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Your independent source for Harvard news since 1898

January-February 2014

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Letters

Harvard Magazine's new layout explained

A letter from President Faust

Recognizing two outstanding contributors to the magazine's contents during 2013

Letters on patience and learning, Edward Everett, House life

The College Pump

How the gray squirrels came to Harvard Yard

Treasure

The I.L. Ellwood Company used gleaming locomotives to highlight the advantages of its "barb wire" fencing.

What more than 240,000 miles of railroad track can do

In this Issue

While being evicted from her Milwaukee apartment, Danielle Shaw (left) and relatives wait until the movers carrying down her refrigerator and stove are no longer blocking the stairwell.

Sociologist Matthew Desmond studies eviction and the lives of America’s poor.

Robert Frost’s “doubleness,” revealed in his letters—and poems.

Anita Elberse, backed by a picture of basketball superstar LeBron James, an important figure in her book <i>Blockbusters</i>

In entertainment, big bets on likely winners rule.

Novelist Ann Petry, in an undated photograph by Edna Guy

Brief life of a celebrity-averse novelist: 1908-1997

In the Internet era, research moves from professionals’ labs to amateurs’ homes.

Letters

Harvard Magazine's new layout explained

A letter from President Faust

Recognizing two outstanding contributors to the magazine's contents during 2013

Letters on patience and learning, Edward Everett, House life

Right Now

Aeneas, future founder of Rome, rouses the sympathies of Dido, queen of Carthage, with the tale of the destruction of his home city, Troy.

Two Harvard classics professors create the first Virgil Encyclopedia in English.

First discovered in the 1880s, the Midway-Sunset oil field near Taft, California, remains in production today.

Joseph Aldy examines the true costs of fossil fuel subsidies.

Conor Walsh&rsquo;s lab is designing a robotic &ldquo;exosuit&rdquo; to aid human movement; soft and lightweight, it can be worn under clothes.

Harvard engineers build soft exosuits to aid human movement.

New England Regional

Andrew L. Cabot

Alumni promote the local origins of edible goods

A wintry scene by Meri Bond, at the Arnold Arboretum

Harvard arts and cultural events

Bronwyn is a great place to hunker down for a wintry meal of sausages, beer, <i>pierogi,</i> and the &ldquo;giant pork knuckle.&rdquo; (pictured)

German and Central European dishes shine in Somerville.

John Harvard's Journal

Daw Than Than Sein, U Win Hlaing, and daughter Win Win Thu at their home in the Ayeyarwaddy River Delta village of Wakouktaw; Proximity Designs&rsquo; irrigation equipment has helped them expand their farm and boost their income significantly.

From supporting farmers to probing policy, Harvard people help Myanmar remake its future.

Public-health dean Julio Frenk

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard School of Public Health, and Radcliffe Institute detail campaign goals

John Asher Johnson

An exoplanet hunter joins the faculty

From the pages of the Harvard Alumni Bulletin and Harvard Magazine

A larger deficit and continuing Harvard financial challenges—amid fundraising and rising expenses

Counter clockwise from top left: Robert D. Reischauer, Robert E. Rubin, and William F. Lee

The Harvard Corporation changes, Rhodes Scholars, new University Professor, Nobelists, and more

Why one undergraduate transferred to Harvard

Harvard followers stormed the field at Yale Bowl to join players celebrating the Crimson&rsquo;s seventh straight victory over the Blue.

Seven straight wins against Yale, and a shared Ivy title

Katey Stone at the Edge Sports Center in Bedford, Massachusetts

Katey Stone coaches the Olympics-bound U.S. icewomen.

Montage

Seedpods of <i>Magnolia x soulangeana</i> (dispersed by animals)

Little packages of DNA that explode with beauty

Who knew? One result of combining the profit motive with musicals: an American-Standard product tribute in song

Recent books with Harvard connections

Poet and physician Rafael Campo relaxes at home with a book.

Rafael Campo, M.D., straddles medicine and metonymy.

Scott Stossel ’91 probes anxiety in a personal, revealing, and funny book about a serious subject.

Derek Reist's painting <i>Downtown Gold</i>

Sunlight and shadow star in Derek Reist’s urban landscapes.

A literary critic on the Great American Novel

Correspondence on not-so-famous lost words

Alumni

Boston Community Capital's DeWitt Jones promotes affordable housing, energy efficiency, and a mortgage buyback program in low-income communities.

Boston's Dudley Square is a focus of nonprofit community development often led by David Price, executive director of Nuestra Comunidad

Harvard students who help enhance the quality of life in the dorms win Aloian Awards

Claudia Bedrick displays one of Enchanted Lion’s books.

Claudia Bedrick ’85 of Enchanted Lion Books offers an international array of stories to young children.

The logo of Harvard Architectural and Urban Society_Alumni

The Harvard Architectural and Urban Society_Alumni Shared Interest Group

The Schachters with children they have helped in Chennai

An ’09 couple, Michael and Allie Schachter, help child victims of human trafficking in India.

Harvard alumni may sign in to view class notes and obituaries.

The College Pump

How the gray squirrels came to Harvard Yard

Treasure

The I.L. Ellwood Company used gleaming locomotives to highlight the advantages of its "barb wire" fencing.

What more than 240,000 miles of railroad track can do