Newsmakers

CLC HONORS SHINAGEL, HAYNES

The Friends of the Community Learning Center (CLC) in Cambridge, Mass., has presented its Community Appreciation Award to Lilith Haynes, director of the Institute for English Language Programs, and Dean of Continuing Education and University Extension Michael Shinagel. The two received the award June 1 in recognition of their exceptional support of the CLC’s work.

For more than 11 years, Shinagel and Haynes (through the Harvard Extension School) have made nearly 200 scholarships available for CLC students to attend the Harvard Institute for English Language (IEL) Programs. The scholarships have been instrumental in helping these students improve their English language skills, attend college, and integrate into the workforce.
The Friends of the Community Learning Center raises private funds and public awareness in support of the mission of the CLC. Each year, CLC provides free daytime and evening classes for more than 1,000 adult learners from 70 countries.

DUMBARTON OAKS LIBRARY ANNOUNCES NEW DIRECTOR OF STUDIES

John Beardsley, senior lecturer in the Department of Landscape Architecture in the Harvard Graduate School of Design, has been named the new director of studies in Garden and Landscape Studies at the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection in Washington, D.C. Among his many publications on public and environmental art are “Mario Schjetnan: Landscape, Architecture, and Urbanism” (Spacemaker Press, 2008) and “Earthworks and Beyond: Contemporary Art in the Landscape” (4th edition, Abbeville Press, 2006).

The library has also announced that Joanne Pillsbury, director of studies in Pre-Columbian Studies, has had her three-volume “Guide to Documentary Sources for Andean Studies, 1530-1900” published by the University of Oklahoma Press for the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts.

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE HONORS MICHAEL E. PORTER

Michael E. Porter, the Bishop William Lawrence University Professor at Harvard Business School, has received the first Lifetime Achievement Award in Economic Development from the U.S. Department of Commerce. The award is presented only rarely, when a private citizen’s body of work and assistance to the federal government has significantly enhanced the nation’s approach to economic development.

According to the award citation, “Michael Porter’s work on competitiveness and industry clusters has significantly shaped the federal approach to economic development, including the rejuvenation of the Commerce Department’s Economic Development Administration (EDA); thought leadership of a comprehensive proposal to streamline the federal delivery of community and economic development programs; and support for free trade agreements.”

SOHIGIAN, YEGHIAYAN ATTEND ENERGY GLOBE AWARDS

Harvard Extension School graduate students Jason Sohigian and Paul Yeghiayan recently represented the Armenia Tree Project (ATP) at the Energy Globe Awards (May 26) held at the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium. Sohigian and Yeghiayan work in the Watertown, Mass., development office of ATP — an innovative backyard nursery program that seeks to mitigate poverty-driven deforestation. The program was selected the national winner for Armenia of the Energy Globe Award for Sustainability.

RAIFFA NAMED RECIPIENT OF SCHELLING AWARD

Howard Raiffa, the Frank P. Ramsey Professor of Managerial Economics Emeritus at Harvard Business School and the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), has been named this year’s recipient of the Thomas C. Schelling Award. A pioneer in the field of decision analysis, Raiffa recently received the award and a $25,000 prize at a dinner hosted by HKS Dean David T. Ellwood. Funding for the award was provided by the David Rubenstein Fund for Kennedy School Excellence, established in 2004 by a $10 million gift from David M. Rubenstein.

Given annually to an individual whose “remarkable intellectual work has had a transformative impact on public policy,” the award is named in honor of Thomas C. Schelling, a longtime Harvard University faculty member who was a co-winner of the 2005 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics. Schelling retired from Harvard in 1990 and is now a professor at the University of Maryland.

WOOLHANDLER TO PRESENT AT COUNCIL ON BIOETHICS

Associate Professor of Medicine Steffie Woolhandler has been invited to speak before the President’s Council on Bioethics. The council, which advises the U.S. president on ethical issues related to advances in biomedical science and technology, will examine the efficacy of assorted health reform initiatives during its meeting later this month.

A health policy expert and physician with Cambridge Health Alliance — a nonprofit health care system with ties to Harvard, Tufts Medical School, and Boston’s tertiary hospitals — Woolhandler has conducted extensive research on the inequalities in health and health care, administrative costs in medicine, and national health insurance. At the meeting, she will present a reform proposal focused on single-payer national health insurance. She will discuss essential features of the reform and will address the projected impact on access, cost, and quality.

— Compiled by Andrew Brooks