Harvard Magazine

01/16/2025

“I'm going to tell you three stories,” said Reginald Dwayne Betts, poet, practicing attorney, and the CEO of Freedom Reads at Cambridge Public Library on Tuesday. His talk, honoring Martin Luther King Jr., was a deeply personal meditation on hope and the good life.

Poet and lawyer Reginald Dwayne Betts on Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy

01/16/2025

Each year, Harvard Magazine asks candidates for Harvard’s Board of Overseers—one of the University’s two governing boards—to answer a series of questions. This compilation of their responses is published to help eligible voters understand the nominees’ approach to the Overseers’ role in assuring the institution’s academic quality and securing its future.

Governing-board nominees’ perspectives on the University’s challenges and opportunities

01/16/2025

Inflammation can both heal and harm. A core component of the immune system, it’s essential for recovering from an injury or infection—but too much can contribute to illness. A Harvard Medical School lab suggests acupuncture may be a key solution.

“Fine-tuning” acupuncture, an ancient practice to heal, not harm

01/15/2025

How do we interpret the Constitution? According to Joseph Fishkin and William E. Forbath ’74, from the founding of the United States to Roosevelt’s New Deal to today, all political sides have made arguments about Constitutional interpretation to support their own positions.

Liberals must learn from conservatives how to interpret the Constitution in all its dimensions.

01/15/2025

The most notorious and beloved child in modern American poetry is E.E. Cummings, B.A. 1915, M.A. 1916. Even non-poetry readers can recognize the shapes of his writing: blizzards of punctuation, words running together, ideas falling off the page...

Literary critics have found any number of ways to divide writers into opposing teams. Isaiah Berlin distinguished between...

01/15/2025

At Harvard Divinity School, Matthew Ichihashi Potts M.Div. ’08, Ph.D. ’13, Plummer Professor of Christian Morals, studies the theology of grief and mourning—and the “shortcomings” of Christian theological definitions of forgiveness in a wounded world.

The ministry of Matthew Ichihashi Potts

01/15/2025

The Harvard Alumni Association (HAA) nominating committee has announced the 2025 candidate slates for the Board of Overseers (one of the University’s two governing boards) and the HAA’s own elected directors.

Slates announced for spring election

01/14/2025

How do we meet the need for carbon-free electricity in a climate-constrained world? Professor John Holdren, Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center Co-Director of the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program, believes that the contributions from expanding nuclear power–if its drawbacks can be overcome–is one solution.

Heinz professor of environmental policy John Holdren, who holds a joint appointment in the Faculty of Arts and Science’s department of...

01/14/2025

According to Harvard University's Charles Maier, the main driving force of history since World War I is something he terms the “the web of capital”: the interconnected forces of every individual in the world seeking wealth and income for themselves.

Interpreting politics through the rise of technocracy, morality, and the “web of capital”

01/14/2025

Chatting around the water cooler may yield more than office gossip; it may help scientists produce better work, according to Harvard Medical School investigators. “Our data show that if the first and last authors are physically close, they get cited more, on average,” says one of the researchers.

Proximity appears to foster quality.

01/14/2025

A study led by Harvard University Professor of Economics Raj Chetty found that students with the best kindergarten teachers had higher incomes as adults. The project followed 79 schools in Tennessee from 1985-1989, and linked administrative data from tax returns in the 1990s and 2000s.

An economist finds that good kindergarten teachers boost pupils' earnings later in life.

01/14/2025

Digital data production is expanding incredibly fast. With new ways of storing information desperately needed, Robert Winthrop professor of Genetics George Church, who heads the synthetic biology group at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard, is turning to one of the oldest means of encoding data: the DNA molecule.

Could important digital information eventually be stored within the double helix-shaped ladder? DNA won’t replace thumb drives for storing and retrieving data, but would be reserved instead “for archival purposes—safeguarding things humanity wants to put in a vault for a long period of time.” The Library of Congress holdings might be a good place to start.

Compact and persistent, DNA could one day compress all human knowledge into a 15-gallon drum.

01/14/2025

There’s a “skills gap” in the American workforce. Employers searching for skilled candidates can’t find them—even as candidates applying to hundreds of jobs can’t get hired. The diagnosis: an underperforming partnership between community college educators and employers.

Educators and employers aren't collaborating well—and what to do about it

01/10/2025

William J. “Bill” Cleary ’56 will be honored at the Harvard-Yale Men's Hockey game Saturday night. An All-American, Olympian, head coach, and athletic director, Cleary gave Harvard Athletics six decades of service—and was a proud impresario of fun.

William J. “Bill” Cleary Jr. ’56, All-American, Olympian, head coach, and athletic director.

01/10/2025

In the middle of Harvard Square, with pedestrians bustling by, there’s a fish sitting in a bathtub. His name is Septimus, and he’s a sculptural character within Tired Clichés, a solo installation by artist Isola Murray. This exhibition is part of larger story about bite-sized art in the community—expanding opportunities for both artists and audiences beyond the museum space, and in public spaces that stay open always.

Artist Isola Murray’s child-size animals

01/08/2025

Once upon a time, it was possible to type on devices that weren't connected to the internet. Lawyer Joseph C. Tedeschi ’90, who collects vintage typewriters and associated ephemera, recently acquired a new treasure: a The Harvard Coop-branded typewriter ribbon tin, c. 1920s. Former contents: one black ink ribbon, designed to fit a Royal Portable.

📸: Courtesy of Joseph C. Tedeschi.

01/06/2025

Jimmy Carter passed away last month at the age of 100. When he was running for president in 1976, he was asked to name his favorite book. He said, “strangely enough,” it was Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by James Agee ’32. Why strangely enough?

Why this “sovereign prince of the English language” touched the president’s heart

01/06/2025

Domestic rice production has improved food security in Africa; but has it contributed to climate change? Emissions from rice cultivation in Africa alone account for 7% of methane emissions globally. How can populations be fed more sustainably?

Improved agricultural practices could cut methane emissions to zero.