Campus & Community

Lawrence H. Summers announced on Feb. 21, 2006, that he will conclude his tenure as president of Harvard at the end of the 2005-2006 academic year. After a period of sabbatical and reflection, he will return to teaching and research as a University Professor.

Archaeobotanists have found evidence that the dawn of agriculture may have come with the domestication of fig trees in the Near East some 11,400 years ago, roughly 1,000 years before…

June 19, 1858 – At the Boston City Regatta, crimson finds its first use as a Harvard color when members of a Harvard boat club seek to distinguish themselves among…

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) has named Harvard one of 50 universities nationwide to receive grants ranging from $1.5 million to $2.2 million for bold and innovative undergraduate science education programs.

An ethicist whose work has had a major impact on medical policy, an astronomer who uncovers secrets of distant galaxies, a Nobel Prize-winning economist who has proposed challenging theories of economic growth, and a writer whose many books have established him as the foremost historian of California received the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Centennial Medal on Wednesday (June 7) at the Harvard Faculty Club.

With their Commencement, students will go forth to press on to higher and better things – at all events, to other things, as Nathaniel Hawthorne once put it. But students arent the only ones planning new projects or looking forward to relaxing in a shady hammock – or both, simultaneously. Professors, too, are embarking on fresh adventures, as the following brief interviews show.

The Universitys plans for a 21st century extension of its campus in Allston took more definite shape this year with the selection of a site and architect for a half-million-square-foot science complex, as well as the announcement of plans for new arts and culture facilities.

Continuing its long tradition of promoting and funding student research in Europe, the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies (CES) has announced that 40 undergraduates will pursue thesis research and internships on the continent this summer, while more than two dozen graduate students have been awarded support for their dissertations over the coming year.

Who would have thought the purchase of six Chinese silk handkerchiefs would change Harvard’s athletic history? Benjamin W. Crowninshield, Class of 1858, kept a journal through his junior and senior years at Harvard and it demonstrates two diverse truths about life – that “the more things change, the more they stay the same” and “you never know what’s going to happen next.” Crowninshield had brushes with history that he never anticipated.

With evolution under attack, policymakers blind to scientific consensus on global warming, and faith-based terrorists roiling international peace, Harvards graduating seniors must make their voices heard as people of reason, Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers said Tuesday (June 6).

Harvard senior Prashant Sharma thought he wanted to study molecular and cellular biology when he arrived at Harvard four years ago, but the mysteries of evolutionary biology drew him away.

At first glance, Peter Brooks story sounds stereotypical: Like his two older brothers, he attended Philips Exeter Academy, then continued on to Harvard, following in the footsteps not only of his brothers, but also his father, grandfathers, great-grandfathers, and five uncles. Just a normal white preppy from Massachusetts, he says.

Melissa Goldman is passionate about set design. Its a subject to which she brings such infectious enthusiasm and obvious energy that even on a gray day, she can light up a black box – the empty hall of the Loeb Experimental Theater, venue for her latest production, Alice in Wonderland.

In her junior year at Brown University, Julie Herlihy volunteered to teach children in a remote part of Africa. But when she got to Zimbabwe, no one wanted her. Following an orientation session, the person who was to take her to her assigned village never showed up.

Only a handful of architects get to be celebrities. Danny Forster has gone them one better. Hes a celebrity architecture student.

If the purpose of art is to challenge and disturb, to push viewers beyond the borders of their comfort zone, then Jane Van Cleef is certainly an artist. The odd thing is that she manages to be unsettling using the most domesticated of materials – fabric and thread.

These days, every year seems packed more full of incident than the last. Around the world and here at Harvard, the academic year of 2005-06 was no exception. Now, as we celebrate the culmination of the academic calendar, it’s an ideal time to pause a moment to take a look at some of the high points of this eventful year.

After more than two years of intensive ethical and scientific review, Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) researchers at Harvard and Children’s Hospital Boston have been cleared to begin experiments using Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (SCNT) to create disease-specific stem cell lines in an effort to develop treatments for a wide range of now-incurable conditions afflicting tens of millions of people.

Old friends and old soldiers gather for the Harvard Class of 1951 reunion.

People came to Harvard from near and far to pay tribute to a man who was probably the most famous as well as the tallest economist of the second half of the 20th century.

People came from near and far to Harvard May 31 to pay tribute to a man who was probably the most famous as well as the tallest economist of the second half of the 20th century, John Kenneth Galbraith, who died April 29 at the age of 97.

June 19, 1725 – The Harvard Corporation elects Benjamin Wadsworth, Class of 1690, as Harvards eighth President. June 11, 1776 – The Provincial Congress grants the College permission to reoccupy…

Following are some of the incidents reported to the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) for the week ending May 29. The official log is located at 1033 Massachusetts Ave., sixth floor, and is available online at http://www.hupd.harvard.edu/.

Janet Browne, a noted historian of biology whose two-part biography of Charles Darwin has won wide acclaim, has been named professor of the history of science in Harvard Universitys Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), effective Sept. 1, 2006.

Leading evolutionary ecologist Jonathan B. Losos, whose study of Caribbean Anolis lizards has profoundly shaped our understanding of ecologys impact on species biodiversity, has been appointed professor of organismic and evolutionary biology in Harvard Universitys Faculty of Arts and Sciences, effective July 1.

Honoring the legacy of Albert Schweitzer, area graduate students are committing to a year of service with a community agency. In a competitive selection process, 35 students – five of which are Harvard students – have been selected as 2006-07 Boston Schweitzer Fellows. Each fellow will devote more than 200 hours of service to local communities lacking access to adequate health services. The projects include tobacco education, teaching new immigrants how to shop for nutritious foods, diabetes counseling with Haitian immigrants, educating children in residential treatment centers on oral health, and publishing a community health newspaper.

Kokkalis Program seeks intern The Kokkalis Program on Southeastern and East-Central Europe at the Kennedy School of Government (KSG) is now accepting intern applicants to assist with databases and international…

A peal of bells will ring throughout Cambridge next week, on Thursday (June 8). For the 18th consecutive year, a number of neighboring churches and institutions will ring their bells in celebration of the city of Cambridge and of Harvards 355th Commencement Exercises.

The following services will be in effect at the University on Commencement Day, June 8. Restrooms Restrooms for the general public are located in Weld, Thayer, and Sever halls. These…

The third annual Herchel Smith Harvard Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships have been granted to 44 Harvard College students. This year marks the second for a full cohort of fellows – and an increase of 50 percent from 2005.