Labrary: A Harvard Library Experiment officially opened on November 15 at 92 Mt. Auburn Street. Labrary, a storefront space envisioned and realized by students in Harvard’s Library Test Kitchen course, explores how innovations in design can help libraries evolve. “We wanted to make this a collaborative endeavor—incorporating students and faculty—to show how libraries can…

Students have always been the driving force behind Harvard’s leadership on sustainability, pushing the University to establish a greenhouse gas reduction goal and launching new programs like the Harvard Community Garden. This year, one of Harvard’s most successful and widely replicated sustainability programs – the Resource Efficiency Program (REP) — celebrated its 10 year anniversary…

Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic and the independent human rights organization Human Rights Watch have authored a report titled “Losing Humanity: The Case Against Killer Robots.” The report, released Nov. 19, argues that governments should pre-emptively ban fully autonomous weapons because of the danger they pose to civilians in armed conflict. These future…

HLS Dean Martha Minow received the Gold Medal for Outstanding Contribution to Public Discourse from the College Historical Society of Trinity College, Dublin at a ceremony on Nov. 13, 2012. The College Historical Society, popularly referred to as “The Hist,” is one of the world’s oldest undergraduate debating societies, established in 1770. It is “built…

A panel of distinguished judges and scholars gathered at Harvard Law School with author David Dorsen ’59 on Nov. 14 to discuss and celebrate his recent biography, “Henry Friendly: Greatest Judge of His Era.” At the event, moderated by Professor Carol Steiker ’86—who is the Henry J. Friendly Professor of Law at HLS—Judges Michael Boudin…

Harvard’s Technology Products and Services announces the start of our holiday promotion! Visit the online shopping site or the Campus Computer Store now through December 21 for great savings, giveaways, and holiday cheer! New workshops added for December and raffles held at exclusively (in-store entries only) at the Campus Computer Store.

On a sunny day in June, seven members of the Sacks club, the team that won the Ames Moot Court Competition in 1959, met on the steps of Langdell library to reminisce over what they called their “unlikely” victory, and to talk about where their lives had taken them in the fifty years since. The reunion…

During the summer of 2012, hundreds of Harvard Law School J.D. and graduate students benefitted from the largest pool of guaranteed funding offered by a law school for the broadest range of public interest summer work. A select group of 26 students worked in 19 countries under the aegis of the Chayes International Public Service…

In October, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg issued two rulings bolstering the rights of persons with psycho-social disabilities. Both cases were brought by Hungarian-Slovakian disability rights activist János Fiala-Butora, LL.M. ’10, an S.J.D. candidate at Harvard Law School and an associate of the Harvard Law School Project on Disability, known as HPOD.…

The Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) is leading by example when it comes to promoting workplace wellness and encouraging healthier behavior. The CEO Roundtable on Cancer recently accredited HSPH with the CEO Cancer Gold Standard™ recognizing their efforts to reduce the risk of cancer for their employees and covered family members by promoting healthy lifestyle…

Women in China’s workforce have significantly lower fertility rates than those who are not employed. That is one finding in a new Harvard Kennedy School Faculty Working Paper co-authored by HKS Professor Richard Zeckhauser. “Jobs and Kids: Female Employment and Fertility in China” synthesizes the analysis of data taken from the 2006 China Health and Nutrition…

The National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA) presented Harvard Corporation member William F. Lee A.B. ’72 with its Trailblazer Award during the organization’s 24th annual convention in Washington, D.C., last week. Lee was one of nine recipients of the Trailblazer Award, NAPABA’s highest honor. The award is bestowed annually to individuals who “have demonstrated…

With the installation of the first computers and a ribbon cutting, Friday’s opening event marked an important step in Harvard’s groundbreaking collaboration with four leading research universities, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Cisco, and EMC on the development of the Massachusetts Green High Power Computing Center (MGHPCC). The MGHPCC (www.mghpcc.org) is a first-of-its-kind facility and collaboration…

New York Times columnist David Brooks reflected upon the changing nature of the American political landscape during the annual Theodore H. White Lecture delivered Thursday night (Nov. 15) at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum. “The big takeaway from the election was that it marks a social transition,” Brooks said. “The 2012 election was a shift…

Policy makers, development experts and academics gathered at the Harvard Kennedy School in late October to develop “Trillion Dollar Ideas to Build Prosperity,” which was the theme for this year’s Global Empowerment Meeting (GEM12), sponsored by the Center for International Development (CID). The fifth in a series, GEM12 continued last year’s discussions on new strategies for…

The Library Lab Showcase—held November 14—displayed 28 projects by Harvard library staff, faculty, and graduate students developed to enhance libraries. Organized by Harvard’s Office for Scholarly Communication (OSC), the Library Lab supports projects with funding from the Arcadia Fund. “The idea behind the Library Lab is to have the opportunity to create library innovations,” said…

Indoor gardens have been shown to improve air quality, increase productivity and reduce stress and noise—so where better to install them than in a library? The Harvard Graduate School of Education’s (HGSE) Gutman Library recently underwent a first-floor renovation that included the installation of four “living walls”—or ceiling-to-floor panels covered entirely with foliage. The idea was…

The music of Pulitzer-winning American composer Roger Reynolds is the subject of a concert at Harvard’s John Knowles Paine Concert Hall on Thursday, Dec. 6, at 8 p.m. Reynolds is the Fromm Visiting Professor in the University’s music department, where he teaches composition (Reynolds is a professor of composition at the University of California, San…

The Chinese Poetry Recitation Competition, organized by the Chinese Language Program of Harvard’s Department of East Languages and Civilizations (EALC), began last Friday (11/9) at 3:30 when two student MCs, donning East Asian Studies t-shirts, performed a brief comedic skit and then instructed the audience to turn off its cellphones in Chinese. The event’s brochure…

First-year College students eat their meals in the historic Annenberg Dining Hall, immersing them in the Harvard’s history from day one. A reusable mug program and efforts to cut down on food waste also greet those same students on day one, introducing them to Harvard’s commitment to sustainability. The hard work of students and staff…

The difficult but transforming experience of facing and surviving cancer takes center stage in the personal and professional saga, Beauty Without the Breast, by Felicia Marie Knaul (Harvard University Press, 2012). An economist who has lived and worked on health and social development in Latin America for 20 years, Knaul is director of the Harvard…

Sandy Close, executive editor and director of Pacific News Service (PNS), has been selected as winner of the 2012 I.F. Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence. The Nieman Foundation for Journalism will present the award at Lippmann House on Dec. 6, 2012. Close will receive the honor in recognition of her many achievements in journalism and…

Once upon a time, Anne Newland wanted to go to film school. But because life unfolds with its own logic, she instead became a doctor with the federal Indian Health Service (IHS). And shaped by her experience working with Native Americans and the unique system that serves them, she realized the importance of focusing on…

At a Nov. 8 talk at Harvard Law School, Rep. John Sarbanes ’88 (D-MD) advocated for “grassroots democracy” funded by the people rather than by Political Action Committees and other large donors. Sarbanes is a co-sponsor of the Grassroots Democracy Act, intended to empower small donors and to free lawmakers from their dependency on big…

According to U.S. Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr., the defining feature of his job—the most challenging, rewarding aspect—is grappling with what the position of the United States should be on an issue. Verrilli explained that this task is harder than it might seem, involving a balancing of interests and making considered decisions on whether…

Harvard Law School graduates across the country won political victories in the 2012 elections. In addition to a victory by President Barack Obama ’91 in a close race with Republican candidate Mitt Romney J.D./M.B.A ’75.  A Harvard Law School Professor and two HLS alumni won seats in the Senate, and 15 alumni are going to…

Harvard Law School Professor Elizabeth Warren—bankruptcy expert, Wall Street reformer and consumer watch dog—has won a hard-fought race for the U.S. Senate. The Democratic nominee defeated her Republican opponent, incumbent Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown. Said HLS Dean Martha Minow: “I congratulate my colleague and friend Elizabeth Warren on her election to the Senate. Through her…

It’s not enough to refrain from harm. We must take positive action. This is the core message of The Cost of Inaction: Case Studies from Rwanda and Angola, a new book published by the François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights that introduces a method to determine the true costs of failing to help…

Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) was crowned the most social media friendly school of public health in the first-ever ranking by the website MPHProgramsList.com. The site scored 57 schools on their social media activity, awarding points for the number of followers and posts on popular platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn. The…

The Harvard Library  plans to share several collections with the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA)—becoming the first DPLA content hub. The Harvard Library is dedicated to providing open access to them, where possible, through digitization and online dissemination. Through its collaboration with the DPLA, Harvard will contribute to global access to knowledge. Robert Darnton,…