At a meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences on Nov. 4, 2025, the following tribute to the life and service of the late Ralph Mitchell was spread upon the permanent records of the Faculty.
The Harvard Corporation has launched the search for a successor to President Lawrence H. Summers, who recently announced his decision to step down as president of the University at the end of the 2005-06 academic year. Derek Bok has agreed to serve as interim president from July 1 until a new president assumes office.
Seismologists at Harvard University and Columbia University have found an unexpected offshoot of global warming: glacial earthquakes in which Manhattan-sized glaciers lurch unexpectedly, yielding temblors up to magnitude 5.1 on the moment-magnitude scale, which is similar to the Richter scale. Glacial earthquakes in Greenland, the researchers found, are most common in July and August, and have more than doubled in number since 2002.
Though the much-anticipated results of Harvards first-ever Team Fitness Challenge (TFC) are in, it would seem that the more than 300 Harvard affiliates who participated in the University-wide challenge all came out victorious, or at least in better shape. Taken together, the 36 teams made up of Harvard staff, students, and faculty accrued nearly 261,000 minutes of fitness over the eight-week period, be it through yoga, jogging, weight lifting, or countless other physical fitness activities. Harvard Athletics and the Malkin Athletic Center sponsored the challenge.
HLS auction to support public interest positions One of Harvard Law School’s most exciting traditions, the annual public interest auction, will be held this evening (April 6). The student-run auction,…
Dental Service of Massachusetts (DSM) – the nonprofit corporation doing business as Delta Dental of Massachusetts – recently announced that it is expanding its Workforce Development Initiative with a $5 million Legacy of Leadership endowment to the Harvard School of Dental Medicine (Dental School). The gift will help address critical oral health needs in the community by building the dental workforce, increasing the number of minority oral health care professionals, and providing leadership in eliminating disparities in oral health care.
Alina Payne, professor of the history of art and architecture, has received the 2006 Max Planck Research Award, for outstanding work in art history. This annual award, Germanys equivalent to the Nobel Prize, recognizes two scholars – one working in Germany and one working abroad – with a stipend of 750,000 euros each. This honor, granted on a rotating basis to scholars in the engineering sciences, the natural sciences, the life sciences, and the humanities, identifies scholars of international repute whose work, according to the Max Planck Society, has the capacity to initiate, deepen, or expand international cooperation.
At 23 years, CityStep is older than its participants. Run entirely by undergraduates, the program partners young Harvard students with younger Cambridge public school students. Together, they dance the year away while exploring personal growth goals such as community, self-expression, creativity, and self-confidence.
Harvard Universitys Institute of Politics (IOP), located at the Kennedy School of Government (KSG), recently announced that former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner and Patricia Clarey, former chief of staff to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, have been selected to serve as IOP Visiting Fellows this month. Warners fellowship is currently under way Clareys fellowship begins April 17.
Harvard Business Schools (HBS) Spangler Center hummed recently with the voices of 30 high school students from across Massachusetts participating in the Youth Leadership Forum (YLF). Sponsored by the office of the University Disability Coordinator in the Office of the Assistant to the President, Partners for Youth With Disabilities in Boston, and the Governors Commission on the Employment of People with Disabilities, which Marie Trottier co-chairs, this March 25 forum provided an educational, meaningful – and fun – experience for these young people, mostly high school juniors and seniors, each of whom has a disability.
Reinforcing its commitment to opportunity and excellence across the economic spectrum, Harvard today (March 30) announced a significant expansion of its 2004 financial aid initiative for low- and middle-income families.
The Harvard Corporation has launched the search for a successor to President Lawrence H. Summers, who recently announced his decision to step down as president of the University at the end of the 2005-06 academic year.
A statement issued today (March 23, 2006) by the Harvard Corporation Committee on Shareholder Responsibility (CCSR) regarding stock in China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation (Sinopec Corporation).
March 29, 1872 – The Arnold Arboretum (the nations oldest arboretum) formally comes into existence when, at the discretion of three Boston trustees (George B. Emerson, John James Dixwell, and…
Following are some of the incidents reported to the Harvard University Police Department for the week ending March 20. The official log is located at 1033 Massachusetts Ave., sixth floor, and is available online at http://www.hupd.harvard.edu/.
New research shows Pin1 enzyme key in preventing onset of Alzheimers A new discovery has found that Pin1, an enzyme previously shown to prevent the formation of the tanglelike lesions…
Royal Society of Edinburgh names Bailyn honorary fellow The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) recently elected Adams University Professor Emeritus Bernard Bailyn an honorary fellow. An independent, educational charity, the…
Campus-wide contest seeks artful, sustainable solutions Members of the Harvard community, including staff, faculty, students, alumni, and spouses and children of the aforementioned, are invited to submit work to this…
The French Consul General in Boston M. Francois Gauthier conferred the insignia of Knight of the Legion of Honor on Charles L. Schepens, clinical professor of ophthalmology emeritus, in a special ceremony on March 21. Given on behalf of the French government, the prestigious award recognizes Schepens patriotic service to the Nazi resistance in World War II, and his lifelong contribution to advancements in the diagnosis and treatment of retinal diseases.
Noted mathematician Philip Uri Treisman was recently honored by the Harvard Foundation for his notable contributions to the teaching of mathematical skills to educationally disadvantaged youth at the annual Advancing Minorities and Women in Science, Engineering and Mathematics science conference at Harvards Science Center. Treisman is a professor of mathematics and executive director of the Charles A. Dana Center at the University of Texas, Austin. He is widely known for creating the Emerging Scholars Program (ESP), designed to increase the number of minority and other underserved students who succeed in mathematics.
Former Business School Professor Andrall E. Pearson, whose legendary business career and devotion to family served as a model to many, died at his home on March 11 in Palm Beach, Fla. He was 80 years old.
Agassiz House, the grand, columned building that is the focal point of the Radcliffe Yard, will become the new home of Harvards Undergraduate Admissions and Financial Aid beginning in September. The Office of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) will also leave Byerly Hall, relocating to Holyoke Center.
A partnership between the city of Cambridge and Harvard University will bring a series of streetscape and other physical improvements to Harvard Square over the next 18 months.
Harvard University President Lawrence H. Summers led a faculty delegation to India this week to celebrate the Universitys ties to the worlds largest democracy and to emphasize Harvards important research initiatives in India.
H. Richard (Dick) Nesson was born in Boston on May 6, 1932, and died on October 18, 1998. His parents were hardworking, and struggled to ensure that their children were educated. In the summers and part-time during the school year, Dick worked in his fathers store. The clientele were primarily blue-collar workers and their families. For the rest of his life, serving people from all walks of life was his lodestar.
Exercise improves your health, but can you kill yourself with too much snow shoveling, yard work, jogging, or playing tennis? “Despite all of the known benefits of exercise, there are…
David Suzuki, the Japanese-Canadian scientist and environmentalist, professed astonishment at having been awarded this year’s Roger Tory Peterson medal from the Harvard Museum of Natural History. “I’m not a birder,”…
Ian Gilby was following a chimpanzee through Uganda’s Kibale Forest, observing behavior and testing revised data collection methods. Gilby had done his doctoral dissertation on chimpanzees in Tanzania and was…
The white board that covers hundreds of feet of the curved hallway at the Institute for Quantitative Social Science (IQSS) is not always covered with equations – but lately, it…
It’s the brilliant colors and otherworldly shapes of the Dominican insects that catch the eye and draw a viewer in. It’s the alien forms magnified for all to see clearly…
Featured series 
Gallery
