COVER ARTICLE Perceiving a stifling political consensus at Harvard, the University's conservatives wage a 30-years' war against prevailing attitudes toward ROTC, affirmative action, and fashions in criticism by Janet Tassel Ignored in the West, a potent strain of HIV devastates southern Africa. New approaches, including vaccines, are imperative by Myron Essex A memoir of growing up in a household of women, and of World War II's formative influence on a generation's politics by Maria Fleming Tymoczko Beauty and aesthetics, long eclipsed in scholarship, make a surprise reappearance in intellectual discourse by Craig Lambert Brief life of a prison reformer: 1890-1989 by Thomas C. Johnsen The construction season in high gear, planning for a new academic precinct, the dean assesses the College's condition, applied-sciences visionary, faculty diversity, the Law School addresses animal rights, quantitative curriculum, a Native American agenda, Undergraduate love stories for the 1990s, and a clutch of new coaches Also, check out our current Classifieds, or browse our archives of issues going back to May-June 1996