Campus & Community

Susan Clancys research has taken her into alien territory.

Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and reigning Miss America Erika Harold joined Harvard School of Public Health faculty and students from Bostons Mission Hill School to mark a National Day of Concern about youth gun violence Thursday (Oct. 24).

The idea that history has something valuable and useful to teach us has been seriously questioned by academic historians in recent years, and a new and often bewildering set of theories justifying the historical enterprise has been proposed in its stead.

Women who have lived through economic hardship as a child or adult are likely to start perimenopause (the period leading up to menopause) earlier than affluent women, suggests research in the November issue of the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

Brian D. Farrell is a man with many props. He bounds around his sunny corner office at the Museum of Comparative Zoology showing off his finds: a pile of 60-year-old lantern slides of Cuba, an ancient projector, the dog-eared 1938 field journal of P.J. Darlington Jr., a well-known zoogeographer and one of Farrells predecessors at the museum.

When Nietzsche said, “What does not destroy me makes me stronger,” he might have been speaking about bonsai trees.

Researchers at Brigham and Womens Hospital (BWH) and the School of Public Health (SPH) have shown that regular, frequent consumption of painkillers containing acetaminophen and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), like ibuprofen, increased the risk of hypertension in a large group of women studied.

First-years get started on their pumpkins during their study break at the Freshman Pumpkin Carving Contest, hosted by the Prefect Program. The resulting jack-o-lanterns will be judged on Halloween. Free pizza will be awarded to individual entries for most original, most Harvard, funniest, scariest, and best overall. At Weld Hall, Tasha Bartch 06 (left) carves her favorite animal, a monkey, into her jungle-themed pumpkin, as Maggie Rossman 06 (center, seated) and Katie Monticchio 06 (right) work on their abstract pumpkins. Prefect Stephanie Safdi 05 observes.

Gerda Lerner, the Robinson-Edwards Professor of History Emerita at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and past president of the Organization of American Historians, will discuss and sign her new book, Fireweed: A Political Autobiography (Critical Perspectives on the Past) [Temple University Press, 2002], on Monday (Nov. 4). Sponsored by the Schlesinger Library at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, the event, which is free and open to the public, will take place in the Cronkhite Graduate Center Living Room at 5:30 p.m.

At a meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences on October 15, 2002, the following Minute was placed upon the records.

Most of the beginners in the Ninth Annual Beginners competition, hosted by the Harvard Ballroom Dance Team, looked like anything but as they expertly swirled and strutted their hour upon the dance floor last Saturday (Oct. 26). The competition began as the Harvard-Yale Challenge in 1992, when the Yale team would come and dance against the Crimson during the weekend of the Game. Soon, other schools joined in, and the event became a contest for dancers ranging from raw rookies to greenish veterans.

Oct. 16, 1948 – The World War II Memorial Committee formally presents its report to the Directors of the Harvard Alumni Association. The Committee makes a similar presentation for the…

What comes to mind when you think of Halloween? Pumpkins? Witches? Black cats? Five-year-olds in Spiderman masks proffering open shopping bags while their mothers lurk anxiously in the shadows?

Is nature good or evil?

Mikhail Gorbachev, former leader of the Soviet Union, will speak on “Looking Back on Perestroika” at Harvard University at 4pm on Monday, November 11.

A Harvard student has died of a mysterious illness with flu-like symptoms, and three others are in the hospital with what appear to be similar symptoms.

At its fourth meeting of the year the Faculty Council heard updates on the Freshman Seminar Program (from program director Elizabeth Doherty), and on the implementation of the 2001-02 legislation on grading practices (from deans J. Wolcowitz and J. OKeefe [Undergraduate Education]). The council also considered minor textual changes in the facultys Procedures for the Resolution of Sexual Harassment and other Unprofessional Conduct Problems, and in the facultys legislation on the discipline of officers. Deans G. McCavana (Students Affairs, GSAS, and chair of the Sexual Harassment Coordinating Committee) and Trevor Dickie (Academic Affairs) made the first presentation, the secretary of the faculty the second. Dean Harry Lewis (Harvard College and D.E.A.S.) led a discussion of the status of the Rank List and honorary scholarships in the wake of last springs legislation on grading and honors. The preliminary docket deadline for the Nov. 12 faculty meeting is at 9:30 a.m. on Monday (Oct. 28).

Oct. 19, 1869 – At the meetinghouse of First Church, Unitarian, Charles William Eliot is formally installed as Harvard’s 21st President. From the outset, Eliot’s 105-minute address delineates his broad…

Following are some of the incidents reported to the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) for the week ending Oct. 19. The official log is located at 1033 Massachusetts Ave., sixth floor.

President Lawrence H. Summers and Provost Steven Hyman will hold office hours for students in their Massachusetts Hall offices from 4 to 5 p.m. (unless otherwise noted) on the following dates:

A memorial service for David Riesman, Henry Ford II Professor of Social Sciences Emeritus, will be held at the Memorial Church on Nov. 15 at 3 p.m. Riesman, best known…

A snippet from the childrens book Frog and Toad are Friends is posted on the bulletin board outside David Laibsons Littauer Center office.

Wilson’s famed novel is re-released “The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit,” the novel by Sloan Wilson ’42 that seemed to capture the mood of a generation when it was…

Author Plotkin to talk at Science Center Ethnobotanist and author Mark Plotkin, A.B.E. ’79, will discuss his new book, “The Killers Within: The Rise of Deadly, Drug-Resistant Bacteria” (co-authored with…

I just keep these for old times sake, says entomologist Louis Roth, pulling a box from the shelf above his desk in a small office in the Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ).

Tufts Universitys Global Development and Environment Institute (G-DAE) announced this month that it is awarding its third annual economics prize to Alice Amsden of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Dani Rodrik of Harvard for their path-breaking work on globalization and the role of the state in development. They will receive their awards at a ceremony on Nov. 21 at Tufts where they will speak on the topic, Ruling Out National Development? States, Markets and Globalization.

Harvard Business School Press (HBS Press) and the Center for Public Leadership (CPL) at the Kennedy School of Government (KSG) recently announced that they will develop a cobranded line of books focusing on leadership for the common good. David Gergen, public service professor and director of the Center for Public Leadership, and Barbara Kellerman, lecturer in public policy at KSG and executive director of CPL, will spearhead the centers efforts, working with Carol Franco, director of HBS Press, and Hollis Heimbouch, HBS Press editorial director.

After marching 81 yards in the waning minutes of last Saturdays contest of regional supremacy at the stadium, the Harvard football team suddenly found itself hot on the heels of the Northeastern Huskies. That is, until they tripped.

Tennis pro Patrick McEnroe came to the Murr Center for an afternoon of tennis and tenacity with area inner city kids on Saturday (Oct. 19). Tenacity is an organization founded to bring tennis to urban kids in the Boston area. The organization is unique because it includes an academic component in its program. Tenacity reaches over 2,000 kids a year.

This year marked the 38th Head of the Charles Regatta, an event that draws school crews and rowing clubs from around the world. Some 6,000 rowers converged on the noble river on Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 19 and 20. From the banks of the Charles and the bridges (seven in all) above it, a crowd of 260,000 rowing faithful took in the venerable race over the two days. A traditional head race is 3 miles long. In it, boats race against the clock. The race usually lasts about 15 to 16 minutes.