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The Plastic Earth
Jerry Mitrovica is a solid-earth geophysicist, but the description is inapt. He spends much of his time demonstrating that the earth is not firm at all—it moves. His lab in Cambridge, for example, oscillates up and down by nearly eight inches twice a day. …
Issue: September-October 2016
Lord Mayor for a Day
Recently , a news story caught my eye: an old friend and Dunster classmate, Michael Mainelli, was elected the 695 th Lord Mayor of London. While we both graduated from Harvard in 1984, Michael began as class of 1981, interrupting his undergraduate studies …
A Science Is Born
Thirty veterans of Harvard’s Aiken Computation Lab reunited on January 19 , 2020, some 50 years after each of us had a role in creating today’s networked, information-rich, artificially intelligent world. Rip van Winkles who had never fallen asleep, we …
Issue: September-October 2020
Ken’s Story
A “rapidly developing revolution in cancer treatment” has prompted David G. Nathan, M.D., president emeritus of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, to detail three patients’ experiences in a forthcoming book, to help nonscientific readers understand the promise …
Issue: January-February 2007
The Happiness Revolutionary
On a misty morning in February 2020, President Donald Trump sat on one side of the dais and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on the other. In the middle, at the podium, was the keynote speaker, Arthur C. Brooks, sporting his signature pink shirt and skinny tie. …
Issue: January-February 2023
Jobs and Jail
In the 1970s and ’80s, America’s cities were engulfed in crisis. It’s a familiar story: factories were closed, urban centers hollowed out, and fragile working-class communities ruined. Often, it’s told as a white working-class story, but sociologist …
Issue: May-June 2021
Museums in our Midst
Even with New England’s rich history, it may be surprising to learn that there are hundreds of small museums scattered across the region. “One story of our museums is a sort of a ‘tale of two cities,’” says Dan Yaeger, M.T.S. ’83, executive director of …
Issue: September-October 2012
Cambridge 02138
Crime and Incarceration The article about Elizabeth Hinton ( “Color and Incarceration,” by Lydialyle Gibson, September-October, page 40) included an observation by Hinton when she visited a loved one inside a California prison and saw “all these black and …
Issue: November-December 2019
Work in the Key of Life
“If anyone had told me that I was going to become a reiki master teacher,” says Cynthia Ann Piltch ’74, “I would have said, ‘There’s a better chance of the pope becoming Jewish.’ I am a scientist. The idea of healing arts was just so alien to me.” Most of …
Issue: January-February 2011
Universities’ Financial Straits: A Moody’s Retrospective
In the credit-industry equivalent of a thriller, Moody’s Investors Service on June 14 released “Liquidity and Credit Risk at Endowed U.S. Universities and Not-for-Profits.” The report, by Moody's vice president Roger Goodman and analyst Stephanie Woeppel, …
Taking Teaching Seriously
The Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) has begun a effort to encourage innovative, effective teaching. A committee of nine senior professors, named on September 4, aims to bring preliminary recommendations to the full faculty for discussion by February 1. …
Issue: November-December 2006
Growth is Good
Economists have always been very good at detailing the material consequences of modern economic growth. It makes us taller: we are perhaps seven inches taller than our preindustrial ancestors. It makes us healthier: babies today have life expectancies in …
Issue: January-February 2006
A Shakespearean Romance
Although I entered Harvard’s graduate program in English in 1974 believing I’d focus my attention on Romantic poetry, I soon gravitated to Widener X, the oddly signified office of Cabot professor of English literature G. Blakemore Evans in the main …
Stadium Stories
November 1903: Dartmouth scores the first Stadium touchdown. Note unfinished stands. Harvard University Sports Information INAUSPICIOUS START November 14, 1903. In the first game played in the newly completed Stadium, Dartmouth—winless in its 18 …
Issue: September-October 2003
Capitalism Campaign
Harvard Business School (HBS), established in 1908, on September 21 formally launched its first capital campaign. The timing might not seem propitious: the aftermath of the late 1990s stock-market bubble, recession, and widespread financial and accounting …
Issue: November-December 2002