Year: 2006

  • Campus & Community

    This month in Harvard history

    September 1936 – During the first two weeks of September, Harvard convenes a Tercentenary Conference of Arts and Sciences. More than 10,000 faculty members at 54 institutions nationwide are invited; over 2,000 attend. Seventy-one scholars give papers in four areas: Arts and Letters, Physical Sciences, Biological Sciences, and Social Sciences.

  • Campus & Community

    In brief

    Milton Fund accepting research proposals, Slide horn day at the stadium, Yale Law School’s Ackerman to deliver Holmes Lectures

  • Campus & Community

    Newsmakers

    Harvard, Harris applauded for sustainable energy use, Wolff awarded first Bach Prize, Kelman receives 2006 Morton Deutsch Award, HCPDS research scientist receives $2M to study AIDS prevention

  • Campus & Community

    Classicist, medievalist Bloch dies at 95

    Herbert Bloch, Pope Professor of the Latin Language and Literature Emeritus, died on Sept. 6 in Cambridge, Mass. Bloch was born in Berlin on Aug. 18, 1911. He studied ancient history, classical philology, and archaeology at the University of Berlin (1930-1933), which he left for Rome. Owing to the vicissitudes of fate, his brother Egon…

  • Nation & World

    RFK Visiting Professor comes to DRCLAS

    Merilee Grindle, director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University, recently announced the arrival of Cuban scholar Rafael M. Hernández Rodríguez as the 2006-07 Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) Visiting Professor in Latin American Studies. Grindle, who is also the Edward S. Mason Professor of International Development at the Kennedy School…

  • Health

    HMS offers fellowships, grants

    Each year, numerous postdoctoral and faculty fellowships/grants are available to the Harvard medical community by invitation only. These include the Burroughs Wellcome Career Award at the Scientific Interface, the Damon…

  • Campus & Community

    University announces this academic year’s Zuckerman Fellows

    Two former Peace Corps volunteers, two former Fulbright Scholars, six people who have started their own nonprofit organizations, the co-founder of a medical journal devoted to global health issues, and the sixth person in the 20th century to graduate from West Point as both first captain and top-ranked cadet are among this year’s Zuckerman Fellows.

  • Campus & Community

    Safra Foundation welcomes faculty fellows, senior scholars

    The Harvard University Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics recently welcomed its faculty fellows and senior scholars for 2006-07. The faculty fellows, who study ethical problems in business, government, law, medicine, and public policy, were selected from a pool of applicants from universities and professional institutions throughout the United States and several other countries.…

  • Nation & World

    ‘Ma Ellen,’ African symbol of hope, returns to Harvard

    In the Liberian capital of Monrovia, children stared in amazement. They had never seen such bright lights illuminating the streets, Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf told an audience of Harvard students and professors on Monday (Sept. 18, 2006) at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum.

  • Campus & Community

    Sports in brief

    Women golfers smash records at Dartmouth Invite, Freshmen lift soccer past Vermont

  • Campus & Community

    HMS’s Szostak wins prestigious Lasker

    Jack W. Szostak, professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, is among this year’s Lasker Award winners. Now celebrating its 61st anniversary, the Lasker Awards are the nation’s most distinguished honor for outstanding contributions to basic and clinical medical research, as well as for special achievement in the medical research enterprise.

  • Health

    New myeloma drug proves more potent, less toxic than thalidomide

    A designer drug significantly less toxic than thalidomide has shown impressive activity in prolonging survival of patients with advanced multiple myeloma, report researchers from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. A multicenter Phase II study of lenalidomide, an altered version of thalidomide, found a response rate of 25 percent among patients with myeloma that had recurred despite multiple…

  • Health

    Prostate treatment has risks

    A treatment mainstay for prostate cancer puts men at increased risk for diabetes and cardiovascular disease, according to a large observational study published in the Sept. 20 Journal of Clinical Oncology. “Men with prostate cancer have high five-year survival rates, but they also have higher rates of noncancer mortality than healthy men,” says study author…

  • Science & Tech

    DEAS welcomes Harvard astronaut back to Earth

    International Space Station designers thought of everything concerning astronaut comfort while sleeping. There are sleeping bags, straps to hold astronauts against the wall, and, according to NASA astronaut Stephanie Wilson, there’s even a strap to hold their heads to the pillow against the weightlessness of space. Wilson, who graduated from Harvard in 1988, returned to…

  • Arts & Culture

    Playwright Mayer ’10 is recipient of arts award

    Harvard College freshman and playwright Jonathan Mayer will debut “Mistakes, Inc.” as part of VSA arts 22nd annual Playwright Discovery evening Sept. 28 at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. An international nonprofit organization affiliated with the Kennedy Center, VSA arts showcases the accomplishments of artists with disabilities, while promoting increased…

  • Arts & Culture

    A renovated Woodberry Poetry Room

    This week the George Edward Woodberry Poetry Room reopened after a summerlong renovation, reuniting scholars, poets, and poetry lovers with an unprecedented collection of books, pamphlets, magazines, broadsides, manuscripts, video recordings of poets, rare author photographs, and paintings and sculptures created by poets – in fact anything related to 20th and 21st century poetry.

  • Campus & Community

    Three HSPH professors honored at Joint Statistical Meetings

    Each year, awards are given at the annual Joint Statistical Meetings. During this year’s meeting in Seattle, held Aug. 6-10, three Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) faculty members were honored: Professor of Biostatistics Xihong Lin; Henry Pickering Walcott Professor of Biostatistics Louise Ryan; and Marvin Zelen, professor of statistical science in the HSPH Department…

  • Campus & Community

    Sidney Verba to retire

    Sidney Verba, Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor and director of the University Library, is retiring. He will be stepping down at the end of the academic year, June 30, 2007, interim President Derek Bok has announced.

  • Campus & Community

    Fruits of summer

    If it’s really true that we are what we eat, most of us should run, not walk, over to Harvard’s first-ever Farmers’ Market, to rehabilitate ourselves from the world of unhealthful eating and mediocre grocery store produce.

  • Campus & Community

    At recent conference, ‘pie in the sky’ was on everybody’s plate

    It was a time to free one’s mind, think outside the box, and consider some big ideas. At the invitation of the Center for International Development (CID), nearly 100 representatives of academia, government, and industry met at the Kennedy School on Sept. 9 for the “Blue Sky Conference” – an opportunity to discuss unorthodox notions…

  • Campus & Community

    Sports in brief

    Women golfers smash records at Dartmouth Invite Sophomore golfer Emily Balmert ’09 paced the Harvard women to a record-breaking outing and a first-place finish (out of 17 teams) at the…

  • Campus & Community

    Fields day

    With 13 of Harvard’s 41 varsity teams kicking off their fall schedule this September, the University’s eclectic collection of grassy, rectangular playing fields (natural or otherwise) have abruptly erupted with cheers, jeers, whistles, marching band renditions of Nirvana songs, and, of course, athletic feats.

  • Campus & Community

    Energy conservation program helps offset rising costs

    Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) has embarked on an intensive campaign to wring energy savings out of both its buildings and its budget, hiring an outside manager to oversee what one energy administrator called its “most aggressive” campaign to date.

  • Campus & Community

    CPIC announces New York internship program for 10 students

    The Center for Public Interest Careers (CPIC) at Harvard will be offering 10 students the opportunity to work in New York City next summer through the CPIC Fund for Service Internship Program. These highly competitive internships will provide interns with a $3,500 summer stipend and an allowance for housing expenses. The Heckscher Foundation for Children…

  • Campus & Community

    Field-tested

    With all the personnel changes both on and off the field, including a new quarterback, a new captain, five new assistant coaches, and a relatively green offensive line and linebacker corps, the Harvard football team could reasonably expect to feel a sense of uncertainty heading into the 2006 season. So when QB Chris Pizzotti ’08…

  • Campus & Community

    President’s hours

    Interim President Derek Bok will hold office hours for students in his Massachusetts Hall office from 3:30 to 5 p.m. on Oct. 24 and Dec. 11. Sign-up begins at 2:30…

  • Health

    Prostate cancer treatment increases risk of diabetes, heart disease

    A treatment mainstay for prostate cancer puts men at increased risk for diabetes and cardiovascular disease, according to a large observational study published in the Sept. 20, 2006, Journal of…

  • Health

    New insight into skin-tanning process suggests novel way of preventing skin cancer

    Findings from a study led by researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Children’s Hospital Boston have rewritten science’s understanding of the process of skin tanning – an insight that has…

  • Campus & Community

    Harvard endowment posts solid positive return

    Harvard University’s endowment earned a 16.7 percent return during the year ending June 30, 2006, bringing the endowment’s overall value to $29.2 billion. The continued strong returns reinforce the endowment’s critical support for Harvard’s academic programs and mission. In the 2006 fiscal year, endowment dollars provided almost a third of Harvard’s operating budget, or over…

  • Campus & Community

    Year of transition sees rethinking, rebuilding

    With change comes opportunity, the adage goes. That old saying has become words to live by at Harvard Management Company (HMC). With a new president and CEO in Mohamed El-Erian, with new heads of five critical areas beneath him, and with new staff in those five areas just starting to filter in, it may be…