Search
New England’s Forest Primeval
What did the New England landscape look like before European colonizers arrived? The prevailing view among modern historians is that Native Americans engaged in widespread horticulture and used fire to keep grasslands and pasturelands open. Now a study by …
Insurgent Election
The most serene of American elections— the University’s annual balloting for members of the Board of Overseers and Harvard Alumni Association (HAA) directors —resulted in a robust demonstration of alumni voters’ animal spirits: the outcomes of the …
Extracurriculars
A full slate of events can be found throughout the University this season, ranging from South African plays, Japanese calligraphy, and Viennese art to European films, ice skating, and college bands celebrating hockey's Beanpot. This sampler offers …
Issue: January-February 2005
Harvard Presidential Search Student Advisers Named
The members of the student advisory committee for Harvard’s presidential search were announced today, following the faculty and staff advisory committees disclosed on August 25 and completing the roster of such advisers. Each advisory committee is in …
Making Art Work
At Baltimore’s Johnston Square Elementary School, hundreds of students and staffers pour through the doors twice a day, braving intersections where cars travel up to 80 miles an hour. Nearby, not long ago, a toddler was struck and killed. The crossing …
Issue: September-October 2022
Micro-units: A New Trend?
The micro-unit trend (see “Living Large in Tiny Apartments,” from the May-June 2013 issue) may have originated in cramped cities like Tokyo and Paris, but it is now starting to develop in the United States. In November, the city of San Francisco unveiled …
Harvard Football Great Performances: Ric Zimmerman ’68
In normal times , the Harvard football team and its hardy followers would be trekking up to Hanover, New Hampshire, this Saturday to face longtime Ivy rival Dartmouth. The Crimson leads the series, which began in 1882, 71-47-5, but the Big Green have won …
Gilbert and Sullivan, Today
ASher Chamoy ’25 tried multiple times, to no avail, to convince his high school to mount a work by the Victorian dramatist-composer duo W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan. “I was always trying to get them to do The Pirates of Penzance or some other G&S …
Issue: November-December 2024
Hempton Named Divinity School Dean
President Drew Faust has announced that David N. Hempton , McDonald Family professor of Evangelical theological studies, will become the new dean of Harvard Divinity School, effective July 1. He succeeds William A. Graham, who announced in September that …
Farewell
H enry Rosovsky , JF ’57, Ph.D. ’59, LL.D. ’98, was an exemplary Harvard citizen, a towering intellect, and—unusually in combination with those attributes—a brilliant leader and administrator. Geyser University Professor and dean of the Faculty of Arts …
Issue: January-February 2023
Harvard Goes Remote for January Term as Pandemic Intensifies
Students, faculty, and staff were advised on Saturday, December 18, that Harvard will shift to remote operations during the January term (“wintersession”), because of rapidly rising COVID-19 cases. In a letter from the president, provost, executive vice …
Studying ChatGPT Like a Psychologist
Ask GPT-4 , the most advanced model of ChatGPT, to decode a string of text written in ROT13—a cipher that involves shifting each letter 13 places forward in the alphabet—and it will successfully complete the task. But ask it to decode a string written in …
Sasha
When Sasha joined Harvard’s staff in August 2022, she became the first non-human to receive a University ID. The Labrador Retriever recently graduated from Puppies Behind Bars, a nonprofit that trains incarcerated people to raise service dogs for veterans …
Issue: May-June 2024
At Home with Harvard: Supporting Local Businesses
This is the sixth installment in Harvard Magazine ’s series “At Home with Harvard,” a guide to what to read, watch, listen to, and do while social distancing. Read the prior pieces, featuring stories about Harvard’s Arnold Arboretum, famous and …
Harvard Dives Into Data Science
The two faculty leaders of a new data-science initiative announced today that Harvard aims to build a significant data-science institute in Allston to support research, education, and entrepreneurship in a rapidly growing field University leaders say is …