Campus & Community

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences has ended fiscal 2009 under budget by $6 million after targeted budget cuts were implemented and current-use financial gifts to the endowment increased.

The second round of Harvard Allston Partnership Grant Funds totaling $100,000 are now available to community members and nonprofit groups to help support neighborhood improvement projects, cultural enrichment, and education programs benefiting the North Allston/North Brighton community.

On Monday, Harvard University was among five leading universities that announced a new “Compact for Open Access Publishing Equity” pledge to develop systems to pay open access journals for the articles they publish by the institutions’ scholars.

Is it ethical to torture a suspect to get information? Is it all right to steal a drug that your child needs to survive? Should we tax the rich to…

In today’s installment, he discusses how the admissions committee weighs the essay portion of the application, and tracks admissions decisions long after the applicant in question has graduated Harvard.

Harvard University today announced the launch of a new, practice-based doctoral program to prepare graduates for senior leadership roles in school districts, government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and the private sector.

In today’s installment, William R. Fitzsimmons discusses how the admissions committee considers extracurricular activities (as with anything in admissions, there is no one-size-fits-all approach), as well as the importance of teacher and counselor recommendations. (Such references, the dean writes below, are sometimes projected onto a screen during committee deliberations, so that all can see them.)

Citing what it calls a “leadership deficit” in the nation’s schools, Harvard University is introducing a doctoral education program aimed at attracting top talent to transform the U.S. education system by shaking up the status quo.

The Harvard Graduate School of Education will announce today that it will offer a new, tuition-free doctoral degree in education leadership, its first new degree in 74 years.

Last year, when Dr. Aaron Sodickson and his colleagues counted the number of medical scans patients underwent in the emergency room at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, some patients clearly stood out. One 45-year-old woman with a history of kidney stones had 70 CT scans over 22 years.

Nicholas Christakis began taking a new look at this question in 2000 after an experience visiting terminally ill patients in the working-class neighborhoods of Chicago.

In honor of his retirement from the Divinity School’s Hollis Chair, Harvey Cox exercised his right to graze a cow in Harvard Yard.

Fall 2009 archaeology dig in Harvard Yard kicked off with a ceremony involving regional Native American leaders.

Retiring Harvard professor Harvey Cox, who for 44 years has held the oldest endowed chair at a US university finally lay claim to the Hollis Professor of Divinity’s centuries-old right to graze his cow in Harvard Yard, which a colleague of his said was the equivalent of parking privileges in the 1700s.

“Making strings and ropes is a sophisticated invention,” said Ofer Bar-Yosef, a professor of prehistoric archaeology at Harvard University. “They might have used this fiber to create parts of clothing, ropes, or baskets — for items that were mainly used for domestic activities.” The fibers were discovered in an analysis of clay deposits in Dzudzuana Cave in what is now the country Georgia, Bar-Yosef and co-authors report in Friday’s edition of the journal Science…

Over the last two days, The Choice has fielded nearly 900 questions for William R. Fitzsimmons, the longtime dean of admissions and financial aid at Harvard.

Harvard University’s endowment declined 27.3 percent during the fiscal year ending June 30, 2009, one of the most challenging periods in modern times for financial markets.

Despite a global economic downturn, Harvard University raised $602 million through fundraising efforts in fiscal year 2009.

In the new study, Jennifer Stark of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston and colleagues analyzed blood samples from 673 men with prostate cancer who participated in the Physicians’ Health Study, a large, ongoing study examining a variety of health issues.

Many American businesses are unprepared to deal with widespread employee absenteeism in the event of a swine flu outbreak, a Harvard School of Public Health study says. The survey, released yesterday, found that two-thirds of more than 1,000 businesses questioned said they could not maintain normal operations if half their workers were out for two weeks. Four-fifths expect severe problems if half are out for a month.

Taking early action to prepare for flu season, University Health Services (UHS) has begun administering the seasonal flu vaccine free of charge to Harvard students, faculty, and staff.

Four-fifths of businesses foresee severe problems maintaining operations if significant H1N1 flu outbreak occurs.

Mikaelle Comrie, Taylor Docter, and Anne Carroll Ingersoll each had 14 kills on Sept. 8 against UConn, but the Crimson still fell to the Huskies in five sets by a score of 3-2.

A Dana-Farber Cancer Institute fund-raising campaign has hit the $1 billion mark a year earlier than expected – despite the ragged economy – setting what is believed to be a record for New England health care institutions. The drive’s success, which will be announced today, appears to have few national parallels, although at least one other cancer center has embarked on a similar campaign…

Harvard Business School students have joined the fight against foreclosures. The Homeownership Preservation Foundation has teamed up with Harvard MBA students to support the nonprofit’s mission of preventing foreclosure and preserving homeownership.

Harvard University has teamed up with WGBH Boston to produce a new television series and interactive Web site that will take viewers inside one of the University’s most popular courses. “Justice” will premiere on public television stations nationwide in mid-September.

On this day in 1795, 21 Harvard students gathered in a dorm room and formed a secret social club to cultivate “friendship and patriotism.” Members agreed to take turns providing a pot of hasty pudding for the meetings. Thus did the Hasty Pudding Club, the nation’s oldest dramatic institution, get its name…

Dr. David Himmelstein is an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a primary care doctor at the Cambridge Hospital in Massachusetts. “Our most recent study found that nearly two-thirds of Americans who declared bankruptcy cited illness or medical bills as a significant cause of their bankruptcies. And of the medically bankrupt, three-quarters of that group had insurance, at least when they first got sick….”

Harvard’s Humanist Chaplaincy, a community for agnostics, atheists, and the nonreligious, started a free, open-to-all group this year that practices different forms of meditation, including Buddhist and Quaker, said Zachary Alexander, 26, the group’s founder.

The university’s Houghton Library recently purchased the archive he developed for his 1989 book, “What Should We Tell Our Children About Vietnam?” “It is still hard for me to believe that something that came from my head and hands will end up being preserved forever between the walls of such a great institution,” said McCloud, himself a Vietnam War veteran…