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A Reischauer Returns
The newest member of the President and Fellows of Harvard College (as the Corporation, the University's executive governing board, is formally known) is a familiar Harvard figure. Robert D. Reischauer, who was elected on October 6, is Harvardian by blood, …
Issue: January-February 2003
From the Archives: Freshman Plus 10
What awaits members of the class of 2021? Recalling his “unusually close-knit entryway” in Canaday, Adam Goodheart ’92 returned to campus to write about his first year a decade out, in “Freshman Plus 10,” published in November-December 1998, Harvard …
Dorm Decor
"To me [my room] will always be haunted by my companions who have been there, by the books that I have read there, by the pleasure and the pain that I have felt there, and by a laughing group of bright, fresh faces, that have rendered it sunny in my eyes …
Issue: September-October 2002
Should AI Be Scaled Down?
A driving force of the competition between AI companies is the belief that bigger is better. GPT-4, the model that powers the most advanced version of ChatGPT, contains an estimated 1.8 trillion parameters, or variables that determine how it responds to …
From Flowers to Race Cars
Riddle of the day: Where can you find a showroom packed with Indianapolis 500 race cars and a “Hidden Hollow” playground featuring a waterfall and a tree house inspired by medieval churches, along with 800 types of day lilies in bloom and the most …
Issue: July-August 2018
News Briefs
Dean Duo As the Harvard presidency transitions from Drew Faust to Lawrence S. Bacow, two deanships were filled by appointments announced late in spring term. Tomiko Brown-Nagin, Paul professor of constitutional law and professor of history, has been …
Issue: July-August 2018
Fueling Our Future
Our demand for energy, on which we depend for health and prosperity, rises all the time: oil and natural gas to heat our homes; electricity for lights, refrigeration, computers, and televisions; gasoline and diesel for our cars and trucks. Fossil fuels …
Issue: May-June 2006
The Academic Heights
Any Massachusetts Hall presidential transition—like the current one from Drew Gilpin Faust to Lawrence S. Bacow —naturally brings to mind questions about University leadership: who is best equipped to chart Harvard’s course, in the prevailing …
Issue: May-June 2018
A More Generous, Capacious America
When Werner Sollors was a boy, growing up among the ruins of postwar Germany, he had at best an indistinct idea of the distant country he would spend his adult life trying to understand. There was no sign yet that he would, decades later, become one of …
Issue: January-February 2025
Football 2017: Harvard 10, Rhode Island 17
On Saturday , two things were established at Meade Stadium in Kingston, Rhode Island, concerning the 144th edition of Harvard football: 1.) The Crimson would not go undefeated. 2.) There would be no Ocean State sweep, as there had been in the previous two …
Learning About Teaching Now
This year’s Harvard Initiative for Learning and Teaching (HILT) conference, the seventh annual iteration, held on September 21, highlighted new leaders’ new priorities, widening community interest in improved teaching, and the continuing challenges of …
“Class Cluelessness”
Donald J. Trump’s victory in the 2016 presidential election spawned a maelstrom of finger-pointing and soul-searching within the Democratic Party. How could the party of FDR, LBJ, and, for that matter, Bill Clinton, have lost touch so thoroughly with the …
Issue: July-August 2017
Nicholas Burns: Why Does Good Diplomacy Matter?
What role does diplomacy play in the modern world order , and what are the characteristics of a good diplomat? Which countries are the great powers today, and which will lead in 2050? Does NATO have a role in helping manage the political, economic, …
President Obama Urges Criminal-Justice Reform in Harvard Law Review
Barely two weeks remaining before he’s due to leave office, President Barack Obama, J.D. ’91, has written an emotional plea for criminal-justice reform in the January 2017 edition of the Harvard Law Review , arguing for the role of the presidency in …
Mise en Scène
A professor once advised me that I shouldn’t have possessions until I have tenure. “Then,” he said, “you can start to collect books.” I’ve given away so many of my books over the years. The Harvard Advocate ’s library gets replenished every spring because …
Issue: January-February 2017