Physician and acclaimed novelist underlines immigrants’ contributions to Harvard and the nation, urges graduates to show courage, character in the face of hardship
March 5, 1954 — The Faculty of Arts and Sciences approves the Special Standing Program recently proposed by the Educational Policy Committee. The program allows specially qualified high-school students who have completed 11th grade to enter as freshmen, specially qualified freshmen to enter as advanced-standing sophomores, and honors candidates to have one or two required courses waived in favor of more advanced work.
Following are some of the incidents reported to the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) for the week ending March 5. The official log is located at 1033 Massachusetts Ave., sixth floor, and is available online at http://www.hupd.harvard.edu/.
Each year more than 50 postdoctoral and faculty fellowships/grants are available to the Harvard medical community by invitation only. The private foundations that fund these grants permit a limited number of individuals to be nominated for these awards. In order to choose candidates that will represent the Harvard medical community in the national competitions, the Harvard Medical School (HMS) Faculty Fellowship Committee conducts an internal selection process.
The Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School recently launched “The (Bio)DaVersity Code” — a short, Flash-animated spoof of “The Da Vinci Code” that illustrates the importance of biodiversity to the planet’s health. Free Range Graphics, creators of the award-winning “The Meatrix,” produced the short.
Following the closing of the Malkin Athletic Center (MAC) the week of March 19, MAC equipment will be made available to recreational users at the QRAC (66 Garden St.) and the Gordon Indoor Track and Tennis facility (65 N. Harvard St.).
The Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics invites Harvard College students to apply for Lester Kissel Grants in Practical Ethics to support research and writing that makes contributions to the understanding of practical ethics. A number of grants will be awarded on a competitive basis for projects to be conducted during the summer of 2007. The projects may involve research for senior theses, case studies for use in courses, essays or articles for publication, or similar scholarly endeavors that explore issues in practical ethics.
The March 15 application deadline for “Writing Past Lives: Biography as History” — the Schlesinger Library’s summer seminar on gender history — is fast approaching. Established scholars, writers, and advanced graduate students in U.S. history and gender studies are invited to apply.
Established in 2001 by members of the Harvard Medical School faculty, the MassGeneral Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease (MIND) recently recognized the Cure Alzheimer’s Fund with its first Philanthropic Innovation and Investment Award. The award recognizes donors who have made substantial commitments to visionary work that cannot be funded through other sources but has the potential to radically change scientific thinking and drug discovery for neurodegenerative disease.
Kennedy School of Government (KSG) student Sareena Dalla was recently awarded a $2,000 Overseas Press Club (OPC) Foundation scholarship at the foundation’s annual scholarship luncheon in New York City. A panel of leading journalists selected Dalla (and 11 others) from a pool of applicants representing 65 colleges and universities.
M.B.A. Class of 1961 Professor of Management Practice Emerita Myra Hart has been named a recipient of the 2007 FSF-NUTEK Award, an international prize for research on entrepreneurship and small business.
“Redefining Health Care: Creating Value-Based Competition on Results,” by Michael E. Porter, the Bishop William Lawrence University Professor, and Elizabeth Olmsted Teisberg, a senior institute associate at Harvard Business School’s Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness and an associate professor at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, has been awarded the 2007 James A. Hamilton Award by the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE).
The Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) has awarded its Frederic W. Ness Book Award to James Engell, the Gurney Professor of English Literature and professor of comparative literature, for his book with Anthony Dangerfield, “Saving Higher Education in the Age of Money.”
“From Resource Allocation to Strategy” (Oxford University Press), co-edited by Joseph L. Bower, the Donald Kirk David Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, has been named the best management book of 2006 by Strategy + Business magazine.
At its 11th meeting of the year on March 7, the Faculty Council considered support of study abroad programs and a motion concerning scholarly publishing licensing, and discussed Dean Jeremy R. Knowles’ upcoming “Letter on Growth and Renewal of the Faculty.”
On October 12, 1997, when Isadore Twersky died, Jewish studies lost one of its giants, and a remarkable chapter in the history of the field came to a close.
The Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government (M-RCBG) at the Kennedy School of Government has established a thesis prize for a graduating Harvard College senior. The deadline to apply is May 24.
Nine Harvard-affiliated students are among the 31 recipients recently named Paul and Daisy Soros New American Fellows. Soros Fellows receive half-tuition for as many as two years of graduate study at any institution of higher learning in the United States, as well as a maintenance grant of $20,000 per year.
On March 2, at approximately 9:45 p.m., a male graduate student reported to the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) that he was the victim of an attempted armed robbery along Memorial Drive. While walking in the vicinity of Plympton Street, the victim was grabbed from behind by an unidentified male, who, while holding a knife, demanded his money.
The Stanley Medical Research Institute today announced a $100 million gift to the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard to launch a new research center that will combine the strengths of genomics and chemical biology to advance the understanding and treatment of severe mental illnesses.
Harvard Real Estate Services (HRES) has announced the approval of the new rent schedule for approximately 2,800 Harvard-owned apartments rented by graduate students and other University affiliates. The new rents will take effect July 1, when the 2007-08 rental season begins.
Rebecca Betensky has been promoted to professor of biostatistics at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). She is also an associate biostatistician at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital.
Marc Lipsitch has been promoted to professor of epidemiology in the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). He first joined the School’s faculty as an assistant professor in 1999, becoming an associate professor in 2004.
Moments after guiding the Harvard women’s basketball team to a March 2 victory over visiting Cornell to snatch up the 2007 Ivy League championship — the program’s 10th — coach Kathy Delaney-Smith was already looking ahead to the Crimson’s two remaining games of the season. The Crimson mentor may have been pleased with Harvard’s 64-48 win that locked up the Ivy crown and subsequent NCAA tournament berth, but with Columbia and a solid Dartmouth squad still in the queue, she wasn’t yet completely satisfied.
Xiaofei Tian, a youthful looking Harvard scholar of Chinese poetry, could easily be mistaken for an undergraduate in the halls of 2 Divinity Ave., where she works in a book-lined office. Last September, at age 34, Tian got word of her tenure in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations. To celebrate, she and her husband went to dinner with the department chair at a Cambridge restaurant — where she was asked for proof of age. She laughs about it now, but Tian (now 35) is someone who all her life has been doing big things at a young age.
At a Meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences on October 17, 2006, the Minute honoring the life and service of the late Kwang-chih Chang, John E. Hudson Professor of Archaeology, Emeritus, was placed upon the records. As a scholar and as a person, K.C. was an enduring source of inspiration.
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