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The Ford Foundation recently awarded a grant of $641,000 in supplemental support to the Pluralism Project for “development of a project that serves as a national research and policy resource on world religions in America.” For the past two years, funding from the Ford Foundation has enabled the Pluralism Project to generate new research and…

The four boys clustered around the drum pounded it rhythmically — almost — filling the small gymnasium with sound and sending tobacco bits ritually sprinkled on the drum’s skin bouncing into the air. “We didn’t know we’d be teaching them rhythm,” Pauley said later. “A lot of (the program) is designed around what the kids…

With the completion of the city’s pipeline investigations, DPW has concluded that the portion of Oxford Street north of the Dworkin Driveway is in the poorest condition and must be protected. As a result, the city has changed the location of its street barricades to block all traffic from the section of roadway from the…

President, provost offer office hoursHarvard President Neil L. Rudenstine will hold office hours for students in his Massachusetts Hall office from 4 to 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 3. Provost Harvey V. Fineberg will hold office hours for students in his Massachusetts Hall office from 4 to 5 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 16. Office hours…

A new way of building computers involves the world’s strongest material in the form of exotic tubes 100,000 times thinner than a human hair. Called nanotubes, they are a hundred times stronger than steel, able to bend without breaking, and efficient at conducting electricity. But to see them you have to look into a powerful…

Thomas Derrah doesn’t look much like a king. Wearing a Hawaiian shirt and baseball cap, he sits scrunched up in a front-row seat at the Loeb Drama Center, scribbling notes on a yellow pad. And yet, for the past decade and a half, Derrah has been a most convincing king — King Deramo of Serendippo,…

President Neil L. Rudenstine has announced that Stephen Greenblatt, a world-renowned scholar of Renaissance literature, has been named John Cogan University Professor of the Humanities. With this appointment, Greenblatt joins a select group of Harvard professors “working on the frontiers of knowledge … in such a way that they cross the conventional boundaries of the…

Harvard’s Busch-Reisinger Museum will present an exhibition offering an intimate look at Franz Marc’s (1880-1916) paintings of horses. “Franz Marc: Horses” brings together a selection of major works by this German Expressionist master in a special installation that explores the artist’s commitment to the spiritual intensity of color in interpreting the natural world. Opening at…

A below-market rent for a renovated East Boston apartment looks more than pretty good to Javier Loaiza, who is raising his daughter, Dahiana, by himself and feeling stretched a bit thin financially. “It looks like a paradise,” Loaiza said just before the Aug. 21 official opening of Siochain I, a low-income housing renovation project on…

Amidst the anxieties, toils, pleasures, dissipations, and competitions of life, in the stir and bustle of society, and in an age when luxury wars with spirituality … we would devote these walls to the training of warm . . . generous spirits. — William Ellery Channing, in his address “The Christian Ministry,” delivered at the…

The Center for the Study of World Religions (CSWR) at the Harvard Divinity School is host to 32 fellows and visiting scholars from around the world for the 2000-01 academic year. Established in 1958 as part of the Harvard Divinity School (HDS), CSWR fosters excellence in the study of the world’s religions on the broadest…

David A. Jones, who has served Harvard as director of Workforce Initiatives since January 1999, has been appointed director of Labor and Employee Relations. He replaces Kim Roberts who resigned in June to return to New York. Jones, who holds a J.D. from Howard University School of Law and an LL.M. in labor and employment…

Employment and corporate law specialist David A. Charny, the David Berg Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, died unexpectedly, after a brief illness, on Thursday, Aug. 31. He was a resident of Cambridge. “All of us at Harvard Law School are shocked and saddened by David Charny’s death,” said Dean Robert C. Clark. “David…

David E. Bell, the Clarence James Gamble Professor of Population Sciences and International Health Emeritus, died Sept. 6, 2000, after a brief illness. He was 81. An economist who served as special assistant under President Truman and as director of the U.S. Bureau of the Budget and of the Agency for International Development (USAID) under…

The Harvard Art Museums (HUAM) are eager to help local schools plan curricula, arrange student visits, and generally make their superb collections available to the Cambridge community. That was the message museum officials conveyed Aug. 22 when they hosted a group of 70 Cambridge school administrators for a morning of talks and gallery tours. Later,…

Economist John Kenneth Galbraith was awarded the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, at a ceremony, August 9, at the White House. Galbraith, the Paul M. Warburg Professor of Economics Emeritus, has been a member of the Harvard faculty for 52 years. Known for his many books on economics and social dynamics,…

As presidential candidates Al Gore and George W. Bush rev up their campaign bandwagons, charging out of the summer political conventions and into the fall election cycle ahead, many of the nation’s voters can muster up nothing more than a yawn to reflect their disinterest in the entire affair. It is that sentiment that most…

Gray-bearded and slightly rumpled, Allan Ryan peers over the top of his reading glasses. He has just been thrown the question of whether personal passion is what drives his interest in the prosecution of war criminals and human rights offenders. There is a long pause, a lawyerly pause, perhaps. Ryan is, after all, an attorney…

John Spengler, the Akira Yamaguchi Professor of Environmental Health and Human Habitation in the Department of Environmental Health at the School of Public Health (SPH), was honored in London recently by the Royal Society for the Promotion of Health for his long career of improving urban health and indoor air quality. Spengler, who directs the…

There was singing, dancing, and catching up with old friends under bright blue skies in Tercentenary Theatre on Aug. 10, as Harvard hosted approximately 700 Cambridge senior citizens at the 25th annual Senior Picnic. “It’s a chance to meet all our old friends, the environment is nice, and we get a chance to meet the…

“Keep it real!” Sometimes declared as a warning and other times said in jest, this expression came up repeatedly during the 2000 Summer Leadership Institute (SLI), which brought 45 clergy, lay leaders, and community developers from across the country to Harvard. SLI, a two-week training program designed to aid these participants in better serving their…

The following is a portion of the incidents reported to the Harvard University Police Department for the week ending Aug. 12. The official log is located at police headquarters, 29 Garden St. Aug. 7: A caller reported the theft of her bicycle from the Gutman Library. A caller reported the theft of a bicycle at…

The city of Cambridge is nearing completion of its evaluation of pipe conditions under Oxford Street and may have a plan of action by Labor Day. The preliminary recommendations include pipe lining of portions north and south of Everett Street and some spot repairs where lining is not feasible. Oxford Street will continue to be…

The Law School’s Oliver Oldman has received the National Tax Association (NTA) Daniel M. Holland Medal. Founded in 1907, NTA is the leading association of tax professionals dedicated to advancing understanding of the theory and practice of public finance. The National Tax Association is a nonpartisan, nonpolitical, educational association that fosters study and discussion of…

Oldest U.S.-Japan student exchange program hosts forum The annual Japan-American Student Conference (JASC) is being held for the 52nd time in the organization’s 66-year history; it began July 21 and will continue to Aug. 20. Entirely organized and managed by and for university students, JASC meetings alternate yearly between the United States and Japan, and…

Beer elected to British Academy Samuel H. Beer, Eaton Professor of the Science of Government Emeritus in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, was elected Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy at the July 6 meeting of the Fellows of the Academy. Postdocs receive Runyon-Winchell Fellowships Paula Cramer and Chuan He were among the 18…