Nation & World

All Nation & World

  • Changing the world, in under 9 minutes

    The inaugural event “One Harvard: Lectures that Last” featured short talks by a dozen speakers representing Harvard’s graduate and professional Schools. The session was designed to reveal the crosscurrents of innovation that can flow from discipline to discipline, and to expose students to fresh ideas.

  • Teaching, NFL style

    Panelists in a recent Askwith Forum discussed lessons for educators in the ways NFL teams prepare for games and evaluate talent.

  • Wise negotiator

    At Harvard to receive the Great Negotiator Award, James A. Baker III offered his insight and political perspective on his time as a senior government official for three U.S. presidents.

  • Fighting for education, and nation’s future

    Geoffrey Canada received the Harvard Graduate School of Education Medal for Educational Impact. The School’s highest honor recognizes those who demonstrate an outstanding contribution to education. Canada discussed his time at the School of Education and his work with the Harlem Children’s Zone.

  • Lessons from deep underground

    Laurence Golborne was Chile’s mining minister in 2010 when a mineshaft collapse catapulted him into the international spotlight. The subsequent 69-day operation that Golborne led to rescue 33 trapped miners made him famous.

  • Japan’s mistakes

    Assurances of the safety of Japan’s nuclear industry lulled the government and the public into a false sense of security that was shattered a year ago when a massive earthquake and tsunami rocked the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the head of a panel that reviewed the disaster told a Harvard audience March 26.

  • Q&A on health care reform

    Constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe offers his analysis of this week’s hearings before the Supreme Court on mandatory coverage.

  • The ethical letter of the law

    Professor Howard Gardner challenges aspiring lawyers at Harvard Law School to think about the ethics of their profession.

  • A welcome home

    After more than a decade away, Professor Eric Maskin returned to the Economics Department this semester to a warm reception — and with a Nobel Prize in tow.

  • A cleanup plan for D.C.

    Trust in Congress is at an all-time low, but corrupt politicians aren’t to blame. For true reform, America must fix a broken system that relies on money from a fraction of the 1 percent, Harvard Law School Professor Lawrence Lessig argued on March 19.

  • Investigative journalism, alive and well

    Investigative reporting is an increasingly rare luxury for many news organizations. A Shorenstein Center roundtable featuring the finalists for the Goldsmith Awards in Political Journalism proved that with resources, hard work, and collaboration, the craft can thrive.

  • What helps low-income students

    During a discussion at Harvard Graduate School of Education, Teach For America founder Wendy Kopp defended her initiative, which places recent college graduates as teachers in underserved communities for two years.

  • The record of Japanese disaster

    Harvard experts were among the lead organizers of a major effort to construct a multimedia archive of last year’s devastating earthquake and aftermath in Japan. The site goes live this week.

  • The parenting divide

    As a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Pei-Chia Lan is exploring how Taiwanese and Chinese immigrants negotiate cultural differences in child rearing and how they parent transnationally.

  • Sorting reality from ‘truthiness’

    A Harvard and MIT symposium seeks to understand and address propaganda and misinformation in the new media ecosystem.

  • Academia, meet the press

    With its increasingly popular website called Journalist’s Resource, the Shorenstein Center is putting academia’s insights at reporters’ fingertips, and making a broader case for knowledge-based reporting.

  • Education reform, by the numbers

    The Strategic Data Project at the Graduate School of Education aims to develop a new corps of data analysts who can help to lead reform of the nation’s public school systems.

  • Fun that helps change the world

    Brazilian urban specialist Edgard Gouveia Jr., who has won international attention for his approach to grassroots development through game play, demonstrates his techniques to Harvard students.

  • Palin’s game-changing legacy

    Political journalists Mark Halperin ’87 and John Heilemann, M.P.A. ’90, returned to Harvard Thursday night to screen and discuss the new HBO Films adaptation of their best-seller “Game Change,” showing that the drama of Sarah Palin’s 2008 vice presidential nomination can still draw an enthusiastic crowd.

  • Feminism, now stalled

    A Harvard law professor, former judge, and ardent feminist points to the cultural impediments that have stalled feminism’s quest for an equal workplace.

  • Shining a spotlight into darkness

    Acclaimed documentary filmmaker Helen Whitney opens a three-day series of William Belden Noble lectures titled “Spiritual Landscapes: A Life in Film.” Her work draws out examples of how faith can foster not only inner peace, but also public turmoil.

  • The business of changing the world

    What will the next generation of social entrepreneurs need to succeed? Analysts debated the future of the budding field — and Harvard students demonstrated it — at Harvard Kennedy School on Feb. 24.

  • India to retain economic ties to Iran

    Though India shares global concerns about the possible development of nuclear weapons by Iran and is working to reduce its reliance on Iranian oil, India needs to continue fuel imports that are critical to the welfare of millions of people, said India’s ambassador to the United States.

  • Superstar teachers

    As leaders in government and business search for ways to strengthen the U.S. recovery, new research from faculty at Harvard and Columbia indicates that elementary school teachers have an impact on how much their students earn as adults and, by extension, on the nation’s economy.

  • Fostering global understanding

    A panel of scholars made up of the directors of the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Centers met to discuss how to promote better understanding between the Islamic world and the West.

  • Poised to strike?

    As Iran moves closer to having a nuclear weapon, Israel faces an existential moment.

  • Student’s aim: A harvest of good

    Annemarie Ryu ’13 hopes to create an American market for tasty, nutritious jackfruit, while helping to support struggling Indian farmers at the same time.

  • Less bluster, more action

    America’s tenuous relationship with Pakistan has faced one test after another in the past year. To rebuild trust and form a true partnership, both sides have to accept blame, said Cameron Munter, the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, at Harvard Kennedy School on Feb. 13.

  • Innovation recognized by Ash Center

    New York City’s Center for Economic Opportunity (CEO) was named the winner of the Innovations in American Government Award today by the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the Kennedy School of Government.

  • A call to reverse security measures

    Ralph Nader and Bruce Fein visited Harvard Law School for a talk sponsored by the HLS Forum and the Harvard Law Record. At the event, both men discussed what they called lawless and violent practices by the White House and its agencies that have become institutionalized by both political parties.