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Flocking Together
Lila’s Mountain Farm sits in a scenic corner of western Massachusetts, on rolling pastures with sweeping views of the Berkshires. In early February, during lambing season, snowstorms and a cold snap have turned the fields into icy white plateaus. Winds …
Issue: May-June 2025
Back to the Bond Market...
Harvard is in the process of issuing $730 million of tax-exempt revenue bonds and $300 million of taxable revenue bonds. As a result, total debt outstanding will rise from $6.3 billion at the end of the last fiscal year (June 30) to $6.6 billion, …
Harvard and MIT Sue to Overturn Order Banning International Students from Online Learning in Residence
Harvard and MIT this morning filed suit to prevent the federal government from enforcing a policy announced on July 6 that would prohibit international students from studying in the United States if their institutions offer only online instruction as …
A Model City
‘‘ Homo sapiens tends to fall in love with miniatures,” says Fred Gevalt ’72, M.Arch. ’76. In his case, over the past eight years, in the basement of his home in Arlington, Massachusetts, Gevalt has painstakingly built a complex diorama depicting an …
Issue: January-February 2025
“Be Unlikely Inseparables”
“Class Day does not traditionally include a moment like this,” said senior program marshal Tarina Ahuja ’24 an hour into this year’s Class Day ceremony. “But we’re also not living in a typical moment.” After earlier speakers referenced the class of 2024’s …
AI in the Academy
Generative artificial intelligence, which can write prose and computer code, generate audio, and create images, within the past year has become capable of producing work indistinguishable from that of humans. Generative AI, given the right prompts, can …
Issue: November-December 2023
Harvard’s Finances in a Challenging Year
Harvard’s annual financial report for the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2024, published today—an academic year of campus tumult, an overturned presidency, and speculation about the resulting effects on alumni and donor support—reveals some new strains …
Jonathan Shaw , John S. Rosenberg
Endowment Exit
On June 10 , two days before its fortieth-anniversary celebration, Harvard Management Company (HMC)—which invests the University endowment and other assets—announced that Jane L. Mendillo, president and chief executive officer since July 2008, would …
Issue: September-October 2014
Harvard Charters Sexual-Assault Task Force
In the wake of an anonymous undergraduate’s personal account of an unwanted sexual encounter, published earlier this week in The Harvard Crimson and alleging antiquated and insensitive treatment at the hands of administrators, President Drew Faust this …
Remembering Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan
Editor’s note : Meg Campbell ’74, an educator—she is the retired cofounder of the Codman Academy Charter Public School—lives in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood. She submitted this essay after attending her fiftieth reunion this past spring. I read …
Harvard’s Sober Annual Financial Report
Shaped as it is by the conventions of accounting, an institution’s annual financial report rarely reads like a novel. But the University’s financial report for fiscal year 2012 (ended last June 30), released today, manages to read like two novels—or at …
Ben Franklin’s Project
Joyce E. Chaplin, Phillips professor of early American history, is a multitool scholar, working across fields including the history of science, climate, colonialism, and environment. That breadth of expertise is reflected in her affiliate appointments, …
Issue: May-June 2025
Money-Management Makeover
The value of Harvard’s endowment increased by $3.3 billion during the fiscal year ended June 30, rising to $29.2 billion. The 12.8 percent growth, from the year-earlier total of $25.9 billion, reflects a 16.7 percent investment return on endowment assets …
Potholes, Pensions, and Politics
In January , the newly elected mayor of Houston, Sylvester Turner, J.D. ’80, donned work gloves and safety goggles, picked up a shovel, and spread hot, smoking asphalt over a gaping pothole on Neuens Road in West Houston. As news reporters watched, the …
Issue: May-June 2016
Summer/Steiner Fellowship
THE SUMMER FELLOWSHIP The Summer Fellowship provides summer support for a student to join Harvard Magazine’ s editorial staff as a reporter and writer, while also receiving an introduction to the business aspects of magazine operations. Current Harvard …