Campus & Community

The Harvard Asia Center, the Harvard China Fund, the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, the Korea Institute, the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, and the South Asia Initiative are pleased to announce the recipients of student grants for summer 2009 and academic year 2009-2010.

The following Harvard College seniors have been named Thomas T. Hoopes Prize winners for outstanding scholarly work or research. The prize is funded by the estate of Thomas T. Hoopes ’19. The recipients, including their research and advisers, are as follows:

As Commencement closes another chapter of the Harvard story, here is a brief backward glance at highlights of the year that was.

Marianna Tu didn’t intend to go to college in her hometown. That town just happened to be Cambridge, Mass., and the college was Harvard.

Nick Rizzo ’09 has been certain since the second grade that crimson is his color. The young sports fan from Kingston, Mass., used to travel to Boston with his father to cheer for Harvard in the annual Beanpot hockey tournament. When it came time for college applications, there was no question: early action to Harvard.

Six members of the Harvard Business School (HBS) M.B.A. Class of 2009 have been named winners of the School’s prestigious Dean’s Award. The recipients, who will be recognized by HBS Dean Jay Light at Commencement ceremonies this afternoon (June 4) on the HBS campus, are Andrew Goldin, Garrett Smith, and the team of Rye Barcott, Alex Ellis, Neil Wagle, and Kate Wattson.

Harvard is in my blood, though not in the traditional sense. I was born and brought up in Cambridge, Mass., as were my mother and her siblings. My grandparents struggled to raise seven children during tough financial times, and a college education was not an option.

A joyous peal of bells will ring throughout Cambridge today (June 4). In celebration of the city of Cambridge and of the country’s oldest university — and of our earlier history when bells of varying tones summoned us from sleep to prayer, work, or study — this ancient yet new sound will fill Harvard Square and the surrounding area with music when a number of neighboring churches and institutions ring their bells at the conclusion of Harvard’s 358th Commencement Exercises, for the 20th consecutive year.

As thousands of Harvard students celebrate their graduation in grand style, the first graduating class from a project across the river will depart with little fanfare but immeasurable success.

When Alexandra Fuentes and Alicia Rosenberg enlisted in the Teacher Education Program (TEP) as students in the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE), they were infiltrating a chaotic realm of teenagers and homework — and life would never be the same again: They were going back to high school.

Daniel C. Tosteson, the Caroline Shields Walker Distinguished Professor of Cell Biology, who served an extraordinary two decades as dean of Harvard Medical School, from 1977 to 1997, died peacefully on May 27 after a long illness. He was 84 years old.

The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University has named Harvard math and physics concentrator Norman Yao ’09 the winner of its 2009 Captain Jonathan Fay Prize. Yao was selected for the quality and potential impact of his senior thesis, which describes a breakthrough scientific technique he developed to measure the properties of neurofilaments, a family of proteins found in the neurons that constitute mammalian nervous tissue. Already, Yao’s technique has enabled a discovery about how cross-linking occurs in neurofilament protein molecules — an important advance in understanding the mechanical properties of cellular networks.

An anonymous donor honored the extraordinary service of three Harvard veterans with a $15 million gift to support innovative science. From left, Robert L. Scalise, M.B.A. ’89, Nichols Family Director of Athletics; William R. Fitzsimmons ’67, Ed.M. ’69, Ed.D. ’71, dean of admissions and financial aid; and John P. Reardon Jr. ’60, executive director of the Harvard Alumni Association and associate vice president for University relations. The new President’s Fund for Innovative Science will support a range of cutting-edge initiatives — among them, stem cell research.

Complete strangers recognize Dan Jones on campus all the time. It’s the same for his brother, Bill. “I just play along,” said Dan. “I don’t know their names, I’ve never seen them before. I just assume Bill knows them and I try to be friendly so they don’t start hating him.”

Lin “William” Cong remembers his early childhood as a time of playing in the street, reading comic books, and coasting through the early grades. College was a dream.

The Commencement of 1865 and the day of commemoration that followed it hold a unique spot in Harvard history. Though some military actions were still taking place, the Civil War had essentially ended in April of that year. John Langdon Sibley, head librarian at Harvard, wrote in his diary that there had already been a “Reception for the returned soldiers from Cambridge.

Last spring, as Walter Morris ’73, M.B.A. ’75, prepared to become president of the Harvard Alumni Association (HAA), he was eagerly anticipating his 35th class reunion. For Morris, this reunion was another cherished opportunity to renew old friendships, and, in many instances, an occasion to build new ones. Class reunions are the HAA’s flagship alumni event, the heart of the HAA’s ambitious goal “to make your Harvard experience last a lifetime.” And Morris, whose personal involvement with the HAA board dates back 15 years, remained committed to making that happen.

Ernest May, a renowned historian of international relations and foreign policy and professor of history at Harvard University, died on June 1 at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston from complications following surgery, according to his family. He was 80.

Harvard has received a $1.5 million gift from the Harvard Gay and Lesbian Caucus (HGLC) to endow the F.O. Matthiessen Visiting Professorship of Gender and Sexuality. Harvard Overseer Mitchell L. Adams ’66, M.B.A. ’69, will inform participants at the annual HGLC Commencement dinner that a campaign spanning several years has reached its goal. Named after the distinguished gay Harvard faculty member F.O. Matthiessen (1902–50), the professorship represents the first endowed named chair in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) studies in the country.

Lukas Filler likes a challenge. One of the 6-foot-5-inch former competitive swimmer’s favorite pastimes is surfing … in the New England winter … before dawn.

Today the University awarded a total of 6,777 degrees and 81 certificates. A breakdown of the degrees by schools and programs follows. Harvard College granted a total of 1,562 degrees.

The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University has announced that Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, will be awarded the 2009 Radcliffe Institute Medal at the annual Radcliffe Day luncheon on Friday (June 5). Barbara J. Grosz, dean of the Radcliffe Institute, will give opening remarks and present the medal to O’Connor, who will deliver the keynote address.

Matt Lauer, co-anchor of NBC News’ “Today,” delivered the 2009 Senior Class Day speech in Tercentenary Theatre on Wednesday (June 3) under a canopy of green leaves and slightly overcast skies. With a joke-filled address that had the large crowd frequently in stitches, the accomplished journalist proved he is also an accomplished stand-up comedian.

A journalist, a landscape architect, and a Latin scholar are today’s Commencement orators. They fulfill a University tradition dating back to 1642. They also embark on three journeys that hint at the wide array of academic paths leading outward from Harvard.

Harvard’s Phi Beta Kappa (PBK) chapter first met in 1781, two years before the end of the Revolutionary War.

Barron, Bilotti, Bras, Chiappini, Doohovskoy, Kristol, Pellegrini, West. That’s roll call for eight 2009 Harvard graduates who were commissioned late Wednesday morning (June 3). Five are new officers in the U.S. Army and three in the U.S. Marine Corps.

Harvard President Drew Faust shared final words of wisdom with the Class of 2009 Tuesday (June 2), sending them into a newly uncertain world with assurances that their liberal arts education gives them the ability to improvise in changing times.

Harvard University has conferred today (June 4) honorary degrees on 10 outstanding individuals: Energy Secretary Steven Chu, filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar, author Joan Didion, religious historian Wendy Doniger, legal philosopher Ronald Dworkin, immunologist Anthony S. Fauci, anthropologist Sarah Hrdy, engineer Robert Langer, musician Wynton Marsalis, and political scientist Sidney Verba.

Journalist Matt Lauer joins student orators in a humor-filled afternoon of informal celebration.

President Drew Faust announced a partnership with the federal government today that will help America’s military veterans obtain a Harvard education.