Featured series 
Month: December 2009
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Nation & World
Assessing Obama’s Afghan plan
A Kennedy School panel discusses and debates President Obama’s plan to add 30,000 troops to Afghanistan to try to stabilize that nation and allow American troops to begin withdrawing in 2011.
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Nation & World
Young people polled
In a poll conducted by the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School, nearly half of young Americans said that the economy is the national issue that concerns them most, more than double the next-highest issue, health care.
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Science & Tech
Nature’s fine designs
Nature and its bottom-up processes for creating robust and responsive materials are inspiring new generations of synthetic materials and creative design.
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Arts & Culture
Learning Lessons: Medicine, Economics, and Public Policy
With more than 50 years of experience in the economics and policy worlds, Fein dishes the lessons he’s learned on government, decision making, and more, attempting to breathe new life into our nation’s welfare.
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Arts & Culture
The Third Chapter: Passion, Risk, and Adventure in the 25 Years After 50
Sociologist Lawrence-Lightfoot’s inspiring book says that ages 50-75 are prime time for adventure. Forty interviews with people living in their “third chapter” show how fulfilling life can be then.
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Arts & Culture
Enchanted Hunters: The Power of Stories in Childhood
Tatar plumbs the lore and enchantment of children’s stories, revealing their power to ensnare imaginations, and highlights the magic of reading and what children take from it.
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Campus & Community
Journey to D.C.
Harvard Kennedy School graduate Sam Sanders ’09 writes about his experience as a public policy student and the road that led him to National Public Radio.
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Campus & Community
The Game
The oldest rivalry in college football dates to 1875, when Harvard and Yale played a bruising game that resembled rugby more than modern football. Back then, fans journeyed by train, horseback, and foot from around New England to view the rough-and-tumble spectacle.
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Campus & Community
CfA shows schoolchildren the stars
The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics is giving middle school children in three Massachusetts towns a taste of astronomy, using robotic telescopes they control themselves to fuel their interest in careers in science, technology, engineering, and math.
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Arts & Culture
Women on the move
A new Schlesinger Library exhibit, “To Know the Whole World,” introduces an interactive Web site on women’s travel writing.
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Arts & Culture
In defense of books
Harvard Library director pens book that in itself is an ode to books.
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Science & Tech
Wizard at circuits, physics
Donhee Ham, Gordon McKay Professor of Electrical Engineering and Applied Physics, uses his personal energy and understanding of physics to design innovative integrated circuits.
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Nation & World
Citizen spies, spied-on citizens
An exhibit of Czech secret-police photos from the Communist era, at Harvard through Dec. 21, shows Big Brother as unintentional artist.
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Health
Turning genetic trash to treasure
John Rinn, a researcher at Harvard Medical School, the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and the Broad Institute, overcame a rocky start in life through a passion for biology and discovered a new category of RNAs.
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Campus & Community
Anthropologist Hymes dies at 82
Dell H. Hymes, 82, an influential linguistic anthropologist and folklorist who taught at Harvard from 1955 to 1960, died in Charlottesville, Va., on Nov. 13.
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Campus & Community
Around the Schools: Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences is offering a wealth of short courses, seminars, and events designed to provide more work or more play, depending on your preference, from Jan. 4 to 24.
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Campus & Community
Lohre named NCC president-elect
Kathryn M. Lohre has been elected president-elect of the National Council of Churches (NCC) by the NCC Governing Board.
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Campus & Community
Rockefeller Fellows chosen for 2010-11
Concluding its annual meeting and interviews at Harvard on Nov. 20-21, the Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Fellowships Administrative Board awarded fellowships to six graduating seniors for 2010-11.
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Campus & Community
Around the Schools: Harvard Business School
Two Harvard Business School professors, Nancy F. Koehn and Rajiv Lal, have weighed in on the Harvard Business School Web site with their best estimates of how the holiday shopping season will play out. One sees a flat or slightly improved sales period, while the other is guardedly optimistic.
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Nation & World
Writers at Risk
A Harvard instructor, concerned about literary artists threatened overseas, proposes Writers at Risk, an academic harbor.
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Campus & Community
Niall Ferguson wins International Emmy for ‘The Ascent of Money’
Harvard economic historian Niall Ferguson’s four-part documentary, “The Ascent of Money” (2009), was named Best Documentary at the 37th International Emmy Awards in New York City on Nov. 23.
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Campus & Community
Wassarman named director of AEP
Rebecca Wassarman has been named director of Academic Engagement Programs at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.
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Campus & Community
PBK welcomes new members
The Harvard College chapter of Phi Beta Kappa (PBK), Alpha Iota of Massachusetts, has elected 48 seniors to its Class of 2010.
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Campus & Community
Coming and going at Harvard
Kris Locke: The woman who works to keep Harvard’s commuters out of traffic jams and in the green zone.
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Campus & Community
Nieman Foundation presents 2009 conscience and integrity award
The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard presented the Louis M. Lyons Award for Conscience and Integrity in Journalism to slain Sri Lankan newspaper editor Lasantha Wickrematunge and the journalists of Afghanistan on Nov. 17.
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Campus & Community
Around the Schools: Harvard Law School
Hundreds of Harvard Law School (HLS) students, faculty, and staff gathered in the School’s Pound Hall for a “Thanksgiving for the Troops” event on Nov. 18 to raise money and collect items for soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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Campus & Community
Reischauer Institute awards Japanese studies prizes
The Reischauer Institute names Audrey Ji-eun Kim ’09 and Kathryn Handlir, A.M. ’09, winners of its annual award for outstanding essays on Japan-related topics.
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Campus & Community
Forests focus of gift
Paul Zofnass ’69, M.B.A. ’73, has become the Harvard Museum of Natural History’s (HMNH) largest donor since its founding in 1998.
