Month: October 2013

  • Nation & World

    Excelling together

    To gain some understanding of why the Boston Red Sox succeeded so well, the Gazette spoke to Jeffrey T. Polzer, the Harvard Business School UPS Foundation Professor of Human Resource Management, about aspects of team chemistry that separate champions from cellar dwellers in sports and business.

  • Health

    Comparing charts on health

    U.S. and Chinese health officials gathered at Harvard’s Longwood Campus to discuss health care challenges facing both nations, including the rise of noncommunicable diseases and reforming health care systems.

  • Nation & World

    The measure of a woman

    Nancy Pelosi, the U.S. House minority leader and former speaker, appeared at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study to discuss the progress that American women have — and have not — made since a milestone 1963 report initiated by President John F. Kennedy on their status.

  • Science & Tech

    Engineering a better life

    When Kathy Ku ’13 proposed to build a water-filter factory in Uganda for $15,000 last year, her contacts advised her to double her budget. If all goes to plan, by next August Ku and her classmates will have created a fully functional and self-sustaining water-filter factory, supplying clean water at half the cost of imported…

  • Campus & Community

    Carving out a winner

    The Class of 2017 got creative for the annual freshman pumpkin-carving contest. Entries were on display at Annenberg Hall just in time for Halloween.

  • Arts & Culture

    National digital library gains traction

    The Digital Public Library of America, with Harvard in its heritage, celebrates its first six months with an idea conference in Boston.

  • Campus & Community

    Faculty Council meeting held Oct. 30

    On Oct. 30 the members of the Faculty Council heard a report on the Study of Religion and updates on the Division of Continuing Education, Advances in Learning, and Title…

  • Science & Tech

    Mystery world baffles astronomers

    Kepler-78b is a planet that shouldn’t exist. “This planet is a complete mystery,” said astronomer David Latham of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). “We don’t know how it formed or how it got to where it is today. What we do know is that it’s not going to last forever.”

  • Campus & Community

    Next up for renewal: Winthrop

    Winthrop House is expected to be the next undergraduate residence in Harvard College’s House system to be renewed.

  • Campus & Community

    A boost for city students

    Alumni from the Crimson Summer Academy discussed the importance of the Harvard program in opening doors to confidence and college.

  • Nation & World

    #Twitterforsale

    HBS Professor Josh Lerner evaluates the investor’s view of the much-anticipated Twitter IPO.

  • Campus & Community

    Fresh approaches in teaching

    Incorporating hands-on, experiential learning with rigorous classroom study is the sort of innovative approach that Harvard has striven to support in recent years, the sort that will play a central role in the Harvard Campaign for Arts and Sciences.

  • Science & Tech

    Geoengineering: Opportunity or folly?

    Scholars on opposite sides of geoengineering debated the climate change strategy’s potential — pitfalls and benefits — this week at the Science Center.

  • Arts & Culture

    An ancient tribe, and change

    It is the 50th anniversary of “Dead Birds,” the groundbreaking documentary of a Stone Age tribe that survived into the 20th century. Its creator was Robert Gardner, longtime director of the Film Study Center.

  • Campus & Community

    Corporation transitions planned for 2014

    William F. Lee, A.B. ’72, will become the Harvard Corporation’s senior fellow next summer, succeeding Robert D. Reischauer, A.B. ’63, the University announced today.

  • Campus & Community

    Donovan receives Coles Award

    Harvard President Drew Faust presented the annual Robert Coles Call of Service Award on Friday to U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan.

  • Arts & Culture

    Life of Lee

    Academy Award-winning director Ang Lee took part in a wide-ranging Harvard discussion about his work, his collaborations, and his future plans.

  • Campus & Community

    The start that comes with aid

    Approximately 60 percent of Harvard College students receive need-based scholarship aid, and 20 percent of families pay nothing. To keep Harvard College affordable for students from nearly every financial background, funding for this program is one of six top priorities in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ Capital Campaign.

  • Campus & Community

    Harvard launches Arts and Sciences campaign

    FAS Dean Michael D. Smith formally launched the $2.5 billion Harvard Campaign for Arts and Sciences on Saturday morning at a standing-room only alumni event at Sanders Theatre.

  • Arts & Culture

    Black like we

    A panel discussion introduced an exhibit of photos from the Paris World’s Fair of 1900 that shows African-Americans as they wished to be depicted, not as a discriminatory American society would have had them be.

  • Nation & World

    Health care hitches

    While the technical glitches on the online rollout for the Affordable Care Act might look bad from a political perspective, a Harvard Kennedy School professor argues that they’re equally bad from a health care perspective.

  • Science & Tech

    As complex as a toy

    Radcliffe Fellow Tadashi Tokieda is creating and using simple toys whose sometimes surprising behavior both illustrates scientific concepts and causes even experienced scientists to scratch their heads trying to figure out what’s happening.

  • Nation & World

    War-weary spirits

    An exhibit at Harvard Divinity School’s Andover-Harvard Theological Library and accompanying digital archive offer an intimate look at religious dimensions to the Civil War.

  • Campus & Community

    Collaboration key in health gains, Clinton says

    Former President Bill Clinton, at the Harvard School of Public Health to accept a Centennial Medal, hailed the networks active through the global health community as critical to gains made in recent decades.

  • Nation & World

    ChinaX has global ambitions

    New HarvardX course will examine China’s history, politics, philosophy, and hopes to draw both local students and others overseas.

  • Nation & World

    When 3+1 is more than 4

    Harvard Business School researchers find that to motivate workers more effectively, present higher pay as a gift.

  • Campus & Community

    Making the Harvard College Connection

    Harvard College today announced a new initiative to encourage promising students from modest economic backgrounds to attend and complete college. It will use social media, video, and other Web-based communications, along with traditional forms of outreach, to connect high school students to Harvard and to other public and private colleges.

  • Nation & World

    Don’t look now: It’s election ’16

    Panelists at the Harvard Kennedy School take an early look at the likely field of candidates in both parties for the 2016 presidential election.

  • Nation & World

    When things changed for women

    During a Radcliffe address, New York Times columnist Gail Collins offered her perspective on why how and why the rights and expectations of American women changed so dramatically between 1960 and today.

  • Campus & Community

    Top-notch teachers

    Edo Berger, the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Natural Sciences, and Anne Pringle, an associate professor of organismic and evolutionary biology, have been named the recipients of the 2013 Fannie Cox Prize for Excellence in Science Teaching.