Plummer professor of Christian morals Peter J. Gomes, with which the curriculum-review …
Issue: January-February 2006
“Little Shards of Dissonance”
At some point , while preparing for the Rockport Chamber Music Festival, Davóne Tines ’09 and Michael Shachter ’09 were freshly struck by their circumstances. Their piece Were You There , a musical meditation on racial violence, starts with Handel and …
Issue: September-October 2018
Allston Agonistes
For three decades, “Allston” has represented what an investor might consider Harvard’s ultimate option. It is the way for an increasingly built-out, landlocked institution nearing its 400th anniversary to continue to dream and grow. But at some point, the …
Issue: September-October 2018
The Indispensable Power
Diplomacy has never been so important as now, when we are confronting the most serious crises since the Second World War: the global pandemic and economic collapse. When we emerge finally from the grip of the coronavirus, Americans will need to account …
Issue: July-August 2020
An “Egalitarian Curiosity”
What obstacles impede the free exchange of ideas in college classrooms? And how might they be overcome? “Free Speech on Campus,” a September 20 talk by Vuilleumier professor of philosophy Edward “Ned” Hall that was followed by a response from Conant …
Lafayette 35, Harvard 18
With Halloween still two weeks away, hobgoblins were at play in Harvard Stadium on Saturday. Taking full advantage of early Harvard turnovers, dropped passes, and penalties at critical junctures, a determined Lafayette squad built a 28-3 halftime lead and …
Harvard Endowment’s Sweeping Overhaul
In his first annual letter , disseminated in September, Harvard Management Company (HMC) president and CEO Stephen Blyth described both sluggish recent investment returns and—far more consequentially—significant changes in asset allocation and investment …
Yale Estimates 25 Percent Endowment Decline, Phases Budget Cuts
Yale President Richard C. Levin on December 16 wrote to the Eli community , outlining a negative 13.4 percent investment return on public securities in its endowment from July 1 through October 31, and providing estimates of the value of illiquid …
"I'll Never Get Over What Happened to My Son"
About halfway through Monday evening’s panel discussion at the Harvard Kennedy School, Lezley McSpadden announced that she was considering a run for city council in Ferguson, Missouri, where in 2014 her teenage son, Michael Brown, was shot and killed by a …
“No Limits” to China-Russia Relations?
How might the war in Ukraine affect the relationship between Russia and China—perhaps the most important prospective big-power alliance in the world? “The honest answer with a lot of these issues is, it’s such a black box that we don’t really know,” China …