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Atul Gawande Harvard Alumni Day Speech
As prepared for delivery. President Garber and fellow alumni, thank you for this chance to speak. Alumni Day has apparently drawn a record 9,000 attendees this year. I think I know why. Lately, I too have been hungry to connect with others in this …
Joining the “Long Crimson Line”
A round dozen of Harvard students—the largest contingent since 2010—took their oaths of office, respectively, as second lieutenants in the U.S. Air Force, Army, and Marines or ensigns in the U.S. Navy on Wednesday morning during Commencement week’s annual …
A Gendered Schedule
As the Princeton men’s basketball team pulled away from Penn in overtime of the Ivy League tournament semifinals last March, a Tigers supporter paced just outside the team’s locker room, loudly willing the clock down to zero “Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.” His …
What Is Critical Race Theory?
Racial-justice activists at Harvard Law School (HLS) won one of the largest public battles over the school’s legacy this month, when the administration agreed to abandon the existing HLS shield. The shield was modeled after the crest of the slaveholding …
Law School Committee Recommends Abandoning Shield Linked to Slavery
AFTER THREE MONTHS of deliberation, a committee of Harvard Law School (HLS) professors, students, and alumni recommended abandoning a controversial shield linked to slavery as the school’s official symbol Friday. HLS’s shield displays the crest of the …
Superbug: An Epidemic Begins
Less than a century ago, the age-old evolutionary relationship between humans and microbes was transformed not by a gene, but by an idea. The antibiotic revolution inaugurated the era of modern medicine, trivializing once-deadly infections and paving the …
Issue: May-June 2014
Measuring Impact in the “Missing Middle”
In an idealized business transaction (ignoring restraints on competition and marketing blandishments), willing shoppers choose the products and services they want, and companies measure their sales, cash flow, profits, and return on capital—financial …
Issue: September-October 2015
Empathy and Imagination
Only the Animals , by Ceridwen Dovey ’03, is a beautifully wrought, disconcerting collection of stories told by the souls of dead animals. A cat is picked off by a sniper on the Western Front; a blue mussel drowns in Pearl Harbor; a courageous tortoise is …
Issue: September-October 2015
Loker Lunch
Loker Commons, Harvard's new student-center-cum-food-court, spreads out in the reclaimed basement of Memorial Hall. Descend through the new brick and granite entry facing the Science Center and start taking in the motif: utilitarian gray beams, ceiling, …
Affording a Harvard Graduation
Graduation is a rite of passage when families are united, tears are shed, and memories are shared. But for some students, it is also a time when belts are tightened. “I can go to this event that costs $40, or I can eat for the day,” Lenica …
Significant Contributors to Society and Scholarship
Since 1989, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) has awarded its Centennial Medal to alumni who have made significant contributions to society and scholarship. This year’s medalists include an art historian who encouraged viewers to simply look …
The Conservative
“It’s a strange moment to have written a book where part of the argument is that things are changing less than you think,” said Ross Douthat ’02 on a sunny weekday afternoon in July. He was sitting on the back deck of his home in New Haven, Connecticut, …
Issue: November-December 2020
AI and Democracy
History will look back on 2024 as the first AI election, said Shorenstein Center director Nancy Gibbs in her introduction to the event, “ AI and its Implications for Democracy.” That sense of the historical moment pervaded the ensuing conversation among …
Dumbarton Oaks Fêtes New Programs and Spaces
The music of Roomful of Teeth , the Grammy-winning vocal ensemble who performed at Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection on Sunday, serves as perhaps an apt metaphor for how discrete disciplines come together at the University’s Washington, D.C.- …
Amartya Sen, a Memoir
Home in the World , Amartya Sen’s memoir of his years in the U.K, was published there July 8. Below, Gardiner professor of oceanic history and affairs Sugata Bose previews for North American readers a few highlights of the book, which covers the first 30 …