Tag: Optional Winter Activities Week

  • Nation & World

    Street smarts

    Students develop hurricane response plans on Cambridge roads, gaining practical experience in computational science competition, ComputeFest, a two-week program hosted by the recently created Institute for Applied Computational Science within the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    For cutting-edge biomedical materials, try corn

    One might expect, these days, to find corn products in food, fuel, and fabric, but a corn-based glue that can heal an injured eyeball? That’s a-maize-ing.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Designing in the human context

    For a week in January, 40 students from a variety of backgrounds — comparative literature to computer science — engaged in a “design thinking” workshop led by IDEO, an internationally renowned design consulting firm. Throughout, the human element was key — How do people actually use a product? — as was a certain amount of…

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Faculty invited to seek January grants

    This summer, Harvard faculty may want to start thinking about proposals for the President’s January Innovation Fund for Faculty, which begins accepting new applications on Sept. 1. Launched last year, the fund provides grants to faculty across Harvard for the development and implementation of creative learning experiences for students during Winter Break.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    It was a very good year

    With its 360th Commencement, another chapter in Harvard’s history draws to a close, as marked by highlights from this year. Reinstallation of ROTC, ongoing innovation in science and humanities, and Wynton Marsalis at Harvard top off some of the year’s historical benchmarks.

    17 minutes
  • Nation & World

    A break with the past

    Harvard undergraduates and College administrators are looking back on winter break 2011 to evaluate the many new programs, and to ponder changes. One thing is already clear: winter break provided experiences not usually available to students during the semester.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Raising the bar on disaster relief

    One year after the deadly earthquake in Haiti, Harvard undergraduates and faculty from the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences are trying to develop a way to quickly provide shelter to victims of disasters. The Rapid Deployment Disaster Relief Shelter is one of a dozen initiatives funded by the new President’s January Innovation Fund for…

    7 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Do you speak Cheese?

    Students use four days of winter break to look inside the comforting universe of cheese, soup, bread, chocolate, coffee, and desserts.

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    The space in between

    Scores of Harvard undergraduates will participate in nearly 100 activities — from stand-up comedy to public service — during Harvard’s inaugural Optional Winter Activities Week (OWAW), Jan. 16-23. College officials say that OWAW is a response to the new academic calendar and to student interest in programming during the downtime between fall and spring semesters.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Winter Break recharge

    For many undergraduates, Winter Break (Dec. 22-Jan. 23) will be a welcome opportunity to recharge after the fall semester. At the same time, students looking for something to do between semesters will find plenty of exciting activities offered by Harvard and its alumni, on and off campus.

    5 minutes