Campus & Community

Jerome Kagan’s “Aha!” moment came with Baby 19. It was 1989, and Kagan, a professor of psychology at Harvard, had just begun a major longitudinal study of temperament and its effects. Temperament is a complex, multilayered thing, and for the sake of clarity, Kagan was tracking it along a single dimension: whether babies were easily upset when exposed to new things.

Barbara J. Grosz, dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, marks an anniversary moment at Morning Prayers.

At its third meeting of the year (Sept. 30), the Faculty Council heard a review of the Ph.D. Program in Biological Sciences in Dental Medicine. The council also continued a discussion of the nomenclature of the Harvard Extension School and its degrees, as well as a proposal to change some of the procedures of the Administrative Board of Harvard College.

Tea time at Harvard is a longstanding tradition. The Rev. Professor Peter J. Gomes remarks on drinking tea at Harvard in 1968 while drinking tea today.

Historian Caroline Elkins, who received a Pulitzer Prize in 2006 for her book “Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenya,” has been named professor of history at Harvard University.

Researchers at Harvard University and Children’s Hospital Boston will sequence the genomes of at least 85 people diagnosed with autism in a bid to tease out the genetic basis for some cases of the neuropsychiatric disorder.

“If we really want to understand what’s happed in the history of Earth, we really have to understand this cross talk between the physical and biological processes,” says study coauthor Andrew Knoll of Harvard University.

Worlds of poverty and wealth, constraint and liberation, bring literary scholar Glenda R. Carpio to Harvard stardom.

Donna Tremonte of the Harvard Herbaria loves plants so much that she travels to far-flung locales like Africa and Venezuela to study them. But that’s just part of her job.

The HKS Center for Public Leadership (CPL) has named legal pioneer Karen Tse as this year’s recipient of the Gleitsman International Activist Award.

The Radcliffe Institute’s first decade is being celebrated this fall, starting with a two-day symposium Oct. 8 and 9 — a star-power taste of the institute’s signature interdisciplinary exchanges.

This spring Harvard launched a certification program for “green offices,” bringing the University’s big ambitions for energy savings down to the personal scale.

In the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, faculty and staff are honing in on saving energy and materials, helping the University to significantly reduce its greenhouse emissions by 2016.

Five FAS faculty members have been named full professors with tenure.

Edward O. Wilson has been named Commander, First Class of the Royal Order of the Polar Star by King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden.

The Harvard School of Public Health has been taking the public’s temperature lately on health topics, including swine flu and health care reform.

On October 5, 6, and 7, HLS will host New York University School of Law Professor Jeremy Waldron for the Holmes Lecture series.

Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) Dean Michael D. Smith Sept. 25 announced the appointment of Leslie Kirwan as the new FAS dean for administration and finance, effective Nov. 2, 2009. A graduate of Harvard College and the Harvard Kennedy School, Kirwan has served as the secretary of administration and finance for the commonwealth of Massachusetts since 2007.

The Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) announces 32 new fellows for the 2009-10 academic year.

A group of Harvard Business School students is partnering with a nonprofit organization to help people who are struggling to keep their homes.

The Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School recently announced the 2009 winners of the Innovations in American Government Awards on Sept. 14.

A memorial service for Hanna Machlup Hastings will be held on Oct. 17 at Pforzheimer House.

Isha Jain ’12 and Anastasia Roda ’12 have been invited to speak at the International Women’s Forum’s 2009 International World Leadership Conference in Miami on Oct. 8.

Erin Hafkenschiel, a Harvard Kennedy School student working toward a master’s degree in public policy and urban planning, has been awarded an NSCS-GEICO Graduate School Scholarship of $5,000.

Charles McCabe, senior surgeon and senior physician in emergency services at Massachusetts General Hospital and professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School (HMS), died July 7, 2008, after a protracted battle with melanoma, lymphoma, and multiple sclerosis.

Karel Frederik Liem, an expert on the functional anatomy, evolution, and physiology of fishes and curator of ichthyology in the Museum of Comparative Zoology, died on Sept. 3 at the age of 74.

At a Meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences on May 19, 2009, the Minute honoring the life and service of the late Ernest Edward Williams, Professor of Biology, Emeritus, and Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology, Emeritus, was placed upon the records. Ernest Williams’ work on anole evolution synthesized a wide variety of fields.

Leon Eisenberg, the Maude and Lillian Presley Professor of Social Medicine Emeritus at Harvard Medical School (HMS), died on Sept. 15 at the age of 87.

Allan R. Robinson, Gordon McKay Professor of Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Emeritus died on Sept. 25, at the age of 76.

Assistant Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Kirsten Bomblies is among 70 new faculty members who are joining the University’s various Schools this year. With the start of the new year, Harvard has hired 41 new assistant professors, six associate professors, and 23 new full professors, and promoted 20 existing faculty members to tenured professor positions.