Nation & World

Students in Harvard’s Graduate School of Education convened last week to examine how to address some of the world’s educational challenges.

Many nations are watching the succession of Kim Jong-un to the leadership of North Korea, hoping a smooth transition will lead to economic reforms and opportunities to limit the further development of nuclear weapons, a Harvard panel said.

In a paper published last year, Harvard professors David Laibson and Brigitte Madrian argued that employers should design investment menus for their employees that facilitate good choices, “rather than assuming that giving people every option under the sun will lead to the right decision.” The report, co-authored with James Choi of Yale, was recently honored with the TIAA-CREF Paul A. Samuelson Award.

To conservatives, the Tea Partiers are patriots; to liberals, they’re a scourge on progress and civil society. Theda Skocpol, Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology, used different terms to describe the activists to undergraduates: grandma and grandpa.

Sponsored by the Harvard Club of Boston and the Harvard Alumni Association, “Networking NOW: The Learn-How-to-Network Event” was a multifaceted event, underscoring how business networking is a skill that can be learned, practiced, honed, and perfected.

The Harvard Initiative for Learning and Teaching, created with a $40 million gift from Rita E. and Gustave M. Hauser, will host a symposium to explore excellence and innovation in the field.

Harvard is increasing its engagement in India and surrounding South Asian nations in an effort to better understand a part of the world that is growing in global importance. Harvard President Drew Faust visits India this month.

Activists from across Africa and the Middle East drew from on-the-ground experience in a discussion of women’s role in peace efforts at John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum.

A new research paper co-authored by Harvard Kennedy School Professor Rohini Pande finds that the system designating female leaders for selected village councils in India has resulted in substantive gains for girls in those villages — both in terms of aspirations and educational outcomes.

The purpose of the trip was to generate interest for Harvard among Native American students, as well as to host a Harvard booth at the National Indian Education Association conference in Albuquerque. For many of the high school students we visited, the Harvard name was simply an abstraction.

Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) students learn to master the art of a live television interview in the On-Camera Interview Basics workshop, one of many hosted by the HKS Communications Program.

A new national poll of America’s 18- to 29-year-olds by the Institute of Politics (IOP) at the Harvard Kennedy School finds more millennials predict President Barack Obama will lose his bid for re-election (36 percent) than win (30 percent).

Eighty years ago, the idea that workers were purely rational beings motivated solely by money dominated American business. But a famous study known as the Hawthorne Experiments, led by two men at Harvard Business School, helped to found the human relations movement.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, a Nieman Fellow, explains the dangers of his craft, and why he can’t return to Pakistan.

Legal analysts at a Harvard Medical School forum differ over whether a law allowing death with dignity or assisted suicide for terminally ill patients is right for Massachusetts. But they agreed that similar laws in Oregon and Washington have not proven to be a “slippery slope” that endangered vulnerable patients.

Civic education, an important element for democracy to flourish, has fallen to public schools, universities, and colleges to provide in recent years. A Harvard panel discussed what’s required for the citizenry to be educated to make informed decisions.

Sonya Soni, a Harvard Divinity School student, is featured in the documentary “Keep a Child Alive with Alicia Keys,” which airs throughout December on Showtime.

For the third time in a century, Germany stands ready to change the fortunes of Europe — this time, analysts believe, for the better, said a founder of Harvard’s Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies.

Harvard students made good use last summer of the Presidential Public Service Fellowship Program, a new initiative that supports good works through financial grants.

A panel discusses “The Growing Challenge of Inequality,” an issue easily described and summarized, but difficult to solve, the speakers said, given the political and economic climate that currently dominates the United States.

Professor Howard Gardner explored how to teach students the primal concepts of truth, beauty, and goodness during a lecture based on his newest book.

Fund supports Harvard programs in everything from student activities to faculty research in rising Asian giant.

Eurozone’s ongoing problems create a ripple effect in developing nations, says World Bank president.

Parts of the U.S. economy have been recovering for more than a year, but American jobs haven’t yet returned along with renewed profits. Harvard experts offer insights into what large-scale unemployment means for the nation, and what policymakers and others can do to fix a balky system.

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, speaking at Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics, says the political system would run more smoothly if campaign donors could contribute what they wish.

Legal scholar Anita Hill discussed her experience during the 1991 confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and the civil rights work that it inspired.

The Harvard Innovation Lab officially opened to the public Nov. 18. The ribbon cutters included President Drew Faust and Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino.

The Harvard Law School teams in the showdown round of the Ames Moot Court Competition tried to persuade a panel headed by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor to change the law of the land.

Andrew Sullivan, political commentator and blogger with The Daily Beast, gave the 2011 Theodore H. White Lecture on Press and Politics at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum on Thursday.

Finalists for the Innovations in American Government Award presented their initiatives today at the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) before the National Selection Committee, chaired by Anthony Williams, the former mayor of Washington, D.C.