Defunct page Harvard Crimson Alumni

06/20/2024

Cities worldwide are tearing themselves apart as they debate whether to issue declarations supporting a cease-fire in Gaza.

There's a better way for cities to respond when fellow municipalities are under attack.

It's the story of District 11. Here's my new Democracy Column at Democracy Local.

In war, Barcelona made besieged Sarajevo its 11th district. A model aid partnership endures The Democracy Column was written for Democracy Local and Zócalo Public Square. Photo credit: Trolleybus to Mojmilo neighborhood, Sarajevo, by Milan Suvajac via Wikipedia CC BY-SA 4.0 In 1992, Barcelona, Spai...

01/27/2024

From bargaining over income to sharing capital gains.

01/23/2024

What if this bog-standard corner of England is actually full of adventure, nature, wildness, surprises, silence, perspective — if only I bothered to go out and look?

12/05/2023

Right to repair and other efforts to liberate technology from monopolistic corporations is a precondition for winning many vital societal battles.

01/22/2016

Any idea yet when alumni luncheon/grad board meeting is likely to be? Farflung alumni hoping to make plans to get to Cambridge.

07/27/2015

Message from the president:

In case you missed it, The Crimson published its annual Commencement issue in May (http://www.thecrimson.com/topic/commencement-2015/). Across the many sections, the issue included a cover story on the politics of President Drew Faust (http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/5/28/politics-of-faust/), a profile of a Law School professor pushing back against Harvard's Title IX policy (http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/5/28/janet-halley-title-ix/), a look back at last year's Harvard-Yale football game (http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/5/28/year-in-sports-thegamerevisited-2015/), and many, many more.

The summer has also brought some breaking news to Harvard. Just days after the end of the semester, Harvard announced a $400 million gift from hedge fund magnate John Paulson to the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/6/3/record-gift-paulson-seas/) and retitled the school in his namesake. In continuing coverage of the gift, The Crimson examined how SEAS might spend the unrestricted gift (http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/6/23/paulson-seas-gift-analysis/) and analyzed the scrutiny and criticism that accompanied the gift when it was announced (http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/7/7/paulson-gift-campaign-scrutiny/).

The Crimson also reported earlier this month on an IT security breach at Harvard which administrators said may have compromised email login information (http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/7/2/harvard-it-security-breach/). And just last week, we reported on the death of James Rothenberg '68, a longtime member of the Harvard Corporation (http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/7/22/jim-rothenberg-dies/).

Best,
Steven

Email: [email protected]

07/27/2015

02/05/2015

Calling all New York alums! We'd like to plan a meetup in the next few months. If you are interested in helping organize (very, very low commitment), please email [email protected].

01/21/2015

Message from the President:

The 142nd guard produced its first paper of the year on Monday night. The paper, distributed yesterday morning, featured President Faust’s support for an immigration initiative, analysis of the federal government investigation into the College’s compliance with Title IX, and the hockey team loss to St. Lawrence University. Another paper will come out tomorrow as undergraduates continue to trickle in for the beginning of the spring term, with The Crimson returning to a normal production schedule when classes start on Monday.

Cheers,

Steven Lee
President of the 142nd Guard

12/14/2014

Message from the president:

Much of our breaking news coverage over the past two weeks has centered on the several on-campus protests against policy brutality and racism, mirroring many similar demonstrations across the country. The latest and largest was on Friday, as hundreds of people marched through Harvard Yard, to Central Square, and back, shutting down several major streets (http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/12/13/march-on-harvard-protest/). Our coverage has been accompanied by some excellent photography, including photo collections from Monday (http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/12/2/seen-and-heard-ferguson-protest/), Thursday (http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/12/5/eric-garner-protest-gallery/), and Friday (http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/12/13/march-on-harvard-protest-seen-heard/).

Late Wednesday, a controversial protest at the annual primal scream drew some national attention as well. I think we can safely say that this is the first time in The Crimson’s long and colorful history that we’ve published a picture of the Dean of Harvard College on the shoulders of a half-naked student (http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/12/12/primal-scream-protest-chaotic-exchange/).

Sadly, the final press run of the 141st Guard is this Tuesday evening, and this may be the last post on this page from me. I expect you’ll be hearing before too long from my successor, Steven Lee, however, and I hope you’re as excited as I am to watch the 142nd Guard take The Crimson to new heights.

Happy holidays,
Sam

Email: [email protected]

Hundreds of Harvard affiliates, coming from most of the University’s schools, converged on the Yard Friday evening shortly after 5 p.m. for what appears to be the largest demonstration yet against racial inequality in recent weeks.

11/22/2014

Message from the president:

I’m very excited to announce the leadership of The Crimson’s 142nd Guard, which was decided by outgoing editors early this morning and will take over at the beginning of 2015. Congratulations to Steven Lee ’16 (President), Madeline Conway ’16 (Managing Editor), Juliet Nelson ’16 (Business Manager), and the rest of the 142nd Guard. More details here: http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/11/22/harvard-crimson-142nd-guard-turkey-shoot/.

In other news, check out our sports board’s coverage of tomorrow’s Harvard-Yale Game, in which a strong Harvard team will try to finish off an undefeated season. (http://www.thecrimson.com/topic/hy-supp-2014/)

Best,
Sam

Email: [email protected]

Steven S. Lee ’16 will lead the newly elected 142nd Guard of The Harvard Crimson, the organization’s President announced on Friday.

11/10/2014

Message from the president:

A turbulent faculty meeting last week prompted a good deal of Crimson coverage, as well as national media attention, as faculty voted unanimously to ask for a reversal of recent health benefits changes (http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/11/5/faculty-benefits-motion-passes/) and a professor revealed that classes had been filmed without the permission of any of their occupants, including faculty (http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/11/5/bol-photograph-courses-hilt/).

Alums may also be interested in Fifteen Minutes’s look at the experience of consulting after college, a scrutiny published on Thursday (http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/11/6/consulting-after-harvard-fm/).

With the annual Turkey Shoot now underway, we’re still looking for a few more alumni to help edit and proof next week, from 11/16 to 11/20. Email me ([email protected]) if you think you might be available. We’re very grateful to all who have volunteered so far!

Have a great week,
Sam

Email: [email protected]

Members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences unanimously voted to request that University President Drew G. Faust and the Harvard Corporation reverse the new health benefits policy—unveiled earlier this year—on the eve of its planned implementation.

10/25/2014

Message from the president:

Last weekend was particularly busy one, as The Crimson held both its fall High School Journalism Conference, which was attended by around 80 students, and, for the first time, a “hackathon,” for Harvard’s computer science students to compete to develop largely media-related projects over the course of 24 hours (see picture below).

The week unfolded, as usual, with several pieces of interesting news, including the announcement of new concentration in “Theater, Dance, and Media” (http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/10/20/fas-offer-theater-concentration/). Our close coverage and analysis of on-campus s*xual assault continued as well, with an interview with Harvard’s Title IX Officer, who defended the University’s new policies (http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/10/21/karvonides-neutrality-op-ed/), and as well as updates on Harvard’s new, but understaffed , University-wide Office of Dispute Resolution (http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/10/21/titleix-office-seeking-investigators/ and http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/10/21/Assault-Faculty-office-Cases/).

Happy fall!

SYW

Email: [email protected]

10/14/2014

Message from the president:

With some skillful, persistent reporting, and a bit of luck, The Crimson pulled off two important scoops last week. First, an investigate report revealed that administrators had misled University in their justification for changing healthcare plans (http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/10/7/benefits-cost-plan-discrepancy/). Second, we reported that, in an extremely unconventional move, Harvard College’s most popular course, Computer Science 50, may expand to Yale in a part-digital form (http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/10/8/cs50-yale-harvard-proposal/).

News reporters also closely covered racially charged death threats received by many Asian and Asian-American students last weekend (http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/10/4/email-death-threat-investigation/), as well as the later-criticized administration response (http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/10/9/email-threats-khurana-response/) to those emails. To top off an eventful week, sports snagged an interview with U. S. Men’s Soccer coach Jurgen Klinsmann as his team practiced at Harvard (http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/10/8/q-a-usmnt-jurgen-klinsmann-harvard-ecuador-landon-donovan/), and Fifteen Minutes published a colorful profile of a student who stars in the popular “Donkey Show” at the American Repertory Theater (http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/10/9/a-day-in-the-life-mark-mauriello/).

Best,
Sam

Email: [email protected]

Last month, when Harvard announced that it would restructure the health benefit packages it offers to non-union employees in an effort to control costs, University officials sang one statistic in unison: the benefit plans, they said, had ballooned in expense to account for 12 percent of the Universi…

09/28/2014

Message from the president:

News just didn’t seem stop breaking last week, which saw three major University announcements: the naming of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences deanship (http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/9/22/fas-deanship-renamed-gift/), relatively mediocre investment returns for the Harvard Management Company (http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/9/24/hmc-annual-report-2014/), and the announcement of a new president and CEO for HMC (http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/9/25/stephen-blyth-hmc-director/).

The Crimson has also released some interesting analysis in recent days, including looks at Harvard’s largest class, CS50 (http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/9/18/this-is-cs50/), its new, understaffed s*xual harassment investigation office (http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/9/19/new-harassment-office-understaffed/), and the always-elusive Ad Board (http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/9/26/ad-board-change-feature/).

The week was also a big one for Crimson Alumni. On Wednesday, our very own Susan Chira ’80 was named as a new deputy executive editor of The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/25/business/new-york-times-promotes-editors-in-change-of-leadership-structure.html). That very same day, TIME announced that Sam Jacobs ’09 will become one of its assistant managing editors (http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/media/2014/09/8553275/emtimeem-shuffles-masthead). He’s believed to be the youngest person ever to hold that position. Congratulations to both!

Best,
Sam

Email: [email protected]

The University’s highest-profile deanship, that of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, will be renamed in recognition of the support of donors Paul B. Edgerley and Sandra M. Edgerley ’84.

09/22/2014

Great New York Times article on former Managing Editor Parker Conrad and his startup Zenefits.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/21/business/zenefits-leader-is-rattling-an-industry-so-why-is-he-stressed-out.html?_r=0

Parker Conrad’s start-up, which helps small businesses navigate employee benefits, has shown phenomenal growth. Yet he is anything but sure of its success.

09/09/2014

Message from the president:

The first week back at school was a busy one, complete with some big projects at The Crimson and some big news at Harvard.

We launched a redesign of the print edition (the first in 10 years—see picture), along with an adjusted, “web-first” workflow for daily news. The new design has a more modern look, allows for a greater variety of designs, and is printed on smaller paper—closer to the size of most major national newspapers.

We launched a “Harvard Today” newsletter, which is designed specifically for undergrads on campus and contains useful information for the day (roughly analogous to “New York Today,” for those who are familiar). If you’re interested in checking that, or any of our other newsletters, out, just go to http://www.thecrimson.com/subscribe/.

Throughout the first week, we also published the results of The Crimson’s second annual freshman survey (http://features.thecrimson.com/2014/freshman-survey/), which covers all aspects of the Class of 2018, from demographics to admissions statistics to experiences with s*x and drugs. We even partnered with the Yale Daily News to compare and contrast Harvard and Yale freshmen (http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/9/5/freshman-survey-part-v/).

Finally, this Monday began with breaking news—the largest donation in Harvard’s history (http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/9/8/record-gift-unveiled-chan/). We covered the story from several angles (http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/9/8/gerald-chan-profile-donation/), which, for a temporary period, were packaged into a new breaking news template on thecrimson.com homepage.

Looking forward to another exciting semester at 14P,
Sam

Email: [email protected]

08/29/2014

We're sad to hear that Hugh Calkins '45, a former president of The Crimson, and, later, a member of the Harvard Corporation, passed away earlier this month. James Fallows '70, The Crimson's president 25 years after Calkins, remembers covering Calkins for The Crimson in this Atlantic piece, which is well worth a read.

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/08/hugh-calkins/378661/

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