All articles

  • Nation & World

    Joint Center for Housing sees mortgage turmoil hitting rental market

    The current mortgage turmoil reaches deep into rental markets. New research on rental housing market dynamics from Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies finds that the current housing debacle not only adds to the number of households competing for low-cost rentals but also threatens renters living in foreclosed properties with sudden eviction.

  • Nation & World

    ‘Asia: The Next Ten Years’

    Despite the rain and drear outside, inside at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, participants in a two-day conference marking the first 10 years of the Harvard University Asia Center were given a notably hopeful and positive survey of likely developments in Asia over the next 10 years.

  • Arts & Culture

    The fleeting nature of performance

    Christine Whitney Dakin, a New York City contemporary dancer and protégé of Martha Graham, is a Radcliffe Fellow this year — the first dancer ever in the program. She’s busy writing a book, making a film, and preparing a Harvard class for next spring.

  • Arts & Culture

    Radcliffe Fellow, poet Elizabeth Alexander reads

    It was show and tell for poet Elizabeth Alexander this week. The Yale University professor of African American studies, a Radcliffe Fellow this year, used a May 5 reading to show the depth and musicality of her poems, short stories, and penetrating essays — and to tell the story of inspiration’s multiple avenues.

  • Arts & Culture

    Ghostly Shakespearean fragment comes to life on stage

    Monday evening (May 5) at Zero Arrow Theatre, an audience of 120 listened in on a discussion of “Cardenio,” a play premiering Saturday (May 10) at the American Repertory Theatre (A.R.T.).

  • Campus & Community

    This month in Harvard history

    May 23, 1910 — The Harvard Corporation formally adopts crimson as Harvard’s official color, based on the tint of several silk scarves used by Harvard rowers in the 1858 Boston City Regatta and preserved in the University Archives.

  • Campus & Community

    Police reports

    Following are some of the incidents reported to the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) for the week ending May 5. The official log is located at 1033 Massachusetts Ave., sixth floor, and is available online at http://www.hupd.harvard.edu/.

  • Campus & Community

    Memorial Church to host service of remembrance

    The Harvard Veterans Alumni Organization is conducting a service of remembrance at the Memorial Church at 9 a.m. on May 26.

  • Campus & Community

    Memorial service for Jeremy Knowles scheduled for May 30

    A memorial service for former dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Jeremy R. Knowles will be held May 30 at 11 a.m. at the Memorial Church. The Amory Houghton Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Knowles died April 3.

  • Campus & Community

    Wendell Vernon Clausen

    At a Meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences on April 8, 2008, the Minute honoring the life and service of the late Wendell Vernon Clausen, Pope Professor of the Latin Language and Literature, and Professor of Comparative Literature, Emeritus, was placed upon the records. Clausen integrated exacting philological scholarship with a finely tuned…

  • Campus & Community

    Weissman Program interns get set to see the world

    The Weissman International Internship Program, established by Paul ’52 and Harriet Weissman in 1994, provides sophomores and juniors with the opportunity to intern abroad in a field of work related to their career and academic goals.

  • Campus & Community

    Big Green lacrosse spoils men’s season finale

    The Harvard men’s lacrosse team dropped its season finale to a visiting Dartmouth squad, 12-6, this past Saturday (May 3) to close out its 2008 campaign two games below .500 (6-8; 1-5 Ivy).

  • Campus & Community

    Softball: Two and out versus Princeton in Ivy championship

    The Princeton softball team picked up two-straight wins against the visiting Crimson this past Saturday (May 3) to capture the Ivy League’s best-of-three championship series and the subsequent NCAA bid.

  • Campus & Community

    Finally, the answer to the question, ‘Who is Harvard’s strongest person?’

    An eclectic roster of Harvard athletes arrived at the Malkin Athletic Center with the same thing on their mind: the title “Harvard’s Strongest Person.”

  • Arts & Culture

    Rain doesn’t dampen spirit of Arts First

    It was a rainy (not to say explosive) weekend, yet despite the daunting weather, the arts not only endured but prevailed at the University as dance, song, theater, and conceptual art brightened up the Yard and its environs.

  • Campus & Community

    Undergraduate teaching recognized

    Every spring, the Roslyn Abramson Awards recognize assistant and associate professors in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences who have demonstrated excellence in undergraduate teaching. This year’s winners are Lisa Brooks, assistant professor of history and literature and of folklore and mythology, and David Parkes, John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Natural Sciences.

  • Campus & Community

    PBHA fetes public service, honors seniors with awards

    The Phillips Brooks House Association (PBHA) held its seventh annual public service celebration on May 5 in the dining hall of Lowell House. A capacity crowd of 240, including PBHA public service leaders and volunteers, Harvard faculty and staff, and invited guests, attended the dinner program to celebrate the year in service, award postgraduate fellowships,…

  • Health

    TB talks honor outgoing HSPH dean

    Tuberculosis specialists came from universities around the country to discuss the state of the disease at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and to honor Harvard School of Public Health Dean Barry R. Bloom, who has announced that he will be stepping down.

  • Health

    Researchers report successful new laser treatment for vocal-cord cancer

    An innovative laser treatment for early vocal-cord cancer, developed at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), successfully restores patients’ voices without radiotherapy or traditional surgery, which can permanently damage vocal quality.

  • Health

    Research reveals workings of anti-HIV drugs

    Using ingenious molecular espionage, scientists have found how a single key enzyme, seemingly the Swiss Army knife in HIV’s toolbox, differentiates and dynamically binds both DNA and RNA as part of the virus’s fierce attack on host cells. The work is described this week (May 7) in the journal Nature.

  • Health

    Risk of death reduced within years of quitting smoking

    Women who quit smoking significantly reduce their risk of death from coronary heart disease within five years and have about a 20 percent lower risk of death from smoking-related cancers within that time period, according to a study in the May 7 issue of JAMA.

  • Nation & World

    Discussion pivots on worker protection in a global economy

    Ethical employment practices and safeguarding workers’ rights in a global economy were the focus of discussion April 29 at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum.

  • Nation & World

    Rothschild explores economics’ human side

    Blackmail and attempted murder are not typically studied as part of economic history. However, a credit crisis among 18th century French silk and brandy merchants led to just such dramatic incidents, the accounts of which piqued the interest of Emma Rothschild, a historian of economic life, empires, and Atlantic connections.

  • Campus & Community

    Nieman Foundation honors Chauncey Bailey with Lyons Award

    The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard presented its Louis M. Lyons Award for Conscience and Integrity in Journalism posthumously to Chauncey Bailey this past Tuesday (May 6).

  • Campus & Community

    HESLS presents discussion on ‘Power Dynamics in Negotiation’

    The Harvard Extension Service and Leadership Society (HESLS), in conjunction with the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, presented “Power Dynamics In Negotiations” on Saturday (May 3).

  • Health

    Passage of time reduces smoking mortality risk for women who quit

    Women who quit smoking significantly reduce their risk ofdeath from coronary heart disease within 5 years and have about a 20percent lower risk of death from smoking-related cancers within thattime…

  • Arts & Culture

    Distinguished poet visits alma mater

    Adrienne Rich, one of America’s most lauded poets and a major literary voice of the 20th century, returned to the place where it all began on a recent dreary Monday…

  • Arts & Culture

    OfA awards students for excellence in the arts

    The Office for the Arts at Harvard (OfA) and the Council on the Arts at Harvard, a standing committee of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, recently announced the winners of the annual undergraduate arts prizes presented in recognition of outstanding accomplishment in the arts for the 2007-08 academic year.

  • Arts & Culture

    ‘Instability and Decomposition’

    Instability is the reign of things erratic and unpredictable. Decomposition is the state of being as it unravels, nicely captured by a common sentiment: Things fall apart. The two words — and the frictive, unstable worlds they imply — were at the heart of a convocation of young scholars last week (April 25-26).

  • Arts & Culture

    Lucky shot? Photography and chance

    Chance smiled on Joe Rosenthal in late February 1945. The young Associated Press photographer was atop Mount Suribachi to cover the Allied troops’ capture of Iwo Jima when he heard that soldiers were preparing to raise an American flag. It was the second attempt of the day, for authorities had decided the first flag —…