Featured series 
Year: 2007
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Nation & World
GSD faculty reel in progressive architecture awards
Office dA, the firm of Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) Architecture Professor Monica Ponce de Leon and Adjunct Professor Nader Tehrani, together with Aga Khan Visiting Fellow Aziza Chaouni, received P/A Awards – regarded as the world’s top honor for “un-built projects” – at the Center for Architecture in New York City this past…
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Nation & World
Saving your self from yourself
“Your gut is a complicated place,” notes Shannon Turley, an assistant professor of pathology at Harvard Medical School. In addition to processing food three or more times a day, an intestine needs to protect you from being damaged by yourself.
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Nation & World
KSG’s Shorenstein Center chooses six Goldsmith Prize finalists
Six entries have been chosen as finalists for the 2007 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting awarded each year by the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government (KSG).
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Nation & World
Light and matter united
Lene Hau has already shaken scientists’ beliefs about the nature of things. Albert Einstein and just about every other physicist insisted that light travels 186,000 miles a second in free space, and that it can’t be speeded-up or slowed down. But in 1998, Hau, for the first time in history, slowed light to 38 miles…
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Nation & World
Enel makes $5 million gift to Environmental Economics Program
In recognition of the continued growth and influence exhibited by the Environmental Economics Program at Harvard University, Enel, a progressive Italian corporation involved in energy production worldwide, will make a gift of $5 million to establish The Enel Endowment for Environmental Economics. The gift was announced during a signing ceremony Tuesday (Feb. 6) at Harvard’s…
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Nation & World
Richardson explores what motivates ‘targeting of noncombatants’
What do terrorists want? The question has reverberated in the consciousness of the West ever since the dreadful and unexpected events of 9/11. Were these appalling acts of violence perpetrated because “They hate our freedoms,” as President Bush asserted? Are terrorists simply insane, barbaric, nihilistic, as others have theorized?
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Nation & World
General Education Task Force issues final report
The Task Force on General Education of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences of Harvard University has issued its final report, in which it recommends a new program to replace the Core Curriculum that was introduced in the late 1970s. In the words of the task force: “It is Harvard’s mission to help students to…
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Nation & World
Kuwait Program accepting grant proposals
The Kennedy School of Government (KSG) has announced the 12th funding cycle for the Kuwait Program Research Fund. With the support of the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences, a Kennedy School faculty committee will consider applications for one-year grants (up to $30,000) and larger grants for more extensive proposals to support advanced research…
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Nation & World
Conference in China remembers Benjamin Schwartz
A major international conference was held Dec. 16-18 at East China Normal University in Shanghai on the occasion of the late Professor Benjamin Schwartz’s 90th birthday. The conference brought together distinguished scholars from the United States, China, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia to celebrate and honor the scholarly interests and accomplishments of Schwartz,…
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Nation & World
HAA overseer and elected director candidates
This spring, alumni can vote for a new group of Harvard Overseers and elected directors for the Harvard Alumni Association (HAA) board.
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Nation & World
Judaica Division awarded $1M grant
In 1930, Lucius N. Littauer, Class of 1878, presented his first gift to the Harvard College Library, beginning a tradition of extraordinary support of the library’s Judaica Division.
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Nation & World
Prince Charles honored with HMS’s Global Environmental Citizen Award
The Prince of Wales received the Global Environmental Citizen Award from Harvard Medical School’s Center for Health and the Global Environment. This year’s award, presented on Jan. 28, celebrates the center’s 10th anniversary.
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Nation & World
Seven deadly sins on collision course with market forces
Using the seven deadly sins to examine corporate social responsibility, Kennedy School Professor Herman “Dutch” Leonard explained that today’s market-based economy exploits behavior that is deeply embedded in man’s evolutionary history.
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Nation & World
Innovative HBS ‘immersion’ programs flourish
One of the most enduring questions in school is not about the timeless concerns, like the origin of the universe. It’s about passing time: What did you do on your vacation? That simple (and fraught) question applies even to Harvard Business School (HBS), which for nearly a hundred years has been peopled by future captains…
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Nation & World
HBS models look for new markets while serving the global poor
At $55 a copy, “Business Solutions for the Global Poor” (John Wiley & Sons, 2007) won’t be a hot seller in what economists call the base of the pyramid (BOP). That’s the informal, localized, and little-known stratum of the global market in which 80 percent of humanity – living on an average of $700 a…
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Nation & World
Terror war could strain veterans’ health, benefit systems
The cost of caring for veterans of the war on terror could reach $662 billion over the next 40 years, while demand from returning soldiers is already clogging the two major veterans’ assistance programs, according to recent research by Linda J. Bilmes, a lecturer in public policy from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
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Nation & World
South African Harvard grads win Rhodes
Two recent Harvard graduates, both from South Africa, will soon travel to Oxford University as 2007 Rhodes Scholarship recipients. These international Rhodes recipients will join the seven U.S. winners who were announced this past November.
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Nation & World
Former Arboretum director Ashton wins Japan Prize
Peter Shaw Ashton, the Charles Bullard Professor of Forestry Emeritus and former director of the Arnold Arboretum, has won the prestigious Japan Prize for his “significant contributions towards solving the conflict between human beings and the tropical forest ecosystem.”
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Nation & World
Task force proposes ‘compact’ for excellent teaching
In recent years, Harvard scholars have worked energetically and with great success to create bridges between departments and between faculties, the better to share ideas and foster interdisciplinary approaches to tough, complex issues.
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Nation & World
The end of Early Action: Steady as it goes
In its final year, the Early Action program saw about the same number of applicants and admitted students as in each of the previous three years. A total of 4,008 students applied this year compared with 3,869, 4,214, and 3,889 in the preceding three years. This year 861 students were admitted compared with 813, 869,…
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Nation & World
The many lives of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Most of us only get one life. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – whose 200th birthday bicentennial is this month – has had four. In the first, he arrived in Cambridge in 1837, fresh from a six-year professorship at Bowdoin College. Longfellow, sporting long hair, yellow gloves, and flowered waistcoats, cut quite a romantic, European-style figure in…
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Nation & World
Police reports
Following are some of the incidents reported to the Harvard University Police Department for the week ending Jan. 29. The official log is located at 1033 Massachusetts Ave., sixth floor, and is available online at http://www.hupd.harvard.edu/.
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Nation & World
BSC announces spring schedule
The Bureau of Study Counsel (BSC) will be offering morning and afternoon sessions of its spring-term “Reading and Study Strategy” course beginning Feb. 12.
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Nation & World
DARPA funds new initiative at Harvard
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) recently announced its funding of a new multi-institution research initiative in nano- and micro-electro-mechanical systems (NEMS/MEMS) in affiliation with Harvard’s programs in engineering and applied sciences. The three-year program has more than $2 million in total funding from DARPA and industry partners.
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Nation & World
Undergrad grants available through Schlesinger Library
The Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America invites Harvard undergraduates to make use of the library’s collections with competitive awards (ranging from $100 to $2,500) for relevant research projects.
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Nation & World
Scholars to gather for workshop on Southeastern Europe
The Kokkalis Program on Southeastern and East-Central Europe, Kennedy School of Government, will hold its ninth annual graduate student workshop on Southeastern Europe on Friday (Feb. 2) from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Harvard’s Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies.
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Nation & World
Carr Center names Arkin fellow
William Arkin will join the Kennedy School of Government’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy as a policy fellow for the spring semester, it was announced in January.
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Nation & World
Gingerich awarded Janssen Prize
Owen Gingerich, professor of astronomy and of the history of science emeritus, has been awarded the 2006 Janssen Prize by the Société Astronomique de France (French Astronomical Society).