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Leblanc was sent back down to Montreal’s AHL affiliate, the Hamilton Bulldogs, on Jan. 4.For the second time in as many games, the Harvard women’s basketball team found itself down three in the final moments. And once again, the Crimson couldn’t come through, this time falling to Yale, 68-63.The Harvard men’s hockey team looked on the verge of extending a rather unenviable program record Friday night. With a Harvard-high eight ties already in the books in the 2011-12 season, number nine appeared imminent.After two goals in the first five minutes against Yale, the Crimson didn’t stop there, netting six more over the course of the game to earn its second straight ECAC victory, 8-0.Clare Danes has come and gone, but there's still time to get the rundown on Jason Segel. Here's all you need to know about the Hasty Pudding Theatricals' 2012 Man of the Year:Round one of this year’s Harvard-Yale series failed to live up to the hype, as the Crimson pummeled the Bulldogs on their home floor, wining 65-35.The Experiment Fund, a new seed-stage investment fund, officially launched Friday with the hopes of providing budding entrepreneurs with the support and capital to build their startups.While Red Tails opened at the box office at number two, McCallum said that it was difficult for him and executive producer George Lucas to secure funding for the film, primarily because there were no white actors in leading roles.Deans representing law schools in China, Brazil, Canada, and France gathered at Harvard Law School on Friday to discuss the pressures facing law schools to reform curricula in response to globalization.Quincy House has got it going on!Remember the good old days when you asked people to school dances like prom and homecoming? Well, the time has come again! With only a week left, pull out all the stops and "go big or go home" with these ten foolproof ways to get that date.President Barack Obama spoke this week in the State of the Union message about creating "an economy built to last." Who could argue with this admirable goal? It's one all Americans should be able to get behind. But unfortunately, there's a major obstacle to making progress toward it: the judgment capacity of the US Congress. The two of us have been thinking a lot in the past year about how some organizations manage to be decisive—and wise—consistently over time. Our book, Judgment Calls: Twelve ...NEW HAVEN, Conn.—In the most highly anticipated matchup of the Ivy League season thus far, the Harvard men's basketball team travels to Yale's John J. Amphitheater to take on the Bulldogs. Follow the action live here!The Berkman Buzz is selected weekly from the posts of Berkman Center people and projects . To subscribe, click here . Berkman's currently accepting applications for our Summer 2012 Internship Program ! Also! We have a new Nieman-Berkman Fellowship in Journalism Innovation . Jonathan Zittrain hosts Computers Gone Wild Computers Gone Wild: Impact and Implications of Developments in Artificial Intelligence on Society was an informal discussion that took place at Harvard Law School on December 8th, 2011. ...Google has been self-destructive recently. Last weekend, Google was exposed by engineers from Twitter, Facebook, and mySpace for interfering with their search results. Instead of apologizing and vowing to protect the sanctity of search, this week Larry Page announced that Google will soon integrate its products even further. On March 1st , Google will change its privacy agreement to allow the company to collect and unify user data across all its web properties. There is no opting out. Whether you want it ...Senior defensive tackle Josue Ortiz was recently selected to play in the Players All-Star Classic on Feb. 4 in Little Rock, Ark. Add it to the list of accolades for the Harvard MVP, Ivy League defensive player of the year, and member of six national All-America teams.Today, the Experiment Fund, a new seed-stage investment fund, opens its doors with backing from storied venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates (NEA). Designed specifically to support student start-ups and nurture novel technologies and platforms created in Cambridge (or by innovators educated in Cambridge), the Experiment Fund will eventually include additional strategic angel investors and advisers.You could, in theory , take a yoga class; listen to Johnstone
Family professor of psychology Steven Pinker talk about his new book, The Better Angels of Our Nature (and
possibly snag a signed copy); attend computer science and entrepreneurship
seminars at Hack Harvard , the new tech incubator; take a spoken-word poetry
workshop; learn the “house” style of hip hop—and that would just be Monday. This January, the College had a weeklong “Wintersession.” Official options ranged from the Winter ...The Digital Media Law Project (DMLP), assisted by Harvard Law School’s Cyberlaw Clinic, last week asked the Massachusetts Appeals Court to reject a claim of trademark infringement based on the use of a company’s name in metadata on a web page containing speech about that company. DMLP submitted an amicus curiae brief (PDF) to the Massachusetts Appeals Court in the case of Jenzabar, Inc. v. Long Bow Group Inc . The case concerns a website operated by defendant Long Bow Group, Inc., in connection with ...Employee happiness is becoming a hot topic among CEOs and in boardrooms, and it's about time. The current issue of Harvard Business Review , which includes a series of articles focused on employee happiness , is just one more sign of the growing recognition that happy, engaged employees are more productive and generate better outcomes for their companies. But there's also a risk in all this attention to "happiness." Happiness for its own sake is not the right outcome to seek. If you want happy employees, ...Last week, I moderated a "Super Session" at this year's annual National Retail Federation " Big Show ." Seated with me on stage at one end of a long and cavernous room in New York's Javits Center, my panelists were Jennifer Hyman of Rent The Runway and Doug Mack of One Kings Lane . To say that Boeing could have built its next 787 Dreamliner in this space would be no understatement. I suspect that the nearly 4,000 registrants attending our "intimate" session would have agreed. The panel made one thing ...Who are you when you go online? That's a question that goes way beyond how you feel in your own virtual skin, and affects how we perceive and relate to one another in the world of social media. I recently gave a TEDx talk based on my HBR post, 10 Reasons to Stop Apologizing for Your Online Life . When that talk appeared on sites like The Atlantic and Slate , the comment threads revealed that many people have already embraced their online lives as real — which is why we need to stop using the acronym ...For the past two and half years, we have been interviewing executives in multinationals around the world about their biggest challenges. One recent interview stood out. Tomas* is a regional vice president in Santiago, Chile He works for a European company with operations throughout the globe. When we met, he expressed deep frustration with his home office in Germany. Executives there had repeatedly shut down his attempts to develop a modified product for the Latin America market. Despite the negative ...Published: January 27, 2012 Paper Released: December 2011 Authors: Adam M. Kleinbaum, Toby E. Stuart, and Michael L. Tushman Executive Summary: Research has demonstrated that people associate most with others who are similar to themselves, including others of the same sex. What are the implications of such patterns for organizations? This study, written by Adam M. Kleinbaum, Toby E. Stuart, and Michael L. Tushman, offers evidence of how and by whom formal lateral structures serve to link together an ...I don't know who this blogger is, but his or her first post is called " Mankiw is right.Buffett is wrong ." And heorsheputs the argument well (although Imay not beobjective here).In Occupy Harvard’s latest attempt to maintain visibility on campus, approximately 40 students, University employees, and locals accelerated the movement’s next phase, known as Occupy 2.0, with a march around Harvard Yard on Wednesday.Yale quarterback Patrick Witt, who attracted national attention when he faced a decision between playing in the Nov. 19 Harvard-Yale football game or attending an interview for a Rhodes Scholarship, reportedly did not have a choice at all.Students’ learning does not correlate with the education level or experience of their teachers, Graduate School of Education professor Thomas J. Kane said Thursday in a panel discussion at the School of Education.More than 30 volunteers—equipped with blankets, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and scarves—fanned out through Cambridge and Somerville at 2 a.m. Thursday morning to carry out the annual Cambridge Homeless Census, a count that Congress mandates that local homeless service organizations conduct in order to receive funding.There’s something to be said about a conference of well-matched opponents.It is easier to gain early admission to Harvard College than get into a class with Harry Potter on the syllabus. While Harvard College admitted 18 percent of its early applicants in December, Professor Maria Tatar only admitted 10.5 percent of interested students to her class Folklore and Mythology 90i: “Fairy Tales and Fantasy Literature.”The last two times the No. 23 Harvard men’s basketball team has stepped foot in Payne Whitney Gymnasium in New Haven, the result has been, well, pain. A lot of it.Although the Harvard women’s basketball team already played its first Ivy League game of the year against Dartmouth on Jan. 14, this weekend marks the official opening weekend of Ancient Eight play.Claire Danes realized Harvard was home not just to bookworms but also to drag queens on Thursday during the Hasty Pudding Theatricals’ 2012 Woman of the Year celebration.Evan M. O’Dorney ’15 scribbles on a white board in a cramped Canaday single strewn with laundry and empty peanut butter jars. His face lights up as he demonstrates how to identify patterns using colorful, maze-like diagrams that he has constructed.Edith M. Stokey ’44 had a good memory. When the Harvard Kennedy School needed to compile a personnel database a few years ago, Stokey, though in her mid-80s, was up for the challenge.The internet age has created an unprecedented situation in which government censorship is actually catalyzing creativity.In order to maintain the vitality of this storied rivalry in the absence of alcohol, we ought to compete in something at which both schools really do excel.A new study produced by Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society and the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, in partnership with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Give Foundation, examines a new cohort of charitable givers—those who make donations via text message from their cellphones.If you're still unsure about classes, take a look at some of these steadfast courses that are popular year after year. Although they may not be the easiest, without fail, these classes consistently fill up lecture halls.With the Harvard men’s basketball team traveling to New Haven Friday night to take on the Bulldogs in what has ...With the Harvard men’s basketball team traveling to New Haven Friday night to take on the Bulldogs in what has ...Ice skating is cool, but ice skating with the knowledge that s'mores are available nearby (for free) is even cooler. Beginning tomorrow evening, Harvard Skate is introducing "Skate & S'mores," a weekly event that is set to take place each Friday and continue through Mar. 2, weather permitting.Noice - 1 day agoSort of. “I just couldn’t stand the school,” she said, upon being asked why she quit Yale college after two years of enrollment. But of course, all in good humor. “Nah, school just wasn’t for me. I had too much on my plate.” “Harvard is an awesome place!” She commented. “I’ve met so many fun, [...]Harvard Law School Professor Elizabeth Warren took her campaign for Massachusetts junior U.S. Senator onto the airways Tuesday night with an important message. "The Pats are gonna spank the Giants," Warren declared on "The Daily Show" with Jon Stewart.Boston Globe sportswriter Bob Ryan sits down with The Crimson to talk Harvard hoops and Ivy League basketball. Check out ...An anonymous commenter asked how we evaluate faculty applications. While it's a little late, it's a valid question, so here are some high-level thoughts. Here I'm speaking only for myself, of course. First, I should point out that ideally, we're not reading your application from scratch -- we already know you. We've seen you give a talk we like, or enjoyed one of your papers, or otherwise formed a (positive) impression. The most important things you can do when applying come well before you write up ...After we crowned Andrew Campbell as the top male athlete of 2011, we now turn our attention to the women’s side. First up, golf’s Bonnie Hu v. lacrosse’s Jennifer VanderMeulen and field hockey’s Cynthia Tassopoulos v. two-sport athlete Mel Baskind.An interview with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar , basketball legend, New York Times best-selling author, and filmmaker. For more, read the Life's Work section in the January-February issue of HBR . Download this podcastAfter his triple-double in his first game with the D-League Erie Bayhawks, Jeremy Lin '10 was once again recalled to the injury-plagued New York Knicks. And unlike previous poor performances in a Knicks jersey, this time Lin made a stronger case for staying up in the NBA, scoring eight points while tallying four assists on Jan. 24.Showered with teddy bears , flowers, and kisses from members
of Hasty Pudding Theatricals ,
actress Claire Danes paraded
through Harvard Square today as she was honored as the eccentric
drama group’s “Woman
of the Year.” Danes, who just won a Golden Globe for her portrayal of Carrie
Mathison on the hit Showtime series Homeland , waved and smiled to an animated crowd gathered on Massachusetts Avenue
before entering Farkas
Hall ,where she accepted her Pudding Pot. She joins the ranks
of previous ...Students in Harvard’s Graduate School of Education convened last week to examine how to address some of the world’s educational challenges.The Eli and Edythe L. Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT today announced that it has received a $32.5 million grant from the Boston-based Klarman Family Foundation to support a new collaborative effort focused on deciphering how human cells are wired.Few companies faced bigger self-created challenges in 2011 than Netflix. Last summer the company tried to split itself in two, creating separate websites and pricing structures for its legacy DVD-by-mail business and its newer, growing streaming video service. Consumers and the media went nuts; company founder Reed Hastings was even parodied on Saturday Night Live . The company ultimately scrapped the dual-website plan but stuck with the price increase. In response, the company's stock cratered, and some ...People have different natural talents at interviewing for jobs . But even the most talented can fail to get offers if they don't prepare. This goes beyond arriving on time, dressing professionally, being polite, and preparing to discuss every detail of your resume. Of course, these things are important. But get ready for interviews in a way that makes you stand out. Adopt a different mindset — theirs. An employer's purpose is to help determine who best fits the job opening and who will improve the ...Claire Danes, who has won back-to-back Golden Globe awards as Best Actress, can now add another trophy to her collection, the Hasty Pudding Theatricals’ Pudding Pot, which she received today following a Harvard tour, parade, and traditional roast.For the first time in five years, Harvard College has seen a dip in applications.Applications to the College have leveled off after five consecutive years of record numbers. A total of 34,285 applications were received, down from last year’s record 34,950. Two years ago 30,489 applied; 10 years ago 18,932 applied.I usually go for a walk in the morning and listen to music or a dharma talk. Occasionally I listen to nothing (or so it would appear by the absence of earbuds), but then I find the chatter of my mind so nauseating that I have to do something to stop it. This morning I was more present than usual. I noticed things in the real world that in the past two years of walking I have noticed not once: that the fire hydrants on our street are red. That the street next to ours has old-fashioned black Victorian ...Harvard College received 34,285 applications for admission
to the class of 2016, about 2 percent fewer than the 34,950 received last year.
According to the College’s news release, William R. Fitzsimmons, dean of
admissions and financial aid, attributed the decline, after a half-decade of
steady increases, to a pair of factors: The
return of Early Action [with notice of decisions in December]
here and at Princeton and the University of Virginia may have led more students
to make their college choices ...The United States earlier this month moved to restore full diplomatic relations with MyanmarWhen we talk about natural resource constraints on business — such as shortages in water or increases in the cost of energy or agricultural products — we tend to forget how deeply intertwined these commodities are. In the business community, just as in a natural ecosystem, an individual organism (in this case a company) is vulnerable to changes in the availability of these systemic inputs. The risks are greater than we realize because the availability of any of these key resources deeply ...Wynton Marsalis continues his two-year lecture series at Harvard with an exploration of root styles of American music in Sanders Theatre on Feb. 6.Tom Kelly, general manager of IDEO , the world-renowned design firm, likes to quote French novelist Marcel Proust, who famously said, "The real act of discovery consists not in finding new lands but in seeing with new eyes." What goes for novelists goes for leaders searching to craft a novel strategy for their company, a new product for their customers, or a better way to organize their employees. In a world that never stops changing, great leaders never stop learning. Today, the challenge for leaders at ...The Yale football program has reportedly hired four of Harvard’s nine football coaches. The Elis’ biggest move was recruiting Tony Reno as their new head football coach. He will replace Tom Williams, who resigned abruptly in December after three seasons, following the exposure of lies he included on his résumé and on the officialYale website to the effect that he had been a Rhodes scholarship finalist and had been on the San Francisco 49ers roster in 1993. Reno joined the Harvard program in ...The original value proposition of the library was not just free books but something more, something I learned as a seven-year-old at the Dunbar Public Library in Vancouver, B.C. The library looked like dumpy, public architecture but it was in fact a house of many mansions, a place of possibility, a portal. Space travel, time travel, identity travel, you name it, the library could do take you there. But other media can make the same promise. The dominance of radio, TV, and Hollywood threatened libraries ...A Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) study published in
the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests that exposure
to prevalent household chemicals may lower children’s immune responses to
vaccines. This is the first published study to find that exposure to perfluorinated
compounds (PFCs)—chemicals commonly used in manufactured products such as
nonstick cookware, waterproof clothing, and fast-food packaging, as well as in
furniture, stain-resistant carpeting, and microwave popcorn ...Senior executives tend to think about corporate culture as a topic that's hard to measure and hard to change. As a result, many choose not to invest in it despite all the evidence that, when skillfully managed, culture can be a powerful and enduring source of competitive advantage. ANZ Bank offers an example: a decade ago, the bank embarked on an effort described as a "unique plan of eschewing traditional growth strategies and recasting the culture of the bank to lift efficiency and earnings." In the ...The Silk Road Ensemble concluded its January Harvard residence with a Learning From Performers concert featuring four newly commissioned works.As a new generation of leaders rises through the ranks of large enterprises, their experience will be markedly different from their elders'—especially with respect to how quickly they are asked to lead "globally." Many will find themselves responsible early in their careers for the work of teams in and from places far from home. To be effective, they will have to master a concept that few leaders today are even familiar with: human capital maturity. The fact is, from one economy to the next, there ...How do you quantify your life? Philosophers and poets have long suggested the benefits of quantification. In heeding their advice today you can do a lot more than simply measure out your life with coffee spoons, to borrow a line from T.S. Eliot . For instance, millions of consumers now use NikePlus devices to carefully track the miles, speeds, and calories burned during their evening jogs. Nike believes so strongly in the growth and profitability of the "auto-analytic" market that it it's about to launch a ...Kodak's filing for Chapter 11 protection has gotten a great deal of attention. Much has been said about the causes of the fall of an iconic brand . And there has been a good deal of speculation over whether and how Kodak will be able to rebuild. Lessons for leaders abound in these stories, but we see another sort of cautionary tale — a human one. The people who dedicated years and even decades of their lives to Kodak are experiencing a seismic loss. Some employees are speaking out about the pain ..."...most often the very skills that propel an organization to succeed in sustaining circumstances systematically bungle the best ideas for disruptive growth. An organization's capabilities become its disabilities when disruption is afoot."
– Clayton Christensen, The Innovator's Solution In November 2005, Paul Graham wrote an essay titled " The Venture Capital Squeeze ." It had been over five years since the Nasdaq peaked in March 2000, and it was becoming apparent that VC firms were having trouble ...At the Jan. 25 meeting of the Faculty Council, its members approved the 2012-13 faculty meeting schedule.Every well trained manager knows about the "four P's" of marketing. To make a sale, a company must offer the right product to meet customers' needs, and at the right price . It has to be offered in a place they find convenient and, in order for them to know about it and how it can help them, it has to be promoted well. New research by my colleagues and me, however, suggests that another "P" is growing in importance. Customers also care who the parent of the product is. Provided with plenty of comparable ...Published: January 26, 2012 Paper Released: January 2012 Authors: Max H. Bazerman and Francesca Gino Executive Summary: What makes even good people cross ethical boundaries? Society demands that business and professional schools address ethics, but the results have been disappointing. This paper argues that a behavioral approach to ethics is essential because it leads to understanding and explaining moral and immoral behavior in systematic ways. The authors first define business ethics and provide an ...Alexander J. Spencer ’15 was attacked by a dog as he walked onto JFK Street at 3 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon.Since Harvard University Library announced last week that its upcoming reorganization would include downsizing staff, workers have circulated several petitions against the layoffs and picketed on Wednesday outside of a regularly scheduled meeting for library staff members.Athletes have long been making ill-advised comments to the media, but in earlier days, they seemed to be the victims. It was the reporters who clawed for sound bites; athletes were simply foolish enough to respond.If the Crimson is going to find sustained success, it will need to find stability at goalie. Enter freshman Steve Michalek.On Friday night, the Crimson makes its first trip to Yale’s home court since the Tigers prolonged Harvard’s NCAA tournament drought in heartbreaking fashion.After being bested by Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah for the past two years, Harvard regained its position atop of U.S. News and World Report's rankings as the most popular national university among college applicants.Especially when public discourse seems to demand a new sense of civility after years of hostile rhetoric, such attacks cannot continue into this election cycle.It can hardly be said that Harvard is socioeconomically homogeneous but it would still be a stretch to call it socioeconomically diverse.As members of the Harvard community, we all have the opportunity to urge Harvard faculty and administrators to regard charges of animal cruelty with the utmost seriousness and to recognize our institution as a leading university that should set an example for many other institutions.If you support the BDS movement, you are supporting an organization that is actively working to undermine the Jewish state.The celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day at Harvard Law School on Monday, Jan. 23 included a panel moderated by Harvard Law School Clinical Professor Ronald Sullivan ’94, and featuring Harvard Medical School Professor Allen Counter and Preston Williams, a theology professor at Harvard Divinity School. Students from across the University, including students from the Medical School, the Divinity School, the Kennedy School, the Business School, and Harvard College attended the celebration.Harvard Law School Professor Laurence Tribe is among the leading scholars and writers featured in the latest volume of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ journal Daedalus , entitled "On the American Narrative."After being bested by Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah for the past two years, Harvard regained its position atop of U.S. News and World Report's rankings as the most popular national university among college applicants.Researchers from Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital found that exposure to high levels of iodide—widely given intravenously to patients for medical imaging procedures—is associated with an increased risk of thyroid disease.For six months, the students of the Harvard Ceramics Program constructed a nine-piece mural to decorate the bare walls of a local hospital. On Wednesday night, the artists and their friends gathered to admire the recently-installed work.President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday night discussed issues of concern at Harvard, including the rising cost of college tuition nationwide and challenges faced by undocumented students.Flyby has it: 13 of the best, worst, and otherwise exceptional notes from the State of the Union.The Harvard Pre-Collegiate Economics Challenge is a competition for high school students studying APeconomics.It is run by Harvard undergraduates and features one of my favorite economists as a guest speaker.This year it will be held on Saturday, March 31, 2012 from 9 am to 5 pm. If you are interested in more informationabout this event, click here .The first phase of a multimillion dollar project meant to increase wheelchair accessibility to the Harvard MBTA station came to a close on Thursday with the opening of a new elevator in Brattle Square, leaving behind a legacy of frustration during the 17-month-long project.Around this time of year, I get a number of messages from students: I want to take your class, but there's a conflict with this other class I want to take, what can be done... Sometimes a solution can be worked out, sometimes not. It's not an easy issue to deal with. In Computer Science, we take a look at our own schedule of classes, and try to make sure there aren't any particularly bad time conflicts among our own classes, although inevitably there are some hopefully minor ones. Then we try to look ...HUHDS, we love this semester's new culinary offerings (daily fruit bar, anyone?). But we don't quite understand today's dinner entrée, "Portabella w/ Quinoa Stuff." Is that the newest abbreviation of "stuffing?" Or were there simply no other words to describe the healthy grain?While working away on my laptop at a hotel breakfast, I couldn't help but overhear the four gentlemen poring over an iPad two tables way. Their intense discussion revolved around rolling out their high-tech prototypes in a medical care complex. Since I've written about prototypes and prototyping , I couldn't help but eavesdrop. Forgive me. The foursome represented a mix of medical care complex personnel and what was clearly an entrepreneurial innovator with a potentially high-impact idea. I'll skip the ...Reading HBR's List of Audacious Ideas is the perfect way to start 2012. The sharp recession triggered by the 2008 financial crisis and the uncertainty created by the 2011 debt crisis have fundamentally reset the world. The new reality is austerity. But that should only be fiscal reality. Businesses, sitting on trillions in cash, seem to be using the economic environment as an excuse to build into their business a kind of strategic austerity that is inappropriate. In fact, when there are severe resource ...Data-driven managers, departments, and organizations have always enjoyed distinct advantages. The data-driven have crafted the best strategies, uncovered wholly new markets, and kept operational costs low. Today, advances in predictive analytics and the potential for big data portend even greater opportunity. Count us among the biggest enthusiasts for continual progress in these and related areas. Indeed, we think every organization must develop and execute an aggressive plan to put data to work. But the ...Wouldn't it be nice, Francis Fukuyama writes in an article called " The Future of History " in the current issue of Foreign Affairs , if some "obscure scribbler ... in a garret somewhere" would "outline an ideology of the future that could provide a realistic path toward a world with healthy middle-class societies and robust democracies." This ideology, Fukuyama goes on: could not begin with a denunciation of capitalism as such, as if old-fashioned socialism were still a viable alternative. It is more the ...The University’s comprehensive new policy on whistleblowing aims to make reporting legal or ethical breaches both safe and easy for all members of the Harvard community.With the so-called Buffet Rule in the news, investor Dal LaMagna (MBA 1970) ponders taxes and the 99 Percent. Read More >Across campus, students participated in a series of arts intensives during January’s Wintersession that let them tap their creative talents.Perfluorinated compounds (PFCs), widely used in manufactured products such as non-stick cookware, waterproof clothing, and fast-food packaging, were associated with lowered immune response to vaccinations in children in research led by Philippe Grandjean of the Harvard School of Public Health.The social networks of the Hadza, a group of hunter-gatherers in Tanzania, show evidence that many elements of social network structure may have been present at an early point in human history."I want to be out of this job tomorrow" is a statement I've heard all too often as a career coach. We're bombarded every day by the idea of overnight transformation, instant career gratification. The media loves the A to Z candidate — you know, the guy who left his job as an accountant on a Friday and started work as a zookeeper on the Monday. We're fuelled by stories of people who suddenly made it, who unexpectedly broke through. We see only the slightly shocked expression on the face of the ...Editor's Note: This fictionalized case study will appear in a forthcoming issue of Harvard Business Review, along with commentary from experts and readers. If you'd like your comment to be considered for publication, please be sure to include your full name, company or university affiliation, and email address. As Tommy Bamford and Jane Oldenburg drove into the visitor section of Westmid Builders' car park, Jane pointed out the man they had come to see: Steve Houghton, Westmid's purchasing executive. He ...When it comes to employee development, most companies traditionally follow the 10/80/10 rule : The top 10 percent are promoted, the middle 80 percent are nurtured and the bottom 10 percent are let go. At my company, Mu Sigma, we followed this advice at first too. But we found that we were losing too many from the middle 80 percent: people who had great potential were leaving because they weren't getting promoted quickly enough. We had accidentally created a culture where promotions and raises — ...In 2001, Peter Drucker wrote in The Economist that "businesspeople stand on the threshold of the knowledge society. In this society, a company's competitive advantage will come from an historically underdeveloped asset: the ability to capture and apply insights from diverse fields." It's a compelling argument. But our research at ECSI suggests that very few CEOs have actually bought into it. According to a CEO survey we recently, creating the ability to generate strategic insight (which we defined as a ...You might think that the corporate human resources function doesn't have much of a role in improving business processes, such as product development, operations, customer service, or distribution. But I've found that it does. HR can propel or inhibit process improvement because it has an outsized influence on people: how they are recruited, rewarded, and developed. In organizations like IBM, Lowe's, and Harvard Vanguard where HR has accelerated change, it has emerged from its compliance and administrative ...Harvard Extension School has great career resources for students, whether you are a degree candidate or simply taking a course for pleasure. Maureen Worth, a special projects associate in Academic and Student Services shares a few of the career services here. 1. Career counseling The Extension School offers career counseling for all registered students. Linda [...]Have you ever been confronted with your privilege? I recently was, when a former INSEAD student told me that his MBA class would recognize my teaching with an award. It meant a lot, and I promised on the spot to attend the graduation ceremony and accept the honor in person. I was away from campus, so I made travel arrangements and decided to treat myself to an evening in Paris before the event. Making the reservations though, alongside the excitement and gratitude, I experienced a tinge of something else. ...Berkman Events Newsletter Template Upcoming Events and Digital Media January 25, 2012 Remember to load images if you have trouble seeing parts of this email. Or click here to view the web version of this newsletter. Below you will find upcoming Berkman Center events, interesting digital media we have produced, and other events of note. Special Note: The Berkman Center is currently accepting applications for our Summer 2012 Internship Program! berkman luncheon series Designing for Remixing: ...Award-winning producer, director, and writer Helen Whitney will deliver this year’s William Belden Noble Lectures at the Memorial Church.Francesca Bewer has won the 2012 College Art Association/Heritage Preservation Award for Distinction in Scholarship and Conservation.I learned the critical importance of networking, and discovered my natural aversion to it, early in my career. I was a new college graduate working in the strategic planning division of a $10 billion company, and our business unit had been invited to a retirement party for one of the top executives. The gentleman retiring was someone I'd looked up to during my brief tenure, and I wanted him to know he'd made an impact on me. While I wanted to attend the party, as an introvert I usually avoided these types ...Published: January 25, 2012 Author: Michael Blanding It's a truism for many that in American politics money buys influence. In one recent poll, 75 percent of respondents said they believed "money buys results in Congress." But the question of whose money and what results is not so easy to answer. There's hardly a straight line to be drawn in the twisted web of Washington fundraising and lobbying that can definitively prove dollar x bought result y . Perhaps that's why there has been such little empirical ...Published: January 25, 2012 Paper Released: January 2012 Authors: Maria Guadalupe, Hongyi Li, and Julie Wulf Executive Summary: The size of a CEO's executive team has increased dramatically in recent decades, but little has been known about its composition. Using a rich dataset of US firms from 1986 to 2006, this paper documents the dramatic increase in the number of functional managers in the executive team. The size of the team in these firms doubled over the time period from five to 10 positions, with ...A few years ago, Thomas Friedman eloquently said that " the world is flat ." Technology and globalization have made commerce a far more level playing field than it was many decades ago. The internet has unlocked opportunities, giving businesses access to previously unreachable customers. There's a sense of equal opportunity in markets, with geographical and historical knowledge becoming more and more irrelevant. From business schools to boardrooms, building global leaders has been identified as a crucial ...1. Last night President Obama continuedhis misleading claimsabout Warren Buffett's tax rate. David Leonhardt recalls that I rebutted thoseclaims several years ago. David usefully asks for a response to myrebuttal from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal-leaning research group in Washington. Chuck Marr, the center’s director of federal tax policy, emailed David back. Click through the link above, and read carefully what Mr Marr has to say. Does it respond to my arguments? No, ...For immediate release: Wednesday, January 25, 2012 Left to right: Lauren Robertson, Jordan Gallinetti, James Mitchell, Pedro Mejia, Eylul Harputlugil Boston, MA — Limiting certain essential nutrients for several days before surgery—either protein or amino acids—may reduce the risk of serious surgical complications such as heart attack or stroke, according to a new Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) study. The study appears in the January 25, 2012 issue of Science Translational ...In light of the recent death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and the shift of power to his son Kim Jong-un, a panel of Harvard professors said that fears of internal collapse in North Korea have not been realized.A sizeable minority of patients diagnosed with lung and colorectal cancer continued smoking after their diagnosis, according to a recent Harvard Medical School study published in the journal Cancer.After an Allentown city councilman resigned mid-term, Harvard graduate Brad M. Paraszczak ’11 has applied for the vacant seat in his Pennsylvania hometown.About 350 people—Democrats, Republicans, and independents alike—watched President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address together at the Institute of Politics on Tuesday night.The University’s plans to reduce the size of the Harvard University Library workforce drew criticism Tuesday from library workers and the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers.When students returning from winter break walked into the basement of Cabot House’s E entryway, they were met not by the familiar aroma of coffee but by the sights and sounds of a construction zone.This week, University President Drew G. Faust discussed single-sex education, public health, and the importance of a liberal arts model at institutions in Mumbai and Delhi.Harvard football looked golden two months ago. It had just won the program’s 14th Ivy title in dominant fashion—the heavyweight champ taking on a field of lightweights. It had steamrolled to an easy 45-7 win at the Yale Bowl, embarrassing the Bulldogs en route to its 10th win in 11 Games. But then, slowly, things started to unravel.During the Harvard men’s basketball team’s 54-38 win over Dartmouth on Saturday, One of the team’s seven rookies led the Crimson It wasn’t Kenyatta Smith—ESPN’s 17th ranked center from the high school class of 2011—nor Wesley Saunders—who committed to Harvard over offers from USC, San Diego State, and Colorado. It was Corbin Miller, a 6’2 point guard from Sandy, Utah.After dropping a tight third set in its season opener, the Harvard men’s volleyball team buckled down and defeated Endicott, 3-1, in Beverly, Mass., on Tuesday night.The UN’s new focus on LGBT rights should be used to offer support to local activists and governments, not to perpetuate economic and social inequalities.It’s rather unfair that liberals have had to take on the baggage of the far left.In order to provide the services that push the boundaries of knowledge forward, the libraries may have to shed some workers.Clean energy development and investments in energy efficiency would create hundreds of thousands of jobs and save us billions of dollars.While shopping period often finds students flocking to classes with high Q scores and reliable old favorites, the following new courses are worth checking out.The State of the Union is taking place tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. To assist you with your viewing pleasure, Flyby has compiled a list of various screening events across campus.In his HBS application, Gerald Chertavian outlined his vision for a program to support low-income, at-risk youth. In 2000, his idea became a reality with the launch of Year Up. Read More >Many nations are watching the succession of Kim Jong-un to the leadership of North Korea, hoping a smooth transition will lead to economic reforms and opportunities to limit the further development of nuclear weapons, a Harvard panel said.video platform video management video solutions video player Cody Phipps , president and CEO of United Stationers, on defining shared goals.How and why do nonexperts contribute to innovation? The conflict between expertise and innovation sits uneasily in academia, where the enterprise hinges on doling out official credentials. But a lack of expertise can in fact drive people to create the kind of disruptive technologies that really are game-changers. In this presentation Beth Kolko — Professor [...]How and why do nonexperts contribute to innovation? The conflict between expertise and innovation sits uneasily in academia, where the enterprise hinges on doling out official credentials. But a lack of expertise can in fact drive people to create the kind of disruptive technologies that really are game-changers. In this presentation Beth Kolko — Professor [...]Apple recently got lots of press for its move into textbook publishing, but its move was secondary to another announcement made a few weeks earlier. On January 3, Khan Academy announced that Vi Hart would be moving to Mountain View and joining its team. The Khan Academy, founded by Salman Khan (a former hedge fund manager), is a not-for-profit, online venture that is currently revolutionizing K-12 education. If you want to know how, here is the obligatory TED video . With over 4 million unique users each ...Hot on the heels of celebrating an Oscar
nomination (Best Song) for his most recent
film, The Muppets , actor Jason Segel has been named Hasty Pudding Man of the Year, joining
actress Claire Danes , who was named Woman of the Year last week. The How I Met Your Mother star will receive the
annual honor from America’s oldest undergraduate drama club, Hasty Pudding
Theatricals (HPT), on February 3 during an invitation-only dinner followed by a roast
that starts at 8 p.m. “Segel has brilliantly ...Brad* is as hard a worker as anyone I know. He's not just busy, he's keenly focused on getting the right things done. And it pays off — he is the largest single revenue generator at his well-known professional services firm. A few days before Thanksgiving, Brad flew from Boston to Los Angeles with his family. He was going to work for the first few days and then relax with his family. During the flight, he decided not to use the plane's internet access, choosing to talk and play with his children ...Stop making to-do lists. They're simply setting you up for failure and frustration. Consider the to-do lists you're currently managing: how many items have been languishing since Michelle Bachman was leading the field for the Republican nomination? How often do you scan your list just so that you can pick off the ones you can finish in two minutes? How many items aren't really to-dos at all, but rather serious projects that require significant planning? There are five fundamental problems with to-do lists ...New research at Harvard explains how bacterial biofilms expand on teeth, pipes, surgical instruments, and crops.I arrived in Davos several hours ago, amid daunting traffic, driving snow, and intense security, to participate in my first World Economic Forum . Honestly, I'm kind of amazed to be here. Nine years ago, when I launched The Energy Project during an economic boom, it was nearly impossible to find senior leaders open to the idea that demand was exceeding people's capacity, and that it was critical to the bottom line to teach employees new ways to manage their energy more skillfully. Today, there is a dawning ...Have you ever seen a young child try to dress himself? For my three-year old grandson, the buttons are most difficult. He concentrates on each as though it's the world's most important problem and only he can solve it. And while his determination to do it himself is admirable, the result is often a late start to the day and a shirt with undone buttons. It's easy to smile at a three-year-old who refuses to ask for help. But how do we deal with colleagues who exhibit the same behavior — who insist on ... Tuesday, January 24, 6:00PM Austin North Classroom, Austin Hall, Harvard Law School Free and Open to the Public Co-sponsored by the Harvard Law School Library and the Office of the Senior Associate Provost for the Library at Harvard University Reception to follow Special guests will include: Ann Blai r , Mary Lee Kennedy , Ethan Zuckerman , and more! We used to know how to know. Get some experts, maybe a methodology, add some criteria and credentials, publish the results, and you get knowledge we can ...In a paper published last year, Harvard professors David Laibson and Brigitte Madrian argued that employers should design investment menus for their employees that facilitate good choices, “rather than assuming that giving people every option under the sun will lead to the right decision." The report, co-authored with James Choi of Yale, was recently honored with the TIAA-CREF Paul A. Samuelson Award.Consider two hypothetical restaurants: type one and type two. Restaurant type one: Imagine yourself wandering the streets of a new city. You could be on Ocean Drive in South Beach, or Piazza Navona in Rome. You're thinking about dinner, and you come across a restaurant conveniently located on a busy stretch of street. Outside, it displays its panoply of meal choices in wax replica splendor, or "freshly cooked" under Saran wrap. On the sidewalk, an aspiring tan model flanks a manager-host, who wears a loud ...You may remember I posted a blog here on HBR.org when the television series Undercover Boss premiered a few years ago. Each episode followed a CEO, disguised and unrecognized, working in often-difficult, first-line jobs in their organization, with the audience enjoying a view of how (and how much) the CEO learned along the way. We saw each CEO struggle as fellow employees do with difficulties that are often of the company's own making, such as inconsistent service, ill-conceived workplace rules, or ...January saw HUPD getting the usual bizarre dispatches, though it's been a quiet month overall. Theft and suspicious activity are down, as are noise complaints (the month's sole loud party was thrown in Adams.) As part of our Securitas Series, we've combed through recent HUPD logs and published some of the more colorful entries below.HKS alumna Kahlil Byrd is the CEO of Americans Elect, a group which aims to bring change to Washington by breaking down the biggest barrier to running for president – ballot access.Here is the memo that Larry Summers sent to President Obama when the 2009 stimulus package was being debated. It was originally confidential, but somehow it has recently been made public and is now going viral. I make a brief cameo appearance on page 11: "Greg Mankiw is the only economist we have consulted with who refused to name a number and was generally skeptical about stimulus." I explained my skepticism here . Of course, the fact that I was "the only economist" expressing skepticism reflects the ...A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to be interviewed for a national radio program. But amidst the Facebook "likes" from my friends and congratulatory emails, a message arrived in my inbox from a woman I had known casually in college. "Dorie, this was a huge fail," she began. She interpreted my commentary about search engine optimization techniques as aiding and abetting a politician she disagreed with, noting that I was "reprehensible" and adding for good measure, "Please take me off your lists. I'm ...A summary of changes in Harvard University Housing rental rates for 2012-13.Six new fellows will join the Shorenstein Center this spring.I posed this question to a group of executives in a successful Asian-headquartered bank during a recent consulting engagement: "Considering for the moment only our current set of employees, where do we devote development resources to get the leadership talent we will need in the next three to five years?" The bank operates in almost 20 Asian countries, employs tens of thousands of employees and makes very good returns on a substantial asset base. The company's strategy is to take full advantage of being a ...I was struck last week by a review of Inside Apple , the book by Adam Lashinsky that promises to decode the secrets of Apple's success. The review summarizes what sets Apple apart from other companies: a relentless product focus, a culture of delivery, and an extraordinary marketing engine that communicates the magic of each new Apple offer. But as the review rightly notes, "Many managers would lay claim to being inspired by the same or similar goals, The difference with the Apple that Jobs created is that ...Baruch Lev teaches accounting and finance at NYU's Stern School of Business. He's a man of strong opinions, generally backed up by lots and lots of research. Last year I got to edit his book, Winning Investors Over , and an accompanying HBR article, " How to Win Investors Over ." And I couldn't resist following up with an email Q&A: Justin Fox: A lot of smart people have been saying for a while now that public-company executives should put less time and effort into dealing with Wall Street. Your book ...Tuesday, January 24, 12:30 pm Berkman Center, 23 Everett Street, second floor This event will be webcast live at 12:30 pm ET and archived on our site shortly after. This talk describes two projects that tackle the same issue: how and why do nonexperts contribute to innovation? The conflict between expertise and innovation sits uneasily in academia, where the enterprise hinges on doling out official credentials. But a lack of expertise can in fact drive people to create the kind of disruptive technologies ...The economics of corruption The study of corruption has one glaring problem: the difficulty obtaining data upon which to base conclusions. Shawn A. Cole and Anh Tran add to the research literature of corruption by analyzing actual internal records of firms that paid bribes in an Asian developing country. The work, they report, provides "new estimates of corruption and study its relationship with organizational ownership." Their book chapter, "Evidence from the Firm: A New Approach to Understanding ...Published: January 24, 2012 Paper Released: December 2011 Authors: Sergio G. Lazzarini, Aldo Musacchio, Rodrigo Bandeira-de-Mello, and Rosilene Marcon Executive Summary: Private firms in developed and developing markets find themselves competing with the so-called "national champions"—private and state-owned enterprises that receive entitlements, mostly trade protections and/or subsidized credit from the government. Most of these national champions get support by proposing long-term projects with ...For immediate release: Tuesday, January 24, 2012 Boston, MA — A new study finds that perfluorinated compounds (PFCs), widely used in manufactured products such as non-stick cookware, waterproof clothing, and fast-food packaging, were associated with lowered immune response to vaccinations in children. It is the first study to document how PFCs, which can be transferred to children prenatally (via the mother) and postnatally from exposure in the environment, can adversely affect vaccine response. The ...Between 2 and 4 p.m., Sever 113 was supposed to host students shopping Government 1093: “Ethics, Biotechnology, and the Future of Human Nature.” But by 3:30 p.m., Sever 113 was empty. Three words were written in chalk on the blackboard: “Go to Sanders.”For the third consecutive week, the Cambridge City Council failed to determine which of its members would serve as the new mayor of Cambridge, leaving the city’s School Committee in the lurch without its final member.Jason Segel, star of the recent Muppets film and multifaceted entertainer in the film, television, and music industries, was named the Hasty Pudding Theatricals’ 2012 Man of the Year on Monday.As third-party political advertising comes under increased scrutiny, Harvard Law School professor Elizabeth Warren and U.S. Senator Scott Brown signed an agreement Monday in an effort to limit the role such advertisements play in the upcoming Massachusetts Senate election.From the dome in Harvard Yard to the tents in Boston’s Dewey Square to the camp near Wall Street that started it all, Occupy movements across the country have shut down in recent weeks. But students, faculty, and staff at the University of Massachusetts Boston bucked the trend Monday, when they raised a new, indoor encampment inside the university’s campus center.The Harvard men’s basketball team looks comfortable in the USA Today/ESPN Coach’s Poll, earning a spot for the sixth straight week and moving up to No. 23.An announcement about library layoffs is sparking a new wave of worker-led protests on the Harvard campus.Members of Occupy Harvard and people at other Occupies have had philosophical discussions that center on what some consider a fundamental question of Occupy: Is it a protest or a community?However glad many on campus might have been to see the dome go, we should make sure that students and faculty are allowed to continue the activities that are within their rights. Harvard should not impinge upon the right to dissent and to critique, both of which are, after all, important aspects of the free speech that our community holds dear.The Harvard men’s volleyball team (9-13, 1-7 EIVA Hay) is looking to continue building upon the core foundation that it created with last year’s team.For junior co-captain Walter Peppelman, the pressure makes the match more exciting.Until Jan. 18 of this year, the Trinity men’s squash team was untouchable, taking home a nearly unfathomable 13 straight national titles on a 252-match winning streak.For the last several years, former Harvard Law School Dean Robert C. Clark ’72 has broken with tradition in teaching his mergers and acquisitions course. It isn’t enough to read leading cases, he realized; students still may leave the classroom without any real understanding of how to structure a deal, identify and avoid pitfalls, and recognize why personalities matter—in short, how M&As work in the real world. So Clark decided to bridge the storied gap between the academy and the world of practice, ...Each country has unique economic challenges, values, traditions, and norms, and each is affected by climate change in a different way. One treaty cannot encompass the diverse qualities and needs of every country.If you're looking for an easy class to round out your course load, search no further.David M. Axelrod, one of President Barack Obama’s top political advisors and a board member at the Harvard Institute of Politics, is planning to open a new Institute of Politics at his alma mater, the University of Chicago.Don't forget that the deadline for registering online for the spring semester is tonight at 11:59 p.m. After tonight, a fee of $50 will be charged. To register, go to my.harvard.edu and click on the "Campus Resources" tab. Oh, and welcome back!Jason Segel, the star of films such as "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" and "Knocked Up" and the popular television show "How I Met Your Mother," has been named Hasty Pudding's 2012 Man of the Year.After Cundiff’s missed kick put an end to Birk’s 14th professional season, many have wondered if this is the end for the six-time Pro Bowler. While some reports indicated this would be the last go-around for Birk, the center himself recently denied those claims.The Hasty Pudding Theatricals has named Jason Segel as its 2012 Man of the Year.Usually the question comes right after I tell an audience that I put former Procter & Gamble CEO A.G. Lafley on my "Innovation Mount Rushmore" as a reminder of the importance of investing time and energy to understand the target market. "But how do you square that with Steve Jobs?" an intrepid audience member asks. "After all, Jobs said, 'It isn't the customer's job to know what they want.'" It feels like a classic battle — the scientific approach of a company that launches 80 market research studies ...Jason Segel, the star of films such as "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" and "Knocked Up" and the popular television show "How I Met Your Mother," has been named Hasty Pudding's 2012 Man of the Year.Clarity and simplicity are frequent themes in the Harvard College Winter Writing Program, a two-week Winter Break seminar where undergraduate nonfiction writers learn from some of the country’s best authors, teachers, and journalists.Dozens of Harvard undergraduates started the year with a new emphasis on wellness, thanks to the Optimal Health program. With presentations from a lifestyle medicine consultant, a nutritionist, a personal trainer, a sleep specialist, and a stress manager, Optimal Health emphasized prevention and fitness.While trudging through freshly fallen snow may not induce thoughts of summertime, this coming summer is no doubt on many of our minds as we apply to programs, internships, and travel opportunities that will take us away from Harvard in just a few months' time.Does the current primary debate process best serve voters, the candidates, the parties, the nation – or is there a better way?Perhaps Thorsten Heins has longed to run a big, public company. But probably the dream didn't look like this. Heins, the new CEO of Research in Motion (RIM), has been plucked from the company's relatively obscure COO position to fill the giant shoes of two longtime co-CEOs as they depart at the behest of angry investors. Having pioneered the smartphone industry with its Blackberry, RIM is dangerously adrift. Apple changed the nature of a smartphone from a corporate to a consumer device, and RIM has failed ...The notion of going above and beyond customer needs is so entrenched in organizations that managers rarely question it. But delighting your customers may be a waste of time and energy. In fact, most customers just want a simple, quick solution to their problem. Exceeding customer expectations has a negligible impact on customer loyalty. Instead of providing a series of bells and whistles in customer interactions, companies need to reduce the amount of effort customers make. This is the conclusion we found ...In 1998, I sold part of my company (which I had founded in 1986, when I was 13) to the Finnish IT services firm Tieto . Two years later we made it a full merger, and I joined the Tieto management team. I was used to managing 200 Finnish nerds, with whom my straight-ahead approach (my nickname is "Bulldozer") got great results. But Tieto was growing rapidly and going global. Before long I was managing thousands of nerds in Russia, China, Germany, the U.S., and other countries. And it wasn't working. Tieto ...I've just returned from an offsite with our team at The Energy Project . As we concluded, I asked each person to take a few moments to say what he or she felt most proud of accomplishing over the past year. After each of their brief recountings, I added some observations about what I appreciated in that person. Before long, others were chiming in. The positive energy was contagious, but it's not something we can ever take for granted. Whatever else each of us derives from our work, there may be nothing ...In a new research paper, “The Long-Term Impacts of Teachers: Teacher Value-Added and Students’ Outcomes in Adulthood,” the authors this question.Q&A with: Frances X. Frei Published: January 23, 2012 Author: Deborah Blagg In their new book, Uncommon Service: How to Win by Putting Customers at the Core of Your Business, coauthors Frances Frei and Anne Morriss maintain that it is possible for organizations to reduce costs while dramatically enhancing customer service. That win-win approach involves "looking at your biggest buckets of cost and rethinking those strategically in ways that give your customers something they value," notes Frei, the UPS ...After a two-week long tug of war, Harvard Law School professor Elizabeth Warren and U.S. Senator Scott Brown failed to reach an agreement to ban third-party advertising in the race for U.S. Senate in a meeting Friday.This past week University President Drew G. Faust travelled to Mumbai and Delhi, visiting schools and strengthening Harvard’s ties with India.The Harvard University Library system will seek to reduce the size of its approximately 930 person workforce as part of the ongoing restructuring of the world’s largest academic library, according to a transcript of remarks made by Harvard University Library Executive Director Helen Shenton at one of three town hall meetings held Thursday.Harvard administrators removed the last vestiges of the Occupy Harvard encampment from Harvard Yard on Jan. 13. Administrators and Cambridge police cited potential safety hazards as reason to dismantle the weather-proof dome and information tent—the only structures remaining after the protest movement decamped in December.As the 2012 Republican presidential contest unfolds, Romney’s position as the front-runner has been called into question following Newt Gingrich’s ...Assistant football coaches Kris Barber, Joe M. Conlin, and A. Dwayne Wilmot will leave Harvard for positions at Yale, Harvard ...Two sisters, one in pink and one in purple, held a sign twice their size as cars passed by in ...After a training trip in Puerto Rico, a win against Ivy League rival Brown, and a week of practice, the Harvard women’s swimming and diving team travelled to Evanston, Ill., to take on two Big Ten teams, Northwestern and Iowa. And after starting the season 5-0, the Crimson (5-2, 5-0 Ivy) had its winning streak snapped, falling to Iowa by seven points, 153-146, and to Northwestern, 172-127.Riding high after its demolition of Brown on Thursday, the Harvard men’s swimming and diving team took on No. 8 Ohio State hoping to maintain its 13-meet win streak.The Harvard women’s squash team (10-0, 3-0 Ivy) remains undefeated as it overpowered Trinity, 8-1, at the George A. Kellner Squash Center on Saturday afternoon, winning its fifth consecutive victory over the No. 5 Bantams (9-2).HANOVER, N.H.—The starters never got started Saturday night when the No. 24 Harvard men’s basketball team extended its winning streak to four games, topping Dartmouth, 54-38, for the second time in as many weeks.After two building years in which it developed its young talent, the Harvard ski team seemed poised to move up in the standings of the Eastern Intercollegiate Ski Association entering the 2012 season.Among a field that included many of the nation’s top teams, the No. 3 Harvard men’s fencing team registered only one win in five attempts while the No. 7 women’s team only won twice on Saturday’s St. John’s Invitational at Carnasecca Arena in Jamaica, N.Y.The second annual Harvard Challenge proved to be less than a challenge for the Harvard track and field team, as the Crimson teamed up with Ancient Eight rival Brown to take down the Patriot League’s Army and Colgate in their first meet of the season.After two months without match play, the Harvard tennis team didn’t show any rust this weekend, putting on a nearly perfect display at the Harvard Winter Invite. The Crimson hosted Fordham and Marist from Friday through Sunday at the Murr Tennis Center, and Harvard won 22 out of 26 matches in singles play and 10 out of 12 doubles matches.Occupy Harvard sees “injustice in Harvard’s adoption of corporate efficiency measures such as job outsourcing.” And yet, simultaneously, we have this statement, from Occupy Wall Street: “Ending wealth inequality is our one demand.” An incongruity because it begs the question—whose wealth inequality?Unfortunately for women around the world, the progressive movement remains willing to tolerate gendercide as the collateral damage of their promotion of abortion.Persistently, high crime eats away at the region’s societies; Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala have some of the highest murder rates in the world, and the numbers only get worse with each passing year.There was certainly no dearth of political advertisement prior to the recent advent of super PACs. Quite to the contrary, the detrimental effect of money in politics motivated legislators to enact campaign finance reform at various points throughout the past sixty years.Eric R. Brewster ’14 and Avery A. Leonard ’14 fought off drooping eyelids and the urge to sleep last week as they held a phone conversation that lasted for 46 hours, 12 minutes, 52 seconds, and 228 milliseconds—potentially setting a new world record.As J-Term comes to a close, take a look at the journals, essays and galleries published this break by Flyby and Fifteen Minutes.The Harvard men’s hockey team overcame flying dead fish and a third-period deficit to come back and tie No. 9 Cornell, 2-2, Saturday night in front of a sold-out crowd at Lynah Rink in Ithaca, N.Y.The pamphlet's designers seemed to be going for a see-how-easy-this-is-you-can-do-it-with-our-products aesthetic—simplicity was implied from the slim sans-serif font to the man’s crisp white shirt and unassuming, toothy smile.After dropping a close 5-4 contest at home against No. 3 Princeton last weekend, the Harvard men’s squash team (10-2, 2-1 Ivy) hoped to rebound with a win over No. 1 Trinity (9-1, 1-0 NESCAC) Saturday afternoon in Hartford, Conn. But the top-ranked Bantams had other plans, sealing a victory after just five individual matchups and eventually taking down the Crimson, 7-2.Coming off a 2-0 loss to No. 3 Cornell, the No. 9 Harvard women's hockey team (11-6-1, 8-4-1 ECAC) showed no mercy to Colgate (8-15-1, 3-9-1 ECAC) on Saturday evening, beating the Raiders, 4-0, in a penalty-ridden matchup.HANOVER, N.H.—If the No. 24 Harvard men’s basketball team is to live up to expectations and earn the first outright Ivy title in school history, the league favorite must be prepared to grind out low-scoring affairs in front of sizeable road crowds throughout the Ancient Eight.Click here to read my column in Sunday's NY Times .In the still, stinky air of the passengers’ cabin, we steel ourselves for the unbearable mundane stillness that comes with zooming through the clouds at 500 m.p.h.2011 was a big year in Harvard athletics. Women’s soccer captured its third Ivy League championship in four years. The ...After moving into the Top 25 earlier this week, the Harvard wrestling team appeared poised for a breakout performance on Friday night as it faced its toughest opponent thus far, No. 5 Cornell (6-0, 3-0 Ivy). But the highly touted Big Red proved itself worthy of the hype, and the Crimson (4-4, 0-2 Ivy) couldn’t keep pace, falling, 38-7, in Ithaca, NY.I need some help from the growth empiricists out there. If you aren't one of them, stop reading. Continuing will bea waste of your time. For researchers studying economic growth, one of the standard resources for cross-country data has been the Penn World Table . My 1992 paper with David Romer and David Weil (my most cited paper by a large margin) used thisresource,as have numerous other papers in this literature.In my intermediate macro book, I present a couple offigures presenting some of these ...An article inthe National Journal .Yale University announced a stricter set of tailgating regulations Thursday. The new guidelines, which include a ban on kegs and a requirement that student tailgates end at kick-off, are the outcome of an examination of tailgating rules spurred by the death of a 30-year-old woman at the most recent Harvard-Yale football game.Facing its seventh ranked opponent in its past eight contests, the Crimson once again finished in a draw Friday night, tying No. 18 Colgate, 2-2. The result marked Harvard’s program-record seventh tie of the season—with 11 games still to go—and was its sixth in 10 contests.Despite outshooting the Big Red by a margin of 22-14 over the course of the game, the Crimson emerged winless for the seventh consecutive time against Cornell, falling, 2-0, Friday night at the Bright Hockey Center.To conservatives, the Tea Partiers are patriots; to liberals, they’re a scourge on progress and civil society. Theda Skocpol, Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology, used different terms to describe the activists to undergraduates: grandma and grandpa.The Berkman Buzz is selected weekly from the posts of Berkman Center people and projects . To subscribe, click here . Berkman's currently accepting applications for our Summer 2012 Internship Program ! Also! We have a new Nieman-Berkman Fellowship in Journalism Innovation . The Berkman Community Responds to SOPA/PIPA Today, many U.S. websites are participating in a blackout in order to express their opposition to pending U.S. legislation—House Bill 3261, The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and S.968, the ...Anatoly Smeliansky is the founding director of the American Repertory Theater/Moscow Art Theater School Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University. As part of the program, he is spending the month at Harvard leading a series of classes on the history of theater and drama.The changing information landscape makes change at Harvard Library —the world’s preeminent academic research library—inevitable. As part of the Harvard Library’s ongoing transition to a new organizational structure —in which many library services will be shared, and for which overarching information technology priorities have been identified—senior library administrators updated staff members on the process in three town-hall-style meetings on Thursday, January 19. (The Library has ...Prior to this week, I had never brushed my teeth eight times in one day. But then again, I'd never commanded children to spit in my general direction.I'm enjoying a relatively snow-free January, but despite the extra time I've had on my hands from not having to shovel, I've had little time for blogging. Reasons abound. January is always busy, as we have graduate student admissions to deal with, and we're doing faculty searches this year. Lots of applications to read. As part of my Administrative position, I've had various other administration (read: promotion cases) to deal with. The paperwork buck stops with me, so I'm busy making sure all the i's ...I do quite a lot of influential presentation coaching and training. Bringing a theatre person in to work on how to 'stand and deliver' in front of an audience makes sense and I enjoy sharing some of the things actors know about performing. But what really interests me and seems to benefit my clients most is the way we can apply things learned in the theater to strategic storytelling. I was called in to work with a group of senior partners in a large architecture firm and Ms. Choi, who was enthusiastic ...Here's an interesting story about culture clash in an American consulting firm based in Shanghai. An American senior consultant (let's call him Jim) was working with a young Chinese consultant (we can call her Ling). Jim was going on a business trip and put Ling in charge of a project. They were still in the bidding stage and Ling was very reliable so Jim saw no harm in delegating. Soon after he left however, the potential client asked Ling for an example of what the final product might look like. ...In a new Shorenstein Center discussion paper titled “Digital Fuel of the 21st Century: Innovation through Open Data and the Network Effect,” Vivek Kundra makes four specific recommendations to ensure our society continues to build on and benefit from the power of open data and the so-called "network effect."For nearly two weeks, both Harvard Law School professor Elizabeth Warren and U.S. Senator Scott Brown have called for limitations on third-party spending in the upcoming Massachusetts Senate election. But though the two camps will sit down Friday to discuss the proposition, Harvard professors have called this temporary cease-fire a political stunt that will not have much influence on the race.Two former contestants on the popular television show The Biggest Loser, in which obese men and women compete to lose the most weight and win a prize of $250,000, came to the Malkin Athletic Center on January 19 to give motivational speeches on health and weight loss. Frado Dinten and Brendan Donovan, neither of whom won the grand prize, frankly dissected their fears, obstacles, and strategies used on the show, as well as their formative life experiences before and since. Dinten, 45, of Staten Island, who ...The Hasty Pudding Theatricals announced today that Claire Danes has won the woman the year award.Sponsored by the Harvard Club of Boston and the Harvard Alumni Association, “Networking NOW: The Learn-How-to-Network Event” was a multifaceted event, underscoring how business networking is a skill that can be learned, practiced, honed, and perfected.The Hasty Pudding Theatricals names actress Claire Danes as its 2012 Woman of the Year.Rummaging through worm-eaten layers of parchment at a monastery in southern Germany in 1417, the scribe Poggio Bracciolini discovered a poem titled “De Rerum Natura,” or “On the Nature of Things,” by the Roman philosopher Titus Lucretius Carus. On that day, according to Professor Stephen Greenblatt, history swerved and modernity began.In international economics .New York governor Andrew Cuomo has turned what should have been a simple, targeted criminal justice investigation into a destructive witch hunt of all New York charities. Such populist opportunism at the expense of the good name of the humanitarian sector has become epidemic. Elected officials consistently conflate smart investments in the talent, organizational strength, and long-term planning necessary to address massive social problems with fraud. Why? Because they lack a fundamental understanding of ...In this series, we showcase creative and delicious recipes that can be made using only food found in dining halls. This interactive installment shows you how to prepare toast in three satisfying ways.Associate editor Elizabeth Gudrais reports from Mumbai: The world may be flat, with technology enabling robust
international collaboration and commerce, President Drew Faust told an audience
at the University of Mumbai today, alluding to Thomas Friedman’s global
bestseller, The World Is Flat . But for
all its frenetic economic activity, Faust said, such a world requires that the
tradition of liberal-arts education persist. “Connectivity and mobility,” she said, “do not necessarily
confer ...The Harvard Initiative for Learning and Teaching, created with a $40 million gift from Rita E. and Gustave M. Hauser, will host a symposium to explore excellence and innovation in the field. |