Campus & Community

Harvard President Drew Faust opened the first day of fall classes Tuesday by welcoming students and faculty to a new academic year during the traditional Morning Prayers.

As the Class of 2017 settled in at Harvard and began Freshman Week, students from around the world were busy taking in the unfamiliar sights and sounds of their tightly packed, red-brick neighborhood, their home base for the next four years.

At the annual Freshman Convocation Monday, Harvard President Drew Faust and other University officials told the Class of ’17 to embrace challenges, reach out to fellow students and others, and keep open minds about what the future should hold.

The Harvard University Police Department has released its annual report on crime, prevention, substance abuse, and other on-campus services.

Harvard Divinity School’s annual convocation included an address by Houghton Professor of the Practice of Ministry Studies Stephanie Paulsell, who explored the theme of devotion in the texts of the Bible’s “Song of Songs,” and in the work of author Virginia Woolf.

After 15 months of construction and renovation, Old Quincy, the first test project in the House Renewal initiative, began welcoming students this week.

David S. Landes, a renowned historian whose work focused on the complex interplay of cultural mores and historical circumstance, died Aug. 17 at age 89.

Irish poet Seamus Heaney, the 1995 Nobel laureate in literature with longtime ties to Harvard, died Aug. 30 in Ireland at age 74.

Thanks to an abundant garden, the Harvard Faculty Club is saving money and producing even better-tasting food.

To address the growing numbers and concerns about disabilities, Harvard????s Faculty of Arts and Sciences Human Resources organized a community discussion titled “Working with People with Disabilities: What Happens After You Say Hello?”

On the Science Center Plaza for the next several Thursdays, Harvard freshmen and others will be able to spend time lingering at a small petting zoo, part of a new Common Spaces initiative.

The 103rd season of Harvard basketball opens Nov. 10 against Holy Cross as part of a tripleheader at TD Garden.

This year, Harvard researchers are receiving $719,701 in funding from the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation, formerly known as the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression, or NARSAD.

Harvard Yard began to come alive again Monday morning as the Class of 2017 arrived on campus.

As freshmen move into dorms in and around the Yard, fellow students, faculty, and administrators offer their advice on how best to adjust to the Harvard experience. Their suggestions range from maintaining basic wellness to making sure to have fun.

After 15 months of construction and renovation, Old Quincy is ready to welcome back students for the academic year.

Former dean of Radcliffe admissions David K. “Deke” Smith of Topsham, Maine, died Aug. 14 at the age of 77, following a brief battle with cancer.

A memorial service for Harry Parker on Aug. 17 gathered the coach’s family and former students. Parker passed away June 25 at the age of 77. He served as the Thomas Bolles Head Coach for Harvard Men’s Heavyweight Crew for 51 seasons.

The Harvard Museum of Natural History’s “The Language of Color” exhibition, which was supposed to close in 2009 but remained popular among visitors, will close in October to make way for a new exhibition on Thoreau’s Maine woods, featuring the work of photographer Scot Miller.

A limited-edition sneaker honoring the “three lies” of the John Harvard Statue goes on sale, drawing fashion fans from far and wide.

Award-winning author and Harvard Professor Jill Lepore will talk about her latest title, “Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin,” on Sept. 10 at the Radcliffe Institute.

A memorial service for Harry Parker will be held 2 p.m. Aug. 17 at the Memorial Church in Harvard Yard. There will also be a row in Parker’s honor at 9 a.m. and an afternoon tea at 3:30 p.m.

East Boston elementary school children are exploring and interpreting “The Wizard of Oz” through the creative arts using a program called Pre-Texts, which was developed by Doris Sommer, the Ira and Jewell Williams Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and director of the Cultural Agents Initiative at Harvard.

Harvard men’s basketball head coach Tommy Amaker has been selected for induction into the Washington Metropolitan Basketball Hall of Fame, adding to the growing list of honors he has received this offseason. The ceremony will be held Sept. 24 at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C., as part of “An Evening with the Legends of the Game” event.

Elizabeth Gray, senior associate secretary to the University, has tended the Loeb House garden in Harvard Yard since 1985.

Harvard’s President’s Innovation Fund for International Experiences has provided a boost to four new programs, as well as providing renewal or extension funding to three other projects.

During a panel discussion, Crimson Summer Academy mentors, themselves graduates of the program, tell current students how they reached their academic goals.

Seoul native Hansung Ryu has returned home from Harvard after two months as an intern at the Joslin Diabetes Center, where he also found time for the Harvard Summer School Orchestra.

Elizabeth H. Jones, former head of conservation at the Fogg Museum, died on May 20 in Woodbury, Conn. She was 94.

While Harvard’s Farmers’ Market is known for transforming the Science Center Plaza into a farm fresh mecca, it also hosts a weekly read-aloud where children of all ages can enjoy stories read by a Cambridge Public Library staff member.