While it could never be considered a good thing when rare library materials suffer water damage, in the case of nearly a dozen French ballet drawings from the early 17th century, it proved to be illuminating. Considered one of the great treasures of the Harvard Theatre Collection, the suite of drawings made around 1625 by…

Maybe you’ve seen it at a party or a family gathering: groups of people crowded around a TV screen—some wielding various toy instruments, vamping, jumping around. Players follow along with prerecorded songs, trying to match their respective parts as perfectly as possible, perhaps injecting a bit of style into the proceedings. They do it for…

Matthew J. Sheehy, acting director for reference and research services at the New York Public Library (NYPL), has been chosen to lead the Harvard Depository (HD). The announcement was made by Helen Shenton, deputy director of the Harvard University Library, following an extended national search. “Matthew Sheehy is recognized by his colleagues as an innovator…

The Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies welcomes four international conferences during the first decade of October, 2010. The first conference (Oct. 2-3) is dedicated to the ancient South Asian Fire ritual (Homa) and its variations – from Vedic to Hindu and Buddhist.  It will begin with a special performance of the Newari Homa in…

Once thought to be a problem primarily in the developed world, cancer is now a leading cause of death and disability in poorer countries. Almost two-thirds of the 7.6 million cancer deaths in the world occur in low- and middle-income countries. A paper published in the Lancet asserts that the international community must now discard…

The Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School dedicated its new nondenominational meditation room in a ceremony on Monday, Oct. 4. New CSWR director Francis X. Clooney  presided over the event, which drew a large audience composed of members of the broad University community. HDS faculty members Janet Gyatso, Hershey Professor…

Benjamin Sommers, assistant professor of health policy and economics at Harvard School of Public Health, discusses the necessity of cutting health costs and slowing the rate of health cost growth in the U.S. (Conversations in Public Health podcast)

Lyndall Gordon, biographer and senior research fellow at St Hilda’s College, Oxford University, and author of Lives like loaded guns: Emily Dickinson and her family’s feuds (2010), will give a talk on Tuesday, Oct. 12 titled “Abyss has no biographer’ (Emily Dickinson): Can we risk the Abyss?” in the Edison and Newman Room of Houghton…

This fall, the Harvard Law School Green Living Program and Harvard Law School Library teamed up to launch Read & Ride BikeShare, a new program that provides free short- and long-term bike loans to all HLS community members. The bike-share kickoff event was hosted Sept. 23 at Langdell Library’s Love Your Library Fest. The program…

Harvard Graduate School of Education Assistant Professor James Kim has received a $12.7 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Investing in Innovation (i3) program to conduct research on Project READS, a summer reading program model for low-income children in North Carolina. The U.S. Department of Education, which funds 80 percent of the grant,…

Marshall “Mike” Smith, Ed.M. ’63, Ed.D. ’73, was awarded yesterday the first Harvard Graduate School of Education Medal for Education Impact for making a lasting difference in the field of education and on the lives of learners across the nation and beyond. Smith received the honor at the celebration of the new Ed.L.D. Program. “In…

An advance screening of the education reform film Waiting for ‘Superman’ played to a packed house Wednesday evening followed by a panel discussion that sparked a vigorous debate mirrored the controversy the documentary has touched off across the nation. Directed by Davis Guggenheim, Waiting for ‘Superman’ follows families across the nation in their quests to…

Stuart Shieber, James O. Welch Jr., and Virginia B. Welch Professor of Computer Science and director of the Office for Scholarly Communication (OSC), has announced the first open office hours for HUL’s new Library Lab. The University-wide Library Lab is designed to leverage the entrepreneurial aspirations of Harvard students, faculty, and staff, who can propose…

Starting this month, HarvardScience — with comprehensive coverage of research and researchers at the University and Harvard-affiliated hospitals — has a new look and a new home. Tell us what you think here.

The City of Cambridge and the Harvard Crimson announced that the city will name a square in honor of the late journalist and author David L. Halberstam, Harvard College Class of 1955 and a Crimson alumnus. The dedication of the square, located at the intersection of Linden, Bow, and Mount Auburn streets, will take place…

The fourth annual China Goes Global conference will be held at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University Oct. 6-8, 2010. Hosted by the Rajawali Foundation Institute for Asia at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, this event will convene scholars, business executives, and students from around the world to…

During the month of October, the A.R.T. will present free play-readings on stage at the Loeb Drama Center, featuring new work by dynamic young American writers: Dan LeFranc (recipient of the 2010 New York Times Outstanding Playwright Award), Angela Sun (winner of the the 2010 Phyllis Anderson Contest, an annual competition open to all Harvard University students),…

Bob Giles, curator of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard for the past decade, will retire at the end of the academic year in June 2011. “It is not easy to leave a great institution and the wonderful people who make it so, but this is a good time for my wife, Nancy, and…

Gender equity will be the biggest moral challenge the international community will face in the next century, according to Nicholas D. Kristof, a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, who visited the Harvard Kennedy School on Sept. 27. “In the nineteenth century, the central moral challenge for the world was slavery and in the twentieth century the…

The Center for Public Leadership (CPL) at Harvard Kennedy School has named criminal justice system activist Susan Burton this year’s recipient of the Gleitsman Citizen Activist Award for her work empowering formerly incarcerated women to reenter society, maintain their sobriety, and reunite with their children. The award and $125,000 prize, bestowed biannually to a leader…

Harvard Business School (HBS) recently bestowed its most important honor, the Alumni Achievement Award, on five distinguished graduates: Susan L. Decker, former president of Yahoo! Inc.; James L. Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co.; Allan W.B. Gray, chairman of Orbis Investment Management, Ltd.; James A. Lovell, commander of NASA’s Apollo 13 lunar…

Effective Monday, Oct. 4, the hours of operation for the Harvard Telephone Operators will change. The new weekday schedule will be 8:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. The office will continue to be closed on Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays. Weekend callers will have the option of using the voice recognition/automated directory assistance to be connected to…

The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University has announced a $1 million gift from the Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Court.  The gift will be used to launch a new graduate fellowship that will support emerging leaders from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) while advancing the mission of the School’s Middle East Initiative,…

Today the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, announced 173 government programs selected for its newly created Bright Ideas program. In its inaugural year, Bright Ideas is designed to recognize and share creative government initiatives around the country with interested public sector, nonprofit, and…

The student-created sOccket was among the winners of Popular Mechanics sixth annual Breakthrough Awards, which recognizes the innovators and products poised to change the world in the fields of technology, medicine, aviation, environmental engineering, and more. “From soccer balls that generate light to cell phones that diagnose medical conditions, our diverse, inspired winners are making…

As President Drew Faust threw out the ceremonial first pitch during Harvard Night at Boston’s Fenway Park on Sept. 22, thousands of spectators  were busy throwing out their recyclable plastic cups and bottles in the bags held by 30 Harvard students who spent the evening volunteering for the Red Sox Green Team.  The students, the…

On Monday (Sept. 27) Nobel Peace Prize recipient (2008) and former President of Finland (1994-2000), Martti Ahtisaari will be honored with the 2010 Great Negotiator Award presented by the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School’s Future of Diplomacy Project at Spangler Auditorium, Harvard Business School. The Great Negotiator event…

Security expert Richard A. Clarke offers stark examples in arguing that the threats of cyberwar and cyberespionage are not just science fiction hype: –Israeli F15 and F16s screamed across the Syrian border in September 2007 and bombed a nuclear reactor construction site, but Syrian radar screens showed nothing but peaceful green. The Israelis had hacked…

The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting have joined forces to support international reporting initiatives with a special focus on global health coverage. The partnership will also bring Pulitzer Center journalists to Harvard University for presentations and discussions on underreported international stories and provide an annual workshop for…

Students aren’t the only ones getting good grades for all their hard work.  The entire Harvard University community recently received high grades for its commitment to sustainability from two prominent national rating organizations. The Princeton Review ranked Harvard as one of 18 schools in its 2011 Green Rating Honor Roll for receiving one of the…