Campus & Community

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  • Harvard Task Forces on Women release findings and recommendations

    Harvard’s Task Forces on Women Faculty and on Women in Science and Engineering, appointed three months ago to address concerns of women faculty and women in science throughout the University, today released reports calling for large-scale changes in the way the University recruits faculty and supports women and underrepresented minorities pursuing academic careers.

  • Brainy surprise party

    After neuroscientist John Dowling presented his last lecture at the Science Center on Tuesday (May 10), he was treated to a surprise party in honor of three decades of exemplary teaching. Provost Steven E. Hyman praised Dowling, who was then presented with a cake decorated with a picture of a brain, the Harvard veritas symbol, and a likeness of the professor himself.

  • Harvard Foundation unveils portraits

    They were turning away people at the door as President Lawrence H. Summers and S. Allen Counter, director of the Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations, unveiled six portraits as part of the Harvard Foundation Minority Portraiture Project, an initiative to recognize faculty members and administrators of color who have served Harvard with distinction for more than 25 years. More than 400 attended the unveiling ceremony, which was held in the Naumberg Room of the Fogg Museum on May 6. The portraits are of former Dean Archie C. Epps III professors Rulan Pian, Stanley Tambiah, Eileen Southern David L. Evans, senior admissions officer and Kiyo Morimoto, Bureau of Study Counsel. At the ceremony, family members and friends of the portrait subjects mingled with honored guests, alumni, and current undergraduates.

  • College’s yield rises to nearly 80 percent

    Nearly 80 percent of the students admitted to the Class of 2009 will enter Harvard in September. The current yield is 78.5 percent, slightly above last years 77.6 percent.

  • Faculty Council meeting for May 11

    At its 15th meeting of the year on May 11, the Faculty Council received a report on the Allston Initiative from Vice President for Administration Sally Zeckhauser, Dean Alan Altshuler of the Graduate School of Design, and David MacGregor, project manager for Cooper, Robertson & Partners.

  • Environmental express

    The Kennedy School of Government has presented the 2005 Roy Family Award for Environmental Partnership to the FedEx-Environmental Defense Future Vehicle Project. The Future Vehicle Project – a public/private collaboration of Environmental Defense, FedEx Express, and the Eaton Corporation –  has introduced a hybrid delivery truck that increases fuel efficiency by over 50 percent and reduces particulate emissions by 96 percent. FedEx plans to make the hybrid vehicles the standard replacement in its weight class of 30,000 medium-duty trucks. Before the May 4 presentation, senior vice president of Eaton Corporation James Sweetnam (from left) David Bronczek, president and CEO of FedEx Express Ellen Roy Hertzfelder, representative of the Roy family and state secretary of environmental affairs and Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense, gather for a chat.

  • This month in Harvard history

    May 1879 – The committee on women’s education (chaired by Elizabeth Cary Agassiz) announces its first course offerings (51) in the following subjects: English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Latin, Spanish,…

  • Police reports

    Following are some of the incidents reported to the Harvard University Police Department for the week ending May 9. The official log is located at 1033 Massachusetts Ave., sixth floor.

  • Fehrenbach joins FAS as professor of history of art, architecture

    Art historian Frank Fehrenbach, a prolific and expansive scholar who is one of the worlds leading intellects in the field of Renaissance art, has been named professor of the history of art and architecture in Harvard Universitys Faculty of Arts and Sciences, effective July 1.

  • Riding a bicycle built for two

    For James Robinson, recently appointed to a tenured position in the Government Department, the desire to understand the world from a broad intellectual perspective began when he was a boy in England in the 1970s.

  • HMNH names Elisabeth Werby as executive director

    The Harvard Museum of Natural History (HMNH) has named Elisabeth Werby its new executive director. Currently senior director of government relations and strategic project development at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York, Werby will join the HMNH in July.

  • Philosophy Department appoints Hall

    Edward J.P. Hall, a leading philosopher of physics and quantum mechanics and an eminent analyst of the philosophical notion of causation, has been appointed professor of philosophy in Harvard Universitys Faculty of Arts and Sciences, effective July 1.

  • Tim Russert to speak at Harvard Class Day

    Tim Russert, managing editor and moderator of Meet the Press (MTP) and political analyst for NBC Nightly News and the Today program, is the 2005 Class Day speaker, announced the Harvard College Class of 2005 Senior Class Committee and the Harvard Alumni Association Wednesday (May 11). He will address the senior class and guests on Class Day, June 8, at 2 p.m. in Tercentenary Theatre.

  • University applauds faculty and staff

    One hundred forty-five Harvard faculty and staff members will be honored today (May 12) for reaching a milestone: 25 years of service to the University. The 51st annual 25 Year Recognition Ceremony – a unique event in that it recognizes both faculty and staff from across the entire University – will be held at the Ropes-Gray Room, Pound Hall, Harvard Law School.

  • Newsmakers

    Joslin Diabetes Center scientist elected to NAS Professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School Christophe O. Benoist, co-head of the Section on Immunology and Immunogenetics at Joslin Diabetes Center, was…

  • In brief

    Stephen Lewis named HSPH Commencement speaker Stephen Lewis, United Nations special envoy of the secretary-general for HIV/AIDS in Africa and director of the Stephen Lewis Foundation, will be the Harvard…

  • Baseball swings sweep for Ivy crown

    Last weekends stormy weather turned up roses for Harvard baseball, as the host Crimson swept two games from Cornell in Mondays (May 9) rescheduled Ivy League Championship, handing the home team its first league title in three years. Harvards pitching crew – well rested after Saturdays and Sundays rainouts – limited Cornell to two runs over a pair of contests to dismiss the Big Red, 2-0 and 4-2.

  • Eisenbergs set to receive prestigious APA award

    Lecturer on social medicine Carola Eisenberg, one of the five founding members of Physicians for Human Rights (an organization that shared the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize for its contribution to the campaign for banning land mines), and her husband, Leon Eisenberg, the Maude and Lillian Presley Professor of Social Medicine Emeritus in the Department of Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, will receive the American Psychiatric Associations (APA) 2005 Human Rights Award at APAs annual meeting in Atlanta on May 23.

  • One wheel for children

    If laughter is the best medicine, then Harvard Divinity School student Zachary Warren is hoping that for Afghan children, performance will help the medicine go down.

  • Levenson Teaching Prizes awarded

    They could be called the above-and-beyond-the-call-of-duty prizes.

  • Wright, publications manager, dies at 58

    Glenn Patton Pat Wright, teacher, editor, and mentor, died of cancer in his Cambridge, Mass., home on May 4. He was 58 years old.

  • KSG hosts Sino-Japanese dialogue

    Can a roomful of Harvard students meeting for three hours on a Friday afternoon help to ease the deep historical tensions between China and Japan? Ronald Heifetz thinks so.

  • IOP announces 18 internship winners

    The Kennedy School of Governments Institute of Politics (IOP) recently announced the selection of 18 undergraduate students, chosen from a pool of 185 candidates, for prestigious paid summer political internships. These students will meet and learn from leading academics, policy-makers, and politicians at high-profile organizations, furthering their understanding of and interest in politics and public affairs. In addition, the IOP is providing financial assistance to nearly 100 current Harvard undergraduates for help in securing public service summer jobs, as well as to rising seniors conducting summer thesis research.

  • Six professors named NEH fellows

    Six Harvard professors joined nearly 200 scholars nationwide to be named recipients of a total of $7.4 million in fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). The fellowships, announced this past February, are intended for individual research in the humanities.

  • When faith becomes ‘exclusivist’

    The third McDonald Conference on Evangelical Theology began Friday night (May 6) with a keynote speech by Robert Wuthnow, a Princeton University professor of sociology and the director of the Princeton Center for the Study of Religion. Wuthnow has studied religion from the perspective of many disciplines, including economics, politics, arts, and psychology, and has written many books, including 1991s Acts of Compassion, for which he received a Pulitzer Prize nomination. Responding to his speech on Friday was Ronald F. Thiemann, a professor of theology and religion and society at Harvard Divinity School.

  • Weissmans send students ’round the world

    For the past 12 years, the Weissman International Internship Program, established by Paul (52) and Harriet Weissman in 1994, has provided nearly 225 sophomores and juniors with the opportunity to participate in an international internship in a field of work related to their academic and career goals. The Weissman Program enables students to develop a richer understanding of the global community in which they live and work, and provides an opportunity for them to share their experiences with the Harvard community when they return.

  • Harvard Magazine names Ledecky Fellows for 2005-06

    Harvard Magazines Berta Greenwald Ledecky Undergraduate Fellows for the 2005-06 academic year are John A. La Rue 07 and Elizabeth S. Widdicombe 06. The two were selected from a competitive evaluation of two dozen student writers applications.

  • Ambassador, scholar, composer Hunt

    The Harvard community is invited to a performance of The Witness Cantata, composed by Swanee Hunt, former ambassador to Austria (1993-97) and director of the Women and Public Policy Program at the Kennedy School of Government. Coro Allegro – Bostons acclaimed chorus for members and friends of the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities, directed by David Hodgkins – will perform the cantata May 13 in Sanders Theatre at 8 p.m.

  • Breathing easier after spinal cord injuries

    njuries to the upper spinal cord can take a victim’s breath away. Most people don’t know that breathing difficulties are the leading cause of disease and death after such injuries.…

  • Low-fat dairy may help reduce risk of type 2 diabetes

    The consumption of low-fat dairy foods may reduce men’s risk of developing type 2 diabetes, according to a study in the May 9 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine. The…