Campus & Community

The city of Cambridge, Harvard University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have signed a “Community Compact for a Sustainable Future,” aimed at leveraging the intellectual and entrepreneurial capacity of the public-private sectors in Cambridge to build a healthy, livable, and sustainable future.

Inspired by creative solutions that evolved in Colombia and Argentina, Harvard Professor Doris Sommer showed her Ed Portal audience how the arts could transform the ways in which a developing society perceived itself and the values inherent in its culture and community.

At their last meeting of the year on April 24, the members of the Faculty Council approved preliminary versions of the University Extension School courses for 2013-14 and Courses of Instruction for 2013-14.

Diana Sorensen is one of four new trustees of the National Humanities Center.

“In my first semester at Harvard, I worked with several other students to create a chapter of the national DREAM Program here. It was my first foray into working with youth, and I was excited to give Cambridge kids a taste of the campus that was so close to their homes,” says Harvard student Sara Providence ’14.

In the wake of tragedy, people gather to support each other, and to give thanks for family, friends, and community. After the Boston Marathon bombings and the area shutdown during the search for suspects, the Harvard community has been doing just that.

The Blavatnik Family Foundation, headed by Len Blavatnik, M.B.A. ’89, has donated $50 million to Harvard University. The gift will launch a major initiative to expedite the development of basic science discoveries into new breakthrough therapies for patients and cures for disease. The gift underpins Harvard’s growing commitment to creating an entrepreneurial culture in the life sciences.

Harvard officials dedicated a new common space, called the Porch, in the Yard on Wednesday, and welcomed the reopening of the science plaza after a reconstruction project.

The Harvard Museum of Natural History has opened its renovated Earth and Planetary Sciences gallery, linking the fantastic mineral displays to the story of the Earth and the work of faculty members who conduct research on geological processes.

The following events are being held to help the Harvard community cope with Monday’s tragedy during the Boston Marathon.

At a celebratory event on Wednesday, the Radcliffe Gymnasium was renamed the Knafel Center in honor of Sidney R. Knafel ’52, M.B.A. ’54, and in recognition of the center’s increasing role in promoting intellectual exchange across Harvard’s Schools and with the public.

The Harvard University Police Department joined thousands of colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Wednesday to pay tribute to Sean Collier, the officer slain in aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings.

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences has elected 11 from Harvard as its newest members.

As a region-wide lockdown closed Harvard, University officials struggled with the difficult decision to cancel Visitas, Harvard College’s program for newly admitted students. Members of the Harvard community used social media to reach out to those who had planned to attend the event.

After a tense Friday that saw the campus and the Greater Boston area on lockdown, Harvard came to life again Saturday as students and visitors flooded into Harvard Square.

As Greater Boston shut down during Friday’s manhunt for a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings, Harvard halted too — and found peace, togetherness, and hope.

For the many members of the Harvard community seeking to help the victims in the marathon tragedy and their families, please consider donating to the fund established by Governor Patrick and Mayor Menino, The One Fund Boston.

Harvard Professor of Economics Raj Chetty has been awarded the 2013 John Bates Clark Medal in recognition of his work, which combines empirical evidence and theory to inform the design of more effective government policies on everything from taxation to unemployment to education.

The innovative international scholar Tamar Herzog has been appointed the Monroe Gutman Professor of Latin American Affairs in Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences. She also will become the Radcliffe Alumnae Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

The national advocacy organization League of American Bicyclists has recognized Harvard’s progress in supporting bicycle use by naming it a silver-level Bicycle Friendly University.

For Harvard’s unusually tight-knit group of faculty, student, and staff runners, the Boston Marathon was meant to be the culmination of months of teamwork and training. After Monday’s bombings, the running community pulled together for a different reason.

A mural project, with the support of Harvard Hillel, Harvard Memorial Church, the Harvard Chaplains, and Combined Jewish Philanthropies in Boston, will continue to be worked on at Harvard Hillel through April 18.

The Office for the Arts at Harvard and the Council on the Arts at Harvard, a standing committee of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, have announced the recipients of the annual undergraduate arts prizes for 2013.

The Harvard community mourned the loss of Krystle Campbell, daughter of longtime HBS dining staffer Patty Campbell and sister of Cabot House dining services worker Billy Campbell, in the marathon bombings.

When reports swept the Harvard campus Monday afternoon that two bomb blasts at the Boston Marathon had killed and wounded people at the finish line, a wave of sadness and concern swept the campus.

The Dudley Co-op is a collective of individuals. “Each semester a new crop of students introduces different habits, preferences, and policies to the co-op,” explains Amelia Kaplan ’97.

Under federal law, same-sex couples pay taxes on spousal medical coverage that their heterosexual married coworkers do not. Starting this month, Harvard will help LGBT employees and their families offset those costs with a tax equalization payment of $1,500 a year, the University announced April 15.

On April 10, the Faculty Council discussed consultation and communication, academic integrity, and HarvardX’s impact on campus.

Professors’ quarters, their offices, are sanctuary spaces, places of intellectual inspiration, rooms for academic exchange. Lined with books, decorated with objects and awards, speckled with family photos and mementos from foreign travel, the offices are always home to a computer — the connection to everything not housed within the four walls.

Sixth annual Harvard College Innovation Challenge supports student projects through a year of development and beyond. From common roots — intellectual curiosity and the desire to make life just a little bit easier — 64 ideas blossomed this year in the challenge.