Newsmakers

Order of Academic Palms honors Nye

Kennedy School Dean Joseph S. Nye Jr. received the insignia of Chevalier in the Order of Academic Palms by M. Jean-David Levitte, French ambassador to the United States, during an Oct. 29 reception at the Kennedy School. The order was founded by Napolean Bonaparte to honor excellence in education and remains a highly esteemed award.

Van Valkenburgh wins design award

Charles Eliot Professor in the Practice of Landscape Architecture Michael Van Valkenburgh was named the winner in the environment design category at the National Design Awards last month in New York City. The awards, bestowed by the Smithsonian Institution’s Copper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, are given to individuals or firms for a body of work in landscape architecture, interior design, or set design.

Van Valkenburgh has designed and built more than 300 gardens, parks, and institutional landscapes across the country and abroad. His recent and current commissions include Pittsburgh’s Allegheny Riverfront Park, a master plan for Brooklyn Bridge Park, Teardrop Park in Battery Park City, and the redesign of Pennsylvania Avenue at the White House.

Widener renovation team takes merit award

The Widener Library renovation project team – composed of Harvard College Library administration and Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) planners, architectural firm Einhorn Yaffe Prescott, and contractor Lee Kennedy Co. – has been recognized by Associated General Contractors with a merit award for the stacks phase of the project as part of the Build Massachusetts program.

The building committee members include (from Harvard College Library) Paul Bellenoit, Jeffrey Horrell, Lynda Leahy, and Susan Lee, and (from FAS) Jeffrey Cushman, Maryellen Fitzgibbon, and David Zewinski. This marks the second time that the project team has garnered an award for the project’s stacks phase.

Four faculty named IOM members

The Institute of Medicine’s (IOM’s) 65 newly elected members and five foreign associates include four Harvard faculty members. They are: Lincoln C. Chen, lecturer in public policy at the Kennedy School of Government; Paul E. Farmer, professor of medical anthropology in the department of social medicine; Jeffrey S. Flier, George C. Reisman Professor of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center; and A. Werk Cook Professor of Radiation Oncology Rakesh K. Jain, Massachusetts General Hospital.

‘Trembling Before G-d’ director returns to Harvard

Director Sandi DuBowski ’92 recently returned to campus for a special dinner, discussion, and screening of his award-winning film “Trembling Before G-d” at the Harvard Film Archive. The Oct. 30 event, which kicked off with a dinner at Harvard Hillel, celebrated the recent release of the film on video and DVD.

The theatrically released film premiered in competition at Sundance in 2001 and garnered the most prestigious international award for gay and lesbian cinema, the coveted Teddy Award for Best Documentary at the 2001 Berlin International Film Festival, where it screened in the International Forum for New Cinema. In addition, it won the Mayor’s Prize for the Jewish Experience at the Jerusalem Film Festival, received the 2003 GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Documentary of the Year, and was also nominated for an Independent Spirit Award.

DuBowski co-founded Harvard’s BGLSA (Bi, Gay, Lesbian Student Association) in 1992.

– Compiled by Andrew Brooks