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All About the Food
At lunchtime , Law of Pasta owner Avery Perry darts around his Boston Public Market shop, stopping just long enough to explain himself: “They call me the ‘bad boy of pasta,’” he says, gesturing to cases of freshly extruded noodles, “because I do semolina …
Issue: September-October 2019
Harvard Graduate School Honors Daniel Aaron, Nancy Hopkins, and Others
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 notable contributions to society that emerged from their graduate study at Harvard. It is …
Predicting the Future of China's Rise
Former Harvard president Lawrence H. Summers lived up to his billing as a voice of opposition Wednesday evening at a Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) discussion on China’s rise as an economic power and its rivalry with the United States. Timed to the Beijing …
“An Extraordinarily Painful and Disorienting Time for Harvard”
In an email message to the community, Alan M. Garber, who became interim president a week ago upon the resignation of President Claudine Gay , began by acknowledging “an extraordinarily painful and disorienting time” for the University. Since arriving as …
50 Years of Social Studies
In 1960, the idea that Harvard undergraduates could concentrate in a field that pulled together economics, political science, sociology, history, and philosophy, instead of choosing just one of those disciplines, was revolutionary. Social studies …
Why Do We Still Have the Electoral College?
The title of Alexander Keyssar’s new book— Why Do We Still Have the Electoral College? —is also, he says, the question Americans ask themselves every four years. The Stirling professor of history and social policy at the Harvard Kennedy School recently …
Further Financial Fallout
Understandably , the Harvard University Financial Report for fiscal year 2009, published in mid October, is dominated by the plunge in value of the endowment (see “$11 Billion Less,” November-December 2009, page 50). But it also documents previously …
Issue: January-February 2010
Endowment Value Declines 29.5% as Investment Return Is Negative 27.3%
Harvard Management Company (HMC) reported today that the University’s endowment was valued at $26.0 billion as of June 30—29.5 percent less than the record $36.9 billion reported for the prior fiscal year. That result reflects a negative 27.3 percent …
A Hard Road
In hoping to rebound from an uncharacteristically mediocre 5-5 record in 2017, coach Tim Murphy put forth a multi-pronged plan for the 2018 Harvard football season, the Crimson’s 145th. Its major elements: First, bolster his offensive and defensive lines. …
Issue: November-December 2018
“I Am Talking to the Part of You that Does Not Speak”
For decades , Laurie Anderson dreamed of having a late-night radio show. She wanted to reach people during that period of time when “most of the listeners are half-asleep or trying to get back to sleep, a time when reality and dreams just sort of merge …
Death Throes
Fifty years ago , American support for the death penalty was as low as it has ever been: more Americans opposed it than approved it. Violent crime in the country was low. The number of executions annually was a small fraction of the historical peak in the …
Issue: November-December 2016
“The Truth Shall Set You Free”
The Graduate School of Education’s Convocation ceremony on Wednesday afternoon in Radcliffe Yard featured an address by John Silvanus Wilson Jr., M.T.S. ’81, Ed.M. ’82, Ed.D. ’85, on the topic of freedom, from its deep connections to education, to the …
Talking About Tipping Points
While climate change is frequently discussed as a problem of gradual warming, numerous features in the global climate system are thought to be at risk of flipping suddenly from one stable state to another. Scientists worry that a few of these tipping …
“Inventur” Revisits Postwar Germany
Entering Inventur: Art in Germany, 1943-1955, visitors first face a small, drab painting hanging alone on the wall. It depicts a Cubist heap of white doorways, gaping like a chorus of ghostly mouths, the lintels heaped like bones. Fallen Fa ç ades (Berlin …
A Long Road
In August 2012, Tommy Amaker welcomed an unusual visitor to Lavietes Pavilion: Kentucky men’s basketball coach John Calipari. It was mostly a social call; Calipari was in town to visit his daughter. He dropped by practice as the Crimson prepared for a …