Tag: Curriculum

  • Nation & World

    Genuine debate illuminates knotty ethical questions

    Should students receive financial compensation for high test scores? Would a market for organ donation make saving lives more efficient? Should a nation be permitted to buy the right to pollute? These questions represent just a few of the many ethical issues that Harvard professors Michael Sandel, Amartya Sen, and visiting professor Philippe van Parijs…

    9 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Bollywood under a lens

    Richard Delacy, preceptor in Sanskrit and Indian studies, flicks off the lights in his classroom and cues the video projector. A few students shift in their seats as the opening credits for “Khalnayak,” a renowned Bollywood film, roll across the screen.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    From Law School to Business School — evolution of the case method

    On a recent Wednesday morning, 90 high achievers from around the world prepared to get down to cases. Their professor buzzed through the classroom like a worker bee. Armed with large, multicolored pieces of chalk, he organized his notes, copied pastel-coded facts and figures on the blackboard, and set up a film screen. Soon his…

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Where the intellectual and spiritual intersect

    Kevin Madigan wishes he could have saved Anne Frank. Today, he repeatedly saves her memory. Madigan, professor of the history of Christianity at Harvard Divinity School (HDS), teaches the College freshman seminar “The Holocaust, History and Reaction,” which addresses the Jewish genocide through the study of a variety of texts, literature, and film. The course…

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    New Ph.D. film program launched

    The study of moving images has always been viewed through a wide lens at Harvard. Since the beginning, film studies at the University has sought to incorporate a broad range of disciplines in order to appreciate and understand the visual experience. The rich fields of philosophy, psychology, and the fine arts were all mined early…

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Joint Harvard-Brazil program fights entrenched diseases

    Recently (Jan. 6-21), 15 Harvard and 16 Brazilian students participated in an intensive experience: the first Harvard-Brazil Collaborative Course on Infectious Diseases. The course, which was offered by the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and the Santa Casa de Misericórdia de São Paulo Medical School (FCMSCSP) with the support of the Harvard University Brazil…

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Making statistics not just palatable, but delicious

    Money, love, health, innocence or guilt — even finding the right wine. Who doesn’t want to know more? “Real-Life Statistics: Your Chance for Happiness (or Misery),” offered this semester by Harvard’s Department of Statistics, will explore the critical tools to make good judgments in matters large and small.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    ‘I’m ready for my close-up, Professor Kuriyama …’

    How do you attract students to a course? With more than 5,400 classes on offer each year, it can be a difficult proposition. Shigehisa Kuriyama, Reischauer Institute Professor of Cultural History in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, borrows a Hollywood technique: offer a movie trailer.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Standing committees of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences

    Upon the recommendation of the dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), Harvard President Drew Faust has approved and announced the following Standing Committees. Standing Committees of the faculty are constituted to perform a continuing function. Each committee has been established by a vote of the faculty, and can be dissolved only by…

    22 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Digging history in Harvard Yard

    It was crowded in the hole in Harvard Yard, with sophomore Reyzl Geselowitz and freshman Alison Liewen crouching in the square pit, elbow to elbow and more than a yard deep in Harvard’s dark earth.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Faust, Pilbeam greet freshman parents

    To an assemblage of 1,000 freshman parents on Oct. 26 in Sanders Theatre, Dean of Harvard College David R. Pilbeam offered a welcome. “Your freshman is already a member of the extended Harvard family.”

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    How Sputnik changed U.S. education

    Education experts said Oct. 4 that the United States may be overdue for a science education overhaul like the one undertaken after the Soviet Union launched the Sputnik satellite 50 years ago, and predicted that a window for change may open as the Iraq war winds down.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Initiative is designed to underscore importance of republicanism

    Daniel Carpenter’s new educational initiative will reaffirm the significance of the history of republicanism and its influence on the American political system. Carpenter is supported by an $875,000 challenge grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to launch a program at Harvard regarding American political history and political thought.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Kennedy School launches Initiative on Religion with Luce Foundation grant

    Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government has announced a new academic research program, the Initiative on Religion in International Affairs. The interdisciplinary initiative, based at the Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, will be directed by Monica Duffy Toft, associate professor of public policy, and J. Bryan Hehir, Parker Gilbert Montgomery Professor of…

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Harvard University receives major gift to endow Brazil Studies Program

    The J.P. Lemann family has made a major gift to Harvard University to endow permanently its Brazil Studies Program. The first significant commitment of Drew Faust’s presidency, it signals the importance of international priorities at Harvard.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Faculty Council

    At its second meeting of the year on Sept. 26, the Faculty Council reviewed the Ph.D. program in Information, Technology and Management, considered a proposal for open access to scholarly articles, and was joined by President Drew Faust for a start-of-term discussion.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Harvard christens School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

    An afternoon of reflection, promise, and a bit of humor marked the official launch of the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences on Thursday (Sept. 20), the first new Harvard school since the John F. Kennedy School of Government was created 71 years ago as the Graduate School of Public Administration.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    HBS program casts wider net for undergrads

    A future in business might be right for anyone — and for some, the earlier the better. That’s the thinking behind the Harvard Business School’s (HBS) 2+2 Program, a new effort to expand the School’s applicant pool to students who might not normally consider a business degree or career.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    ‘We are all teachers and we are all learners’

    The threat of thunderstorms on Sunday (Sept. 9) persuaded planners of the Opening Exercises for the Class of 2011 to move the event from the tree-shaded lawns of Tercentenary Theatre to the varnished vaults of Sanders. The venerable auditorium, Harvard’s largest indoor venue, was filled to capacity by the crowd of freshmen and their parents.

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    In brief

    Chorus auditions this weekend ‘No End in Sight’ to screen at Kennedy School tonight ‘Stuff Sale’ for good cause to take over Science Center lawn ‘Stuff Sale’ for good cause to take over Science Center lawn Day of Service on Sept. 29 to celebrate civic engagement Visit Ancient Egypt on lunch break Reading and Study…

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Opening Days will last all year

    On one of the last sweltering days of the summer, 1,675 first-years moved into the freshman dormitories. The next day the temperature dropped but their excitement didn’t. Over the coming weeks these new students face the challenge of adjusting to an entirely new life. To help them in these challenging first days — packed with…

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    HBS, KSG announce new joint degree program

    Harvard Business School (HBS) and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government (KSG) announced Tuesday (April 3) the creation of a fully integrated joint degree program in business and government that represents an innovative approach to preparing leaders for a growing area of practice of critical importance to global society.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    New department approved

    The Harvard Corporation has approved, with the support of the deans of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) and the Harvard Medical School (HMS), the establishment of a new Department of Developmental and Regenerative Biology, the first academic department in Harvard’s 371-year history to be based in more than one of the University’s Schools.…

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    College adds ‘Life Skills’ to its menu

    Members of the Harvard community are authorities in game theory, Celtic poetry, and quantum mechanics — and in emergency plumbing repairs, automobile maintenance, and preparing a mean tiramisu. Until now, students have had scant opportunity to tap the vast campus expertise that resides outside the classroom. That’s changing this year, though, with the expansion of…

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    College announces new sophomore advising plan

    Harvard College has announced a new preconcentration advising program to help rising sophomores. As the former freshmen are being welcomed into House life, advisers will help them choose their concentration.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    College offers 28 secondary fields to undergraduates

    Ten months after professors in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences voted to establish secondary fields as part of the ongoing Harvard College Curricular Review, the College has approved and is now offering 28 of the optional programs to undergraduates.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    David G. Freiman

    David Galland Freiman, M.D. was born on July 1, 1911 in New York City, the son of Leopold and Dorothy (Galland) Freiman. After graduating from City College of New York, David attended the Long Island College of Medicine (now Downstate Medical Center SUNY), receiving his M.D. degree in 1935. David completed an internship in Internal…

    9 minutes
  • 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…

    4 minutes
  • 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…

    7 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Bok talks about current projects, new initiatives

    It has been 35 years since Derek Bok was sworn in as Harvard’s 25th president and 15 years since he left office. This July he assumed the presidency for a second time, the only person ever to do so.

    5 minutes