Month: March 2007

  • Nation & World

    A denarius in hand is worth two in a book

    On exhibit at the Harvard University Art Museums are wide and deep collections that range from ancient Greece statuary to Ottoman textiles to Max Beckmann masterpieces to contemporary American graphic arts. As stunning and numerous as are the objects on display, significant portions of the museums’ collections are not always up on the walls but…

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    A new look at the ‘Good War’

    World War II has been called “The Good War,” often in contrast to later conflicts whose moral justification is seen as more ambivalent. But how did the Good War become good, and what aspects of it had to be suppressed to qualify it for that title? Three scholars attempted to answer that question at a…

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Whittenberger, HSPH chair, dies at 93

    James Whittenberger, who chaired the Department of Physiology at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) from 1948 to 1980, passed away March 17. He was 93 years old.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Smile and the world smiles with you, but why?

    “We are connected in ways we don’t consciously know, but which are absolutely essential for communication,” said psychologist and author Daniel Goleman at a March 14 talk on social intelligence sponsored by the John F. Kennedy School of Government’s Center for Public Leadership. “There is a subterranean emotional economy that’s part of any interaction.”

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Modern Girl Project views women between the wars

    When American women won the right to vote in 1919, the logical question was, What next? Suffragists had the answer ready: full enjoyment of civil and domestic life for women, equal to that of men. But suffragists found out that what was next was not much. It would be decades before American women gained anything…

    7 minutes
  • Nation & World

    This month in Harvard history

    This month in Harvard history

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Police reports

    Following are some of the incidents reported to the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) for the week ending March 19. The official log is located at 1033 Massachusetts Ave., sixth floor, and is available online at http://www.hupd.harvard.edu/.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Gipson to receive Friedenwald

    The 12,000-member Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) has selected Harvard Medical School Professor of Ophthalmology Ilene K. Gipson as the recipient of the Friedenwald Award.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Faculty Council

    At its 12th meeting of the year on March 21, the Faculty Council considered draft legislation concerning general education and met in camera with President-elect Drew G. Faust to discuss the Faculty of Arts and Sciences dean search.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Edward Willett Wagner

    Edward Willett Wagner, Professor of Korean Studies at Harvard for thirty-five years and founder of Korean studies in the United States, passed away at the age of 77 on December 7, 2001. He left his wife, Namhi Kim Wagner; two sons, Robert Camner and J. Christopher Wagner; three stepdaughters, Yunghi Choi Wagner, Sokhi Choi Wagner,…

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Bradford Cannon

    Bradford Cannon, a caring, talented, imaginative plastic surgeon at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) was an acknowledged surgical pioneer for much of the twentieth century. He was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1907, to Walter Bradford Cannon born in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, and Cornelia James Cannon of Cambridge, MA. A year later his father…

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    HSPH dean receives highest honor from Cyprus

    Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) Dean Barry R. Bloom has been awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Makarios III, which is the highest honor awarded in the Republic of Cyprus to individuals who have made a substantial contribution to the welfare of the Cypriot people.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Attempted armed robbery reported

    On March 18 at approximately 1:15 a.m., a male undergraduate student reported to the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) that he was the victim of an attempted armed robbery while walking on John F. Kennedy Street.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    College adds ‘Life Skills’ to its menu

    Members of the Harvard community are authorities in game theory, Celtic poetry, and quantum mechanics — and in emergency plumbing repairs, automobile maintenance, and preparing a mean tiramisu. Until now, students have had scant opportunity to tap the vast campus expertise that resides outside the classroom. That’s changing this year, though, with the expansion of…

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    SEAS debuts new seal, which captures the idea of ‘coming full circle’

    Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) announced the debut of its new seal earlier this week. The design is based on the seal created for the Harvard School of Engineering in 1936 by Pierre de Chaignon la Rose (class of 1895).

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Aizenberg named McKay Professor of Materials Science

    Joanna Aizenberg, a leader in the analysis of unique biomaterials that have evolved to carry out multiple functions in some organisms, has been appointed Gordon McKay Professor of Materials Science in Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences and its School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), effective July 1, 2007.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Sports briefs

    Sports briefs

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Chu named Kazmaier winner

    After having proved herself on the international stage as a two-time Olympic medalist, senior forward Julie Chu recently earned more than a bit of validation as the nation’s top collegiate player by taking home the prestigious Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Terrapins trip up Harvard in Big Dance, 89-65

    The defending national champion Maryland women’s basketball team (28-5) outscored the 15th-seeded Harvard Crimson 13-2 in the opening five minutes of the second half en route to an 89-65 victory in first-round NCAA tournament action Sunday afternoon (March 18) at the Hartford Civic Center. The loss marks Harvard’s first in 13 games, eliminating the Ivy…

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    KSG pledges ongoing action in New Orleans, Broadmoor Project

    The Kennedy School of Government (KSG) recently announced that the Broadmoor Project is being launched to formalize the School’s existing relationship with residents of the New Orleans neighborhood that was severely damaged by Hurricane Katrina. KSG students and staff will spend March 25-31 in New Orleans to continue the work of the ongoing project.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Unfeeling moral choices traced to damaged frontal lobes

    Consider the following scenario: Someone you know has AIDS and plans to infect others, some of whom will die. Your only options are to let it happen or to kill the person. Do you pull the trigger? Most people waver or say they could not, even if they agree that in theory they should. But…

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Noninfectious pathway for HIV found by HSPH team

    HIV is a crafty virus. It attacks the body by invading and taking over the very cells meant to protect humans from infection. Hiding within cells such as macrophages and lymphocytes, the virus uses the body’s natural machinery to replicate itself, destroying the immune system and leaving patients open to a range of debilitating and…

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Stem cells, through a religious lens

    Representatives of three of the world’s major religions tangled over the beginnings of human life, the disposal of surplus embryos from in vitro fertilization clinics, and the conduct of embryonic stem cell research Wednesday (March 14) at Harvard Divinity School. Panelists at the event, representing Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, each briefly presented their faith’s teachings…

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Legal, ethical limits to bioengineering debated

    It is a truism that “politics makes strange bedfellows,” but late Tuesday afternoon (March 20), in the Ames Courtroom of Harvard Law School’s (HLS) Austin Hall, bioethics made two sets of philosophical bedfellows as strange as any Washington has seen.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Vitamin D may protect against prostate cancer

    With spring on the way, Harvard researchers advise men to get more sun, supplements, and seafood. All are good sources of vitamin D, and a large, lengthy study suggests the vitamin reduces risk of prostate cancer.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Jane Goodall: A life in the field

    As a girl in England, Jane Goodall had a toy chimpanzee named Jubilee — a harbinger of the primatologist she was to become and of the jubilant audiences that greet her at every turn in adulthood. Beginning in 1960, her groundbreaking studies of chimpanzees in the African wild led to a series of revelations that…

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Alan J. Stone to stay on

    Alan J. Stone has agreed to stay on as vice president for Government, Community and Public Affairs through the 2007-08 academic year, President-elect Drew G. Faust announced Monday (March 19).

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Wassersteins give $25 million to HLS

    The Wasserstein family has made a $25 million gift to Harvard Law School to support construction of Wasserstein Hall, the new academic center of the Harvard Law School (HLS) campus, Dean Elena Kagan announced today (March 22). The gift is the second biggest in the Law School’s history.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Former child soldier gives stirring talk

    Call him Ishmael. But don’t call him part of a “lost generation.” It’s a phrase that “I absolutely detest,” Ishmael Beah, a former child soldier in the civil war in Sierra Leone, told his audience at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government March 14 at an event co-sponsored by the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    French PM: Cooperation is the key

    French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said the world now stands at a major crossroads, but that acting together the United States and Europe could lead the way in solving economic imbalances, ethnic and religious tensions, and the threat to the planet’s natural resources.

    2 minutes