Campus & Community

More than two dozen Harvard undergraduates returned to campus early this month to help provide meals and beds to guests at the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter during Winter Break.

Claire Danes, who has won back-to-back Golden Globe awards as Best Actress, can now add another trophy to her collection, the Hasty Pudding Theatricals’ Pudding Pot, which she received today following a Harvard tour, parade, and traditional roast.

Applications have leveled off after five consecutive years of record numbers. A total of 34,285 applications were received, a dip from last year’s record 34,950. Two years ago, 30,489 applied; 10 years ago, 18,932 applied.

At the Jan. 25 meeting of the Faculty Council, its members approved the 2012-13 faculty meeting schedule.

The University’s comprehensive new policy on whistleblowing aims to make reporting legal or ethical breaches both safe and easy for all members of the Harvard community.

Award-winning producer, director, and writer Helen Whitney will deliver this year’s William Belden Noble Lectures at the Memorial Church.

Francesca Bewer has won the 2012 College Art Association/Heritage Preservation Award for Distinction in Scholarship and Conservation.

Six new fellows will join the Shorenstein Center this spring.

The Hasty Pudding Theatricals has named Jason Segel as its 2012 Man of the Year.

The Hasty Pudding Theatricals names actress Claire Danes as its 2012 Woman of the Year.

Michael J. Hopkins, Jonathan B. Losos, Andrew H. Knoll, and Jason P. Mitchell have been honored by the National Academy of Sciences for their extraordinary scientific achievements.

A preview of Harvard University’s “Great Teachers” series which will be launched in March of 2012.

The Harvard Allston Partnership Fund (HAPF) today announced that nine local nonprofits will receive grants totaling $100,000 to support programs in the Allston-Brighton community. The HAPF recognizes and supports organizations that provide Allston-Brighton residents with youth enrichment, educational programs, and engaging activities for the elderly and people with disabilities.

Harvard College officials applaud students who choose to spend Winter Break away from campus, where they can recharge and reconnect with loved ones. Officials say that the “nothing” that undergraduates often think they’re doing — sleeping, eating well, and tending to relationships — is actually vital for academic success, and for physical and mental health.

Louis D. Brandeis Professor of Law Emeritus Charles M. Haar ’48, a pioneer in land-use law whose scholarship focused on laws and institutions of city planning, urban development, and environmental issues, died on Jan. 10.

The Department of Physics will host a memorial ceremony for Nobel laureate and former physics professor Norman Ramsey.

Coach Tommy Amaker and his Harvard men’s basketball team began the second half of their breakout season with a 15-2 record and the University’s first national ranking in the sport. The passionate group of young men, led by captains Keith Wright ’12 and Oliver McNally ’12, has been playing in front of boisterous, sell-out crowds in Lavietes Pavilion.

As part of the University’s yearlong 375th anniversary celebration, Harvard launched Harvard Skate Jan. 17.

This spring, alumni can vote for a new group of Harvard Overseers and elected directors for the Harvard Alumni Association board.

Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics has announced the selection of an experienced group of individuals for resident and visiting fellowships this spring.

Charles Lieber, the Mark Hyman Jr. Professor of Chemistry, was recently awarded Israel’s prestigious Wolf Prize.

People are “powerfully attracted to war,” Harvard President Drew Faust told a crowd at the Cambridge Public Library on Jan. 10, and no conflict draws as much continuing interest and controversy in America as its own Civil War. The historian’s job is to balance that allure with a search for the truth, Faust said.

Harvard President Drew Faust names Krishna G. Palepu, Ross Graham Walker Professor of Business Administration and senior associate dean for international development at Harvard Business School, to the new post of senior adviser to the president for global strategy.

The Crimson toppled Dartmouth and next take on George Washington University in a sold-out game on Jan. 14.

John Milton Ward, Harvard’s William Powell Mason Professor of Music from 1961 to 1985, died quietly at home in Cambridge on Dec. 12. He was 94 years old.

Jessica Choi ’12 and Dalumuzi Mhlanga ’13 have been named one of three winners of the 2011 College Social Innovator Contest — hosted jointly by the Harvard College Social Innovation Collaborative and the “Common Good” column at Forbes.com.

Harvard is launching a lecture and program series in the Boston and Cambridge public libraries. President Drew Faust will give the inaugural address of the new John Harvard Book Celebration on Jan. 10.

David Wheeler, longtime resident director and later associate artist of the American Repertory Theater, died Jan. 4.

Stressbusters brings free back rubs to students who have neither the time nor the money for professional massage — or who simply wake up with stiff necks after long hours of study. The next Stressbusters training will be in February.