Rabbi Sally Finestone is the denominational counselor to Jewish students at Harvard Divinity School. Below is an excerpt of sermon for the evening of Kol Nidrei, which marks the beginning of Yom Kippur. We are beautiful, magnificent creations, made in the image of God. And even though we are all made by the same Creator,…

As debate over the national debt and the federal budget deficit begins to heat up again, an analysis of national polls conducted in 2013 shows that, compared with recent government reports prepared by experts, the public has different views about the need to reduce future Medicare spending to deal with the federal budget deficit. Many…

To help ensure clean drinking water for future generations, it is important to understand the links between clean water and sanitation. Antiquated sanitation systems must be replaced in many parts of the world, particularly in developing nations. That was the message delivered at the summer’s final Hot Topics lecture, “Today: Water and Health: A Global…

On Saturday, September 14, from 1 to 7 p.m., students from all over the country and the world will be welcomed to Harvard Square with open arms by alums, fellow students, Harvard administrators, local community leaders, and business owners. The Harvard Graduate Council (HGC), the Harvard-wide graduate student government for the 12 graduate and professional Schools, has…

Blacks are more likely than whites to sleep less than seven hours a night and the black-white sleep disparity is greatest in professional occupations, according to a new study from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). “Short sleep” has been linked with increased risk of health problems, including obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease,…

Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs has launched a one-stop shop, “Harvard–Belfer on Syria,” for policy makers, journalists, and citizens who want to further their understanding of the crisis in Syria and the U.S. government’s response. This Web resource was created to provide information on President Obama’s question of whether or not the…

Members of the Faculty of Divinity are expressing doubts about the prospect of a U.S. military strike in response to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s reported use of chemical weapons on the country’s civilian population. Ahmed Ragab, William Graham, and Harvey Cox lament the failure of the international community to avert the humanitarian disaster now unfolding…

Preeti Sriratana, M.C./M.P.A. ’12, took the helm of Apex for Youth Inc. (Apex) in early 2009 during a financial crisis and has steered it towards becoming one of the largest mentoring programs for Asian and immigrant youth in New York City today. Founded in 1992, Apex, a nonprofit youth organization originally known as Asian Professional…

Auditing helps to ensure that those who fall under regulatory structures, like taxpayers and banks, are self-reporting their situations accurately. But auditing is often an expensive process, and not every regulatory agency has the ability to perform it well. “This creates an intriguing interaction between weak and strong [auditing] bureaus,” says Richard Zeckhauser, Frank P. Ramsey…

The HarvardX research team launched a “beta” interactive visualization of worldwide enrollment data for HarvardX courses offered via edX, the not-for-profit online learning enterprise founded by Harvard and MIT. While the data is still being refined, the map gives viewers a sense of the kinds of insights researchers hope to glean with “massive” amounts of…

EdX, the not-for-profit online learning initiative founded by Harvard and MIT, today announced its partnership with Google to jointly develop the edX open source learning platform, Open edX, and expand the availability of the platform and its learning tools to individuals and institutions around the world. In collaboration with Google, edX will build out and…

Harvard School of Public Health announced today the recipients of its Centennial Medals and inaugural Next Generation Award, all of whom will be honored during events celebrating the School’s 100th anniversary on October 24. Recipients of Centennial Medals are: President Bill Clinton, founder of the Clinton Foundation and 42nd president of the United States Jim Yong…

Harvard students may come and go, but since 1960 one hidden gem has remained constant: a family-owned food truck on Divinity Avenue outside the Bio Labs building has been feeding home-cooked meals to generations of students and researchers. Velozo’s Food Service is now operated by Dean Velozo, who joined his father in the business in…

Health care reform in the United States—“Obamacare”—continues to face a bumpy road, according to health policy expert John McDonough of Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). Writing in his Boston Globe blog “Health Stew” on September 1, 2013, McDonough, professor of the practice of public health and director of the Center for Public Health Leadership, explored how one Southern official…

According to a recent Strategic National Arts Alumni Project survey of more than 33,000 arts alumni, skills developed as arts majors are “applicable for any vocation and often provides opportunities for arts majors to be major contributors in any environment.” A large percentage of undergraduates with a music degree are successfully employed both in and…

People who live in homes with a gun are two to five times more likely to die by suicide than those who live in homes without guns, said Matthew Miller of Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) in an August 30 interview on NPR’s Science Friday that featured Miller and two other experts. “What differentiates people who live in…

People often ask Victoria Fan, S.M. ’08, S.D. ’11, how she ended up in public health after completing undergraduate studies in engineering at MIT. As she sees it, the trajectory is a natural one, rooted in history. In a piece published on August 20, 2013 in the Huffington Post, the Harvard School of Public Health alumna…

Graham Allison and David Sanger of the Harvard Kennedy School will teach a HarvardX course, “American National Security, Strategy and the Press,” this fall. Participants in the free online course will play the role of adviser to President Obama on some of the hardest national security challenges facing the U.S. Made available via edX, the online learning enterprise founded…

Sendhil Mullainathan, a professor of economics at Harvard University, has been elected to serve on the MacArthur Foundation Board of Directors. Mullainathan was, until recently, Assistant Director of Research for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. He is also founder of ideas42, a non-profit that applies insights about people from behavioral economics to create novel policies, interventions, and…

The Center for the History of Medicine (CHM) at Countway Library recently debuted 17 online exhibits on their new platform that weave together fascinating stories illustrated by materials from the collections. Most of exhibits are linked to specific events—such as the center’s largest undertaking, Battle-Scarred: Caring for the Sick and Wounded of the Civil War,…

Armed with coffee and energy bars, Lily Tran and Generoso Fierro were still energized after the first two movies in the Harvard Film Archive’s “Noir All Night” movie marathon on August 31-Sept. 1. “I love film noir, and I’m trying to learn more about it,” Tran said. “I am definitely in it for the long…

A discernible gender gap exists in earnings by physicians working across a range of occupations in the United States. That is the finding in a new study, “Trends in the Earnings of Male and Female Health Care Professionals in the United States, 1987 to 2010,” co-authored by Amitabh Chandra, professor of public policy at Harvard Kennedy…

In fall 2013, Harvard School of Public Health will celebrate 100 years of discoveries and interventions by its faculty, alumni, and students that together have helped to increase life expectancy by a quarter-century and improved the health of millions worldwide since the School’s founding in 1913. Established 100 years ago as the Harvard-MIT School for Health Officers,…

As a research and education arm of Harvard University and through its partnership with the Boston Park System, the Arnold Arboretum is strongly committed to offering lifetime learning opportunities to the public. To provide leadership in this arena, the Arboretum is pleased to announce that Daphne Minner has joined the staff as director of public…

A new study led by researchers at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) calls attention to a new street drug being used in South Africa. Known as whoonga, the drug cocktail may combine HIV antiretroviral (ARV) medication with illicit drugs. Believed to be extremely addictive, whoonga appears to have a devastating impact on those who use…

“It gives one chills to see [Dickinson’s] original manuscripts—to be able to picture where her eccentric and significant dashes were originally placed,” said Elisa New, Powell M. Cabot Professor of American Literature. New’s HarvardX fall course, “Poetry in America,” will include several lectures filmed in Harvard libraries and feature items from libraries’ collections. HarvardX—launched in…

In 1915, when he was a senior, Harvard College student Richard Edward Connell wrote a libelous article in the Crimson about a piece in Boston American, a Hearst publication, resulting in a lawsuit. Yet the debacle brought the young writer to the attention of William Randolph Hearst, and eventually helped Connell get a job with…

A newly discovered genetic variant may increase the risk of heart disease in people with type 2 diabetes by more than a third, according to a study led by researchers at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and Joslin Diabetes Center. It is the first genome-wide association study (GWAS) to identify a novel genetic variant…

Investigative journalist, author and New Yorker staff writer Jane Mayer has been selected as winner of the 2013 I.F. Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence. The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard will present the award on Sept. 28, 2013, during the foundation’s 75th anniversary weekend. Former Nieman Foundation curator Bill Kovach, chair of the advisory…

Cherry A. Murray, dean of the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, has been appointed a member of the U.S. Secretary of Energy Advisory Board (SEAB). As one of the nineteen scientists, business executives, academics and former government officials on the independent advisory committee, Murray will provide advice and recommendations to Energy Secretary Ernest…