Campus & Community

In addition to food, shelter, and medical care, many victims of Hurricane Katrina are in dire need of legal advice. Twenty-five Harvard Law School (HLS) students volunteered a week of their winter break to provide free legal and humanitarian assistance to area residents and community organizations in southeast Louisiana. Additionally, eight HLS students worked throughout January earning clinical course credit, primarily with the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights in Washington, D.C., and the Gulf Coast.

In late December and January, while most of us found ways to remain warm and snug in the face of a mild winter, three students from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and a research fellow from Brigham and Womens Hospital (BWH) braved an unusually cold winter in the mountains of Pakistan. They had traveled there under the aegis of the Real Medicine Foundation to provide medical care and other assistance to survivors of that countrys Oct. 8 earthquake.

This is the first in an ongoing Gazette series giving our readers and viewers a glimpse into life at Harvard after dark. We begin our series with the all-nighter, which is just what photographer Justin Ide pulled not long ago as he spent 24 hours at Lamont Library. The undergraduate library has recently adjusted its hours to accommodate the most nocturnal of night owls – its open 24/5. Ide spent his 24 catching student life as it rolled by. For a multimedia look at his images unfolding, visit 24 hours at Lamont at http://www.news-harvard.go-vip.net/gazette/gazette/2006/02.09/01-lamont.html.

At its eighth meeting of the year on Jan. 4, the Faculty Council received a report from Senior Adviser to the Dean Lisa Martin on issues related to tenure-track faculty…

Feb. 5, 1954 – At the winter meeting of the Massachusetts Bar Association in Springfield, Law School Dean Erwin Griswold discusses the soundness and landmark significance of the Fifth Amendment…

President Lawrence H. Summers will hold office hours for students in his Massachusetts Hall office on the following dates: 2006 Wednesday, Feb. 15, 4-5 p.m. Thursday, March 16, 4-5:30 p.m.…

Guido Imbens, widely considered among the most creative, productive, and influential econometricians of the past two decades, has been appointed professor of economics in Harvard Universitys Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), effective July 1.

Where do university lectures end in applause? Where can you see country folk taking their first train ride? Where is Tiger Leaping Gorge and its 1,000 species of plants and animals? If you were among the 123 students who spent the fall semester abroad, you could answer these exotic questions (Germany, Southern India, and Chinas Yunnan province) and a lot more.

This years opening round Beanpot challenge was hardly a cakewalk for the No. 7 Harvard women icers. But for these reigning best-of-Boston champs long-accustomed to hoisting the ceramic prize each and every February since 1999 (whilst annually whipping their Pot opponents by an average score of 7-1), the outcome – a 2-1 win in overtime against Boston University this past Tuesday (Feb. 7) at Bright Hockey Center – was still sweet.

Womens swimming & diving scores perfect 10 Host Harvard women’s swimming and diving team sunk rivals Yale (252-67) and Princeton (203-116) in this past weekend’s Harvard-Yale-Princeton meet (Feb. 4-5) to…

Astrophysicist Steven Cranmer of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) has been awarded the 2006 Karen Harvey Prize by the Solar Physics Division of the American Astronomical Society (AAS), the largest organization of professional astronomers in North America.

Theres President George H.W. Bush riffing on Saturday Night Live comedian Dana Carvey riffing on him. Theres South African Bishop Desmond Tutu talking about people power. Theres Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai talking about the importance of striving to do your best.

To address the national and global epidemic of childhood obesity, Harvard College alumna Penny Pritzker 81 and her husband, Bryan Traubert, have pledged $5 million to Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) to fund the nationwide application of a childhood exercise and nutrition program that has been piloted by HSPH and the YMCA.

When the busload of Harvard undergraduates arrived at Benjamin Franklin Elementary School in New Orleans, one of the citys first schools to reopen after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, the back yard was a debris-clogged mess.

The Jack Abramoff influence-peddling scandal currently encircling the United States Congress is the worst case of corruption to hit Washington in a long time, according to experts taking part in a Kennedy School of Government forum Tuesday night (Feb. 7).

This just in from the front lines of the battle between evolution and intelligent design: evolution is losing. That’s the assessment of Randy Olson, a Harvard-trained evolutionary biologist turned filmmaker…

Your eyes do more than see. Researchers at Harvard Medical School demonstrated this by showing that your eyes are part of a light reception system that can keep you alert…

A complete, functioning breast has been grown from a single stem cell, by researchers in Australia. It was done in a mouse, but experts believe it won’t be long before…

In research that could significantly advance the pace of drug discovery in the fight against breast cancer, Harvard Medical School (HMS) investigators announced in Wednesday’s (Feb. 8) online Journal of…

They are very different.

Susan Athey, an economic theorist who has made significant contributions to the study of industrial organization, has been named professor of economics in Harvard Universitys Faculty of Arts and Sciences, effective July 1.

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) Administrative/Professional Prize Committee is now seeking nominations for this years prize, which recognizes the outstanding performance of members of FASs administrative and professional staff.

After a 15 percent increase last year, applications to the College kept pace, remaining near record levels. Applications for the Class of 2010 number 22,719, compared to last years record 22,796.

Provost Steven E. Hyman and the Chair of the University Committee on Human Rights Studies Professor John Coatsworth have announced the appointment of Stephen P. Marks as the first Senior Fellow at the University Committee on Human Rights Studies. His responsibilities will include working with the committee to expand undergraduate education opportunities in human rights, in cooperation with the associate dean of Undergraduate Academic Programs and the relevant Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) oversight committees and departments. He will also work with the staff of the University Committee to broaden opportunities for students to engage in study abroad, research, fellowships, and internships related to this field, and, he will work with the Office of International Programs and the Office of Career Services on these tasks.

The shadow knows, and so does Zuleika Velazquez.

In a suite of newly remodeled offices in the basement of Pierce Hall, a group of undergraduates huddles near a whiteboard besmirched with diagrams. Laptops glow. Uncompleted circuit boards lay scattered across tables like abandoned blue books. A blur of voices doesnt make the scene any less puzzling: We have something here, and we have something there, and they might be the same color … theyre of the same bot. … What hes saying is that so instead of going 0,0,0,0, you just keep a list of all the same blobs.

After three years of minimal increases in market rents (0 percent in 2003, 0.7 percent in 2004, 0.7 percent decrease in 2005), research for this year suggests a recovery is under way in the local rental market, thereby supporting an increase in Harvard residential housing rents.

Harvard lost one of its greatest teachers and quintessential biologists with the death of Claude Alvin Villee Jr. on August 7, 2003, at age 86, after a long illness with Parkinsons disease.

To meet the increased physical planning and development needs of the faculties and departments on Harvard’s existing campus while simultaneously preparing for first-phase development in Allston, the Harvard Planning + Allston Initiative (HPAI) – the team that coordinated University-wide physical planning – has been reconfigured into two University organizations.

Elliot Forbes, the Fanny Peabody Professor of Music Emeritus, died Jan. 10 at his home in Cambridge, Mass. He was 88. A member of an old Boston family with numerous Harvard connections, Forbes was the son of Fogg Museum Director Edward Waldo Forbes and the great-grandson of poet and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson.