Your independent source for Harvard news since 1898

Your independent source for Harvard news since 1898

July-August 2014

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Letters

Humanities hubris, hoop humor, undergraduate prolixity

A letter from the editor

A letter from President Faust

The College Pump

Samuel Clark, in costume, shows real tourists around Yale. He later said he was trying to be helpful.

Touring Yale, trombone sextet, and talking back to John Foster Dulles

Treasure

Harvard’s 1906 Dolmetsch harpsichord has two keyboards, or “manuals.”

Two keyboards, each with a story to tell

In this Issue

Innovation guru Clayton Christensen on spreading his gospel, the Gospel, and how to win with the electric car

Tiananmen Square on May 28, with the student-made Goddess of Democracy statue facing the portrait of Mao Zedong, China’s revolutionary founder

Harvard scholars recall the Tiananmen era and ponder its continuing impact

Poey as depicted in <i>Popular Science Monthly</i> (1884).

Brief life of Cuba’s greatest naturalist: 1799-1891

David A. Moss

The interdisciplinary Tobin Project addresses real-world problems.

Letters

Humanities hubris, hoop humor, undergraduate prolixity

A letter from the editor

A letter from President Faust

Right Now

The ancestors of modern humans interbred with other early hominids, including Neanderthals.

Genetics sheds light on early human history.

Eastern hemlocks at Harvard Forest&rsquo;s Slab City wildland

A tiny insect, the woolly adelgid, is killing off these giant evergreens.

Inspired by the bright blue feathers of the cotinga, Harvard researchers are developing structural colors that mimic its hue.

Inspired by birds’ feathers, engineers craft long-lasting structural colors.

Harvard Squared

The bucolic Essex River property Cogswell&rsquo;s Grant, named for the 1636 royal grant given to John Cogswell, is now a house museum open to the public.

Early American artifacts help animate history.

Rebirth Brass Band

Rebirth Brass Band plays in Cambridge.

An island overview

This Boston Harbor island offers an urban oasis.

Que Padre owner Victor Duran (top) serves Mexican and Bolivian specialties: beef <i>saltenas</i> and the &ldquo;Sonora hotdog&rdquo;&mdash;with bacon, beans, and jalape&ntilde;o sauce.

A diversity of Latin American food shines in East Boston.

A Tibetan woman praying at the Boudhanath Stupa, near Kathmandu

Nepalese history revealed in photographs

Advertising trade cards from the 1850s to the 1910s depict Irish immigrants&rsquo; social and economic climb from the laboring classes…

A Boston Public Library exhibit illustrates immigration history.

John Harvard's Journal

Displaying Ph.D.-powered pride are crimson-gowned Jin Cheng &ldquo;George&rdquo; Ye, Anouska Bhattacharyya, and Cammi Valdez.

The University’s 363rd Commencement, featuring George H. W. Bush, Aretha Franklin, Michael R. Bloomberg, and more

George H. W. Bush

At the 363rd Commencement, honorary degrees for George H. W. Bush, Michael R. Bloomberg, Aretha Franklin, Isabel Allende, Joseph Stiglitz, and more

Class of 2014 careers and concerns, hockey jersey for the Corporation's senior fellow, degrees conferred, and more

Drew Faust

President Drew Faust on universities' role, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on tolerance, and a seventieth reunion puts learning and life in perspective

Timothy Barry-Heffernan

Fun during Commencement week: Salman Kahn on the luxe Business School, Mindy Kaling on why law rocks, Michael R. Bloomberg on strong-armed fundraising, and a helmeted Latinist

Advocates of divesting fossil-fuel investments protest at the president’s office at Massachusetts Hall.

The temperature rises as students, faculty members, and administrators disagree on University investments in fossil-fuel producers.

Mia Karvonides

Harvard reacts to sexual assaults with new policies and a task force to address issues of campus culture.

Naomi Oreskes

Harvard historian of science Naomi Oreskes takes on climate-change skeptics.

From the pages of the Harvard Alumni Bulletin and Harvard Magazine

From rebates to a discount, retailing remodeled

Jay M. Harris, dean of undergraduate education, led the academic-integrity committee as it drafted an honor code; it takes effect in the fall of 2015.

Adopting a College honor code, addressing e-mail privacy, moving from courses to credits, and more

National Academy scientists, Pulitzer Prize-winner, Radcliffe Fellows, and more

“Let’s begin”: Business School dean Nitin Nohria during his campaign address April 25; a sketch of the iconic Baker Library is projected behind him.

Fundraising launches for the Business, Dental, Divinity, and Kennedy Schools

A rendering of the Ruth Mulan Chu Chao Center

Harvard Business School’s Chao Center, College admissions, endowment managers’ compensation, and more

Paul J. Finnegan and James F. Rothenberg

The Corporation’s senior financial leadership changes.

Dan Boyne demonstrates the <i>ardha matsyendrasana</i> (“half lord of the fishes”) yoga posture.

Stretching for success

Harvard crew has a winning season

Montage

Eve at four, at Philadelphia&rsquo;s Franklin Institute

Photographs that admire, probe, and “flinch from” family members.

Artist Matt Freedman ’78 confronts adenoid cystic carcinoma.

China&mdash;both a Communist Party state and a consumer society (as in this holiday street scene in Guangzhou)&mdash;is also the setting for a billion-plus citizens&rsquo; pursuit of their own dreams.

The Chinese people’s individual acts of self-transformation

Federal Hill in Providence, Rhode Island, today, with its Roman Catholic churches

Fiction that paints a regional subculture with “merciless realism.”

Correspondence on not-so-famous lost words

Designs for Paul Rudolph&rsquo;s iconic, controversial Yale Art &amp; Architecture build&shy;ing, 1959-1961

Recent books with Harvard connections

Alumni

Photographs taken at the Peabody Terrace Children&rsquo;s Center during the last five decades reveal the timelessness of children&rsquo;s play and their love of the outdoors.

Peabody Terrace Children’s Center celebrates a golden anniversary.

Philip W. Lovejoy

Harvard Alumni Association director Philip W. Lovejoy

In the e-book version of <i>Macbeth,</i> the witches&rsquo; dark mischief unfolds beside the text.

New e-books bring Shakespeare to life.

Clockwise from top left: Anand G. Mahindra, J. Louis Newell, Emily Rauh Pulitzer, John P. Reardon Jr.

Four alumni are honored for their contributions to the University.

Clockwise from far left: Judith Lasker, Bruce Alberts, Leo Marx, and Keith Christiansen

Graduate school alumni receive highest honors

Lillian (Sher) Sugarman and Robert F. Rothschild

Harvard’s oldest living graduates

Newly elected directors of the Harvard Alumni Association

Four seniors have won scholarships to study at Cambridge University.

A “great show of commitment to the community of Harvard and Radcliffe”

The Harvard Alumni for Mental Health Shared Interest Group

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

The College Pump

Samuel Clark, in costume, shows real tourists around Yale. He later said he was trying to be helpful.

Touring Yale, trombone sextet, and talking back to John Foster Dulles

Treasure

Harvard’s 1906 Dolmetsch harpsichord has two keyboards, or “manuals.”

Two keyboards, each with a story to tell