Campus & Community

The University will test its emergency text-messaging system, MessageMe, on April 16. The test message will be broadcast midday to more than 14,000 Harvard community members who have signed up for the alert system to date.

Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) Dean Michael D. Smith will host a town meeting for faculty and staff to update the community on the financial challenges facing FAS; talk about the progress made toward solving these challenges; and present the next steps to address the budget shortfalls projected for FY10 and FY11. The meeting will take place in Sanders Theatre on Tuesday (April 14) at 4 p.m. The April 14 faculty meeting has been canceled.

In an e-mail sent Monday (April 6) to Harvard students, faculty, and staff, Harvard College Dean Evelynn Hammonds and Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Michael D. Smith announced that Harvard College will be closed during the 2009-2010 mid-year break, between the end of exams in December and the first day of classes in January.

Effective April 1, unleashed pets will no longer be allowed in Harvard Yard. All pets, with the exception of service animals, must be on a leash at all times.

A memorial service for Samuel P. Huntington, who was the Albert J. Weatherhead III University Professor at Harvard, will be held on April 22 at 3 p.m. in the Memorial Church in Harvard Yard. Huntington, a longtime Harvard University professor, an enormously influential political scientist, and a mentor to a generation of scholars in widely divergent fields, died Dec. 24. He was 81.

Venkatesh “Venky” Narayanamurti will be the new director of the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program at Harvard Kennedy School’s (HKS) Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Belfer Center director Graham Allison announced April 1.

For the second consecutive season, the Harvard Crimson men’s golf team found success in New Haven, Conn., capturing the Yale Spring Opener behind the play of senior John Christensen and juniors Danny Mayer and Greg Shuman, who finished first, second, and third, respectively, in the tournament.

The Harvard women’s golf team, which before this past weekend (April 4-5) had won each of the five tournaments they competed in this season, made it six-for-six on Sunday (April 5), completing the 2009 Brown Invitational 34 strokes ahead of second-place finisher Boston College.

In dramatic fashion, the Harvard men’s baseball team took three-of-four from Cornell and Princeton this past weekend (April 4-5), with the help of three key walk-off hits, two from Tom Stack-Babich ’09 and one from Taylor Meehan ’09.

The Phillips Brooks House Association (PBHA) will host its sixth annual Auction for the Summer Urban Program at the Cambridge Queen’s Head Pub (45 Quincy Street) on April 28 from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. The event will support PBHA’s 12 summer camps, which serve more than 900 children and youth in Boston and Cambridge.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s PBS documentary “African American Lives 2” has won the Parents’ Choice Gold Award for Television, awarded last month by the Parents’ Choice Foundation.

Michael Aaron Lambert, assistant professor of medicine in Harvard Medical School, received the inaugural Thomas H. Lee M.D. Award for Excellence in Primary Care on April 3. Lambert is the medical director of Southern Jamaica Plain Health Center in Boston.

April 5, 1898 — Responding to the Spanish-American War, 1st Lt. Wirt Robinson, Instructor in Military Science, solicits volunteers to drill under his supervision. Sixty students show up the next day. By May, more than 400 have responded.

Following are some of the incidents reported to the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) for the week ending April 6. The official log is located at 1033 Massachusetts Ave., sixth floor, and is available online at http://www.hupd.harvard.edu/.

In an e-mail sent Monday (April 6) to Harvard students, faculty, and staff, Harvard College Dean Evelynn Hammonds and Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Michael D. Smith announced that Harvard College will be closed during the 2009-2010 mid-year break, between the end of exams in December and the first day of classes in January.

At its ninth meeting of the year on March 18, the Faculty Council was briefed by the Dean of the College on House renewal and on the review of the Undergraduate Council. The Council also considered a proposal to change the name of the Standing Committee on Ethnic Studies.

I once heard a story about service from a Focolarino, a member of the Focolare, a Catholic movement dedicated to Love of Neighbor. One day, the Focolarino was helping a poor man pick apples that he could sell to support his family. After he drove the man home, the Focolarino was surprised to find the poor man offering him some of the apples.

When I and 11 fellow Harvard students drove into Money, Miss., last week searching for the site of Emmett Till’s murder, we were expecting to find something to mark the event credited with igniting the Civil Rights Movement. Instead there was nothing.

Harvard students spend Spring Break helping others and learning lessons along the Tallahatchie River.

A memorial service for Samuel P. Huntington, who was the Albert J. Weatherhead III University Professor at Harvard, will be held on April 22 at 3 p.m. in the Memorial Church in Harvard Yard. Huntington, a longtime Harvard University professor, an enormously influential political scientist, and a mentor to a generation of scholars in widely divergent fields, died Dec. 24. He was 81.

Effective April 1, unleashed pets will no longer be allowed in Harvard Yard. All pets, with the exception of service animals, must be on a leash at all times. This policy is designed to ensure the safety of residents, staff, and visitors. This policy will be strictly enforced in the Yard by the Harvard University Police Department and AlliedBarton security personnel.

This year, Harvard University is preparing for its fall 2009 reaccreditation by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC). Harvard, like all accredited universities and colleges, is reviewed for reaccreditation approximately every 10 years.

In a plan designed to eliminate waste, provide more options for faculty, students, and staff, and to reduce costs, the “Courses of Instruction,” “Harvard College Handbook for Students,” “The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Handbook for Students,” and “Q Guide and Information for Faculty Offering Instruction in Arts and Sciences” will be available online only, beginning with the fall 2009 term.

Shelly C. Lowe has been named the new executive director of Harvard University’s Native American Program (HUNAP). The appointment becomes effective this July.

President Barack Obama announced March 25 his intent to nominate Howard Koh, the Harvey V. Fineberg Professor of the Practice of Public Health at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), to be assistant secretary for health in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced March 20 the selection of David Blumenthal as the Obama administration’s choice for national coordinator for health information technology.

There’s no stopping them, and there’s no containing them. It’s too bad the team from Connecticut wasn’t forewarned.

On Wednesday (April 1) Harvard College Dean Evelynn Hammonds announced the release of the “Report on Harvard House Renewal” in an e-mail to the Harvard residential community. The report is a synthesis of the findings of the House Program Planning Committee, a group charged by Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Michael D. Smith with envisioning the “ideal” undergraduate House. The committee’s work comes in the context of a University commitment to renewing and refurbishing the undergraduate Houses.

Experience the stirring sights and plangent sounds of a singular Spring Break, during which Harvard students worked to renovate Katrina-ravaged houses, tutored children in afterschool programs, and met — and sang with — pioneers of the Civil Rights Movement, like Hollis Watkins (harmonizing, above from left with students Diane Ghogomu ’10 and Sumorwuo Zaza ’11).

Scientists from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics are measuring how patients’ posture affects MRI imaging of their breathing.