Notes

Harvard Neighbors to review artists’ portfolios

The Harvard Neighbors Art Committee will hold its annual review for Harvard-affiliated artists interested in applying to exhibit during the 2000-2001 academic year. Faculty and staff with regular or part-time positions and their spouses or partners are encouraged to apply. Portfolios will be accepted March 1 and 2, from noon to 2 p.m., at the Harvard Neighbors office, Loeb House, 17 Quincy St., side entrance. For more information, call 495-4313.

Program to honor Higginbotham

“The People’s Lawyer: A Tribute to Judge A. Leon Higginbotham” will be held at the Kennedy Library in Boston from 3 to 5 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 6. The tribute will include film clips of Judge Higginbotham and a roundtable discussion by friends and colleagues, among whom will be Harvard Law School Professor Charles Ogletree, Anita Hill of Brandeis University, and Deval Patrick, former U.S. assistant attorney general for civil rights.

Higginbotham was a public service professor of jurisprudence at the Kennedy School of Government at the time of his death in December, 1998.

In 1995, Higginbotham (1928-1998) was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, in recognition of his life-long advocacy of civil rights. Appointed by President John F. Kennedy to the Federal Trade Commission, he was the first African-American commissioner of any Federal Regulatory Agency.

President Johnson appointed Higginbotham to the U. S. District Court and he was elevated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit by President Carter. Throughout his tenure on the court, he was one of the country’s most prominent and influential black judges.

In addition to his judicial achievements, Higginbotham won acclaim for his multi-volume work, Race and the American Legal Process. He was also appointed to the Kerner Commission that investigated the causes of the urban riots of the late 1960s. President Nelson Mandela asked him to serve as a mediator during South Africa’s first elections in which blacks could vote.

Du Bois Lecture Series Opens

Elizabeth Alexander, of the Fellow Whitney Humanities Center at Yale University, will be the first featured speaker in the Weekly Colloquium Series sponsored by the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research.

Alexander will give a talk titled, “Meditations of Mecca: Gwendolyn Brooks and the Responsibilities of the African American Poet” on Wednesday, Feb. 9, from noon-2 p.m. in the Thompson Room, Barker Center, first floor, 12 Quincy Street. Please feel free to bring a lunch. Call 495-4113 for more information.

Memorial Service for Benjamin Schwartz

The Fairbank Center for East Asian Research will hold a memorial service in honor of Professor Benjamin Schwartz on Thursday, Feb. 3 at 3 p.m. in the Memorial Church in Harvard Yard. A reception will follow at the Harvard Faculty Club, 20 Quincy Street.

A fund in Schwartz’s name has been established to encourage the study of Chinese and comparative philosophy at Harvard. Contributions may be made to Harvard University and mailed to the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research (attention: Schwartz Fund), 308 Coolidge Hall, 1737 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA, 02138.

Scholarships for Study or Research in China

Scholarships for study or research in China are now available through an agreement between the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China and Harvard University. For the academic year 2000-2001, five full scholarships (covering tuition, housing, health insurance and books) and 10 partial scholarships (covering tuition only) will be offered for study or research at one of 79 Chinese universities. Harvard undergraduate and graduate students and faculty who are U.S. citizens, are eligible to apply. The application deadline is March 31, 2000. For additional information, contact the Committee on General Scholarships at 496-5278 (email: cgs@fas.harvard.edu) or the Harvard University Asia Center 495-5013 (email: cphoang@fas.harvard.edu).