In response to Harvard’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Goal and Green Building Standards, building managers and facilities leaders across the University are renovating and constructing greener labs, offices, and classrooms that cut energy use and are healthier, happier places for staff to work and students to learn. As of Dec. 1, 2010, Harvard had 85 buildings…

Nancy M. Cline, the Roy E. Larsen Librarian of Harvard College for more than 15 years, will retire at the end of the academic year. In an announcement to faculty, Michael D. Smith, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, said, “Over the last 18 months of intense University focus on the libraries, Nancy…

Each year since 1998, Harvard-Yenching Library has offered a series of holiday and note cards featuring images from interesting pieces in their collections. For 2010, Kuniko McVey, Librarian for the Japanese Collection, and Raymond Lum, Librarian for the Western Languages Collection, have selected paired woodblock prints for our holiday and note cards. These woodblock prints,…

Kristin Stoklosa, e-resources manager and e-resources coordinator for the sciences, has been named this year’s recipient of the 2010 Carol Ishimoto Award for Distinguished Service in the Harvard College Library. Created through a 1991 endowment established by former Associate Librarian of Harvard College for Cataloging and Processing Carol Ishimoto, the award annually recognizes a member…

Laura Farwell Blake, head of Services for Academic Programs at Harvard University’s Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library, has been named one of 10 librarians recognized for service to her community as a winner of the Carnegie Corporation of New York/New York Times I Love My Librarian Award. Farwell Blake is noted for her “genuine excitement…

For the second year running, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) will convene a flexible series of January seminars, workshops, and recreational opportunities designed to help Ph.D. and master’s students build skills and take advantage of the winter break. January@GSAS, as the series is called, includes approximately 75 events, workshops, and classes, scheduled…

Harvard Medical School and the Nancy Lurie Marks Family Foundation are accepting applications for the Nancy Lurie Marks Junior Faculty Merit Fellowship. Applicants must be affiliated with Harvard Medical School or one of the Harvard hospitals, have at least two years of prior postdoctoral training, and be actively engaged in autism research. This fellowship is…

Students will have an unusual opportunity to polish the computing skills they need for tackling spring-semester science challenges in January. In response to demand, the new Institute for Applied Computational Science in the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) has organized workshops and seminars during Optional Winter Activities Week, Jan. 18-21, using MATLAB…

Harvard College students flocked to the Maxwell Dworkin lobby on Thursday for the fifth annual Harvard Undergraduate Research Symposium (HURS). Hosted by the Harvard College Undergraduate Research Association (HCURA), the event highlighted student research and exposed interested undergraduates to a wealth of opportunities across the sciences. It also provided a forum for students to meet…

On Dec. 16, 2010, the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard will host a one-day conference “From Watergate to WikiLeaks: Journalism and Secrecy in the New Media Age.” The WikiLeaks Iraq and Afghanistan war logs—and now the roll out of diplomatic cables—are having an enormous impact on journalism. At this conference, the Nieman Foundation will…

With a more than 16 percent reduction in both electricity and natural gas usage, Dunster/Mather dining hall was a strong competitor in Harvard’s 2009-10 Green Skillet competition. But the implementation of the kitchen’s Donation Station, which provided opportunity for staff and students to regularly swap and donate unwanted items, proved this kitchen to be the clear winner.…

As high unemployment rates and company downsizing have left many Americans discouraged and unsure of the future, community colleges across the country have experienced a tremendous surge in enrollment over the past few years, with a diverse range of students, from high school graduates to older, displaced workers, all seeking marketable skills to survive in…

Reflecting on her time as the District of Columbia’s chancellor of education, Michelle Rhee encouraged those at the Harvard Graduate School of Education to get active in the game if they want to see change in education. “We need help now,” she said. “We can’t wait 10 years for the longitudinal study.” During the discussion…

Gavin Creel, the two-time Tony Award nominee (Hair, Thoroughly Modern Millie) will be in Boston giving concerts and master classes for the weekend. He is an actor, musician, human rights activist and a great leader – leading the Hair tribe to marches in Washington D.C. and NYC. He is a respected advocate for the LGBT community and co-founder of Broadway Impact,…

The Aga Khan Award for Architecture is presented every three years in recognition of exemplary projects in communities where Muslims have a notable presence. For the 11th award cycle, five winners were announced at a ceremony held at the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar, on Nov. 24, 2010. GSD Dean Mohsen Mostafavi, Rahul…

Harvard University and the Harvard Square Business Association (HSBA) are teaming up again this holiday season to encourage the Harvard community to “think Harvard Square” and shop locally. Harvard President Drew Faust, members of the Harvard community, and the Harvard Square Business Association will kick off the annual Crimson Shops Local effort on Thursday, Dec.…

Cities are many things. Among their least appealing aspects, cities are frequently characterized by concentrations of insecurity and exploitation. Cities have also long represented promises of opportunity and liberation. Public decision-making in contemporary cities is full of conflict, and principles of justice are rarely the explicit basis for the resolution of disputes. If today’s cities…

Otger Campàs knows all about conquering language barriers. As a native of Barcelona, he grew up speaking Catalan and Spanish. While an undergraduate at the University of Barcelona, he studied the elegant language of theoretical physics. He dabbled in cooking there, too, and heard about unconventional techniques like “spherification” and “culinary foams.” In his postgraduate…

The surprise disclosure that North Korea has begun enriching uranium is yet another stark reminder of the grave threats of nuclear proliferation. On Wednesday, Dec. 1, at 6 p.m., the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum at Harvard Kennedy School will host a very timely debate on the unimaginable dangers posed by nuclear weapons, from terrorism to…

The faculty of Harvard Divinity School (HDS) voted, in  a meeting on Nov. 15, to allow Harvard University to make electronic versions of their current scholarly articles available to the public. With the vote for open access, the Divinity School faculty joined five other Harvard schools in a commitment to disseminate faculty research and scholarship…

The Harvard Foundation presented its annual Humanitarian Award to Thorbjørn Jagland, chairman of the Norwegian Noble Peace Prize Committee, and secretary general of the Council of Europe. The award, which bears the signature of the president of Harvard University, was given in recognition of Jagland’s “notable contributions to humanitarianism and the cause of peace.” While…

Before you click “print” consider this: Harvard purchases more than 2,000 tons of paper every year. Add that up and you get a pile of paper 13,333 feet tall, just 1,000 feet shy of the tallest peak in the Rockies.  A University-wide reduction of 10% in paper consumption would save enough to power 62 homes…

The Praemium Erasmianum Foundation has awarded the Erasmus Prize 2011 to Joan Busquets, architect and expert in urban development: ‘arquitecte urbanista’ (Barcelona, Spain). The thematic of the Erasmus Prize 2011 is ‘the design of public space in the city’. The prize is awarded to Joan Busquets in appreciation of his impressive and multifaceted oeuvre in…

Making fuel cells practical and affordable will not happen overnight. It may, however, not take much longer. With advances in nanostructured devices, lower operating temperatures, and the use of an abundant fuel source and cheaper materials, a group of researchers led by Shriram Ramanathan at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) are…

Harvard took America Recycles Day to the next level on Monday (Nov. 15), choosing to use the day to celebrate the annual Mt. Trashmore tradition.  One day every fall, students and staff construct the pile, which represents one day’s trash from Harvard Yard.  The idea is to educate the Harvard community about the importance of…

The Master in Design Studies program has announced two new areas of concentration for students enrolling in fall 2011: Anticipatory Spatial Practice and Critical and Strategic Conservation. Anticipatory Spatial Practice will address the inevitability of unpredictable shocks to the built and natural environment, whether due to earthquakes and floods or radical social ruptures. It acknowledges…

At 6 p.m. this evening (Tuesday, Nov. 16), the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum at the Harvard Kennedy School is hosting a conversation with three women who hold or have held top defense and security policy roles in the U.S. government over the past decade. Michele Flournoy, under secretary of defense for policy, is a former Belfer Center…

A new report – the product of an unusual collaboration between leading U.S. and Russian institutes – recommends a broad range of cooperative steps by Russia and the United States to strengthen nuclear safety, security, and nonproliferation around the world, and to develop new approaches to nuclear energy. The study, from the Belfer Center for…

Engineers from Harvard University have designed and demonstrated ice-free nanostructured materials that literally repel water droplets before they even have the chance to freeze. The finding, reported online in ACS Nano on Nov. 9, could lead to a new way to keep airplane wings, buildings, power lines, and even entire highways free of ice during…

The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard will present the Louis M. Lyons Award for Conscience and Integrity in Journalism to Somali reporter Mohamed Olad Hassan on Thursday, Nov. 18, 2010. James Fallows, a national correspondent for The Atlantic, will deliver the keynote address during the ceremony. Nieman Fellows in the class of 2011 selected…