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Your independent source for Harvard news since 1898

July-August 2007

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Letters

THE NEW IMMIGRANTS The images of today’s poor, hardworking illegal immigrants (Ashley Pettus, “End of the Melting Pot?&rdquo...

The College Pump

"Your wooden arm you hold outstretched to shake with passers-by." In her new book, The Window Shop: Safe Harbor for...

Treasure

One could call these ceremonial spoons the “family silver of Northwest Coast nobility,” says Bill Holm, curator emeritus at the...

In this Issue

April 2007: Drew Gilpin Faust at her then-office as dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study

Photograph by Jim Harrison

Tradition and the twenty-first century were tangled together in Barker Center’s Thompson Room on the afternoon of February 11, when Drew...

Portrait by Stu Rosner

From Vichy to Iraq with a widely cultured "citizen of Harvard"

 

Frederick Law Olmsted in 1893

Courtesy of Olmsted © Corbis; T. Johnson, engraver; from a photograph by James Notman

Between 1857 and 1950, Frederick Law Olmsted, A.M. 1864, LL.D. ’93, and the firm he founded shaped many of our nation’s notable open...

Illustration by Dan Page

Consumerism is as American as cherry pie. Plasma TVs, iPods, granite countertops: you name it, we’ll buy it. To finance the national...

Letters

THE NEW IMMIGRANTS The images of today’s poor, hardworking illegal immigrants (Ashley Pettus, “End of the Melting Pot?&rdquo...

Right Now

Illustration by Elwood Smith

Harvard scientists have created a mighty mouse, a rodent endowed with a rare type of muscle that combines unusual power and speed, like that of...

Not content merely to stop light, as she did in 2001, Lene Hau has converted light into matter, and matter back to light again.

Photograph by Jodi Hilton

The recent announcement that Lene Vestergaard Hau had successfully changed light to matter, and then back into light, evokes the magic of...

Illustration by Diane Fenstera

In their early years, many American universities had openly religious agendas. Harvard’s own mission, according to a 1643 pamphlet, was...

New England Regional

Dylan Black (in blue shirt) mingles with guests at his restaurant.

Phtograph by Fred Field

If “fresh hot dog” sounds like an oxymoron, taste the one at Green Street. It’s as close to the tender pig as you’ll...

Life should be as free as a summer’s breeze in New England. Take some time this season to get out and try something utterly new: discover...

Illustration by Linda Helton

“No matter how old you get, you’re still my baby.” How many of us have heard just such a line from a doting parent, or said it...

John Harvard's Journal

New Ph.D.s Meredith Fisher, of Cambridge, Melanie Adrian, of Waterloo, Ontario, and Melissa Jenkins, of Charlotte, North Carolina. This was a bumper year for Ph.D.s, with 556 conferred, up from 483 in 2006.

Photograph by Stu Rosner

Few who stood at a Harvard podium during Commencement week mentioned the war in Iraq. Joshua Patashnik '07, of Adams House and San Diego, did do...

Three women and six men received honorary degrees at Harvard’s 356th Commencement. Provost Steven E. Hyman introduced them to the...

EDUCATED MEN AND WOMEN On Commencement day, Thursday, June 7, Harvard conferred 6,871 degrees and 138 certificates. The College granted 1,694 of...

Excerpts from the Class Day address, on June 6, by Bill Clinton, forty-second president of the United States. Clinton discussed the comedians...

Let me introduce you to a couple of my ghosts. As I stand here, I think of my two grandfathers—Lawrence Crowder and Robert Styles...

President Derek Bok used his “last occasion to report to the alumni” to “share some parting reflections on the challenges for...

Excerpts from the Commencement address by William H. Gates III, co-founder and chairman of Microsoft Corporation and co-founder and co-chair of...

The second president of Radcliffe, Le Baron Briggs, described Radcliffe as “an experiment in faith.”… From the very beginning...

When he was summoned back to Massachusetts Hall in February 2006, interim president Derek Bok told a group of Harvard administrators last...

Beyond what he characterized last October as a “formidable agenda” of substantive work, Derek Bok pursued less publicized ways to...

Annette Lemieux

Photograph by Tracy Powell

Though she’s been called a conceptual artist, “That’s just for lack of a better term,” says Annette Lemieux, professor...

Editor’s note: President Derek Bok, who wrote annual reports on the University during his service from 1971 to 1991, did so again at the...

One for the Books Justin Ide / Harvard News Office Robert C. Darnton Justin Ide / Harvard News Office Sidney Verba Robert C. Darnton...

During the second weekend in May, just before the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) met on May 15 for its final discussion of a proposed new...

Illustration by Mark Steele

1922 Harvard Athletic Association members Fred W. Moore '93 and Frank S. Knapp purchase the capital stock of Leavitt & Peirce Inc., the...

The beginning of the end of a period of instability in the leadership of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) came on June 4, when...

In the course of overhauling the College curriculum, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) deferred undergraduates’ selection of a...

Radcliffe Institute Interim Dean Rose Lincoln / Harvard News Office Barbara J. Grosz Higgins professor of natural sciences Barbara J. Grosz, a...

In small white rooms lit by fluorescent lamps and littered with empty soda bottles or coffee cups, undergraduates often find themselves heading...

Harvard has never won an Ivy League basketball championship. Changing that legacy, which dates from 1955 (the first year of play in the league)...

Montage

Stefan Jackiw performing a Saint-Sans violin concerto with the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra in Sanders Theatre

Photograph by Julie Y. Zhou / Harvard Crimson

Musical debuts rarely create front-page news anymore. But when violinist Stefan Jackiw ’07 made his first appearance in London...

Steve Plank hopes to learn who said (as he puts it), “We should each conduct our lives in such a way that if everyone were to do the same...

Down the Nile: Alone in a Fisherman’s Skiff, by Rosemary Mahoney ’83 (Little, Brown, $23.99). “I am not afraid to die; I...

Nowadays it’s common for people to e-mail pictures to friends and family, but few of these photographers are as well-traveled as Steve...

Thomas McCraw, Straus professor of business history emeritus at Harvard Business School, has written a large book about a Harvard professor of...

Scott Miller ’86, the founder and artistic director of New Line Theatre in St. Louis, celebrates the innovation and adventurousness of...

The celebrated Nixon in China (1987) by composer John Adams ’69, A.M. ’72, was the first of four operas that, along with many...

Alumni

Lora Fleming

Photograph by Christian Howard / Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Miami

Epidemiologist Lora Fleming ’78, M.D.-M.P.H. ’84, tackles breathing, cancer, and unexpected days at the beach. At the office, she...

Harvard's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences confers the Centennial Medals.

The oldest graduates of Harvard and Radcliffe present on Commencement day were 98-year-old Frances Pass Addelson ’30, of Brookline...

The names of the new members of the Board of Overseers and the new elected directors of the Harvard Alumni Association (HAA) were announced at...

The elected marshals of the College class of 2007 proudly held their class banner as they led classmates to their Baccalaureate service on...

Three people received the Harvard Medal for outstanding service, and were publicly thanked by President Derek Bok, during the Harvard Alumni...

Four seniors have won Harvard Cambridge scholarships to study at Cambridge University during the 2006-2007 academic year. History concentrator...

The University had received 91,000 gifts through May 31 of the fiscal year, according to University Treasurer James F. Rothenberg ’68...

The College Pump

"Your wooden arm you hold outstretched to shake with passers-by." In her new book, The Window Shop: Safe Harbor for...

Treasure

One could call these ceremonial spoons the “family silver of Northwest Coast nobility,” says Bill Holm, curator emeritus at the...