Nation & World

Public service at Harvard increasingly reaches well beyond its gates, as student and alumni volunteers journey far to do good works.

Elizabeth Warren, head of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, spoke at Harvard Law School about her efforts to establish a consumer financial protection agency.

In an offbeat attempt at finding common ground, a John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum spotlights Palestinian and Israeli humor.

In a panel discussion celebrating the Harvard Extension School’s centennial, three speakers discuss the moribund economy, offering advice that job seekers plunge ahead and reinvent themselves to prosper in the changed marketplace.

Economist Steven Levitt recalled his undergraduate time at Harvard and explored some of his new research during a discussion at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

Podcast interview on health care reform with Regina Herzlinger, the Nancy R. McPherson Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School.

Intellectual inquiry and practical action were both on rich display at “Harvard and China: A Research Symposium,” a series of lectures, panels, and break out sessions held to mark the official opening of the Harvard Center Shanghai on March 18.

As President Drew Faust becomes the eighth Harvard president to visit Japan, faculty members are sending back dispatches about cultural and historical aspects of her visit.

As a global university, Harvard not only attracts students and faculty from around the world, it sends them out, to teach and work, extending Harvard’s influence far beyond its local boundaries.

Harvard undergrads on Alternative Spring Break learn construction techniques while helping to complete a rebuilt Alabama church.

Two top players in the field of higher education explored two almost polar approaches to learning during a discussion at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Harvard students and alumni arrive at work sites to begin construction, tutoring, other tasks as part of Alternative Spring Break, a tradition of public service initiated by the student-run Phillips Brooks House Association.

Leading government technology officers explored how technology can drive democracy forward during a discussion at the Harvard Kennedy School Forum.

Richard Holbrooke, a diplomat for nearly 50 years, imparts to a Harvard audience his insights into current international conflicts, particularly in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Kashmir.

Activist Noam Chomsky tells the Memorial Church gathering that President Obama, after a year in office, projects a foreign policy with real vision, but “hasn’t succeeded much in practice.”

Transporting patients from one location to another in post-quake Haiti can be a complicated task; often involving barriers of logistics, distance, and language. Sometimes the greatest challenge is a ticking clock.

Canadian Supreme Court judge, child of Holocaust survivors, argues passionately that nations should value human rights over simple laws, and that the United Nations should step up.

A panel of religious scholars examined the role of organized religion in helping to shape the national debate on economic reform and the country’s moral direction.

Patients at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative field hospital at Fond Parisien, Haiti, share their stories of the deadly Jan. 12 earthquake and its aftermath.

Among the millions of “Haiti earthquake stories” from January 12, 2010, here is one.

Caring for volunteers who care for Haiti’s sick and wounded is a full-time, round-the-clock job, requiring the barest of necessities.

Haitians face a long road for post-earthquake recovery. Some Harvard faculty members will walk it with them.

Radcliffe Fellow Nancy J. Smith-Hefner studies the “gender paradox” among Muslim youth in Java.

An HGSE student project over January break leads young students to create photographic art, along with exhibits in two countries.

In some Muslim societies, the tension between genders can lapse into violence. Some Radcliffe Fellows can tell that tale.

First grants from Harvard fund to aid Haitian community in helping employees to take care of their families.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan called for critical reforms to the nation’s public education system, during a discussion at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Leader of the Choctaw Nation visits Harvard classroom to discuss how he helped the Indian tribe to reorganize and solve many of its own problems.

Weeks after the earthquake, as populations of Haiti’s tent camps grow, so too does the threat of disease.

White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett offered a personal look at President Barack Obama, as well as a take on some of the troubles in Washington, during a talk at a Harvard Kennedy School forum.