Campus & Community

Harvard Assistant Professor Karen Brennan is one of the developers of Scratch, a free online computer programming language that allows users to create stories, games, and animations. She discussed its benefits at a recent Ed Portal’s Faculty Speaker Series talk.

Twenty undergraduates from around the world will have the chance to get hands-on experience in Harvard labs this summer, thanks to a four-year renewable grant to expand the Amgen Scholars Program to the University.

Experiences in Moscow reinforced for Dylan Perese ’16 the importance of trust in cultural exchange.

Emperor Akihito of Japan presented Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor Joseph S. Nye with the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star. Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies faculty Professor Andrew Gordon was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon.

Families converged in Cambridge for Freshman Parents Weekend, the annual welcoming of parents that features faculty presentations, tours of the libraries and museums, and the opportunity to sit in on classes. Approximately 2,000 family members came to Harvard to visit their student over the weekend.

HGSE is launching a new teacher fellows program, giving undergraduates a pathway to teaching careers.

Keeping with its mission as a new type of teaching and learning museum, on Thursday evening the Harvard Art Museums welcomed its first visitors: University students.

The Center for Public Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School has named humanitarian Eric Greitens, founder and former CEO of The Mission Continues, as this year’s recipient of the Gleitsman Citizen Activist Award, which he will receive on Nov. 12. The biennial award includes a $125,000 prize.

Executive Vice President Katie Lapp and Treasurer Paul Finnegan spoke with the Gazette about Harvard’s financial landscape and the ongoing financial pressure facing the University.

As I write this column from the comfort of my Harvard College dorm room, my pulse still quickens when I think of that day in December 2013 — the day that made it all worthwhile. But before the moment that forever changed my life, there was a journey that started well over a decade before … the one that led to Cambridge, says Matthew DeShaw, Class of ’18.

A diverse workforce, whose members have developed their cultural intelligence, is a more productive workforce, according to David Livermore, president of the Cultural Intelligence Center. In the first of the academic year’s Diversity Dialogues, Livermore said that diverse teams with high cultural intelligence out-performs homogeneous teams.

The Harvard clubs of Dallas and San Antonio marked their centennials at a Your Harvard celebration with a gala dinner, bluegrass and piano performances, and remarks from Harvard President Drew Faust.

Thomas M. Menino, who was a transformative mayor of Boston for 20 years and worked with Harvard officials on myriad projects, is dead at 71. The Harvard community mourned his loss.

As they visited Mexico and Texas, Harvard President Drew Faust and Vice Provost for International Affairs Jorge I. Domínguez reinforced the University’s deep and longstanding ties there, met with alumni and faculty, and, in Dallas, promoted the continued value of higher education.

Bob Moses, A.M. ’57, the Civil Rights leader who conceived and shaped the effort in 1964 to connect black Mississippi citizens with more than 1,000 out-of-state volunteers in a grassroots voter-registration drive — Freedom Summer, as it would come to be known — returned to his alma mater to receive the eighth annual Robert Coles Call of Service Award from the Phillips Brooks House Association on Oct. 24.

A tour of Harvard’s “haunted” Houses, in advance of Halloween.

Harvard’s SmartTALK is offering a three-session training to teens chosen as homework mentors through the Boston Public Library’s Homework Help program. The teens will assist children in kindergarten through eighth grade.

A Q&A with Cherry A. Murray, who will depart Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at the end of December.

Harvard faculty members were among the 164 influential artists, scientists, scholars, authors, and institutional leaders who were inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences at a ceremony in Cambridge on Oct. 11.

Interview with Professor Laurel Thatcher Ulrich as part of the Experience series.

The Harvard Sustainability Plan, released today, sets a holistic vision and clear priorities for how the University will move toward an even healthier, more sustainable campus community. The five-year operational plan targets reductions in energy, water, and waste while also focusing on sustainable operations, culture change, and human health.

Last Sunday at the Head of the Charles, the Radcliffe heavyweight crew, stroked by Elizabeth Fitzhenry ’15, completed the three-mile race in 16:59:69 ― good for eighth place in the women’s championship event.

Briana Burton, associate professor of molecular and cellular biology, and Kiran Musunuru, an assistant professor of stem cell and regenerative biology, have been named the winners of the 2014 Fannie Cox Prize for Excellence in Science Teaching.

Professor Andrew Murray was named a Howard Hughes Medical Institute professor and will receive $1 million in funding for innovation in undergraduate science education.

Since 1995, Music in Hospitals and Nursing Homes Using Entertainment as Therapy (MIHNUET) has brought undergraduate musicians to 17 different sites in Cambridge and Boston to share the healing gift of music.

During a talk at the Harvard Allston Education Portal, Professor Tarun Khanna explored the benefits of interdisciplinary problem-solving on health care, based on his HarvardX course “Entrepreneurship and Healthcare in Emerging Economies,” launching on Oct. 30.

Harvard physicist Jenny Hoffman has a passion for distance. Last month in Cleveland she brought home the 2014 national championship in USA Track and Field’s 24-Hour Run, posting a final distance of more than 127 miles.

Despite gloomy skies and rain showers, hundreds of residents of Cambridge and Allston-Brighton watched Harvard beat Cornell 24-7 on Saturday (Oct. 12) as part of the annual Community Football Day.

Harvard Black Alumni Weekend 2014 (Oct. 10-12) was the fourth such gathering since 1999, and only the second time that it has been open to graduates of all Schools. In the past, events for black alumni were organized by the societies of one or several Schools at a time and focused on undergraduate students.

On Oct. 15, the Faculty Council heard a review of the human development and regenerative biology concentration, discussed a proposal to amend faculty legislation on dismissal and expulsion cases, heard an update on Allston planning, and discussed recent changes to health benefits.