All articles

  • Nation & World

    Post-colonial wars parsed at Radcliffe

    Last week, a two-day interdisciplinary conference on post-colonial wars got under way at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. The Oct. 30-31 event was the capstone of two years of private meetings at Radcliffe by high-level experts on the wars that followed independence movements in Africa and Asia after World War II.

  • Campus & Community

    Police reports

    Following are some of the incidents reported to the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) for the week ending Nov. 3. The official log is located at 1033 Massachusetts Ave., sixth floor, and is available online at http://www.hupd.harvard.edu.

  • Nation & World

    Obama joins list of seven presidents with Harvard degrees

    When sworn in on Jan. 20, Barack Obama will join current President George W. Bush (M.B.A. ’75) and Presidents John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Rutherford B. Hayes, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy as Harvard graduates chosen to serve as the nation’s chief executive.

  • Campus & Community

    Stephen R. Prothero to deliver Noble Lectures

    New York Times best-selling author and Boston University professor of religion Stephen R. Prothero will deliver this year’s William Belden Noble Lectures, “The Work of Doing Nothing: Wandering as Practice and Play,” Nov. 18-20 at the Memorial Church.

  • Science & Tech

    Global warming predicted to hasten carbon release from peat bogs

    Billions of tons of carbon sequestered in the world’s peat bogs could be released into the atmosphere in the coming decades as a result of global warming, according to a new analysis of the interplay between peat bogs, water tables, and climate change.

  • Campus & Community

    Fresh faces in the crowd

    It may come as a surprise to some, but after Harvard men’s hockey’s 4-1 win against Dartmouth on Friday (Oct. 31) and 3-1 win against Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) on Tuesday (Nov. 4), the Crimson are 2-0 for just the second time in 15 seasons. With 17 underclassmen and 10 upperclassmen on the roster, so…

  • Campus & Community

    This month in Harvard history

    Nov. 14, 1899 — In Sanders Theatre, students, faculty, and administrators celebrate Maj. Henry Lee Higginson’s recent $150,000 gift for building the Harvard Union (now part of Barker Center for the Humanities).

  • Nation & World

    Voter turnout approaches some records, breaks others

    Voter turnout in the 2008 presidential election was not record-breaking, but it appears that it will approach the roughly 67 percent of the eligible citizenry who voted in 1960.

  • Nation & World

    Spirited discussion brings some clarity to Obama’s strategy on Middle East

    In the final days before the U.S. presidential election, the two leading candidates were too busy dashing from one rally to the next in a few battleground states to make it to the reliably blue Bay State in person.

  • Arts & Culture

    How the ‘talking machine’ allowed music and dance to cross oceans

    In the late 1920s, with the advent of new technology, gramophone and “talking machine” companies were able to capture the sounds and rhythms of life in cities across the globe. From New York to Havana, Paris to Honolulu, labels like Victor, Gramophone Company, and Okeh competed to record vernacular music.

  • Campus & Community

    And into the night

    It was well after midnight, and America was more than an hour into the Obama era when 02138 erupted in a series of spontaneous, ravelike street parties. In Harvard Yard, revelers dressed up the sedate, seated bronze John Harvard in a cloud of red, white, and blue balloons, and propped on his still chest an…

  • Science & Tech

    Wildlife Conservation Society chief outlines scenarios

    From the complex social structure of elephant herds to the understanding that gorillas are susceptible to deadly “human” diseases to the impacts of climate change, conservationists are struggling to balance a suite of challenges unknown in past generations.

  • Campus & Community

    Home for the homeless: Community Gifts kicks off the season of giving

    It’s November again, signaling the cold autumn preamble to another lengthy Massachusetts winter. And here at Harvard, “giving month” has arrived — kicking off the annual Community Gifts Through Harvard campaign, a campuswide charitable initiative that draws much-needed dollars from generous faculty, staff, and retirees for various Massachusetts Bay charities during the month of November.…

  • Campus & Community

    At the Harvard Kennedy School

    The interest in this contest on the Harvard campus was apparent early at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum. Their election night gathering, featuring returns showing on the forum’s large screen, was ticketed for the first time. Forum officials said that 1,500 applied for the 1,000 tickets available.

  • Campus & Community

    A special night at the Queen’s Head pub

    At 7 p.m., with election results still the stuff of dreams, Matthew Clair pitched in to inflate balloons at the Cambridge Queen’s Head at Loker Commons. The Dunster House senior, whose Brentwood, Tenn., family, he said, was the only one in town with an Obama sign on the front lawn, is president of the Harvard…

  • Campus & Community

    At Harvard Law School, and beyond

    One hundred and twenty seven years later, the Harvard Law School can claim it has another alumnus in the White House. On Nov. 4, Barack Obama became the second Law School grad to ascend to the nation’s highest office.

  • Campus & Community

    Clarke, inventive materials scientist, to join Harvard’s SEAS faculty

    David R. Clarke, an inventive materials scientist recognized worldwide for his outstanding contributions to the study of ceramic materials, has been named Gordon McKay Professor of Materials in Harvard University’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), effective Jan. 1, 2009.

  • Nation & World

    Chall Lecture focuses on the future of literacy achievement gap

    Research shows that there have been positive trends in literacy achievement in the past 25 years. These gains, however, have not included a significant closing of the gaps between racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups, a fact that represents a serious issue in education today.

  • Campus & Community

    Harvard Forest names Bullard Fellows

    The Harvard Forest has recently announced nine Charles Bullard Fellows in Forest Research for 2008-09. Established in 1962, the Bullard Fellowship program was created to support the study and advanced research of individuals looking to make important contributions as scholars or administrators in forestry.

  • Campus & Community

    Hu named professor of applied physics, electrical engineering

    Evelyn L. Hu, a pioneer in the fabrication of nanoscale electronic and photonic devices, has been named Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics and Electrical Engineering in Harvard University’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), effective Jan. 1, 2009.

  • Health

    Microbiologist Gary Ruvkun:

    Gary Ruvkun has made a career out of imagining the unimaginable, and of surrounding himself with like-minded thinkers who let the wheels of thought spin until they catch on something…

  • Campus & Community

    Harvard students caught up in election excitement

    On this year’s election night, the Harvard News Office cast its staff of writers and photographers out over the University to serve as witnesses. From the Kennedy School to the Queen’s Head pub, they recorded on notebook and film the tension, the growing enthusiasm, and the final nearly ecstatic pandemonium that marked this historic occasion.

  • Nation & World

    Election 2008 excitement

    Harvard students came together and tuned in to the national media at Election Night 2008 gatherings that ranged from small and quiet to large and loud, ultimately spilling into Harvard’s Yard and Square.

  • Health

    Survey finds disconnect between sexual problems in women and feeling of distress

    The largest such study ever published finds that, although about 40 percent of women surveyed report having sexual problems, only 12 percent indicate that those issues are a source of…

  • Science & Tech

    Evelyn Hu named professor of applied physics, electrical engineering in SEAS

    Evelyn L. Hu, a pioneer in the fabrication of nanoscale electronic and photonic devices, has been named Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics and Electrical Engineering in Harvard University’s School…

  • Science & Tech

    David Clarke appointed as professor of materials in School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

    David R. Clarke, an inventive materials scientist recognized worldwide for his out-standing contributions to the study of ceramic materials, has been named Gordon McKay Professor of Materials in Harvard University’s…

  • Health

    Gene scan of Alzheimer’s families identifies four new suspect genes

    The first family-based genome-wide association study in Alzheimer’s disease has identified the sites of four novel genes that may significantly influence risk for the most common late-onset form of the…

  • Campus & Community

    Paul Zofnass ’69, M.B.A. ’73 establishes GSD sustainability initiative

    Paul Zofnass ’69, M.B.A. ’73 has established a sustainability initiative at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD) with a $500,000 gift.

  • Arts & Culture

    Houghton joins with libraries nationwide to celebrate artists’ retreat

    HCL Communications It’s been said great art often grows out of tragedy — in the case of Yaddo, an artists’ retreat in upstate New York founded in 1900, tragedy spurred the creation of hundreds of great works of art.

  • Arts & Culture

    The Nobel for literature: An insider’s view

    One of Per Wästberg’s best times as a college student in the 1950s was the night he got locked in Widener Library. “I got so enthralled [in the stacks], the library closed and I couldn’t get out,” Wästberg said with a laugh, noting that the floor of the library was nicer than his room at…