This month in Harvard history

Dec. 2-3, 1942 – Seven Mexican and three Bolivian journalists visit Harvard while touring the U.S. and Canada to study wartime conditions.

Dec. 9, 1944 – Alumni begin to respond to Donald Moffat’s contest for devising new and more seasonable attire for traditionally top-hatted and dark-clad Commencement aides and marshals. A “Constant Reader” of the “Harvard Alumni Bulletin” proposes the following:

“[. . .] No man representing Harvard should look as sad and uncomfortable as these lictors, bearing their funereal fasces about the Yard.

“The remedy leaps to the lips of anyone not stultified by long residence in academic circles. You want them comfortable; you want them distinguishable. Dress them in bright togas, warm-colored gowns of orange, lemon, raspberry hue. (You may work out the symbolism any way you want to.)” (Quotations: “Harvard Alumni Bulletin,” 12/9/44)

Dec. 3, 1946 – The Faculty of Arts and Sciences votes to discontinue the College’s S.B. (Bachelor of Science) degree and henceforth to grant only the A.B. (Bachelor of Arts) degree.

Dec. 16, 1948 – The Law School Forum makes its first television appearance on Boston’s WBZ-TV with a discussion of Boston traffic and housing problems.

From the Harvard Historical Calendar, a database compiled by Marvin Hightower