All articles

The Harvard Gazette

Two professors in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences have received research fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Suzanne Blier, professor of the history of art and architecture in the Department of the History of Art and Architecture, received a fellowship for a project titled “Imaging Amazons: The Art of Dahomey Women…

The Fellows for Spring 2000 at the Institute of Politics will discuss their personal perspectives on politics in a panel discussion at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 8, in the ARCO Forum of Public Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government. This semester’s fellows include: Jon Cowan, chief of staff of the U.S. Department of…

What would Martha Ballard think of DoHistory.org? Would she be puzzled that so much fuss was being made about a woman from rural Maine who died almost 200 years ago, unknown to any except her local community? Or would she be pleased that the work she had done as a midwife and healer was finally…

The People’s Lawyer: A to Judge A. Leon Higginbotham” will be held at the Kennedy Library in Boston from 3 to 5 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 6. The tribute will include film clips of Judge Higginbotham and a roundtable discussion by friends and colleagues, among whom will be Harvard Law School Professor Charles Ogletree, Anita…

Richard Heck sits in his office, his lanky frame sprawled on a worn armchair. A half-finished bottle of Coke rests on the seat of a wooden chair beside him. Nothing unusual in this picture, but to Heck, who is a professor of philosophy, the tableau raises enormous problems. “One of the basic questions in philosophy…

Children dying of cancer experience substantial suffering in the last month of life, according to researchers at two prominent cancer hospitals in Boston. Not all such suffering is necessary, say experts at Harvard-affiliated Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Children’s Hospital. The major problem, they believe, stems from the idea that the quality of life of children…

More than 13,000 visits were logged on to a new Website of the Harvard Center for Cancer Prevention within the first week of its launch in mid-January, making it the most successful site launched at the Harvard School of Public Health. Your Cancer Risk, at http://www.yourcancerrisk.harvard.edu, received 1 million hits on its first day and…

Jeremy R. Knowles, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, has named this year’s Walter Channing Cabot Fellows. The four recipients of this fellowship are: Yve-Alain Bois, Joseph Pulitzer, Jr. Professor of Modern Art; James Engell, Professor of English and Comparative Literature; Elizabeth Perry, Henry Rosovsky Professor of Government and director of the John…

The pictures will be available to the public next year in an exhibit, “Mondrian: The Transatlantic Paintings,” scheduled for April through July 2001 at the Fogg Art Museum. Eleven of these transatlantic paintings were included in the 1995 Mondrian retrospective at the Haags Gemeentemuseum, the National Gallery of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art.…

The Harvard women’s basketball team has jumped out to a 10—5 record on the season, and as of Feb. 1, sits atop the Ivy League standings with a perfect 3—0 record. The team has rebounded from an injury-filled 1998-99 season (in which it finished with an uncharacteristic 10—15 mark) to find itself as one of…

François Bovon has spent many years peering into the mists that shroud the early history of Christianity. His investigations have shown him something that might surprise nonscholars – that even in the religion’s infancy, when the first generation of Christians were spreading the faith, diversity of belief was already the norm rather than the exception.…

January 21, 2000 Dear Alumni, Alumnae, and Friends, I write with a simple purpose: to thank you, on behalf of the entire Harvard community, for taking part in the most ambitious fundraising campaign in the history of higher education. By December 31, 1999, when the campaign drew to a close, 174,378 graduates and friends had…

Gingerich wins LeRoy Doggett Prize in Astronomy Owen Gingerich, professor of astronomy and the history of science, received the LeRoy E. Doggett Prize from the Historical Astronomy Division of the American Astronomical Society “in recognition of his wide-ranging contributions to the field and his effectiveness in keeping the history of astronomy before the public.” Gingerich…

Three Harvard students – two undergraduates and a Medical School student – will be studying in Ireland for a year as part of the inaugural cohort of George J. Mitchell Scholars. Winifred Li and Laela Sturdy, both seniors living in Eliot House, and Rebecca Reichert, a second-year medical student in the Medical School/M.I.T. Health Sciences…

One out of every 25 hospital patients suffers complications related not to illness, but to treatment. And more than any other single cause, that treatment involves drugs. A study by a Harvard School of Public Health adjunct professor highlights a low-cost way to catch two of every three drug errors before they occur. The study,…

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of person,” and that “no one shall be subjected to torture, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.” “If we accept the declaration, then we must see intimate partner violence as a human rights issue,” said Nancy Isaac, a…

The man brought his 9-year-old son into the makeshift clinic to test the boy’s brain. There was no point in doing even the simplest test, the nurse noted. The boy was so retarded he didn’t know his own name, and he walked with a shuffling gait produced by severe brain damage. Allen Counter, an associate…

Harvard Planning and Real Estate (HPRE) has proposed a 2.5 percent rent increase for current affiliated housing residents who live in the approximately 2,300 Harvard Affiliated Housing apartments. The proposed 2.5 percent increase for current affiliated housing residents has been reviewed by the Faculty Advisory Committee on Affiliated Housing, and would take effect July 1,…

Tomiko Brown-Nagin has been appointed a Harvard Law School Charles Hamilton Houston Fellow. The Houston Fellowship was established in 1992 by Dean Robert Clark to promote new channels of entry into legal teaching and enhance diversity within the profession. During her year in residence at the Law School, Brown-Nagin will transform certain aspects of her…

Harvard Provost Harvey V. Fineberg has accepted the recommendation of a faculty task force to close the Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID) after integrating some of its programs and functions into Harvard’s Schools. Fineberg made the announcement in letters delivered to HIID staff Jan. 21, saying Harvard President Neil L. Rudenstine and the members…

Susan Vacca calls it her “odyssey.” In July of 1998, Vacca, associate director and librarian in the Office of Career Services, flew from Boston to Genoa, Italy; from Genoa to Cagliari, the capital of Sardinia; from Cagliari by hired taxi to the Porto Vesme ferry; and from the ferry, finally, to the small island called…

January 27, 2000 At its eighth meeting of the year the Faculty Council discussed the recent Report of the Provost’s Committee on Student Mental Health Services. Members of the Committee present for this conversation were Paul Summergrad, MD, Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the Medical School, chair; Thomas A. Dingman, Associate Dean of Harvard College;…

Gail C. Christopher, director of the Alliance for Redesigning Government and a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, has been named executive director of the Innovations in American Government Program at the Kennedy School of Government. As director, Christopher plans to seize the opportunities presented by today’s electronic technology to expand the role…

In a letter being sent this week to all contributors to Harvard’s University Campaign, which ended on December 31, President Neil L. Rudenstine thanked them for advancing the University’s teaching and research missions while establishing a new milestone in the history of philanthropy for higher education. The University’s donors contributed a total of $2.6 billion…

Painter, sculptor and printmaker Oliver Jackson will discuss his work and career in an illustrated lecture at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, March 22, at the Sackler lecture hall, Arthur M. Sackler Museum, 485 Broadway. The program is free and open to the public. Born in St. Louis, where he was a founding member of the…

The Kokkalis Program on Southeastern and East-Central Europe will award travel grants to students seeking to work or pursue research in the region of its focus during the summer of 2000. Harvard students are strongly encouraged to apply. Submit a proposal/statement of purpose, a CV and one letter of recommendation by March 31 to the…

Following a successful run last fall, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study will again host its “Voices of Public Intellectuals” lecture series this spring with a focus on “Feminisms and the Practice of Democracy.” Cosponsored by Radcliffe Seminars and the Graduate Consortium in Women’s Studies, this year’s series kicks off on Monday, Feb. 7, at…