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In this season of presidential primaries, education has at long last become a critical component of the stump speech, superceding even crime and foreign affairs. Every candidate is eager to visit schools and talk about improving student achievement. But what are some of the real steps–both national and local–that can be taken to improve education?…

In his book All Souls: A Family Story from Southie, Michael MacDonald chronicles his childhood in a predominantly poor, Irish-American neighborhood in Boston during the antibusing riots of the 1970s. This controversial moment in education continues to shape school desegregation efforts today and has had a profound impact on MacDonald himself, who initiated an annual…

Juliana Paré-Blagoev believes that brain scan studies will not only yield scientific clues for furthering treatment of dyslexia, but also subtle, easily overlooked benefits–such as a sense of hope, that may come simply from the subjects’ participation in a brain-imaging experiment. “How do people with dyslexia think about their disability?” Paré-Blagoev wonders, “and how does…

Michael Connell’s fascination with “neural networks”–computer programs that simulate the activity of brain cells or neurons and actually learn over time–stems in no small part from a “crystallizing moment” he experienced in ninth-grade trigonometry. His teacher brought in a mathematics journal to show students a picture of a spiraling flower made up of numbers–the result…

Melding the tools of cognitive development, developmental psychology, art, brain-imaging technology, and education, Kim Sheridan is trying to unlock the mystery of artistic taste. It has taken years for Sheridan just to formulate this idea, which reflects the path of her own life’s work. After completing an undergraduate degree in painting, Sheridan received a Fulbright…

“Is the brain shaped and even changed by its experiences with language?” wonders Mary Helen Immordino-Yang. “Does language change the way people think?” A former seventh-grade science teacher, Immordino-Yang is particularly interested in the relationship between language and the brain’s functioning–in part because of what she witnessed in her classroom. “I found myself increasingly interested…

Newly appointed professor of education and incoming director of the Harvard Literacy Laboratory Connie Juel is moving some of the services of the renowned lab into public schools. This is part of her overall plan to broaden the experience of Harvard’s graduate students. “There’s no better way to train reading teachers and reading supervisors than…

Approximately 100 student leaders in public service from Harvard, Wellesley, Columbia, the University of North Carolina, and several other universities gathered at the Kennedy School of Government last Saturday for the first-ever New England Social Enterprise Conference. The daylong event was sponsored by the Harvard Public Service Network at Phillips Brooks House, the Harvard College…

The sweet rhythms of the Radcliffe Pitches will fill the air at the Sanders Theatre on Friday, Feb. 25, when Harvard’s oldest all-female a cappella group marks a major milestone with its 25th Anniversary Concert. The 13 current members will be joined by at least 50 alumnae, who are coming to town for a reunion…

Cultural Rhythms Festival Feb. 26 The Harvard Foundation for Intercultural & Race Relations will present its annual Cultural Rhythms Festival on Saturday, Feb. 26, at 3 p.m. in Sanders Theatre and the Science Center. Matt Damon will be honored as Cultural Artist of the Year at the 15th annual festival. Damon will be presented with…

Jay Walker, founder and vice chairman of Priceline.com, will speak about “The Future of the Internet” on Thursday, March 2, from 3:30 to 5 p.m. at Burden Auditorium on the Harvard Business School campus. Priceline.com is considered one of the true Internet success stories. The High Tech and New Media Club at the Business School…

Following are some of the incidents reported to the Harvard University Police Department for the week ending Feb. 19. The official log is located at Police Department Headquarters, 29 Garden Street. Feb. 14: A bomb threat was reported at 51 Brattle St. Harvard and Cambridge Police and Cambridge Fire departments were dispatched. The building was…

As you read this, frigid air spirals slowly downward from the stratosphere into the winter darkness of the arctic, part of a complex process destroying the ozone layer that shields us from cancerous ultraviolet radiation. Scientists from Harvard and elsewhere are flying in and out of the vortex making measurements they expect will help them…

Stanbridge is Architect of Distinction at GSD Harvard Graduate School of Design student Paul Stanbridge ’00 has received both the Autodesk Architect of Distinction Award and the ALEX Award for Technological Innovations from the National Alliance for Excellence (NAE), a nonprofit foundation that recognizes the “nation’s most gifted young scholars and artists.” Stanbridge was recognized…

The Women’s Leadership Project (WLP) is currently accepting applications from Harvard undergraduates for its 13th annual Harvard Women’s Leadership Conference, to be held Sept. 4-9, 2000. The weeklong conference brings a select group of 35 undergraduates together with prominent women in politics, media, health, academia, science, business, and public service in an effort to foster…

A young woman from the West Indies – one of hundreds of people Mary Waters interviewed for her new book on West Indian immigration – told Waters that she had asked her mother to teach her to speak with a West Indian accent. She thought – and her mother agreed – that it would be…

Most Americans think that we are “Garbage” was the response of a 14-year-old Dominican boy when asked to complete a survey sentence by Harvard immigration experts Marcelo and Carola Suarez-Orozco. Many other immigrant children finished the sentence in similarly devastating fashion, using words like “bad,” “useless,” “thieves,” and “drug addicts.” Only a few completed the…

America’s Latino population is more than 30 million and growing. Yet, as the nation absorbs one of the largest waves of immigration in its history, knowledge about the Latino population – which makes up a large part of that wave – is inadequate, according to researchers at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies.…

She was pistol-whipped, raped, beaten unconscious, and kicked until she bled. He used her head to break windows. He threatened her with a machete. When she pleaded with local authorities in her Guatemalan town to help her, they did nothing. They said it was a private matter between her and her husband. Without his approval,…

Make up your mind, America. That’s the message of Kennedy School of Government economist George Borjas, a specialist in immigration who believes the United States is of two minds about which immigrants – and how many of them – to let into the country. In his own estimation, Borjas believes the country is admitting too…

A growing population of seniors living longer, healthier lives will present new challenges and opportunities to the housing market, states a new report by Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. Housing America’s Seniors, the final report of a two-year study by the Joint Center, examines a variety of issues that will face the next generation…

The Harvard Graduate School of Education (GSE) will hold its fifth annual Student Research Conference and International Forum on Feb. 25, from 9:00 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the Gutman Conference Center. The conference is one of the only opportunities in the Harvard calendar for GSE students to present their research. More than 180 students…

In the summer of 1993, an outbreak of a waterborne disease in Milwaukee killed more than 100 people and sickened 400,000 others. The crisis could have been ripped from the pages of a germ-warfare thriller in which post-Cold War agents sabotage innocent-looking drinking water, but in real life a bacterium named Cryptosporidium proved to be…

Young athletes from all over Boston converged on Harvard on a chilly Saturday in February. They took instruction from Harvard coaches and student-athletes. They labored and sweated, pushing themselves to refine their skills in soccer, basketball, volleyball, water polo, softball and field hockey. By day’s end, the athletes – nearly 100 girls in all– had…

When the quintessential master of ceremonies took the stage to accept the Pudding Pot at the Hasty Pudding Theatre on Thursday night, he got exactly what he bargained for. Six-time Academy Awards show host Billy Crystal was cajoled into roping a mock cow, expressing his feelings for a pig, and acting out the calf-birthing scene…

Mention the word “studio,” and one generally thinks of an artist’s garret, preferably one with northern light. At the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD), however, a studio has no walls, and its dimensions can span vast distances. It is a method of teaching that constitutes the core of a Harvard design education. Illustrating this…

Beginning in March, the Harvard University Art Museums will present the first in a series of exhibitions showcasing a decade of additions to their collections. More than 475 works will be featured, including masterpieces of Asian and Islamic art, old master and contemporary prints and drawings, paintings, sculptures, calligraphy, and photographs. The series will cover…

His Holiness Bhakti Bhavana Vishnu Maharaj, a Hindu monk and swami of the Gaudiya Vaishnava lineage, will give a lecture titled “Gaudiya Vaishnavism: The Spiritual Science of Vedic India” on Friday, Feb. 25, from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. in Harvard Hall 201. The event is sponsored by the Harvard Extension School Chaitanya Vaishnava Society, a…

Anna Portnoy had come halfway around the world to witness the birth of a goddess. It was a difficult delivery. As a junior concentrating in the Study of Religion, Portnoy had been looking for a topic for her honors thesis. Neelima Shukla-Bhatt, a graduate student who knew of her interest in Hindu goddesses, pointed out…