Campus & Community

Play the Chessmaster, $2 the sign reads. The chess master, as he calls himself, has been a fixture in front of Holyoke Center in Harvard Square ever since 1982, a year before Au Bon Pain arrived. For $2 he takes on all comers, giving them a good advantage in his game of street chess: six minutes for the challenger, and three minutes for the chess master, to complete their game. Most often he wins, as he should, for Murray Turnbull is indeed a master, having reached that certified level in 1981. His current rating, just beneath the 2,400 that designates a senior master (the top category for nationally rated players) puts him in the top 1 percent of all rated players.

Less than 24 hours after student protesters vacated Massachusetts Hall, Landscape Services supervisor Paul Smith and his team were spraying a thick carpet of grass seed and mulch where the protesters tent city had been.

350th Commencement Harvard confers 6,194 degrees and 395 certificates Today the University awarded a total of 6,194 degrees and 395 certificates. A breakdown of the degrees by schools and programs…

Having a face-to-face encounter with a painting by the Dutch artist Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) and looking at a reproduction are very different experiences.

In the Faculty Council notice that appeared in last week’s Gazette the Council’s discussion of a “Certification and Disclosure Statement” was reported. All individuals holding academic or research appointments in…

May 9, 1643 – Lady Mowlson (Ann[e] Radcliffe) creates Harvard College’s first scholarship fund with a gift of £100. The “Harvard Annex,” founded in 1879 for women’s education, formally adopts…

Following are some of the incidents reported to the Harvard University Police Department for the week ending Saturday, April 28. The official log is located at Police Headquarters, 29 Garden…

Aage B. Sørensen, professor of sociology at Harvard University and one of the world’s leading authorities on social stratification and the sociology of education, died on Wednesday, April 18, in…

French historical materials dating from the late 18th century have been reported stolen from Harvard’s Widener Library. Harvard College Library officials suspected theft when a number of empty book covers…

James Hankins wants to raise a sunken continent.

You can see its more like a junk store here, says Jimmy Randall of Ahab Books, the rare books store a few flights up from Curious George. See, we used to have this sofa where people could sit, but its all filled up with books now.

If a three-ring circus is too much of a good thing, then what would an 80-ring circus be?

Once every 20 seconds in the United States, someone goes to a hospital emergency room with worsening chest pain or a small heart attack. Doctors must quickly determine whether that person should be given medication and sent home, or whether he or she should undergo aggressive treatment such as a catheter threaded into the heart.

Last night [April 30] a Harvard security guard was assaulted by two men inside a freshman dormitory. While conducting a routine security check to ensure the safety of the dormitories,…

A new display, titled WSR Discovers: Addie F. Rowe, has been added to the Widener Stacks Renovation exhibition in the lobby of Widener Library. Inspired by a chance discovery in the recesses of Wideners stacks, the exhibit offers a glimpse of a dedicated woman who spent a lifetime aiding scholars at Harvard.

The Stride Rite Community Service Program was established in 1983 by the Stride Rite Foundation. The program’s goal is to provide training and skills development for students of diverse economic…

Boston Redevelopment Authority Director Mark Maloney brought his vision of a revitalized, energized, and still booming Boston to a crowd of about 100 who gathered at the Graduate School of Design (GSD) on Monday, April 30.

The size and mix of nurse staffing in U.S. hospitals has a direct impact on the outcome of patient health. The finding comes from the most comprehensive study to date on the topic and was led by Jack Needleman of the Harvard School of Public Health and Peter Buerhaus of Vanderbilt Universitys School of Nursing in Nashville, Tenn. The study, Nurse Staffing Levels and Patient Outcomes in Hospitals is available at http://bhpr.hrsa.gov/dn/staffstudy.htm.

A ceremony and reception to honor Harvard faculty and staff with 25 years of service to the University will be held on Thursday, May 17, in the Ropes-Gray Room at the Law Schools Pound Hall. One hundred forty-one faculty and staff will be honored at this years 25-Year Recognition Ceremony – the 47th annual event to recognize faculty and staff from across the University.

Five students from Harvard College and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences have been named winners of the newly established Vincent Prize for outstanding suggestions on how to encourage depressed people to seek treatment.

Head Athletic Trainer Dick Emerson is big on feelings. The 30-year Harvard veteran – affectionately known as Emmo by both staff and students – is entrusted with the treatment, care, and physical rehabilitation of the Universitys 41 varsity and 23 junior varsity sports teams. And this is in addition to his traveling gig with the Crimson football and hockey teams.

President Neil L. Rudenstine has stated his intention to form a new University-wide committee that will further examine issues relating to the economic welfare and opportunities of lower-paid workers at Harvard.

The Harvard mens and womens track teams hosted a non-scoring meet with Boston College this past Sunday, April 29. Senior John Kraay doubled as winner in the shot put and discus, while sophomores John Traugott and Chris Antunes finished one and two in the mens 800-meter run with a winning time of 1 minute, 52.55 seconds.

At its 13th meeting of the year, the Council discussed a proposed new “Certification and Disclosure Statement” for researchers applying for or receiving support from the National Science Foundation and…

A memorial service for Seymour S. Kety, Harvard Medical School professor of neuroscience emeritus, will be held at 11 a.m. on Thursday, May 10, at the Memorial Church. A reception…

The present and future presidents of the University were honored in the nations capital this week. President Neil L. Rudenstine and incoming president, Lawrence H. Summers, were honored at a luncheon on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, April 24. Hosting the event were Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), Congresswoman Nancy Johnson (R-Conn.) and Harvards own representative, Congressman Michael Capuano (D-Mass.). Kennedy paid tribute to Rudenstines efforts to ensure that the federal government not forget its obligation to provide financial aid to needy college students. He also lauded Rudenstines leadership in lobbying Congress to stop reductions in payments to Massachusetts teaching hospitals. In addition, Kennedy praised Rudenstines commitment to the notion that – in order to ensure a diverse student body – colleges use their own criteria in admitting students.

Ask yourself why paper currency is still engraved, and you will stumble into the exacting and elegant realm of the repeatable image. The query will take you back at least 150 years, to a time when engraving was an immensely popular printmaking technique. So much so, in fact, that in the 19th century the term engraving was used to describe any reproductive print. Of course the invention of photography nearly wiped it out, but there was a time when the technique was so highly regarded that a Civil War engraving of Abraham Lincoln done after a Matthew Brady photograph was far more valuable than the original. Today, engraving is still used to print money because it is hard to counterfeit, and because it carries intrinsic prestige.

With electronic privacy becoming more difficult to attain for everyone from governments to lovers, the need for an unbreakable code is rising rapidly toward the top of many most wanted lists. Michael Rabin, the Thomas J. Watson Sr. Professor of Computer Science at Harvard University, says he has come up with the solution: a code that cannot be deciphered even by those who have both the key and unlimited computer power.

Freshman Sara Williamson doubled in the bottom of the seventh to drive in the winning run of a 5-4 decision against Boston University this past Tuesday afternoon at Harvards Soldiers Field. The loss ended an 18-game win streak for the Terriers, while extending the Crimsons run to a season-high five games. With the win, the team improves to 18-15, 9-3 Ivy.