A Curriculum about Connecting: Harvard Launches Gen Ed
Lizzie Thompson ‘12 had likely never thought about Shakespeare and disco in the same context. That changed this fall, thanks to the new Gen Ed curriculum.
Read »Harvard Community Welcomes Lucky Class of 2013
In a new tradition filled with the pomp and circumstance usually reserved for Commencement, Harvard alumni and administrators celebrated the first-ever Freshman Convocation alongside an excited incoming class.
A Passport to Knowledge
A Passport to Knowledge: Kelly Brock ’11 (part 2 of 3)
Even though I’ve already been here for seven weeks, I still have moments when I look around and say, “Holy cow, I’m in Japan!” They may be triggered by walking past a little old lady wearing a full kimono ensemble, or seeing large anime advertisements (and sometimes anime characters) in the street.
A Passport to Knowledge: Jamie Danner ’12 (part 2 of 3)
Nice is as beautiful as ever. It seems as though I left Munich at just the right moment—it dropped to 13˚ C just as I left! After spending a truly wonderful weekend in London with two of my close friends from Harvard who are working there, I journeyed on to the Riviera, and boy am I happy to be here.
When David Rockefeller announced his stunning gift in April 2008, he expressed his hope that it would “help enable future Harvard undergraduates to experience similar opportunities to learn about the world in which they live.” Scarcely more than a year later, 426 students are dispersed throughout 65 countries this summer, in an exhilarating pursuit of knowledge as wide-ranging as Andean prehistory and neurobiological research.
Read »Learning from Harvard’s “Art Whisperer”
Objects of art—19th-century European paintings, 17th-century Native American bows, and vases from Greek antiquity—speak to cultural historian Ivan Gaskell, and he wants students to hear what they have to say.
Scenes from House Life
In the early twentieth century, Harvard President Abbott Lawrence Lowell imagined a House Plan that would create “a real community with a common life—a true college life.” Today, Harvard’s thirteen Houses offer undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty members a vibrant, ever-changing educational and social scene.
Read »Remarkable Journeys Every Day
They arrive from all 50 states and over 100 nations, already demonstrating a great diversity of interests and seeking an astounding array of personal and professional goals. Every day, more than 6,700 undergraduates at the College and nearly 4,000 Graduate School of Arts and Sciences students continue their individual and collective journeys.
Read »America’s Rising Inequality…and what we can do about it
“Is the United States coming apart as a society?”
One autumn afternoon, David M. Cutler, Otto Eckstein Professor of Applied Economics and dean for the social sciences, asked a group of his colleagues gathered at the Faculty Club this question.
Read »Knowledge in Action: Confronting Social Problems
Harvard social scientists merge methodologies and cross disciplines to grapple with many of today’s most pressing societal issues—from neighborhood youth violence to the impact of globalization to the national obesity epidemic. The courses they teach, like “Economics of Social Problems,” “Crime and Disorder in the City,” and “Racial and Ethnic Politics in the United States,” help students to understand the causes of poverty, violence, class divisions, and other contemporary American challenges.
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