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Under the direction of maestro James Yannatos, the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra will perform its third subscription concert of the season on Saturday, March 4, at 8 p.m. in Sanders Theatre. Thomas Kelly, professor of music and associate of Eliot House, will give a pre-concert lecture at 7 p.m., also in Sanders Theatre. The orchestra will perform…

Callbacks Headed to Semifinals in A Cappella Championships The Callbacks, one of Harvard’s undergraduate a cappella singing groups, are headed to the semifinal round of the Championship of College A Cappella in Northampton on Friday, March 3, after placing first in the quarterfinals in Durham, N.H., on Feb. 27. Callbacks’ Music Director Derek Smith won…

The future of Christianity will be the subject of a three-part lecture series by the Right Rev. John Shelby Spong, author, theologian, and former Episcopal bishop of Newark, N.J. Spong, who is well known for his controversial views on human sexuality, the virgin birth, and the physical nature of Christ’s resurrection, will give the 101st…

Kao is New Curator of Photography Deborah Martin Kao has been appointed the first Richard L. Menschel Curator of Photography at the Fogg Art Museum. The curatorship was made possible by a gift of $2 million by longtime supporter of the Harvard University Art Museums, Richard Menschel. Menschel’s funding enabled Kao and the Museum to…

Professor of Medicine Eva J. Neer ’59 died at her home on Sunday, Feb. 20, from complications of breast cancer. She was 62. Family members say Neer battled the disease for the past 11 years but kept her condition hidden from many colleagues. A prominent heart researcher at the Medical School, Neer is being remembered…

Hans J. Massaquoi, author of Destined to Witness: Growing Up Black in Nazi Germany, (Morrow, 1999) will give a talk about his memoir on Monday, March 6, at 6 p.m. in the Fong Auditorium at Boylston Hall. The son of a well-to-do African diplomat and a white German nurse, Massaquoi’s early life in Germany was…

Marijuana can be hard on the heart. In the first hour after smoking pot, a person’s risk of a heart attack could rise almost five times, according to a Harvard University researcher. As baby boomers born in the late 1940s and early 1950s reach the age at which heart disease is the leading cause of…

This year eligible alumni voters will elect five members of the University’s Board of Overseers and six directors of the Harvard Alumni Association (HAA). Ballots will be mailed during the first week of April, and completed ballots must be received by noon on June 2, the Friday before Commencement. Election results will be announced on…

To many, the most remarkable element of Harvard’s extensive athletics program – and its high level of success – is that its athletes must be just as dedicated to excellence in academics as in competition. Competing in the Ivy League, and especially for Harvard, brings a dual responsibility for each member of Harvard’s 41 varsity…

Harvard Provost Harvey Fineberg has announced two initiatives to help faculty and staff with child and elder care. He has approved an increase in the University’s child-care scholarship fund, which is open to eligible faculty and exempt staff, and he has approved the increased availability of the back-up child- and elder-care services offered. “Finding ways…

Matthew Alper, director of administration and finance for the Carl J. Shapiro Institute for Education and Research at the Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, has been named assistant dean for research at the Kennedy School of Government. Dean Joseph S. Nye made the announcement on Feb. 23. Reporting to the executive dean…

A record 18,687 students have applied for the 1,650 places in the Class of 2004, according to the Office of Admissions and Financial Aid, marking the ninth time in the past decade that applications for admission to Harvard have risen. Last year, there were 18,161 freshman applicants. “There are three principal reasons for such unprecedented…

In this season of presidential primaries, education has at long last become a critical component of the stump speech, superceding even crime and foreign affairs. Every candidate is eager to visit schools and talk about improving student achievement. But what are some of the real steps–both national and local–that can be taken to improve education?…

In his book All Souls: A Family Story from Southie, Michael MacDonald chronicles his childhood in a predominantly poor, Irish-American neighborhood in Boston during the antibusing riots of the 1970s. This controversial moment in education continues to shape school desegregation efforts today and has had a profound impact on MacDonald himself, who initiated an annual…

Juliana Paré-Blagoev believes that brain scan studies will not only yield scientific clues for furthering treatment of dyslexia, but also subtle, easily overlooked benefits–such as a sense of hope, that may come simply from the subjects’ participation in a brain-imaging experiment. “How do people with dyslexia think about their disability?” Paré-Blagoev wonders, “and how does…

Michael Connell’s fascination with “neural networks”–computer programs that simulate the activity of brain cells or neurons and actually learn over time–stems in no small part from a “crystallizing moment” he experienced in ninth-grade trigonometry. His teacher brought in a mathematics journal to show students a picture of a spiraling flower made up of numbers–the result…

Melding the tools of cognitive development, developmental psychology, art, brain-imaging technology, and education, Kim Sheridan is trying to unlock the mystery of artistic taste. It has taken years for Sheridan just to formulate this idea, which reflects the path of her own life’s work. After completing an undergraduate degree in painting, Sheridan received a Fulbright…

“Is the brain shaped and even changed by its experiences with language?” wonders Mary Helen Immordino-Yang. “Does language change the way people think?” A former seventh-grade science teacher, Immordino-Yang is particularly interested in the relationship between language and the brain’s functioning–in part because of what she witnessed in her classroom. “I found myself increasingly interested…

Newly appointed professor of education and incoming director of the Harvard Literacy Laboratory Connie Juel is moving some of the services of the renowned lab into public schools. This is part of her overall plan to broaden the experience of Harvard’s graduate students. “There’s no better way to train reading teachers and reading supervisors than…

Approximately 100 student leaders in public service from Harvard, Wellesley, Columbia, the University of North Carolina, and several other universities gathered at the Kennedy School of Government last Saturday for the first-ever New England Social Enterprise Conference. The daylong event was sponsored by the Harvard Public Service Network at Phillips Brooks House, the Harvard College…

The sweet rhythms of the Radcliffe Pitches will fill the air at the Sanders Theatre on Friday, Feb. 25, when Harvard’s oldest all-female a cappella group marks a major milestone with its 25th Anniversary Concert. The 13 current members will be joined by at least 50 alumnae, who are coming to town for a reunion…

Cultural Rhythms Festival Feb. 26 The Harvard Foundation for Intercultural & Race Relations will present its annual Cultural Rhythms Festival on Saturday, Feb. 26, at 3 p.m. in Sanders Theatre and the Science Center. Matt Damon will be honored as Cultural Artist of the Year at the 15th annual festival. Damon will be presented with…

Jay Walker, founder and vice chairman of Priceline.com, will speak about “The Future of the Internet” on Thursday, March 2, from 3:30 to 5 p.m. at Burden Auditorium on the Harvard Business School campus. Priceline.com is considered one of the true Internet success stories. The High Tech and New Media Club at the Business School…

Following are some of the incidents reported to the Harvard University Police Department for the week ending Feb. 19. The official log is located at Police Department Headquarters, 29 Garden Street. Feb. 14: A bomb threat was reported at 51 Brattle St. Harvard and Cambridge Police and Cambridge Fire departments were dispatched. The building was…

As you read this, frigid air spirals slowly downward from the stratosphere into the winter darkness of the arctic, part of a complex process destroying the ozone layer that shields us from cancerous ultraviolet radiation. Scientists from Harvard and elsewhere are flying in and out of the vortex making measurements they expect will help them…