Campus & Community

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  • Runners take steps for long haul

    The rules of intercollegiate cross country state that each school needs only seven runners to make up a team. Fielding just eight runners this past Friday (Sept. 22) at the Harvard-Yale-Princeton meet in Boston’s Franklin Park, the Harvard’s women’s squad discovered the potentially critical importance of this convention when a Crimson freshman – unfamiliar with the tricky back hills of the expansive park – momentarily got herself lost.

  • $100M unites Boston and New York scientists in battle against cancer

    In one of the largest philanthropic gifts ever for cancer research, the Starr Foundation recently announced a $100 million award to fund a five-year consortium spanning five leading biomedical institutions in Boston and New York that is aimed at harnessing the power of genomic technology for the understanding and treatment of cancer. The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard will join forces with four New York research centers – Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Rockefeller University, and Weill Medical College of Cornell University – in the newly created Starr Cancer Consortium, the Starr Foundation announced Sept. 21. The five-year consortium will fund collaborative projects among these institutions.

  • Serbian, Croatian presidents call for regional cooperation, unity

    The presidents of Serbia and Croatia shared a stage for the first time at the John F. Kennedy School of Government Friday (Sept. 22), together espousing regional stability, European Union membership, and economic development.

  • This month in Harvard history

    September 1936 – During the first two weeks of September, Harvard convenes a Tercentenary Conference of Arts and Sciences. More than 10,000 faculty members at 54 institutions nationwide are invited; over 2,000 attend. Seventy-one scholars give papers in four areas: Arts and Letters, Physical Sciences, Biological Sciences, and Social Sciences.

  • In brief

    Milton Fund accepting research proposals, Slide horn day at the stadium, Yale Law School’s Ackerman to deliver Holmes Lectures

  • Newsmakers

    Harvard, Harris applauded for sustainable energy use, Wolff awarded first Bach Prize, Kelman receives 2006 Morton Deutsch Award, HCPDS research scientist receives $2M to study AIDS prevention

  • Classicist, medievalist Bloch dies at 95

    Herbert Bloch, Pope Professor of the Latin Language and Literature Emeritus, died on Sept. 6 in Cambridge, Mass. Bloch was born in Berlin on Aug. 18, 1911. He studied ancient history, classical philology, and archaeology at the University of Berlin (1930-1933), which he left for Rome. Owing to the vicissitudes of fate, his brother Egon remained in Germany and died in the Holocaust.

  • University announces this academic year’s Zuckerman Fellows

    Two former Peace Corps volunteers, two former Fulbright Scholars, six people who have started their own nonprofit organizations, the co-founder of a medical journal devoted to global health issues, and the sixth person in the 20th century to graduate from West Point as both first captain and top-ranked cadet are among this year’s Zuckerman Fellows.

  • Safra Foundation welcomes faculty fellows, senior scholars

    The Harvard University Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics recently welcomed its faculty fellows and senior scholars for 2006-07. The faculty fellows, who study ethical problems in business, government, law, medicine, and public policy, were selected from a pool of applicants from universities and professional institutions throughout the United States and several other countries. Under the direction of Dennis F. Thompson, Alfred North Whitehead Professor of Political Philosophy, the fellows will conduct research on issues related to ethics within their respective fields, and will participate in seminars on ethical issues that arise in public and professional life. Joining the faculty fellows seminar are two senior scholars: Philip Pettit, the Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor of Politics and Human Values at Princeton University, and Archon Fung, associate professor of public policy, Kennedy School of Government.

  • Sports in brief

    Women golfers smash records at Dartmouth Invite, Freshmen lift soccer past Vermont

  • HMS’s Szostak wins prestigious Lasker

    Jack W. Szostak, professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, is among this year’s Lasker Award winners. Now celebrating its 61st anniversary, the Lasker Awards are the nation’s most distinguished honor for outstanding contributions to basic and clinical medical research, as well as for special achievement in the medical research enterprise.

  • Three HSPH professors honored at Joint Statistical Meetings

    Each year, awards are given at the annual Joint Statistical Meetings. During this year’s meeting in Seattle, held Aug. 6-10, three Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) faculty members were honored: Professor of Biostatistics Xihong Lin; Henry Pickering Walcott Professor of Biostatistics Louise Ryan; and Marvin Zelen, professor of statistical science in the HSPH Department of Biostatistics and a member of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

  • President’s hours

    Interim President Derek Bok will hold office hours for students in his Massachusetts Hall office from 3:30 to 5 p.m. on Oct. 24 and Dec. 11. Sign-up begins at 2:30…

  • Field-tested

    With all the personnel changes both on and off the field, including a new quarterback, a new captain, five new assistant coaches, and a relatively green offensive line and linebacker corps, the Harvard football team could reasonably expect to feel a sense of uncertainty heading into the 2006 season. So when QB Chris Pizzotti ’08 – already a replacement for regular starter Liam O’Hagan ’08 (currently serving a five-game suspension) – suffered an MCL injury in the second quarter of Saturday’s (Sept. 16) season opener against visiting Holy Cross, the Crimson suddenly appeared to be in disarray.

  • CPIC announces New York internship program for 10 students

    The Center for Public Interest Careers (CPIC) at Harvard will be offering 10 students the opportunity to work in New York City next summer through the CPIC Fund for Service Internship Program. These highly competitive internships will provide interns with a $3,500 summer stipend and an allowance for housing expenses. The Heckscher Foundation for Children sponsors the internships.

  • Energy conservation program helps offset rising costs

    Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) has embarked on an intensive campaign to wring energy savings out of both its buildings and its budget, hiring an outside manager to oversee what one energy administrator called its “most aggressive” campaign to date.

  • Fields day

    With 13 of Harvard’s 41 varsity teams kicking off their fall schedule this September, the University’s eclectic collection of grassy, rectangular playing fields (natural or otherwise) have abruptly erupted with cheers, jeers, whistles, marching band renditions of Nirvana songs, and, of course, athletic feats.

  • Sports in brief

    Women golfers smash records at Dartmouth Invite Sophomore golfer Emily Balmert ’09 paced the Harvard women to a record-breaking outing and a first-place finish (out of 17 teams) at the…

  • At recent conference, ‘pie in the sky’ was on everybody’s plate

    It was a time to free one’s mind, think outside the box, and consider some big ideas. At the invitation of the Center for International Development (CID), nearly 100 representatives of academia, government, and industry met at the Kennedy School on Sept. 9 for the “Blue Sky Conference” – an opportunity to discuss unorthodox notions that might ordinarily be dismissed as “pie in the sky.”

  • Fruits of summer

    If it’s really true that we are what we eat, most of us should run, not walk, over to Harvard’s first-ever Farmers’ Market, to rehabilitate ourselves from the world of unhealthful eating and mediocre grocery store produce.

  • Sidney Verba to retire

    Sidney Verba, Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor and director of the University Library, is retiring. He will be stepping down at the end of the academic year, June 30, 2007, interim President Derek Bok has announced.

  • Harvard endowment posts solid positive return

    Harvard University’s endowment earned a 16.7 percent return during the year ending June 30, 2006, bringing the endowment’s overall value to $29.2 billion. The continued strong returns reinforce the endowment’s critical support for Harvard’s academic programs and mission. In the 2006 fiscal year, endowment dollars provided almost a third of Harvard’s operating budget, or over $930 million.

  • Year of transition sees rethinking, rebuilding

    With change comes opportunity, the adage goes. That old saying has become words to live by at Harvard Management Company (HMC). With a new president and CEO in Mohamed El-Erian, with new heads of five critical areas beneath him, and with new staff in those five areas just starting to filter in, it may be a while before it feels like same old, same old on the 16th floor of Boston’s Federal Reserve Building where HMC has its offices.

  • MacArthur Foundation honors three Harvard faculty members, Radcliffe fellow

    Harvard faculty members and a Radcliffe fellow probing the mysteries of stem cells, the early universe, the modern practice of surgery, and the significance of public sights and modern ruins were honored Tuesday (Sept. 19) with the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s $500,000, no-strings-attached ‘genius grants.’

  • French fries, other vegetable oil products help fuel recycling effort

    Harvard Recycling and Waste Management fueled its truck with used vegetable oil from the Annenberg Hall kitchen this past Tuesday (Sept. 19) – marking a first for a Facilities Maintenance Operations (FMO) vehicle. According to recycling and waste management supervisor for FMO Rob Gogan, the oil performed “identical to diesel.”

  • RiverSing welcomes fall with voice and light

    The third annual RiverSing, a free and open-to-the-public event celebrating the first day of autumn and the beauty of the Charles River parklands, will be held Sept. 21 along the Weeks Memorial Footbridge linking Allston and Cambridge. Presented by the Revels and the Charles River Conservancy, the theme of this year’s RiverSing is “Bridging the Charles with Voice and Light.”

  • This month in Harvard history

    Sept. 1, 1779 — The College holds £15,000 in continental loan certificates and £600 in state treasury notes.

  • Police reports

    Following are some of the incidents reported to the Harvard University Police Department for the week ending Sept. 11. The official log is located at 1033 Massachusetts Ave., sixth floor, and is available online at http://www.hupd.harvard.edu/.

  • Faculty Council

    At its first meeting of the year on Sept. 13, the Faculty Council welcomed new members and elected subcommittees for 2006-2007, discussed the status of a proposal for general education,…

  • Memorial services set for Dunn, Schildkraut, Symonds

    A memorial service for Charles W. Dunn will be held in the Memorial Church Nov. 3 at 2 p.m. Donations may be made to the Charles W. Dunn Book Fund, 110 Widener Library, Harvard University, Cambridge MA 02138.