Year: 2012

  • Science & Tech

    Ideas galore

    Students participating in the Harvard College Innovation (I3) Challenge this year generated dozens of promising ideas to improve the quality of daily life.

    5 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    April 20 memorial to honor Jewett

    A memorial service celebrating the life of L. Fred Jewett ’57, M.B.A. ’60, former dean of Harvard College and a longtime University administrator, will be held in the Memorial Church on April 20.

    1 minute
  • Health

    Mammography tied to overdiagnosis

    New Harvard School of Public Health research suggests that routine mammography screening — long viewed as an essential tool in detecting early breast cancers — may in fact lead to a significant amount of overdiagnosis of disease that would have proved harmless.

    3 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Love beyond words

    Anne Fadiman, a Harvard Overseer and author of “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down,” explored the many varieties of book lover with a Cambridge Public Library audience on April 1.

    4 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Embracing spring

    Harvard undergraduates gleefully covered one another in bright colors on in observance of Holi, the Hindu celebration of spring.

    3 minutes
  • Science & Tech

    You, revealed

    “X-Rays of the Soul: Rorschach and the Projective Test,” at Harvard’s Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments, tells the story of the projective test movement and portrays the heady confidence that science could be used to extract and access the most human parts of human beings.

    2 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    HBS faculty win big

    Three members of the Harvard Business School faculty have won awards in the 2012 ecch Case Awards Competition.

    1 minute
  • Campus & Community

    Haitian National Soccer Team vs. Harvard

    The Haitian National Soccer Team will take on the Harvard Crimson on April 22 for the second annual Haiti Leve (Haiti Rises) match at Harvard Stadium.



 Proceeds from this exhibition game will benefit Partners In Health’s work in Haiti.

    1 minute
  • Campus & Community

    Harvard student Kelsey Beck is Miss Boston 2012

    Kelsey Beck ’14, was recently named Miss Boston and will be competing for the Miss Massachusetts title in late June.

    1 minute
  • Campus & Community

    Pinker explains ‘The Long Peace’

    As part of the John Harvard Book Celebration, Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker brought the findings from his latest book, “The Better Angels of Our Nature,” to the Allston community, presenting his findings on how the world is growing less violent.

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Fighting for education, and nation’s future

    Geoffrey Canada received the Harvard Graduate School of Education Medal for Educational Impact. The School’s highest honor recognizes those who demonstrate an outstanding contribution to education. Canada discussed his time at the School of Education and his work with the Harlem Children’s Zone.

    5 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    New chapter in student life

    Harvard administrators, faculty, and students converged on Boylston Hall March 27 for the much-anticipated opening of the new Office of BGLTQ Student Life. The reception in the BGLTQ lounge and ceremony in the Fong Auditorium celebrated the beginning of a new chapter in the University’s ongoing effort to embrace diversity and inclusion.

    3 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    18 receive OFA fellowships

    The Office for the Arts at Harvard and the Office of the Dean for the Arts and Humanities announced 18 undergraduate recipients of the 2012 Artist Development Fellowship.

    11 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Matthews, Silverman are Scientists of the Year

    The Harvard Foundation will present the 2012 Scientist of the Year Award to Jessica O. Matthews ’10 and Julia Silverman ’10, co-founders of Uncharted Play Inc. and inventors of SOCCKET, at this year’s annual Albert Einstein Science Conference.

    2 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    HMS appoints center director

    Harvard Medical School Professor of Medicine Russell S. Phillips has been appointed inaugural director of HMS’s Center for Primary Care by Jeffrey S. Flier, dean of the faculty of medicine.

    1 minute
  • Campus & Community

    Hempton named Divinity School dean

    Harvard University President Drew Faust announced that David Hempton will become dean of Harvard Divinity School, effective July 1. Hempton, the Alonzo L. McDonald Family Professor of Evangelical Theological Studies at the Divinity School, succeeds William A. Graham, who will step down from the post at the end of this academic year.

    4 minutes
  • Health

    An opening against Alzheimer’s

    Findings by a team at Harvard-affiliated Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center suggest a new strategy for diagnosing and treating Alzheimer’s disease.

    2 minutes
  • Arts & Culture

    Film, fact, and fantasy

    Indian-born director Deepa Mehta often shines light on her homeland with films that explore complex and controversial themes. She discussed her creative and collaborative process during a talk at the Radcliffe Gymnasium.

    5 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    2,032 admitted to Class of ’16

    Letters and email notifications of admission to Harvard College have been sent to 2,032 students. More than 60 percent of families of students admitted to the Class of 2016 will benefit from an unprecedented $172 million in undergraduate financial aid.

    9 minutes
  • Science & Tech

    Nurturing the seeds of innovation

    The bond between Harvard and Silicon Valley is a close one. The region is home to a powerful network of alumni willing to offer mentorship to students and recent graduates who are dreaming big. Taking advantage of that network, SEAS and HBS recently came together to organize the trip to Palo Alto.

    6 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Pulling together for a better Harvard

    President of the Harvard Board of Overseers Leila Fawaz and Senior Fellow of the Harvard Corporation Robert Reischauer sat down with the Gazette recently to discuss the University’s governance, the interplay between the University’s two governing boards, and the experience of serving.

    14 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Renewing Harvard-Army ties

    In a ceremony March 28 at Hilles Hall, Harvard University resumed a connection with the Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) that started in 1916.

    7 minutes
  • Health

    Paying hospitals to improve doesn’t work

    A new study from Harvard School of Public Health finds no evidence that the largest hospital-based pay-for-performance program in the U.S. improved 30-day mortality rates, a measure of whether patients survive their hospitalization.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Lessons from deep underground

    Laurence Golborne was Chile’s mining minister in 2010 when a mineshaft collapse catapulted him into the international spotlight. The subsequent 69-day operation that Golborne led to rescue 33 trapped miners made him famous.

    3 minutes
  • Arts & Culture

    Filmmaker who bore witness to Holocaust

    A cinema legend’s advice on making films about unspeakable war crimes: “Go to see the killers.”

    5 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    More than one crowning achievement

    Kelsey Beck ’14 was crowned Miss Boston 2012. The Harvard student will compete in the Miss Massachusetts pageant June 29-30 in Worcester. In the meantime, she balances classes and extracurricular activities.

    4 minutes
  • Health

    Writing the book of cancer knowledge

    The Cancer Cell Line Encyclopedia is an academic-industry collaboration resource that marries deeply detailed cancer genome data with predictors of drug response, information that could lead to refinements in cancer clinical trials and future treatments.

    4 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    A peek into Harvard classrooms

    The Faculty of Arts and Sciences is launching a new video series, called “Harvard’s Great Teachers,” which will highlight Harvard’s world-class faculty and offer a sampling of the exciting and innovative teaching experienced by Harvard students.

    5 minutes
  • Health

    Pondering health, at home and abroad

    The world is in the midst of a global health transition, with the population growing older and primary health threats coming from chronic, not infectious, diseases, according to speakers at an Advanced Leadership Initiative think tank.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Japan’s mistakes

    Assurances of the safety of Japan’s nuclear industry lulled the government and the public into a false sense of security that was shattered a year ago when a massive earthquake and tsunami rocked the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the head of a panel that reviewed the disaster told a Harvard audience March 26.

    3 minutes