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Africa
Regional
To Macky Sall, president of the Republic of Senegal, Africa is “the continent of the future” — a vast landscape of youthfulness, enterprise, and resources on the verge of exercising its potential.
Sall on Friday delivered the keynote address at the fourth annual Harvard African Development Conference, a multi-School, student-run event that draws experts and scholars — 350 this year — from around the world. His view was followed by a range of others — part optimism, part reality check — when participants turned Saturday to micro-scale messages related to this year’s theme: visible change, one innovation at a time.
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HKS Plays Role in New African Agribusiness Center
The African Agribusiness Center is an emerging association of organizations and individuals committed to helping upgrade agricultural production in Africa through education and training. The idea originated from cooperation between Africa Atlantic and the Science, Technology and Globalization (STG) Project at Harvard Kennedy School (HKS). It now includes support from HKS students and resources at MIT. Calestous Juma, professor of the practice of international development, serves as director of the STG Project. We asked for his thoughts on the new Center.
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Success Fighting AIDS in Africa
The massive U.S. AIDS initiative known as PEPFAR, or “The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief,” an $18-billion commitment launched in late 2003 by the Bush administration, has played a major role in changing the course of the global AIDS epidemic. On January 10, Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) recognized that achievement, and its own role therein, by hosting a conference titled “PEPFAR in Africa: HSPH’s Role in the Largest Public Health Endeavor in History.” As one of the first and largest PEPFAR grant recipients, the school received $107 million in the course of five years to expand AIDS treatment and care in three of the most afflicted countries: Tanzania, Botswana, and Nigeria. The symposium provided an opportunity to take stock of the University’s contribution to the enormous gains made in the fight against AIDS in recent years and to recognize the significant hurdles that remain ahead.
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“Divine Space and Sacred Territories” sounds like something you find in church. But this felicitous phrase was the name of the inaugural conference of Harvard’s African and Diasporic Religious Studies Association, the only such group in North America.
About 20 scholarly presenters and 150 listeners gathered Friday at Boylston Hall to discuss this modern scattering of ancient religious traditions. The teachings are “always blending and cosmopolitan,” said association director and Harvard doctoral student Funlayo E. Wood, and are “formidable forces in world region. They heal what is broken, balance what is askew.”
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Ethiopia
Four years ago this spring, Birtukan Midekssa was in solitary confinement in an Ethiopian prison. Her cell was 13 feet wide and 20 feet long and had no window. She was allowed only two visitors: her elderly mother and her 3-year-old daughter.
Midekssa left Ethiopia in 2011, after two imprisonments that consumed 41 months of her life. She stayed first in Washington, D.C., and then at Stanford University. Today — grateful, happy, and energized — she has an office (with a window) at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute, where she is a fellow this year. (A lawyer by training, Midekssa is also a Visiting Fellow with Harvard Law School’s Human Rights Program; starting in the fall she’ll pursue a one-year mid-career master’s degree in public administration through the Mason Program at Harvard Kennedy School.)
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Ghana
Student Testimonial - Esther Yi; Ghana
Esther Yi, a sophomore History and Literature Concentrator from Ridgewood, New Jersey spent the summer 2008 in Ghana interning with the Accra Daily Mail, a private newspaper from Accra.
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Kenya
In 2008, Elkins was named the first of three “expert witnesses,” historians who were called upon to provide evidence to the High Court of Justice in London. (She and the others are advisers to the British law firm Leigh Day.) At issue is a coming trial that gives aging Kenyan Mau Mau insurgents and sympathizers the opportunity to prove claims of rape, torture, murder, and other crimes that they allege happened in the waning days of British colonial rule in the East African country.
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Madagascar
Although it was identified as a disorder as early as the 14th century, pica, or the eating of nonfood items, was believed for years to be almost nonexistent in several corners of the globe. A 2006 study that reviewed research on pica found just four areas — southern South America, Japan, Korea, and Madagascar — where the behavior was not observed.
A new Harvard study, however, shows that pica — and particularly geophagy, or the eating of soil or clay — is far more prevalent in Madagascar, and may be more prevalent worldwide, than researchers had thought.
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Namibia
It took 15 minutes to walk to town. I went across the sand, out the school gates to a path through the tall, feathery savanna grass (Are there snakes? I’d asked a student once, and he said yes. Then, with glee—Are you afraid?). Next, the dusty, unpaved road through the dry riverbed; another student showed me how to dig and find water just below the surface. On the other side was the one road through the town of Omaruru in central Namibia, and next to the municipal building was the supermarket, Spar.
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Rwanda
Harvard professors partner in unique approach
In an African country lacking any specialists in children’s cancers, a team approach that “twins” Rwandan physicians with Boston-based pediatric oncologists has shown it can deliver expert, curative care to young patients stricken with lymphoma.
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Senegal
ith a New England winter storm as an ironic counterpoint, a delegation of Senegalese officials arrived at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics Friday. In the lead was Macky Sall, who is only the fourth president of the Republic of Senegal since the nation was founded in 1960. The country of 12 million is at the westernmost edge of Africa, where March temperatures hover around 80 degrees.
Speaking mostly in French, with part of the audience listening on portable translation devices, Sall drew a picture of a nation close in values to the United States, and of a continent on the verge of power and prosperity. “Africa is the continent of the future,” he said — young and rich in resources.
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Somalia
In the end, Somali famine preventable
The United Nations declared last Friday that Somalia’s famine is over. But the official declaration means little to the millions of Somalis who are still hungry and waiting for their crops to grow, according to authorities gathered at Harvard University.
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Uganda
Student Testimonial - Bianca Verma; Uganda
Bianca Verma, a junior Social Anthropology Concentrator from Manlius, New York, spent the 2008 summer in eastern Uganda interning with the Foundation for the International Medical Relief of Children (FIMRC).
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Student Testimonial -- Rumbi Mushavi; Uganda
Rumbi Mushavi is a junior at Harvard College and a native of Zimbabwe. She was a Harvard Global Health Institute International Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship participant in Uganda during the summer of 2010 and is actively engaged in global health activities at the University.
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Asia
Regional
Harvard-Asia: Ties deep and broad
Over the last century, the connections between Harvard and Asia have grown from such early trickles to a broad torrent of ideas, information, and people. Harvard now exchanges students and scholars with dozens of Asian nations, including three of the world’s four most populous: China, India, and Indonesia. Harvard conducts research across Asia into energy, business, health, government, history, art, and culture. The University also offers its expertise to everyone from farmers in Myanmar to Khmer Rouge justice-seekers in Cambodia to fledgling democratic leaders in Indonesia.
To encourage this exchange, Harvard maintains several offices in the region, including posts in Mumbai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, and Shanghai. The University leans on and, in turn, supports local partners at a host of Asian institutions. And in collections that delight the public even as they enlighten scholars from around the world, Harvard also is a careful steward of thousands of items from Asia that are of historic importance, radiant beauty, and natural wonder.
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Cambodia
As a child, Tararith Kho spent many nights with his family in a cave dug into a hillside in the Samrong district of Cambodia. “We were under fire,” said Kho simply.
The boy who saw death early grew up to become a poet and short story writer and now a 2011-12 Scholars at Risk fellow at Harvard. Wartime and the continuing tension of Cambodian politics still deeply inform his work. Talk with Rith, as he is called, and you will hear the mantra of a witness: “I have seen this.”
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China
A taste of Harvard in Shanghai
Harvard Center Shanghai provides programming support, local expertise, and meeting space for Harvard researchers, students, and alumni in one of the world’s most dynamic cities.
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China’s stability during war, revolution, and unrest
Daniel Koss, a doctoral student in Harvard’s Government Department, has spent nearly a year in China, studying how such a large, diverse nation could remain intact through decades of warfare, revolution, and unrest, and emerge to wield growing influence on the global stage.
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“They thoroughly enjoyed the immersion,” said Christopher Lee, a design critic in urban design at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) who is teaching a course that brings students to fast-growing cities in China. “It’s a unique experience that GSD offers students.”
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Holistically Crimson: Alumnus works in finance, helps Harvard to thrive in Shanghai
SHANGHAI, China — “This experience wasn’t about going to class,” said Shaw Chen of the year he spent at Peking University.
Chen, who graduated from Harvard in 2000, said his stint in Beijing as a Harvard-Yenching Fellow was formative for him, but not necessarily because of his classroom learning. Arriving at the campus in the fall of 1998 after a summer stint at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, he took undergraduate classes with Chinese students and immersed himself in student life.
Both on and off the campus, on train and bus trips through the country, he saw a nation that, though ancient, was stretching new economic muscles.
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Student Testimonial - Carelton Forbes; China
Carleton Forbes, a senior from Virginia majoring in Social Studies, spent one semester of his junior year studying in China.
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Student Testimonial - Joa Alexander; China
Joa Alexander, a junior East Asian Studies Concentrator from Tarrytown, New York, spent the 2008 summer in China studying intensive Chinese.
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Student Testimonial - Kyle Haddad-Fonda; China and Egypt
Kyle Haddad-Fonda, a senior concentrating in History and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from Issaquah, Washington, split the summer of 2008 between Beijing, China and Cairo, Egypt conducting thesis research on Sino-Arab relations from 1955 to 1958.
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India
There are two Hyderabads. One, a historic city in the heart of India, established with a hilltop fort built by Hindu rulers in the fourteenth century, is rich with ancient palaces, tombs, and mosques built by the Muslim rulers who came later. The other is HITEC City, the northwestern suburb booming with industry linked to that acronym: Hyderabad Information Technology Engineering Consultancy.
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Over the past several years, Harvard University has been ramping up its involvement in India and South Asia, a trend catalyzed by Harvard’s South Asia Initiative, which was founded in 2003 to foster the University’s engagement in the region. Harvard’s understanding of the region’s importance is highlighted by President Drew Faust’s January visit to India.
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India to retain economic ties to Iran
India’s ambassador to the United States discussed developments in the Middle East last Thursday, saying that the region’s peoples should determine how they’re governed, that Israel should have secure borders, and that Iranian oil will continue to flow into India despite international sanctions over Iran’s nuclear program.
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Harvard emissaries were opening many conversations across India in January. Students came for between-semesters academic projects. Professors visited to check in on research, NGOs they have started, and companies they advise. And President Drew Faust made her first visit, with stops in Mumbai and Delhi.
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The Maha Kumbh Mela, an eight-week Hindu festival held every 12 years in India and the largest human gathering on the planet, ended three weeks ago. Already, the tent city that had sprung up to accommodate millions of pilgrims is beginning to disappear from the sandy banks of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers, where the faithful had gathered.
But back in Cambridge, the real work of understanding the vast temporary city has just begun.
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Saving the mother river: Divinity, College students explore ‘sacred geography’ at India’s Kumbh Mela
“For anyone interested in the vibrancy of Hindu culture, this is a kind of epicenter of religious life,” said Harvard Professor Diana Eck (not pictured). Eck was joined by Harvard Divinity School students at Kumbh Mela, a six-week-long, millions-strong celebration of Mother Ganga.
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Indonesia
In May 1998, widespread food shortages and stubbornly high unemployment led to massive riots across Indonesia. More than 1,000 people were killed, and longtime ruler Suharto was driven from office.
The violence eventually ushered in a new era for one of the world’s most populous and complex nations, which spans more than 17,000 islands and is home to hundreds of ethnic and language groups that provide the kind of natural divisions that have brought other countries to civil war.
Fifteen years later, Indonesia appears to have skirted those centrifugal forces. Instead, its 242 million people have forged the world’s most populous Muslim-majority democracy.
Interest in their progress led to the creation in 2010 of Harvard Kennedy School’s (HKS) Indonesia Program, nestled within the Rajawali Foundation Institute for Asia, which itself is within HKS’ Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation.
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Japan
Assurances of the absolute safety of Japanese nuclear plants lulled the public and government into a false sense of security that was shattered a year ago when an earthquake and tsunami crippled the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, causing the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.
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It weighed close to 9,000 pounds, was dubbed “Little Boy,” and exploded about 1,800 feet above Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945. The heat of the initial blast rivaled the temperature of the sun’s surface. By some estimates, it killed 100,000 people instantly.
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Korea, North
How Will Events Play Out in Korea?
Tensions on the Korean peninsula continue to rise as North Korean leaders proclaim their intention to restart nuclear facilities in the latest in a series of bellicose statements seemingly aimed at the United States and its allies. John Park is an associate with the Project on Managing the Atom at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and an expert in Northeast Asian policy. We spoke with him this week about the most recent developments in Korea.
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Korea, South
Student Testimonial - Andrew Badger; South Korea
My experience as a Director’s Intern at the National Assembly in South Korea gave me a unique opportunity to see the inter-workings of a foreign government and the nature of East Asian democracy and political culture firsthand.
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Student Testimonial - Emily Bruemmer; South Korea
After studying Korean history and writing my thesis on Korean civil society during the colonial period, I was eager to spend more time in Korea, practice my Korean, and learn about Korean culture firsthand. I also hoped to gain work experience through my internship. This summer fulfilled all of these objectives and more.
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Student Testimonial - James Williamson; South Korea
When I signed up for the Harvard Summer School program in Korea I did not really know what to expect. I was looking for a summer abroad program for which I was qualified and which also appeared interesting to me. This program matched what I was looking for. I had no background in whatsoever in east asian history, yet for me that was a feature of the program since it meant that I would be learning things that were really new and I wanted to branch out beyond western Europe.
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Malaysia
Student Testimonial - Benjamin Gutierrez; Malaysia
After spending the summer of 2008 on Harvard Summer School¿s program in Borneo, Malaysia, Benjamin Gutierrez fulfilled his intention to change his concentration to Environmental Science and Public Policy.
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Mongolia
Invading Inner Mongolia’s painful past
Christmas, a doctoral student from Harvard’s History Department, is wrapping up work in the archives and libraries of Tokyo and headed for 10 months of study in Inner Mongolia, an autonomous region in northern China that spans much of China’s northern border.
Christmas’ work examines a complex place at a complex time. She’s focusing on the early part of the last century, when Han Chinese migrant farmers pushed into Inner Mongolia, then only thinly occupied by Mongol herders and hunter-gatherers. The farmers’ arrival touched off a scramble for land, a situation that became more complex after 1931, when the Japanese invaded northern China as part of the imperial expansion that was prelude to World War II. The Japanese divided Inner Mongolia into two puppet states, Manchukuo and Mengjiang.
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Pakistan
One recent morning, Karthik Ramanna, an associate professor of business administration at Harvard Business School (HBS), sat down in a virtually empty Harvard conference room and prepared to explain different forms of government corruption and how to combat them.
But he was not teaching his usual M.B.A. students. Rather, his words — specifically, a presentation of HBS three case studies on anti-corruption efforts in China, Russia, and India — were being broadcast live to students, academics, and activists at 13 universities in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka.
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U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter doesn’t beat around the bush: America’s relationship with Pakistan — a vital ally in securing Afghanistan’s fragile stability — has deteriorated. And when it comes to mending those frayed ties, Munter is even less sentimental
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Europe
Austria
Student Testimonial - Michael Schacter; Austria
Michael Schacter is a senior Music Concentrator from Westborough, Massachusetts. He spent the 2008 summer in Vienna, Austria studying German and improving his music composition at the Vienna Konservatorium.
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Finland
Just as magnolias were starting to bloom in Boston during spring break, a group of six Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) students, accompanied by an intrepid middle-school teen reporter, bundled up and headed off to the wintry wonders of Helsinki, Finland. The team consisted of seven members, master’s students Rebecca Conklin, Susan Joo, Trea Lynch, Tracy Shih, Tracy Tan, and Julianne Viola, and Joo’s nephew, 15-year-old Colin Park from Dexter School, an international student from Korea. Their mission: to experience firsthand the daily lives of the people behind the highly successful Finnish education system.
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Germany
European debt problems have ripple effects far beyond the continent and are really concerns affecting modern industrial societies that cannot afford all that their citizens want, a Harvard authority on Europe said Monday.
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University of Freiburg agreement signed
A signing ceremony of the “Memorandum of Understanding” marked an agreement between Harvard University and Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg (University of Freiburg), which will provide study abroad opportunities for Harvard undergraduates through the Harvard College Europe Program.
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Italy
Student Testimonial - Kendra Boothe; Italy
Kendra Boothe was a summer intern at the Clinton Climate Initiative in Rome in the summer of 2008.
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Latin America and Caribbean
Argentina
Student Testimonial - Diane Ghogumu; Argentina
Diane Ghogumu graduated from Harvard College in May 2009 where she concentrated in African American Studies. She participated in the DRCLAS Study Abroad Program in Argentina the fall of her junior year. Shortly after, she returned with a Fulbright Grant to continue her research on African presence in Argentina.
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Brazil
Student Testimonial - Anika Grubbs; Rio de Janiero, Brazil
Anika Grubbs (College '09) highlights her experiences living in Rio de Janeiro. After strengthening her Portuguese language skills in Clemence Jouet-Pastre's Harvard Summer School Program in Rio in 2007, Anika returned to Brazil for a human rights internship during the summer of 2008.
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Student Testimonial - Eric Rodriguez; Sao Paulo, Brazil
Eric Rodriguez (College '09) speaks about his experience living in Sao Paulo, Brazil from July to September 2008. Eric was a participant in the 2008 DRCLAS Summer Internship Program.
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Student Testimonial - Fabio Tran; Brazil
Fabio Tran, a Lemann Fellow at HKS, talks about his experience at the Kenndy School and its impact on efforts to help launch a social entrepreneurship venture focused on low-cost incubators for newborns (in Portuguese).
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Student Testimonial - Marcelo Cerullo; Coari, Brazil
Marcelo Cerullo (College '10) shares his experiences conducting field research on the impact of a gas pipeline project on regional development in Coari, Amazonas.
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Student Testimonial - Rosabelli Coelho-Keyssar; Petrolina, Brazil
Rosabelli Coelho-Keyssar (Harvard Kennedy School '08 & Lemann Fellow '08) talks about her decision to apply to HKS and the impact of her experience there (in Portuguese).
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Chile
Chile-Harvard partnership strong
ollaboration and cooperation were watchwords Thursday as Harvard celebrated its deep ties with Chile during the launch of a two-day seminar on that nation’s future. Participants hailed the contributions of Chilean scholars who’ve visited Cambridge, and the work of hundreds of Harvard faculty and students who’ve traveled south to learn and teach.
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Laurence Golborne was working in relative obscurity as Chile’s mining minister in August 2010 when a mineshaft collapse thousands of feet below ground in a remote corner of that country catapulted him into the international spotlight. The subsequent 69-day operation that Golborne led to rescue 33 trapped miners made him famous around the world.
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Cuba
Student Testimonial - Harry Rimalower; Cuba
Harry Rimalower, a junior Visual and Environmental Studies Concentrator from Sherman Oaks, California, spent the fall semester 2008 with the Harvard College Program in Cuba.
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Dominican Republic
Student Testimonial - Adam Clark; Dominican Republic
Adam Clark, a sophomore Environmental Science and Public Policy Concentrator from Watertown, Massachusetts, spent the summer of 2008 in Boston and the Dominican Republic conducting research on the Impact of Human Stresses on Ant Communities.
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Haiti
At dusk on Tuesday (Feb. 26), an hour before a Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) panel on life in Haiti since its devastating 2010 earthquake, a long line of audience hopefuls stretched down JFK Street. It was the kind of queue you might see at a movie premiere.
And there was a movie star at the Institute of Politics (IOP), where the guests are usually pundits, politicians, and policymakers.
Activist actor and sometime director Sean Penn was among three panelists for “Haiti: Progress and Challenges Three Years Later.” His nonprofit J/P Haitian Relief Organization coordinates local, rapid, and sustainable aid, including medical, engineering, and camp-relocation services.
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Mexico
Student Testimonial - Cesar Marquez; Mexico
César Márquez, a senior Psychology Concentrator from Elmwood Park, Illinois, spent the summer term 2008 in Oaxaca, Mexico interning at various hospitals within the region.
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Peru
Student Testimonial - Tarek Austin; Lima, Peru
Tarek Austin participated in the 2009 Harvard Summer Internship Program in Lima, Peru. For him, travelling to Latin America was a unique opportunity to consolidate his Spanish-speaking skills, to lend a hand in reducing poverty (in this case, educational poverty) in a less-developed country, and to learn to relate to different lifestyles by immersing himself in a new culture.
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Middle East and North Africa
Regional
Fostering global understanding
Following months of upheaval marked by revolutions, the Middle East and the West find themselves at a rare crossroads. The opportunity now exists for the two regions to build bridges that can foster new levels of cultural, religious, and political understanding and mutual respect through education.
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Egypt
The Temple of Amun-Ra at Karnak isn’t the most famous ancient site in Egypt — that honor goes to the Pyramids at Giza — but newly developed reconstructions using 3-D virtual reality modeling make clear its architectural importance and rich history.
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Giza in Another Dimension – Innovation at Harvard
What if you could enter a decorated tomb chapel in a Giza pyramid, descend down an ancient burial shaft, or see 5,000-year-old inscriptions come to life—without ever having to travel? Peter Der Manuelian, Philip J. King Professor of Egyptology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, is leading an effort to digitize the extensive archives available from sites in Giza to make remote antiquities more accessible. He draws on 3-D technology in Harvard’s Visualization Center at the Geological Museum to create a real-time, interactive model of the pyramid site so students can immerse themselves in the rich history of the ancient Egyptians.
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Student Testimonial - Kyle Haddad-Fonda; China and Egypt
Kyle Haddad-Fonda, a senior concentrating in History and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from Issaquah, Washington, split the summer of 2008 between Beijing, China and Cairo, Egypt conducting thesis research on Sino-Arab relations from 1955 to 1958.
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When he first stumbled on the field that would become his life’s work, Peter Der Manuelian was a fourth-grader in suburban Boston. The object of his attention was 5,000 years old.
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In a conversation that ranged from the recent parliamentary elections to the ongoing sexual abuse of women to a new wave of journalists, panelists at the Feb. 2 Harvard Kennedy School Forum on Egypt expressed both fear and hope for a country still in the midst of a revolution.
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Iraq
Ancient Iraq revealed: Harvard illuminates ‘richest archaeological landscape in the Middle East’
After nearly a century away, Harvard archaeology has returned to Iraq.
Jason Ur, the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences, earlier this year launched a five-year archaeological project — the first such Harvard-led endeavor in the war-torn nation since the early 1930s — to scour a 3,200-square-kilometer area around Irbil, the capital of the Kurdish region in northern Iraq, for signs of ancient cities and towns, canals, and roads.
Already, Ur said, the effort is paying massive dividends — with some 1,200 potential sites identified in just a few months, and potentially thousands more in the coming years.
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North America
Regional
Mystery of Native Americans’ arrival: Study shows three waves, not one, carried people to New World
The Americas’ first human settlers arrived in a complex series of migrations, pushing over the ancient land bridge from Asia at least three times but moving in both directions, with at least one group scrapping it all and bringing themselves and their genetic signature back home to Asia.
Research conducted by an international team led by scientists from Harvard University and University College London illuminates the roots of today’s Native Americans through genetic analysis and by comparison with native groups in Siberia.
The results, published in the July 11 issue of the journal Nature, examined genetic data from 52 Native American groups and 17 Siberian groups, and helped settle a debate among anthropologists over whether the Americas were settled just once or several times.
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Global
Reported natural disasters are up dramatically since 1950, with more lives damaged by homelessness and injury, even as modern medical care and improved disaster response have reduced the number of lives lost, an authority on global disaster data said Monday.
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On Friday, two weeks after the World Bank Governors approved a major push to end poverty, Jim Yong Kim, M.D. ’91, Ph.D. ’93, president of the World Bank Group, described the plan to a Harvard audience in the Asia Center’s annual Tsai Lecture at the Science Center.
Within 17 years, the bank seeks to reduce the proportion of people living on $1.25 a day or less to 3 percent, the lowest possible figure given natural disasters.
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In the little town of 5,000 where he now lives, John Briscoe holds the exalted title “master of the Todd Pond dam,” a tiny impoundment. He uses this role to introduce his students to the competing demands at the heart of water management.
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The plight of adolescents, worldwide
Focusing on fulfilling the human rights of children and adolescents worldwide would yield widespread economic benefits, a Nobel Prize-winning economist and the head of the international child welfare agency UNICEF said Thursday.
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“What you just heard, in some way, reflects what cultural citizenship is,” said cellist Yo-Yo Ma (center) before participating in a discussion on the topic, which was moderated by Diana Sorensen.
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As the doors opened, I was thrust out in a tide of briefcases and stilettos. Bracing myself for the eight-minute walk to my next train, I stepped onto the escalator and began to soak in the surreal and quintessentially London scene before me: the captivating advertisements for musicals in the West End, a fleeting glimpse of a red double-decker bus on the street outside — until a deep cockney accent brought me out of my daze.
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Governments have the duty to protect their citizens from corporate abuses, and so have an important role to play in regulating business activity within their boundaries, said Professor John Ruggie. Ruggie is the Berthold Beitz Professor in Human Rights and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School.
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Every year since 1935, the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) has awarded one of its graduates the Arthur W. Wheelwright Traveling Fellowship, praised by generations of recipients for enriching careers in most cases already under way.
“Architecture frequently must be practiced before there is time for it to be properly considered,” Ker-Shing Ong, M.Arch./A.L.M. ’02, wrote in a book on the legacy of the Wheelwright. Ong, the award’s 2003-04 recipient, used it to study what she called “the awkward (and spectacular) metamorphosis” of fast-growing Shanghai.
Starting this year, the GSD has expanded the notion of the traditional award, opening the application process to early-career architects practicing anywhere in the world. Applicants are no longer required to have an affiliation with the GSD.
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China’s stability during war, revolution, and unrest
Daniel Koss, a doctoral student in Harvard’s Government Department, has spent nearly a year in China, studying how such a large, diverse nation could remain intact through decades of warfare, revolution, and unrest, and emerge to wield growing influence on the global stage.
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