By Sabrina Gharib Lee
Once again, the final club punching process is drawing to a close. Within the next few weeks, the entire membership of Harvard’s eight male final clubs will begin selecting their new members and will then initiate a class of approximately twenty, mostly sophomore, young men to each club. This final selection generally [...]
By Dylan Matthews
Reading Michael Cowett’s attack on the Obama administration for scaling back its missile defense plans in the Czech Republic and Poland, one would think that the Czechs and Poles had somehow been terribly wronged. “Obama’s missile defense plans severely undermine the security of our Eastern European allies,” Cowett wrote, “whose governments have long [...]
By Lucy Caplan
Review: Leonard Bernstein: The Political Life of an American Musician
296 pages, Hardcover, University of California Press, $24.95
To anyone who recently suffered through a grueling set of midterms, take heart: Leonard Bernstein received a C in one of his music classes as a Harvard undergraduate, and things worked out pretty well for him. [...]
By Lucy Caplan, Joe Hodgkin, and Ian Kumekawa
Senator Edward Kennedy’s passing last month caused social and political shockwaves across America. Here in Massachusetts, amid the Senator’s wish that lawmakers grant Governor Deval Patrick the power to appoint Kennedy’s successor, a special election to fill the vacant seat has been scheduled for January of next year. [...]
By Daniel Villafana
Perspective: Why did HUDS remove hot breakfast?
Anonymous HUDS Employee: For financial savings through labor cuts. Harvard spends a lot of money on benefits for its employees. That is where the real saving are. Removing hot breakfast was going to allow HUDS to get rid of 24 employees, 12 cooks and 12 servers. But [...]
By Ian Kumekawa
In late August, Japanese voters staidly cast the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party out of power. The election was marked with few protests, and after the results were in and a landslide victory for the opposition secured, there was nothing resembling the jubilant celebration seen after Election Day in America. Yet this restrained demeanor [...]
By Mihir Gupta
Most professors at Harvard College don’t face monetary pressure to advocate certain viewpoints. The scholars teaching our classes say what they truly believe, whether it is that Reagan-era economics are fundamentally sound, or that folklore and mythology are actually relevant. Elsewhere in the University, however, monetary considerations are increasingly jeopardizing academic freedom. The [...]
Recent reports indicate that Harvard’s endowment has already suffered a 22% decline, with an additional 8% projected decrease by the end of this fiscal year. In response to the economic crisis’ toll on Harvard’s funding, the university has instituted a slowdown of its construction projects in Allston, a hiring freeze, and a reduction in the [...]
By Betty Rosen
I remember February’s Knesset elections as a time of a held breath, a time when the mechanics of Israeli politics seemed to threaten the optimism of those, like me, who had been hopeful that real progress in the arena of Middle East peace was about to take place. Like so many other Americans, [...]
By Tyler Brandon and Lucy Caplan
This past September, the class of 2012 stepped through the Harvard gates for the first time, feeling the university’s history weigh upon their every step. In their excitement, they could easily name over a dozen famous alumni to impress their friends, their relatives, and themselves- from historic figures including JFK, [...]