Campus & Community

Harvard College has admitted 895 students to the Class of 2017 under the Early Action program, an increase of 16 percent over last year.

Harvard feted 139 faculty and staff — physics professors and dining hall checkers among them — for their longtime service to the University at the annual 25-Year Recognition Ceremony.

Winter Fest, planned by the First-Year Social Committee (FYSC), provides a low-key, winter-themed, relaxing social event every year, allowing hundreds of freshmen to socialize with their classmates and take a well-deserved break from studying for finals.

Harvard University announced today its intention to create a social choice fund.

Co-captains Jillian Dempsey ’13 and Laura Bellamy ’13 showed their leadership with their play on the ice as they powered the women’s hockey team to a convincing 8-1 win over Providence College Dec. 7.

Through Dec. 21, the Labrary, a student-designed pop-up space at 92 Mt. Auburn St., shows off projects that imagine the future of libraries.

More than 100 Harvard students, along with their families and friends, gathered in the Radcliffe Gymnasium on Dec. 6 to celebrate the 2012-13 Midyear Graduates Recognition Ceremony. The event recognized students who graduate in November or March, off the usual Commencement cycle.

The Dean’s Cultural Entrepreneurship Challenge aims to harness the University’s entrepreneurial spirit to help promote and sustain the arts.

At a Meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences on December, 4, 2012, the Minute honoring the life and service of the late John Milton Ward, William Powell Mason Professor of Music, Emeritus, was placed upon the records. Professor Ward was an inventor of many areas of research that later contributed to the broadening of the field of musicology and was the founder of the Harvard Archive of World Music, which began with recordings from his collection.

The second House renewal test project, Leverett’s McKinlock Hall, is scheduled to begin in June. The project will result in greater common and recreational space for students, which will help foster community and nurture learning.

Kathleen McCartney, dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Gerald S. Lesser Professor in Early Childhood Development, will become the next president of Smith College next year.

Professor Robin Kelsey talked about “performing for the camera” in a Harvard Allston Ed Portal lecture, part of its faculty speaker series.

Harvard senior Aditya Balasubramanian and recent graduate Alex Palmer are among 34 students nationwide who were recently awarded Marshall Scholarships.

Dean Michael D. Smith of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences announced that Jane Pickering has been named executive director of the Harvard Museums of Science and Culture.

Michael Sandel’s discussion of ‘Justice’ connects Harvard students with those in four other nations

Patricia A. King, the Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Law, Medicine, Ethics, and Public Policy at Georgetown Law Center, plans to step down from the Harvard Corporation at the end of December, the University announced today.

Erin K. O’Shea, the director of the FAS Center for Systems Biology, has accepted the position of vice president and chief scientific officer of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She will also maintain her lab and involvement at Harvard.

When Madeline Meehan makes her annual donation to Harvard Community Gifts, she won’t just be providing handmade blankets to sick children, she’ll also be helping her mother’s labor of love. This is one of a series of Gazette articles highlighting some of the many initiatives and charities the can be supported through the Harvard Community Gifts campaign.

In an interview with the Gazette, Harvard President Drew Faust and Senior Fellow Robert Reischauer reflect on the University’s governance changes two years after implementation.

Ronald F. Thiemann, Bussey Professor of Theology and former dean of Harvard Divinity School (HDS), died on Nov. 29 at the age of 66.

Harvard Medical School faculty members at the Cambridge Health Alliance lend a hand, in partnership with the Cambridge Police Department, the schools, and youth services agencies, to identify potentially troubled youths and divert them into structured activities and mental health programs.

Margaret Nast Lewis, a former faculty member of the Harvard College Observatory, died in Cambridge on Nov. 23 at the age of 101.

President Barack Obama has appointed James J. McCarthy, Alexander Agassiz Professor of Biological Oceanography in the Museum of Comparative Zoology, to the U.S. Arctic Research Commission (USARC).

Seven faculty from Harvard University are named fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

The Faculty Council held its monthly meeting on Nov. 28.

A total of 4,856 students have applied for admission to Harvard’s Class of 2017 under the Early Action program, an increase of 14.9 percent over last year. The Class of 2016 had 4,228 students in the early pool.

Thirteen deans from Schools across Harvard today announced $150,000 in new entrepreneurship challenges, expanding Harvard support for student innovation and cross-School collaborations with broad social and cultural impact.

The WATCH Portal, an online network launched last year to connect Harvard parents with University-affiliated baby sitters, is expanding its marketplace to include tutoring, pet care, and a host of other services for busy employees in a pinch.

The trees of Harvard Yard are in the midst of managed change as the once-ubiquitous elms continue their decades-long decline. Mixed species, dominated by American trees, replace them.

Joseph E. Murray, emeritus professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School, whose many breakthroughs included the first successful kidney transplant, died Nov. 26, after suffering a hemorrhagic stroke at his Wellesley, Mass., home on Thanksgiving. He was 93.