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Darker Days
In his initial public message as interim president, on January 8, Alan M. Garber wrote, “Since I first arrived here as an undergraduate in 1973, I cannot recall a period of comparable tension on our campus and across our community” (see …
Issue: March-April 2024
University Hits Emissions Target
Harvard reduced its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 30 percent during the past decade, the Office for Sustainability announced today. The University’s reduction goal, adopted in 2008 and measured from a 2006 baseline, was met despite 15 percent growth …
Williamina Fleming
As 21- year-old Williamina Paton Fleming steamed across the Atlantic toward Boston in November 1878, she had no idea how brightly the stars overhead would shine in her future. One of nine children of a Scottish craftsman and his wife, she already knew the …
Issue: January-February 2017
The Harvard Globetrotters
Last Saturday in Shanghai, the Harvard men’s basketball team played a rematch that was a decade in the making. And although the Crimson lost the game, the event offered a glimpse of how far the team has come. Back in 2007, Stemberg men’s basketball coach …
The Paintings Behind the Books in the Harvard Botanical Museum
When Richard Evans Schultes ’37, Ph.D. ’41 became director of the Botanical Museum of Harvard University in 1967, he could not have imagined that he would soon discover a collection of beautiful paintings hidden behind a shelf of books in the …
A Ministry of Presence
On Thursday afternoon at exactly 3 o’clock, a small white van emerged from the swirl of traffic in Harvard Square and pulled over next to the Cambridge kiosk. Five people climbed out—three wearing winter coats over their long brown robes—and began setting …
Harvesting History
Walking through Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, William W. Sellers ’90 stops at the brick guard house where abolitionist John Brown was captured in 1859. Brown had raided the federal armory there, intending to arm local slaves and lead an insurrection. He …
Issue: May-June 2018
Janet Yellen Talks Policy and Inequality at Radcliffe Day Celebration
Inequality —in wealth, race, gender, domestically and across the globe—weighed heavily in the minds of this year’s Commencement speakers. It seemed fitting that the week’s activities concluded with a program Friday at the Radcliffe Institute honoring …
Petition Candidates Qualify for Overseers’ Ballot
Five petition candidates have qualified for placement on the ballot for this spring’s election of members to the Board of Overseers, the larger but less powerful of the University’s two governing boards (and the only one whose members are selected by …
Cambridge 01238
1969, Echoing As an activist in the Harvard Strike of 1969 and the SDS speaker at the 1969 Commencement ceremony, I welcome the retrospective in the March-April issue ( “Echoes of 1969,” page 52). However, the article trivializes the events of April 1969 …
Issue: May-June 2019
Divinity School Launches New Degree Programs
Harvard Divinity School (HDS), long focused on preparing religious leaders and training religious scholars, this fall adds a third mission. It is launching its first new master’s degree program in more than 50 years, the master of religion and public life …
Issue: September-October 2021
Clarifying the Rules of Protest
In an email to the Harvard community on Friday afternoon, Interim President Alan M. Garber and Harvard’s deans released a statement clarifying University policy regarding “the guarantees and limitations” in campus protest and dissent. The clarification, …
The Senior Housing Shortfall
As the ranks of American seniors swell with aging baby boomers, most say they hope to age in place. But that may not be possible, experts at Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS) predict. They note that there is an acute lack of safe, …
Issue: March-April 2023
The Rub on the Pub
Undergraduates will soon be able to relax in a new campus pub, scheduled to open early in April. The gathering spot is part of a $4.5-million overhaul of Loker Commons, the student space below Memorial Hall, which will include music practice rooms, places …
Issue: March-April 2007
Digging Deep into Chinese History
Editor’s note: Hudson professor of archaeology Rowan K. Flad, a scholar of ancient China (read about his work in “ Chinese Pottery: The First Five Millennia ”), recently returned from Gansu Province, where he and colleagues undertook their first full …