May 10, 2008 Lebônê Solutions, a collaboration between Harvard African undergraduates and university scientists, was among 16 groups selected by the World Bank in an international competition for grants of up to $200,000 to develop low-cost innovative technologies to light up Africa. (more…)
Posted in Press Releases 
Comments Off
April 30, 2008 Barbara J. Grosz, Higgins Professor of Natural Sciences in Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, has been appointed the dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, President Drew Faust announced today (April 28). A prominent computer scientist with wide-ranging intellectual interests, Grosz has served as interim dean of the Radcliffe Institute since July 1, 2007, and earlier served as Radcliffe’s first dean of science from 2001 to 2007. She joined Harvard as Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science in 1986. (more…)
Posted in Press Releases Comments Off
April 25, 2008 Largest gift from an alumnus in Harvard’s history
David Rockefeller, a member of the Harvard College Class of 1936 and longtime University benefactor, has pledged $100 million to increase dramatically learning opportunities for Harvard undergraduates through international experiences and participation in the arts. Mr. Rockefeller’s is the largest gift from an alumnus in Harvard’s history.
“Harvard opened my eyes and my mind to the world,” Mr. Rockefeller said. “It was because of Harvard’s language requirement that I spent the summer of 1933 in Germany and saw firsthand the ominous rise of fascism. And it was at Harvard that I first studied art history. Harvard provided me with an intellectual framework to understand what I was seeing and experiencing that has stayed with me for my entire life. I have enjoyed working with President Faust in structuring this gift and I support her vision for Harvard’s future. In that context, I hope my gift will help enable future Harvard undergraduates to experience similar opportunities to learn about the world in which they live,” he said. (more…)
Posted in Press Releases 1 Comment »
March 4, 2008 Evelynn Hammonds, the University’s senior vice provost for Faculty Development and Diversity and the Barbara Gutmann Rosenkrantz Professor of the History of Science and of African and African American Studies in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, has been appointed dean of Harvard College, effective June 1, 2008.
“I am very pleased that someone as thoughtful, talented, and skilled as Evelynn Hammonds will take on the leadership of Harvard College,” said Michael D. Smith, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS). “During the search I heard repeatedly that it was important that the College dean exercise broad oversight of the undergraduate curriculum in addition to overseeing the College more broadly, and she will do this work superbly. She is an outstanding leader with a keen understanding of the changing and diverse needs of our undergraduates both inside and outside the classroom. She also recognizes the extraordinary talents and promise that these students possess. I look forward to working with her. (more…)
Posted in Press Releases Comments Off
January 28, 2008 Researchers have fitted another piece into the complex genetic puzzle that is autism, finding DNA deletions and duplications on a specific chromosome that they say explains one to two percent of the 1.5 million cases of autism and related disorders in the United States today. (more…)
Posted in Harvard Science, Press Releases Comments Off
January 14, 2008 Harvard University today unveiled the most ambitious expansion of research and education related to South Asia in the University’s history. The project entails a host of new programs related to South Asia and will be pursued with an unprecedented degree of collaboration and coordination across the entire University, including Harvard College and Harvard’s 10 academic units. (more…)
Posted in Press Releases Comments Off
December 12, 2007 Fact Sheet for 2007–2008
Overview of Harvard College
Harvard College is the undergraduate component of Harvard University. It is fully residential and enrolls more than 6,600 students. The freshman class has 1,659 students.
Background: Undergraduate Admissions and Financial Aid Before the New Initiative
In the 2006–2007 academic year, almost 23,000 students applied for admission to Harvard College — more than 13 applicants for every place in the class. Of the number admitted to the Class of 2011, 78.7 percent chose to enroll.
Harvard considers students for admission without regard to their ability to pay, and guarantees to meet the full financial need of every student who qualifies for aid. All of our financial aid is need-based — we offer no merit or athletic scholarships.
This year, Harvard’s tuition is $31,456. The total cost of attendance, including tuition, room, board, and other charges, is $45,620. Two-thirds of Harvard undergraduates receive some form of financial aid, including scholarships, loans, and jobs.
More than 50 percent of Harvard undergraduates receive outright need-based scholarships, which will total more than $103 million in 2007–2008, including both grants from Harvard (over 95 percent) and grants from the federal government. This scholarship total represents an increase of nearly 60 percent in the past six years. Harvard has already ensured that cost is not a barrier for families of modest means, has dropped all expected parental contributions for students from families with incomes under $60,000, and has significantly reduced the parental contributions for students with family incomes of up to $80,000. (more…)
Posted in Press Releases Comments Off
December 12, 2007 Allan M. Brandt, who holds appointments in Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the Medical School has been named Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Harvard, effective January 1, 2008. (more…)
Posted in Press Releases Comments Off
November 14, 2007 Harvard University and the Arab Republic of Egypt announced today the creation of a new fellowship program to provide financial support to students from Egypt accepted to the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard School of Public Health, or Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. This program has been established by an endowment of $10 million from the Arab Republic of Egypt to finance prestigious Egypt Fellowships designed to enable highly qualified members of the Egyptian public sector to study at Harvard. (more…)
Posted in Press Releases Comments Off
November 1, 2007 Harvard President Drew Faust announced today (Nov. 1) that she is creating a University-wide task force to examine the place of the arts at Harvard. Chaired by Cogan University Professor Stephen Greenblatt, the task force draws its membership from faculty, students, and others across the University who represent many fields and modes of engagement with the study and practice of the arts.
The task force is charged broadly with examining the role of the arts in a research university, in a liberal arts education, and at Harvard specifically. It will explore the role of arts both within and beyond the curriculum, as well as how Harvard can encourage connections between arts activities and science, technology, humanities, and other related fields. The committee is asked to consider as well how other parts of the University, such as the American Repertory Theatre (A.R.T.), the museums, and the Graduate School of Design (GSD) can be more fully integrated into a vibrant arts culture at Harvard. As it charts answers to these broad questions, the committee is also asked to consider what administrative, financial, and physical structures will be needed to advance the goals identified.
“I am very excited about this undertaking,” said Faust. “Harvard has always had enormous strengths in the arts — and never more so than today — but we have had equally strong ambivalence about the role of performance and practice in the curriculum and in the life of the University. It has been many years since Harvard has attempted to define its aspirations and opportunities in the arts in a systematic way, and I am thrilled that Stephen Greenblatt has agreed to lead this effort.”
“I am honored that President Faust has asked me to take on this role,” said Greenblatt. “This is a period of significant transformation at the University — a new president, new deans of the FAS [Faculty of Arts and Sciences] and GSD, as well as both a new undergraduate curriculum and a new campus taking shape in Allston. At this crucial moment of institutional renewal, we have an historic opportunity to consider what place the arts will hold in the Harvard of the 21st century.”
“I am delighted that this task force will provide a University-wide perspective in a domain that is so directly pertinent to the work of FAS. I very much look forward to working closely with Drew and the many FAS faculty members who will serve on the task force to explore the intellectual and curricular implications of this important work,” said Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Michael D. Smith.
In framing the charge to the task force, Faust explained why she thinks it is important for Harvard to undertake this inquiry. “The arts abound across Harvard — in nearly 150 undergraduate student organizations, in countless instrumental and choral groups, in the collections of Harvard’s museums, in studios in the Carpenter Center and the Department of VES [Visual and Environmental Studies], in the Harvard Film Archive, at the A.R.T., in the Office for the Arts, in the New College Theatre, in the fellowship program at Radcliffe, in poetry and creative writing classes in the Department of English, in the teaching and scholarship of the Graduate School of Design, in the lives of faculty, students, and staff. We confront ever-increasing demand for opportunities for artistic expression both within and beyond the curriculum. We anticipate a significant place for the arts as a central component of our growth in Allston.
“Yet Harvard has not, in many years, thought comprehensively about its relationship to the arts. Our extraordinary strengths in the arts remain fragmented, less well-understood, less well-supported, and less integrated than their importance warrants. … The arts play a central role in the lives of so many students and faculty at Harvard, yet their role in the life of the University remains uncertain and undefined. I hope that this task force will attempt such a definition.”
In addition to Greenblatt, the task force will include students and faculty from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Graduate School of Education, Kennedy School of Government, and Graduate School of Design, as well as from various arts institutions on campus. In forming its inquiry and recommendations, the committee is asked to consider Harvard’s past considerations of these issues, including the report of the Brown Committee in 1956, as well as the experience and programs of other colleges and universities, including not only our peer institutions, but also institutions that host innovative and distinctive arts programming. The president has asked the committee to consult broadly, soliciting thoughts and ideas from students, faculty, and others on campus, as well as from the large external network of Harvard alumni and others who are involved in the arts.
The task force will begin meeting in the next few weeks and is expected to complete its report by the fall of 2008. The task force welcomes communications at arts_taskforce@harvard.edu.
The members of the task force are:
Stephen Greenblatt, chair, Cogan University Professor
Homi Bhabha, Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of the Humanities, director of the Humanities Center, Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Melissa Franklin, Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics, Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Peter Galison, Joseph Pellegrino University Professor, director of the Collection of the Historical Scientific Instruments
Jorie Graham, Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory, Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Alfred Guzzetti, Osgood Hooker Professor of Visual Arts, Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Madelyn Ho ’08, chemical and physical biology, recipient of Harvard Artist Development Fellowship in Dance, Harvard College
John Kelly, 2004-2005 Fellow, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study
Joseph Koerner, professor of history of art and architecture, Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, Emily Hargroves Fisher Professor of Education, Graduate School of Education
Jack Megan, director, Office for the Arts, Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Helen Mirra, assistant professor of visual and environmental studies, Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Helen Molesworth, Maisie K. and James R. Houghton Curator of Contemporary Art, Harvard University Art Museums
Ingrid Monson, Quincy Jones Professor of African-American Music, Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Mohsen Mostafavi, dean, Graduate School of Design (January 2008)
Dan Pecci ’09, English and American literature and language, secondary field in drama, recipient of 2006 Phyllis Anderson Prize in Playwriting, Harvard College
Hashim Sarkis, Aga Khan Professor of Landscape Architecture and Urbanism in Muslim Societies, Graduate School of Design
Diana Sorensen, James F. Rothenberg Professor of Romance Languages & Literatures and of Comparative Literature, dean for the Humanities, Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Marcus Stern, associate director, lecturer on dramatic arts, American Repertory Theatre and the A.R.T./ MXAT Institute for Advanced Theatre Training
Damian Woetzel M.P.A. 2007, principal dancer, New York City Ballet, John F. Kennedy School of Government
Posted in Press Releases Comments Off
Harvard in the News News from HarvardCopyright 2008 President and Fellows of Harvard College
content rss
