When the Harvard Management Company designed new office space to support their dynamic and collaborative organizational model, they also sought to align the renovation with the University’s commitment to environmental stewardship and sustainability. The result was a more efficient workspace and a LEED Gold certification from the United States Green Building Council (USGBC). “An important…

John Harwood, chief Washington correspondent for CNBC and a political writer for The New York Times, has been tapped to lead the Nieman Foundation’s Advisory Board. A Nieman Fellow in the class of 1990, he has served on the board since 2006. Harwood takes the reins from William O. Wheatley Jr., NF ’77, who finished…

A two-year-old pilot program that aims to protect the most effective drug for malaria from resistance, through a novel economic strategy that supports the use of combination therapy, is in danger of being discontinued. The goal has been to boost the availability and affordability of artemesinin-combination therapies (ACTs) for treating the disease to assure that…

Although there are notable exceptions, the majority of flowering plants in the Arnold Arboretum’s Living Collection bloom over the course of spring and early summer. While it is normal for some plants like the Franklin tree (Franklinia alatamaha) to flower in early fall, the autumn or winter occurrence of flowers on plants that normally bloom…

Harvard’s Drug & Alcohol Peer Advisor (DAPA) program, a peer education group under Harvard’s Office of Alcohol & Other Drug Services, was recently recognized as a “2012 Outstanding Network Member” at The BACCHUS Network General Assembly. DAPA has received several honors at the regional level, but this was the organization’s first award at the national assembly.…

Joanna Aizenberg, Amy Smith Berylson Professor of Materials Science at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), has been elected a fellow of the American Physical Society (APS). A pioneer in studying how living things create inorganic materials, and what those biological processes might teach engineers, Aizenberg plays many critical roles across Harvard.…

Being younger than one’s classmates affects academic performance throughout childhood and into puberty and increases children’s risk of being prescribed stimulants for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), according to a study from the University of Iceland and Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) published November 19, 2012 in Pediatrics. In the study of standardized test scores and medical records…

“Cartographic Grounds: Projecting the Landscape Imaginary” will be on display in the Gund Hall Lobby until December 19. The exhibit melds data-driven and experiential depictions of the ground though cartography and landscape architectural drawing. The exhibition features maps from more than 20 Harvard libraries, including the Harvard Map Collection, Frances Loeb Library, Ernst Mayr Library…

Does adding dietary fiber to soda make it healthier than regular soda? Not necessarily, according to two nutrition experts at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). Walter Willett and Lilian Cheung commented in a November 15, 2012 Time.com article about a new soda called “Pepsi Special” that contains the added dietary fiber dextrin, which is found in fiber supplements. The…

  Labrary: A Harvard Library Experiment officially opened on November 15 at 92 Mt. Auburn Street. Labrary, a storefront space envisioned and realized by students in Harvard’s Library Test Kitchen course, explores how innovations in design can help libraries evolve. “We wanted to make this a collaborative endeavor—incorporating students and faculty—to show how libraries can…

Students have always been the driving force behind Harvard’s leadership on sustainability, pushing the University to establish a greenhouse gas reduction goal and launching new programs like the Harvard Community Garden. This year, one of Harvard’s most successful and widely replicated sustainability programs – the Resource Efficiency Program (REP) — celebrated its 10 year anniversary…

Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic and the independent human rights organization Human Rights Watch have authored a report titled “Losing Humanity: The Case Against Killer Robots.” The report, released Nov. 19, argues that governments should pre-emptively ban fully autonomous weapons because of the danger they pose to civilians in armed conflict. These future…

HLS Dean Martha Minow received the Gold Medal for Outstanding Contribution to Public Discourse from the College Historical Society of Trinity College, Dublin at a ceremony on Nov. 13, 2012. The College Historical Society, popularly referred to as “The Hist,” is one of the world’s oldest undergraduate debating societies, established in 1770. It is “built…

A panel of distinguished judges and scholars gathered at Harvard Law School with author David Dorsen ’59 on Nov. 14 to discuss and celebrate his recent biography, “Henry Friendly: Greatest Judge of His Era.” At the event, moderated by Professor Carol Steiker ’86—who is the Henry J. Friendly Professor of Law at HLS—Judges Michael Boudin…

Harvard’s Technology Products and Services announces the start of our holiday promotion! Visit the online shopping site or the Campus Computer Store now through December 21 for great savings, giveaways, and holiday cheer! New workshops added for December and raffles held at exclusively (in-store entries only) at the Campus Computer Store.

On a sunny day in June, seven members of the Sacks club, the team that won the Ames Moot Court Competition in 1959, met on the steps of Langdell library to reminisce over what they called their “unlikely” victory, and to talk about where their lives had taken them in the fifty years since. The reunion…

During the summer of 2012, hundreds of Harvard Law School J.D. and graduate students benefitted from the largest pool of guaranteed funding offered by a law school for the broadest range of public interest summer work. A select group of 26 students worked in 19 countries under the aegis of the Chayes International Public Service…

In October, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg issued two rulings bolstering the rights of persons with psycho-social disabilities. Both cases were brought by Hungarian-Slovakian disability rights activist János Fiala-Butora, LL.M. ’10, an S.J.D. candidate at Harvard Law School and an associate of the Harvard Law School Project on Disability, known as HPOD.…

The Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) is leading by example when it comes to promoting workplace wellness and encouraging healthier behavior. The CEO Roundtable on Cancer recently accredited HSPH with the CEO Cancer Gold Standard™ recognizing their efforts to reduce the risk of cancer for their employees and covered family members by promoting healthy lifestyle…

Women in China’s workforce have significantly lower fertility rates than those who are not employed. That is one finding in a new Harvard Kennedy School Faculty Working Paper co-authored by HKS Professor Richard Zeckhauser. “Jobs and Kids: Female Employment and Fertility in China” synthesizes the analysis of data taken from the 2006 China Health and Nutrition…

The National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA) presented Harvard Corporation member William F. Lee A.B. ’72 with its Trailblazer Award during the organization’s 24th annual convention in Washington, D.C., last week. Lee was one of nine recipients of the Trailblazer Award, NAPABA’s highest honor. The award is bestowed annually to individuals who “have demonstrated…

With the installation of the first computers and a ribbon cutting, Friday’s opening event marked an important step in Harvard’s groundbreaking collaboration with four leading research universities, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Cisco, and EMC on the development of the Massachusetts Green High Power Computing Center (MGHPCC). The MGHPCC (www.mghpcc.org) is a first-of-its-kind facility and collaboration…

New York Times columnist David Brooks reflected upon the changing nature of the American political landscape during the annual Theodore H. White Lecture delivered Thursday night (Nov. 15) at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum. “The big takeaway from the election was that it marks a social transition,” Brooks said. “The 2012 election was a shift…

Policy makers, development experts and academics gathered at the Harvard Kennedy School in late October to develop “Trillion Dollar Ideas to Build Prosperity,” which was the theme for this year’s Global Empowerment Meeting (GEM12), sponsored by the Center for International Development (CID). The fifth in a series, GEM12 continued last year’s discussions on new strategies for…

The Library Lab Showcase—held November 14—displayed 28 projects by Harvard library staff, faculty, and graduate students developed to enhance libraries. Organized by Harvard’s Office for Scholarly Communication (OSC), the Library Lab supports projects with funding from the Arcadia Fund. “The idea behind the Library Lab is to have the opportunity to create library innovations,” said…

Indoor gardens have been shown to improve air quality, increase productivity and reduce stress and noise—so where better to install them than in a library? The Harvard Graduate School of Education’s (HGSE) Gutman Library recently underwent a first-floor renovation that included the installation of four “living walls”—or ceiling-to-floor panels covered entirely with foliage. The idea was…

The music of Pulitzer-winning American composer Roger Reynolds is the subject of a concert at Harvard’s John Knowles Paine Concert Hall on Thursday, Dec. 6, at 8 p.m. Reynolds is the Fromm Visiting Professor in the University’s music department, where he teaches composition (Reynolds is a professor of composition at the University of California, San…

The Chinese Poetry Recitation Competition, organized by the Chinese Language Program of Harvard’s Department of East Languages and Civilizations (EALC), began last Friday (11/9) at 3:30 when two student MCs, donning East Asian Studies t-shirts, performed a brief comedic skit and then instructed the audience to turn off its cellphones in Chinese. The event’s brochure…

First-year College students eat their meals in the historic Annenberg Dining Hall, immersing them in the Harvard’s history from day one. A reusable mug program and efforts to cut down on food waste also greet those same students on day one, introducing them to Harvard’s commitment to sustainability. The hard work of students and staff…

The difficult but transforming experience of facing and surviving cancer takes center stage in the personal and professional saga, Beauty Without the Breast, by Felicia Marie Knaul (Harvard University Press, 2012). An economist who has lived and worked on health and social development in Latin America for 20 years, Knaul is director of the Harvard…