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  • Campus & Community

    Newsmakers

    YWCA Boston names Gomes Racial Justice Award winner The YWCA Boston has named the Rev. Professor Peter J. Gomes the recipient of its 2007 Racial Justice Award. The YWCA’s board and guests will fête Gomes, the Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church, at the 13th annual Women’s Leadership Gala…

  • Campus & Community

    Faculty council

    At its 15th and final meeting of the year on May 9, the Faculty Council held a review of the Ph.D. Program in Biological Sciences in Public Health, considered a proposal to create a standing committee on life sciences education, and voted on proposed changes to the Handbook for Students for 2007-2008 and on the…

  • Campus & Community

    Memorial Minute

    At a Meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences October 17, 2006, the following Minute was placed upon the records.

  • Campus & Community

    Commencement Exercises, June 7

    Morning Exercises To accommodate the increasing number of those wishing to attend Harvard’s Commencement Exercises, the following guidelines are proposed to facilitate admission into Tercentenary Theatre on Commencement Morning:

  • Campus & Community

    Design School’s Mazereeuw receives Wheelwright Traveling Fellowship

    The Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) has announced that Miho Mazereeuw M.Arch./M.L.A. ’02 will receive the Arthur W. Wheelwright Traveling Fellowship in Architecture to study post-disaster urban architecture in three cities along the Ring of Fire, a zone of the most frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

  • Campus & Community

    Looking at politics through a racial lens

    As a 15-year-old who had spent half her life in Saudi Arabia’s expatriate community, Claudine Gay got a rude awakening when, in the 1980s, she returned “home” to a private New Hampshire boarding school.

  • Campus & Community

    Sports briefs

    Softball sweeps Penn, nabs Ivy title Solid pitching lifted the Harvard softball team past Penn, 4-0 and 4-2, this past Saturday afternoon (May 5) at Soldiers Field in Ivy League Championship action. With the wins, the Crimson program collected its fourth league title and first since the 2001 season.

  • Health

    Species thrive when sexual dimorphism broadens niches

    Some Caribbean lizards’ strong sexual dimorphism allows them to colonize much larger niches and habitats than they might otherwise occupy, allowing males and females to avoid competing with each other for resources and setting the stage for the population as a whole to thrive. The finding, reported this week in the journal Nature, suggests sex…

  • Science & Tech

    Ingenious use of indigenous tree reaps award

    The jatropha tree is a humble — some might even say homely — plant, with large, maple-like leaves and clusters of inedible fruit that, when mature, look too brown and shriveled to be of much use to anyone. But to thousands of rural eastern and southern Africans, the jatropha is a beautiful thing. It represents…

  • Science & Tech

    Using Spitzer telescope, scientists create first map of extrasolar planet

    For the first time, astronomers have created a rough map of a planet orbiting a distant sun-like star, employing a technique that may one day enable mapping of Earth-like worlds. Because the planet just charted is a gas giant and lacks a solid surface, the map shows cloud-top features. Using the Spitzer infrared space telescope,…

  • Campus & Community

    Test improves prediction of self-injurious behavior

    Researchers have found a way to better predict self-injurious behavior by using a test that assesses subjects’ implicit attitudes toward self-injury rather than relying on self-revealing talk. The test addresses…

  • Health

    Patrick announces $1B initiative

    Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick Tuesday (May 8) announced a $1 billion biotech initiative to secure Massachusetts its position as a world leader in biotechnology and stem cell science.

  • Campus & Community

    Panel offers valuable advice on coping with stress and depression

    A full house was on hand for Wednesday’s (May 2) panel discussion on coping with stress, a “Caring for the Harvard Community” event. Facilitated by Families for Depression Awareness — a nonprofit organization founded by speaker Julie Totten after her brother committed suicide in 1999 — the talk focused on stress and its relationship to…

  • Campus & Community

    Howard Gardner’s ‘quintet of minds’

    It’s been more than 20 years since Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner offered up a radical idea: that humans possess multiple forms of intelligence rather than just a single type that is easily tested by linguistic and logical-mathematical parameters.

  • Campus & Community

    Noyce Scholarships provide incentive for public school internships

    Among the topics in the national conversation on education during the past few years have been teacher retention (particularly for high-needs schools) and the lack of math and science educators in primary and secondary settings. The National Science Foundation’s Robert Noyce Scholarship — which was awarded this year to 10 master’s students from the Harvard…

  • Health

    Evolution caught playing with genetic on-off switch

    A tiny opossum’s genome has shed light on how evolution creates new creatures from old, showing that change primarily comes by finding new ways of turning existing genes on and off.

  • Health

    Leading scientists announce creation of Encyclopedia of Life

    Realizing a dream articulated in 2003 by renowned biologist E.O. Wilson, Harvard and four partner institutions have launched an ambitious effort to create an Encyclopedia of Life (EOL), an unprecedented project to document online every one of Earth’s 1.8 million known species. For the first time in history, the EOL would grant scientists, students, and…

  • Health

    Diabetes drug dramatically boosts power of platinum chemotherapy

    A widely used diabetes drug dramatically boosted the potency of platinum-based cancer drugs when administered together to a variety of cancer cell lines and to mice with tumors, report scientists from Harvard-affiliated Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

  • Campus & Community

    Women of the Ivies

    In a historic first, Harvard on Wednesday (May 2) hosted “Women at the Top: The Changing Face of the Ivies,” a summit of the five women who lead, have led,…

  • Campus & Community

    $5 million grant from Gates Foundation to fund Financial Access Initiative

    Finding funding is a key step in building the wealth of low-income individuals in developing countries. How to make that step, however, is not always clear. The anecdotal success stories about microfinance are well known; substantive research on how to increase and improve access is still lacking.

  • Campus & Community

    Schelling and Neustadt winners announced

    An international trade theorist and a longtime judge and international war crimes prosecutor are recipients of the 2007 Thomas C. Schelling and Richard E. Neustadt Awards. The awards were announced during a May 4 event hosted by the Kennedy School of Government (KSG).

  • Nation & World

    Secretary of Treasury Paulson talks about China’s booming economy

    “Time is of the essence,” Henry Paulson told the capacity crowd at Burden Hall on the Harvard Business School (HBS) campus Thursday afternoon (May 3). China needs to make some critical economic reforms — floating its currency, reforming its capital markets, and restructuring so that domestic consumption plays a bigger role — and the time…

  • Arts & Culture

    Heading disaster off at the pass

    Before Hurricane Katrina, you could walk along a street in New Orleans and look up to see a ship glide by — with an ocean of water held in check by just one dike.

  • Campus & Community

    Carpio, Frank are named Abramson winners for excellence in teaching

    Glenda Carpio, assistant professor of African and African-American studies and of English and American literature and language, and Alison Frank, assistant professor of history, are this year’s winners of the Roslyn Abramson Award, given to junior faculty for excellence in undergraduate teaching.

  • Campus & Community

    Five honored as Harvard College Professors

    In this 10th anniversary year of the prestigious Harvard College Professorships, five FAS faculty members have been honored for their particularly distinguished contributions to undergraduate teaching, advising, and mentoring.

  • Health

    Opossum genome shows ‘junk’ DNA source of genetic innovation

    A tiny opossum’s genome has shed light on how evolution creates new creatures from old, showing that change primarily comes by finding new ways of turning existing genes on and…

  • Campus & Community

    Harvard Foundation honors Knowles for ‘years of support’

    The Harvard Foundation will present its 2007 Faculty/Administrator Award to Jeremy R. Knowles, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the Amory Houghton Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, at the annual Harvard Foundation Student/Faculty Awards dinner on Friday (May 4). Knowles will be honored for his years of support of the Harvard Foundation…

  • Campus & Community

    Fourteen faculty named to 2007 class of AAAS fellows, honorary members

    The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS) on Monday (April 30) announced the election of 203 new fellows and 24 new foreign honorary members. Included among this new field of fellows and honorary members are 14 Harvard faculty members.

  • Campus & Community

    This month in Harvard history

    May 1638 — The College Yard expands as the Town of Cambridge grants the College a lot of land that today includes Harvard, Hollis, Stoughton, and Holworthy halls.

  • Campus & Community

    Police reports

    Following are some of the incidents reported to the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) for the week ending April 30. The official log is located at 1033 Massachusetts Ave., sixth floor, and is available online at http://www.hupd.harvard.edu/.