Campus & Community

The Committee of the Howard T. Fisher Prize in Geographical Information Science (GIS) has announced that Harvard College senior Shubha Lakshmi Bhat and Alisha Holland, a Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Government, are the 2008-09 recipients of the Howard T. Fisher Prize in Geographical Information Science.

Through its Africa Initiative, the Harvard Committee on African Studies has awarded 51 grants to Harvard students for travel to sub-Saharan Africa during the summer of 2009. The grants fund internships, language study, senior thesis research, master’s thesis research, and doctoral dissertation research. Twenty-four undergraduates and 27 graduate students were awarded grants, the largest number of grants ever given by the committee. The grants are funded by the Office of the Provost; an endowment established by Jennifer Oppenheimer ’89, J.D. ’93; and a gift from the Flowers family.

Six professors in Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) have been named Walter Channing Cabot Fellows. The annual awards recognize tenured faculty members for distinguished accomplishments in the fields of literature, history, or art, broadly conceived.

This summer the Gazette will publish two online issues — on July 23 and Aug. 20. The deadline to get copy into the July 23 issue is July 16; the deadline for the Aug. 20 issue is Aug. 13. The first print issue of the academic year — in the Gazette’s new, redesigned format — will come out on Sept. 3. The deadline for that issue is Aug. 24. For the latest Harvard news, visit http://www.harvard.edu.

Mohsen Mostafavi, dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) and Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Design, announced the appointment of Anita Berrizbeitia as tenured professor of landscape architecture, starting in July.

One of the many months of New England farm abundance, June gives us fresh beets, cabbage, collards, kale, greens, radishes, and rhubarb.

Frans Spaepen, director of the Rowland Institute, will serve as interim director of Harvard University’s Center for Nanoscale Systems (CNS) starting July 1, upon completion of his term as interim dean of Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS).

On June 4, administrators sighed with relief at the weather, speakers went over their notes, and graduates congregated in black-tasseled flocks alongside a rainbow of professors in their own caps and gowns. Meanwhile, the Harvard Gazette staff fanned out across the campus on Commencement day to pick a rainbow of their own — colorful accounts of the long, happy day. Read about the oldest graduates — and the youngest. Watch Divinity School angels take off, and see Medical School grads wearing surgical masks. Hear the bells peal and maestro Wynton Marsalis play “America the Beautiful.”

The president of the Harvard Alumni Association on June 4 announced the results of the annual election of new members of the Harvard Board of Overseers. The results were released at the annual meeting of the association following the University’s 358th Commencement. The six newly elected Overseers follow:

Sandra Day O’Connor, the first female justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, turns 80 years old next year. O’Connor — chipper, funny, and precise — spoke at a luncheon sponsored annually by the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, which awarded the former justice its Radcliffe Medal.

Martha Minow, the Jeremiah Smith Jr., Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, will become the dean of the Faculty of Law on July 1, President Drew Faust announced today (June 11).

2008-09 was a year of unprecedented challenges and undaunted spirit. Members of the University welcomed the Dalai Lama and Al Gore, honored Ted Kennedy, advanced the arts, and worked to better the world, locally, nationally, and internationally.

It was 1998 and Mohan Sundararaj was frustrated. A medical student at India’s Sri Ramachandra Medical College and the child of two physicians, Sundararaj was committed to his medical education but frustrated by the demands that kept him from his other passion: the piano.

As a hazy sky transformed into brilliant sunshine, centuries’ old traditions played out in Harvard Yard: Degrees conferred, parents cheering, and inspiring words from many, including President Drew Faust and Energy Secretary Steven Chu.

The Harvard Allston Ed Portal is an academic collaboration that connects families in Allston and Brighton with Harvard’s vast intellectual resources. The result is often a two-way education.

United States Energy Secretary Steven Chu’s commencement speech at Harvard’s Afternoon Exercises on June 4, 2009.

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu expressed optimism Thursday (June 4) that the world will avoid catastrophic climate change, saying the crisis presents an opportunity to bring about a sustainable energy…

The jersey, the helmet, the pads, the cleats — at a glance it’s easy for Andrew Berry to blend in with the rest of his teammates. But take a look at the Bel Air, Md., native after he’s left the stadium and you’ll realize that it isn’t just football that makes him special.

During a recent visit to Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, film director Mike Nichols told students that professional training begins in youth when a person does what he or she loves 10,000 times before even thinking about the arc of a career.

To Cemelli de Aztlan, the U.S.-Mexico border region is not just a line on a map dividing two nations and two cultures, it’s a place of its own, different from the countries whose edges define it; and it has its own culture of transition, of blending, and sometimes of violence.

Robert Stewart knows he doesn’t exactly measure up in his chosen line of work. He is small by the standards used to judge a man in his profession.

Talk about a grand entrance — on her first day of work at the Herzog August Bibliothek, the famed medieval studies library in Wolfenbüttel, Germany, Jane Cheng ’09 powered up her laptop and promptly shorted out the entire reading room.

June 1913 — Having proved itself during a five-year experimental period, the Business School emerges from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences to become an independent graduate school.

Following are some of the incidents reported to the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) for the week ending June 1. The official log is located at 1033 Massachusetts Ave., sixth floor, and is available online athttp://www.hupd.harvard.edu/.

@HARVARDRESEARCH debuts on Twitter; Live Webcast information for Commencement and HAA Meeting; Harvard Extension School to host information session

Irene Winter, the William Dorr Boardman Professor of Fine Arts at Harvard, was honored on May 20 with a medal of distinction from Barnard College at commencement.

While at Harvard, should you experience any symptoms consistent with H1N1 flu, you should contact Harvard University Health Services (HUHS).

Back in February, we asked you to participate in a readership survey to gauge the Gazette’s place in the Harvard community. We were overwhelmed by the response.

The Weatherhead Center for International Affairs has selected 11 Harvard doctoral candidates to receive pre- and mid-dissertation grants to conduct research on projects related to international, transnational, global, and comparative studies. In addition, the center is awarding four foreign language grants to doctoral students to assist them in their field research. The recipients, along with their projects, are listed below:

The David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (DRCLAS) has awarded nearly 20 certificates in Latin American Studies in 2009.Undergraduates from multiple academic departments and doctoral students from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences received certificates. To be eligible, students must complete an approved course of study as a part of their work toward the A.B. or Ph.D. degree. Students must also write a senior thesis or dissertation on a Latin American topic.