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Steven Spielberg and Drew Faust Address Harvard Commencement
Seats in the shade were in high demand in Tercentenary Theatre on the afternoon of the 365th Commencement Day. Graduates, trailing well-coiffed relatives, wandered the sea of off-white folding chairs, looking hopeful, then grim, then disconsolate. The …
Cambridge 02138
Harvard continues to be an acute embarrassment to me, but unfortunately not to itself. It will take my beloved College 20 years to overcome the damage it has done in running Summers off. What were you thinking of, you at the FAS? That only you can define …
Issue: May-June 2006
“When You Hear These Lectures, They're All Me”
“These lectures are hard for me,” Toni Morrison, Litt.D. ’89, told her Sanders Theatre audience at her penultimate Norton Lecture . Years ago when she gave the Tanner Lectures at Harvard, she explained, the persistent questions from her literature …
Programmed for Success?
In December 1978 , former Harvard men’s basketball player Thomas Mannix ’81 recalls, the team arrived in Hawaii for the Rainbow Classic amid a year of transition. That season, Ivy League freshmen had become eligible to play varsity basketball, and an …
Lost in Ideas
When an idea keeps him up at night—nudges him awake to lie there, eyes wide and mind working—that’s when television writer and producer Carlton Cuse ’81 knows it’s good. An epidemic of vampirism in New York City that, chillingly, sends the infected …
Issue: January-February 2016
Marc Hauser “Engaged in Research Misconduct”
The division of investigative oversight in the Office of Research Integrity (ORI), in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has found that former Harvard professor of psychology Marc Hauser “engaged in research misconduct” in research …
A Case For Women
When Nitin Nohria became Harvard Business School (HBS) dean in mid 2010, he detailed five priorities, ranging from innovation in education and internationalization to inclusion. In setting out the latter goal, he said in a recent conversation, he aimed …
Issue: September-October 2015
Surgery for All
“Global health” typically brings to mind issues such as vaccination, maternal care, sanitation, and malaria control. It’s not usually associated with surgery. But consider the woman who dies in childbirth because she can’t reach a clinic that performs …
Issue: July-August 2015
Jimmy Carter and James Agee ’32
When he was running for president in 1976, Jimmy Carter was asked to name his favorite book. He said, “strangely enough,” it was Let Us Now Praise Famous Men , with text by James Agee ’32, and photographs by Walker Evans, published in 1941 when Carter was …
Men and Their Castles
Architect Ogden Codman Jr. grew up in the shadow of two men: his great grandfather John and his “bad uncle Richard.” John Codman III embodied ideals of the English aristocracy, and dutifully expanded the family’s gracious Codman Estate in Lincoln, …
Issue: September-October 2024
Mapping the Human Brain
Might memories and habitual actions be hardwired into the brain’s physical structure? Knowles professor of molecular and cellular biology Jeff Lichtman thinks it’s likely. He and colleagues spent the past decade analyzing one cubic millimeter of cerebral …
Issue: September-October 2024
The Power of Plants
Often overlooked, plants are arguably the most indispensable inhabitants of the planet. They absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen that supports life. They provide basic human necessities, including food, clothing, and shelter. And in communion with …
Football: Princeton 51, Harvard 48
Harvard Stadium was in twilight when Saturday’s triple-overtime tie-breaker came to its crushing end, on a scoring pass from Princeton quarterback Quinn Epperly to Roman Wilson. Sound familiar? At Princeton Stadium a year ago, a scoring pass from Epperly …
Reforming International Finance
Addressing global crises —pandemics, financial collapses, climate change—requires global cooperation. But international institutions that were created to support geopolitical and economic stability, such as the International Monetary Fund and the World …
Issue: November-December 2023
“Fully Part of the Harvard Family”
The new First Generation Harvard Shared Interest Group (SIG) is “the natural outcome of Harvard’s very laudable HFAI [ Harvard Financial Aid Initiative ] program,” notes Kevin Jennings ’85, who founded the SIG and is launching an alumni-mentoring program …
Issue: September-October 2012