Campus & Community

Cambridge School Volunteers (CSV) recently honored more than 900 volunteers who have served in grades K-12 of the Cambridge Public Schools (CPS) during the 2006-07 school year. The special reception, hosted by Harvard at the Faculty Club, was held May 14.

A family activity rare in this day and age — singing around the piano — inspired the collection of this year’s winner of the Visiting Committee Prize for Undergraduate Book Collecting. Harvard student Robin Worth Reinert ’10 has been awarded first prize for her entry “Songs That Never Die: Community Songbooks in America.”

The Harvard Gay & Lesbian Caucus (HGLC) announced that Kevin Jennings ’85 will receive the HGLC Respect Award. It will be presented to Jennings at the caucus’ annual Commencement Day dinner, this year to be held in Lowell House on June 7. In the evening’s keynote speech, best-selling author Andrew Tobias ’68, M.B.A. ’72 will address the timely issue of politics, money, and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community.

The Harvard Foundation recently honored members of the University community who have made outstanding contributions to improving intercultural and race relations at the College. More than 40 students and one distinguished faculty member were presented with awards at the annual Harvard Foundation Student/Faculty Awards Dinner held on May 4 at Quincy House in memory of David S. Aloian, former Quincy House master. Faculty, administrators, and House masters nominated the award recipients, who were then chosen by the faculty and student advisory committee of the Harvard Foundation.

This Commencement season, reunion activities for the Classes of 1987, 1992, 1997, and 2002 will be held June 7-10. Members of those classes can contact Jen Halloran at (617) 495-2555 with any reunion questions. Individuals planning on attending their fifth Harvard reunion can register for events and housing at http://classes.harvard.edu/college/2002.

Emma Rothschild, one of the leading historians of the Enlightenment whose extensive scholarly career has focused on the history of European economic ideas, has been appointed professor of history in Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), effective July 1, 2007.

Harvard Recreation has announced its hours of operation for the Memorial Day weekend for the following facilities: Hemenway Gym, Gordon Track and Field Center, Blodgett Pool, and the Quadrangle Recreational Athletics Center (QRAC).

Cambridge School Volunteers (CSV) recently honored more than 900 volunteers who have served in grades K-12 of the Cambridge Public Schools (CPS) during the 2006-07 school year. The special reception, hosted by Harvard at the Faculty Club, was held May 14.

Large and small, plain and colored, splotched and dotted, eggs from the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology’s vast collection are on display at the Harvard Museum of Natural History in a new exhibition of eggs and nests.

One day earlier this month, Sean Dorrance Kelly was at work in his sunny Emerson Hall office. On one side of his desk were books — a ceiling-high, room-wide stack of tomes ranging from Greek editions of Homer and contemporary works of neuroscience to books on twenthieth-century French, German, and Anglo-American philosophy.

Researchers at Harvard and Princeton universities have taken a crucial step toward building biological computers, tiny implantable devices that can monitor the activities and characteristics of human cells. The information provided by these “molecular doctors,” constructed entirely of DNA, RNA, and proteins, could eventually revolutionize medicine by directing therapies only to diseased cells or tissues.

In 1978, Deng Xiaoping visited Japan. Although the trip made little impression on the West, Ezra Vogel calls it one of the greatest meetings between national leaders of the 20th century. In fact, it was the first meeting between top leaders of the two countries in 2,500 years.

When Fotini Christia, a Ph.D. candidate in public policy at the Kennedy School, first arrived in Tehran to study Persian, she was struck by the enormous murals that dominated the city.

How much can a few college students really accomplish during two months in Africa? Turns out, quite a lot.

Crossing academic disciplines and the Atlantic Ocean, the Harvard University Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) and King’s College, Cambridge, have established the Joint Center for History and Economics (JCHE). The JCHE will facilitate and encourage interdisciplinary research and learning in the social sciences and the humanities.

In 1976, in the education journal Change, President Derek Bok famously asked, “Can ethics be taught?” At the time, few universities and even fewer faculty specialized in ethics; philosophers rarely applied their moral insights to real-world problems; and doctors, lawyers, businesspersons, and policymakers usually had little or no ethics training, even as the world was becoming increasingly complicated in matters of often long-ranging moral import.

Robert Darnton, currently the Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of European History at Princeton University, will become Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor and director of the Harvard University Library, effective July 1, 2007, Provost Steven E. Hyman announced today (May 22).

Charles “Chuck” Carroll, longtime Harvard Division of Continuing Education (DCE) employee and a Harvard graduate, died on May 21, after succumbing to a rare blood disease. He was 65.

Few people have left a more indelible imprint on Harvard than Louis Agassiz.

Nearly 80 percent of the students admitted to the Class of 2011 will enter Harvard in September, identical to last year’s Class of 2010. The yield may rise slightly once the final returns are in, including about 35 students who will be admitted from the waiting list over the coming weeks.

Barbara J. Grosz, Higgins Professor of Natural Sciences in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and dean of science at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, will serve as interim dean of Radcliffe, effective July 1, 2007, President-elect Drew G. Faust announced today (May 11).

The Harvard University Faculty of Arts and Sciences approved Tuesday (May 15) a motion that sets the stage for the implementation of the first complete overhaul of general education for undergraduates in nearly 30 years. By voting to put in place a new program in General Education, the FAS is replacing the Core Program established in the late 1970s.

Back in March, at Cambridge’s King Open School, Matthew Gillen and José Terrasa-Soler asked fifth-graders how to make the city a nicer place to live in.

Harvard University has been awarded a city of Cambridge Go Green Business Award, which recognizes business and institutional leaders for their efforts to create a more sustainable city.

The Harvard heavyweight crew scored a three-for-one this past Sunday (May 13) at the 62nd annual Eastern Association of Rowing Colleges (EARC) Sprints. In capturing three gold and a pair of silver medals, Harvard seized the Rowe Cup (given for the best-overall team), reclaimed the Worcester Bowl (given to the winner of the varsity eight event), and won the Ivy League title. Now, all that’s remaining for the Crimson rowers, whose varsity eight contingent remains undefeated on the season, is the big one — the Intercollegiate Rowing Association (IRA) National Championships May 30-June 2 in Camden, N.J.

Black and White heavies to vie for national title The NCAA rowing committee has named the Radcliffe heavyweight crew as one of a dozen squads to receive a team-bid to the national championships May 26-27 at Melton Hill Lake in Oak Ridge, Tenn. Coming off a 10-5 dual racing season and a fourth-place finish at the EARC Sprints, the Black and White will make their 10th NCAA appearance in the 11-year history of the championship.

Morning Exercises To accommodate the increasing number of those wishing to attend Harvard’s Commencement Exercises, the following guidelines are proposed to facilitate admission into Tercentenary Theatre on Commencement Morning:

The Phillips Brooks House Association (PBHA) held its sixth annual Public Service Celebration on May 7 in the masters’ residence of Lowell House. A capacity crowd of 240, including PBHA public service leaders and volunteers, Harvard faculty and staff, and invited guests, attended the ceremony. The keynote address — traditionally comprising the reflections of three seniors — was presented by Chimaobi Amutah, Rabia Mir, and Aidan Madigan-Curtis.

The American Academy of Political and Social Science (AAPSS) recognized its new group of fellows for 2007 at an April 29 ceremony held in Washington, D.C. The 2007 fellows include four Harvard students and Harvard faculty members Claudia Goldin, the Henry Lee Professor of Economics, and Robert J. Sampson, the Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences.

Eleven Harvard undergraduates will embark on an intense internship experience this summer, working alongside New York’s most innovative nonprofit organizations and government agencies to solve challenging problems facing children today.