Campus & Community

Sitting forward and big-eyed in their seats, or leaning back with eyes closed and only their ears open, a recent Sanders Theatre audience let the sounds of Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms inspire them, amuse them, thrill them, bring them a momentary moment of peace. Nothing unusual about that – except in this case the audience of 400-plus consisted almost entirely of Cambridge elementary school students, their teachers, and chaperones. The free Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra (HRO) Childrens Concert is, according to the chair of the HRO outreach committee Johann Cutiongco 06, one of the most fun and meaningful events of the year.

For 30 years, Learning From Performers has been bringing artists to Harvard to lecture, teach, and interact with students. Just a partial list of the performers who have spent anywhere from a day to a week at Harvard under the auspices of the program is enough to widen the eyes of even the moderately starstruck – Mel Gibson, Whoopi Goldberg, Mandy Patinkin, Susan Sarandon, Jessica Lange, Isaac Stern, Mstislav Rostropovich, Beverly Sills, Mark Morris, Judith Jamison, Bill T. Jones, Quincy Jones, Dizzy Gillespie, Sarah Vaughn, Bobby Short, Tony Kushner, Stephen Sondheim, Hal Prince, David Hockney, Maurice Sendak.

Scott Lukas, professor of psychiatry at McLean, a psychiatric hospital affiliated with Harvard Medical School, says these results inspired his team to test on humans. The study was conducted on…

Desperation and frustration are prompting some patients with failing organs to turn to modern technology and the Internet to bypass lengthy organ donation waiting lists and find donors themselves. The…

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,…

Kerala is one of the poorer states in India, and yet it enjoys India’s highest life expectancy and lowest infant mortality rates. This seeming anomaly has caused many to wonder…

Employment Services, collaborating with a University-wide organizing committee, is hosting its seventh annual career forum on June 14. This years event will be held at the Graduate School of Designs Gund Hall, 48 Quincy St. The event will be open to the public from 3 to 7 p.m.

John Fitzgerald Gates, a senior adviser to the president and the provost of the University of Vermont, has been named associate dean of Harvard College for administration and finance. Gates will report to Deputy Dean Patricia OBrien. The appointment is effective July 1, 2005.

Hongkun Park thinks small to get big results.

In a bold move to eliminate financial barriers for graduate students who will go on to confront some of societys most challenging problems, the Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation is giving $10 million to create a major fellowship program in social entrepreneurship at Harvard University.

HGSE student Sherri Sklar (left) reads with her Amigos School buddy, second-grader Avianna Perez. Managed by Cambridge School Volunteers (CSV), Reading Buddies is a program that pairs adults from the Graduate School of Education and from BookPALS, a program of the Screen Actors Guild Foundation, with young students from a Cambridge public school. At the year-end picnic in Radcliffe Yard, each student received a special gift book chosen by their reading buddy.

After 10 years as a justice of the peace, Wilma Stahura has plenty of wedding stories.

Reischauer seeks submissions The deadline for submitting works for the 2005 Noma-Reischauer Essay Prizes in Japanese Studies, given to the best graduate and undergraduate papers on a Japan-related topic, is…

The Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) has received a grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health, to establish a program to reduce cancer disparities in minority and underserved populations. The program, named MASS CONECT (Massachusetts Community Networks to Eliminate Cancer Disparities through Education, Research and Training), has received $500,000 for the first year of a five-year grant.

Eastern Sprints spring gold for Crimson crew The Eastern Association of Rowing Colleges’ 60th annual Eastern Sprints turned up gold for both the Harvard heavies and lightweights on May 15…

The Center for Public Interest Careers (CPIC), a collaborative effort of Phillips Brooks House, the Office of Career Services, and the Harvard Alumni Association, aims to expose Harvard College students to the public interest sector during their college summers and at the start of their professional careers. Entering its fourth year, the internship and fellowship program has connected more than 150 College students and recent graduates with public interest organizations. By working closely with University, community, and alumni counterparts to provide high-quality learning opportunities, the center seeks to become a model for supporting the development of a new generation of graduates working for the public interest.

What are the challenges facing emerging democracies? Thats the complex question asked, and partially answered, by a panel of Kennedy School professors on May 13 as part of the 2005 Kennedy School Spring Conference.

A federal judge and a respected social policy writer and scholar were recently honored during the inaugural Richard E. Neustadt and Thomas C. Schelling Awards ceremonies at The Charles Hotel in Cambridge, Mass. The Kennedy School of Government (KSG) hosted the event.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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,…

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.