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  • Campus & Community

    ‘Public Theologians’: Summer Leadership Institute ‘keeps it real’

    “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…

  • Campus & Community

    Police Log

    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…

  • Campus & Community

    Oxford Street will be closed for at least four weeks

    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…

  • Campus & Community

    Oliver Oldman receives National Tax Association Medal

    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…

  • Campus & Community

    Notes

    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…

  • Campus & Community

    NewsMakers

    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…

  • Campus & Community

    Newman appointed executive dean at Kennedy School

    J. Bonnie Newman, former senior aide to President George Bush and currently a senior public affairs and government relations consultant, has been named Executive Dean at the Kennedy School of Government, announced Dean Joseph S. Nye Jr. The Executive Dean is the senior administrative officer of the Kennedy School. Newman will join the senior management…

  • Campus & Community

    Hypnosis found to alter the brain: Subjects see color where none exists

    People have been hypnotized to see color where only shades of gray exist, and to see gray when actually looking at brightly colored rectangles. That result wouldn’t be so surprising at a carnival or stage show, but it comes from a tightly controlled scientific experiment done at a Harvard University medical facility. Researchers separately hypnotized…

  • Campus & Community

    Local groups receive grant money from Harbus Foundation

    Helping underachieving high school students raise their test scores to go to college. Buying books for a growing library at a pilot middle school. Providing support for an innovative job training initiative for low-income families. These programs, and others like them, are being rewarded for their excellence by the Harbus Foundation, an offshoot of The…

  • Campus & Community

    GSE program stresses teamwork for educators

    “We’ve lost our focus. We think we’re in neutral,” admitted Faye Bradley, curriculum director at Ohio’s Madison Local School District. “As hard as we try to focus on one mission, our staff development is all over the place. “We’re stuck,” she said with finality. But the assessment wasn’t the last word on Madison schools. Along…

  • Campus & Community

    Giles named Nieman Foundation curator

    Robert H. Giles has been selected as the next curator of the University’s Nieman Foundation for Journalism, President Neil L. Rudenstine announced last month. Before coming to Harvard, Giles, 67, was a senior vice president of The Freedom Forum, a nonpartisan, international foundation dedicated to freedom of speech and of the press. He served as…

  • Campus & Community

    New director named at Harvard Genomics Center

    Jeremy R. Knowles, Dean of Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), has appointed Andrew Murray, professor of molecular and cellular biology, director of the Faculty’s Center for Genomics Research. Murray, who will join the FAS Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology as he takes up his new duties, comes to Harvard from 11 years…

  • Campus & Community

    Potential drugs from nature land researcher national award

    David A. Evans, Abbott and James Lawrence Professor of Chemistry, will be honored on Aug. 22 by the American Chemical Society for developing strategies for making potential drugs derived from nature. He will receive the 2000 Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award at the national meeting of the world’s largest society of chemists in Washington, D.C.…

  • Campus & Community

    What’s your risk of cancer?

    To find out, look into http://www.yourcancerrisk.harvard.edu. The site provides personalized, interactive information about your chances of getting breast, prostate, lung, colon, bladder, melanoma, uterine, kidney, ovarian, cervical, stomach, and pancreatic cancer. After answering a few questions, the site gives you information about your risk levels in the form of a bar graph. Then you can…

  • Campus & Community

    It’s a hit: Baseball camp scores with kids

    More than 200 children were hitting, fielding, and rounding bases on Harvard’s baseball diamonds this summer during three weeklong baseball camps designed not just to keep the kids busy, but also to teach the finer points of the game. Their enthusiasm led Harvard Baseball Coach Joe Walsh to conclude that “99 percent of them are…

  • Campus & Community

    A class with character : Drama students are encouraged to act up

    Ceren Gurkan, a high school student from Rome, wasn’t exactly channeling Beatrice, an upper-crust British lady. She was Beatrice. Or Beatrice was she or — something. This summer in the Loeb Drama Center’s basement dance studio, it isn’t always easy to tell who is who. There, every Monday and Wednesday morning, 20 actors and would-be…

  • Health

    Hypnosis found to alter the brain

    “Hypnosis has a contentious history,” notes Stephen Kosslyn, professor of psychology at Harvard and leader of a study in which people were hypnotized to see color where only shades of gray exist, and to see gray when actually looking at brightly colored rectangles. “Some insist it’s a state of mind that differs from normal states…

  • Science & Tech

    Cosmic ‘superbubbles’ bespeak toil and trouble

    The merging Antennae Galaxies in constellation Corvus are producing massive bubbles of expanding X-ray-emitting gas at such astonishing rates that they are bumping into each other. Giuseppina Fabbiano, Andreas Zezas and Stephen Murray of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics used NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory to capture in unprecedented detail this phenomenon. Fabbiano said that the…

  • Health

    Nearly half of college students used tobacco in one-year period

    In 2000, nearly one-half of college students reported using tobacco products in the previous year. By including the use of cigars and smokeless tobacco, a study found a greater prevalence of tobacco use among college students than have previous reports that looked only at cigarette use. Although about 28 percent of both male and female…

  • Health

    Head lice frequently misdiagnosed

    Via an informational Website, researchers asked readers to submit samples of what they thought were head lice or louse eggs. The readers completed questionnaires that asked them their relationship to the infested person and the measures taken to treat the perceived infestation. “An uncomfortably large proportion of the submissions had nothing to do with head…

  • Science & Tech

    Medical records play role in domestic violence legal cases

    Two researchers studied nearly 100 medical charts of women who had previously been identified as abuse survivors. They found that physicians frequently did not screen for abuse and that the notes taken would not mean much in a courtroom. “The potential risks of documentation to the clinician or the patient appear to be more salient…

  • Health

    Tissue engineering produces an artificial gland

    Your thymus is a walnut-sized gland that sits just above your heart. The master gland of the immune system, one of the thymus’ chief functions is to produce T lymphocytes, which are a type of white blood cell that works to prevent disease. In July 2000, a team of Harvard Medical School researchers at Massachusetts…

  • Campus & Community

    Galbraith Receives Medal of Freedom

    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.

  • Science & Tech

    Mystery of cometary X-rays solved

    Comets, which resemble “dirty snow balls” a few miles in diameter, until recently were thought to be too cold to emit X-rays. So the detection of X-rays from comet Hyakutake in 1996 was a surprise. Several explanations were suggested, but the source of cometary X-ray emission remained a puzzle. NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory in July…

  • Campus & Community

    Turnpike Board Approves Harvard Land Bid

    With land in Cambridge at a premium, Harvard University is looking southward to meet its long-term needs for additional space. The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority (MTA) Board on Wednesday, July 12 voted unanimously to select Harvard as the highest responsible bidder to purchase a 48-acre parcel in Allston. The bids were opened at the MTA offices…

  • Campus & Community

    Kennedy School establishes overseas program office

    The Overseas Program Office has been established at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government to facilitate the administration of international projects at the School. The Office has primary responsibility for administration and logistics of overseas projects and will work in close collaboration with the research centers and support offices at the Kennedy School. In…

  • Campus & Community

    New Source of Insulin Discovered

    Insulin is like gold to a diabetic, and researchers at Harvard Medical School have found a new way to mine it. The hormone is essential for converting sugar in food into energy; without regular injections of it, people suffering from Type 1, or juvenile, diabetes can lapse into a coma and die. Medical scientists have…

  • Campus & Community

    The hospice journey: Student volunteers, interns take the path to Chilton House

    Harvard Divinity student Alyssa May leaned over Claire’s bed, joking with the older woman about dancing and horseback riding. Claire, looking small and frail under the covers of her high, railed bed, joked back, her soft voice difficult to hear. The two talked for a while, Claire saying how surprised she is at the people…

  • Campus & Community

    Heroes honored

    Harvard honored 220 Central Administration staffers in June, naming them Harvard Heroes for leadership, teamwork, adaptability, and work that exceeds expectations. This year’s Heroes were honored in a June 14 ceremony that was attended by the vice presidents and directors of their departments and by President Neil L. Rudenstine, who read a short note of…

  • Campus & Community

    University’s environmental record lauded

    Harvard has received an award recognizing the excellence of its environmental programs as well as its record of complying with environmental regulations. The award is presented annually by the Environmental Business Council of New England (EBC), a trade association with representation from industry, consulting firms, government agencies, and some universities. “It’s very nice to be…