May-June 2002

ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE, A SKEPTIC’S VIEW The case against Harvard Medical School’s foray into "complementary and alternative medicine&quot…

Investing in the stock market can seem like walking a tightrope above a financial chasm. But instead of balancing themselves against unforeseen…

In 1996, Blockbuster Video opened its first store in Harlem, on 125th Street. The outlet soon became the third-highest-grossing Blockbuster in…

Sometimes the most exciting scientific discoveries are made almost by accident. Researchers in the laboratory of Eric Mazur, McKay professor of…

Orders roll in from unseen commanders and throngs of troops shuffle to work. They tear apart tubes, unclamp hoses, snap sinewy support lines…

Arriving I left Philadelphia for Radcliffe by train on a September morning, family all gathered at the station. I promised my stepfather I…

Since 1989, Jill Ker Conway has been fascinating readers, especially women, with the compelling story of her journey from sheep ranchers’…

Helen Snider hopes someone can provide all the verses to a song dating at least to 1907 that begins, “The elephant goes round and round,/The…

Loomis, sometime in the 1930s Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science That Changed the Course of World War II…

At the middle of the twentieth century, Ernest Oberholtzer ’07, G ’08 (1884-1977), longtime president of the Quetico-Superior Council, was…

SPECIAL. The tenth annual ArtsFirst festival, offering dozens of student performances of music, dance, and drama, most of them free and open to…

Every June, on Commencement day, Harvard rolls out the crimson carpet for about 32,000 people. It is arguably the most important 24 hours on…

When asked what they would like for graduation presents, many members of the class of 2002 were nearly speechless. Something must be up. While…

Harvest’s main dining room. The outdoor terrace can be a pleasant alternative. Photograph courtesy of Harvest Restaurant The landmark…

Understandably, when it comes to imagining the campus of the future, all eyes are on Allston. Harvard’s purchases of 100 acres of land there…

The many rituals of graduation peak on Commencement day, which this year includes addresses by President Lawrence H. Summers and former U.S…

The Charles Hotel, One Bennett Street, Cambridge 02138; 800-882-1818. www.charleshotel.com.   Charles Shackleton Furniture/Miranda Thomas…

The people who run the American military have to be futurists, whether they want to be or not. The process of developing and building new…

The Japanese woman who wrote the extraordinary Tale of Genji a thousand years ago is known only by a nickname. Her given name went unrecorded…

It has attracted less attention, perhaps, than searches for Big Foot or a cure for the common cold, but the quest for the optimal baseball…

The human brain rests in cupped hands as easily as a cantaloupe. It is softer and spongier to the touch, of course, and its surface is more…

"Glory and prosperity" are the first words of a benediction often inscribed on medieval Islamic metalwork, and any civilization that…

The little green car nosed its way into the concrete lobby of the Graduate School of Design in late January. At Harvard for a two-month visit to…

When he announced on February 11 that he would relinquish the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) deanship this June, Jeremy R. Knowles signaled…

What lies ahead for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences? What are the most important qualities for its next dean? Who would be the ideal candidate?…

The renovation of Harvard’s undergraduate course of study took two piecemeal steps forward during the late winter and early spring, even as the…

Joseph P. Kalt Photograph by Stu Rosner Home the night before from Australia, where his expertise in the economics of antitrust and…

ROTC at Harvard is standing taller after September 11 and after what CNN calls "old-fashioned flag-waving" by President Lawrence H…

Dean Harry R. Lewis begins his annual report on Harvard College for the previous academic year (available at www.college.harvard.edu/dean/) with…

With preliminary approval from the Harvard Corporation, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences has negotiated a merger with the Rowland Institute for…

Harvard’s last great open space in Cambridge is a parking lot, not far from the Biological Laboratories, that stretches all the way from Oxford…

Rising at 60 Oxford Street is the University Information Services Building. Stepped-down on the Hammond Street side, the building, designed…

Is there room within Harvard’s curricular cornucopia to house formal academic work on gender and sexuality studies? The question is being posed…

Having experienced their own twenty-fifth reunion last year, twin brothers Mark and Steve O’Donnell (’76 and ’76, respectively) offer these…

Their friends began to ask questions long before the prosecutors did. Suzanne M. Pomey ’02 and Randy J. Gomes ’02 seemed to be spending money a…

Two years in the making, the Women’s Guide to Harvard was distributed to students—women and men alike—at the beginning of spring term…

Photograph by Jim Harrison Sit-ins = Suspension On February 28, President Lawrence H. Summers announced a new interpretation of the…

In recent years, the annual fall career forum at the Gordon Track and Tennis Center has been one of the most conspicuous displays of the many…

Photographs by Gerard Hammond (inset) and Stu Rosner The senior marshals, looking ahead to Commencement 2002, are: (inset) first…

The sesquicentennial of college athletics in America takes place June 8 on the Thames (rhymes with "James") River in New London…

The Harvard men’s lightweight crew boasts one of the most consistent records of excellence in college sports. Consider the May regatta that…

There is a T-shirt in my vast collection that I take out only on special occasions: on the front it reads, JACK BARNABY’S 80TH/ SEPTEMBER 23…

Men’s Ice Hockey In a season filled with thrilling come-from-behind and overtime wins, the icemen (15-15-4 overall; 14-9-3 ECAC; 4-5-1 Ivy)…

Spend a day in church with Paul Matisse ’54 and you will marvel at how the creator has shaped his world. Everywhere you look you see a…

Take Your Pick To be counted, all votes for Overseers and Harvard Alumni Association elected directors must be returned by noon on May 31…

Founded 25 years ago, the Harvard African Students Association (HASA) celebrated its anniversary this March by inaugurating an alumni network…

The on-line venture Harvard at Home gives alumni glimpses of class lectures, research projects, and intellectual happenings throughout the…

May is National Mental Health Month, so it seemed a good time to talk with Annelle Primm ’76, M.D., about her work in community psychiatry and…

It’s sleek, curvy, firm, well-balanced—Paul Widerman ’83 has created a sculpture that can make you feel as good as it looks.&#11…

1922 An explosion of liquid oxygen in Jefferson Labs takes the lives of an engineering graduate student and a carpenter working in the building…

"Slavery has been a step-child of the human-rights movement," Jesse Sage ’98 declares, and it was in this spirit that he began working…

"Your wooden arm you hold outstretched to shake with passers-by." The athletic fields of Harvard lie near the Charles River in…

A plant of modest beauty and legendary elusiveness, Shortia galacifolia, called Oconee bells or little coltsfoot, is a woodland, evergreen…