Creating an “Ecosystem” for Business

Addressing an audience of community members and small business owners at the Harvard Ed Portal last Thursday, Karen Mills ’75, M.B.A. ’77, a senior fellow at Harvard Business School and former vice chair of the Harvard Board of Overseers, said that an “ecosystem” is vital to driving economic development in a community. An ecosystem is … Continue reading →

The Universe and the Big Picture

  Yeilanise Noriega, a sixth-grader at Jackson/Mann K-8 School, recently experienced a course that changed her world perspective exponentially — so much so that she is now convinced life exists on other planets.   “I didn’t think so before, but I do now believe there is life elsewhere,” she said. “There are billions and billions … Continue reading →

Trash, Treasure, Art

Except for a small piece of paper, Konstantin Simun might have worked with oil and canvas rather than the sculptures for which he is internationally known. Originally hoping to be a painter, Simun was accepted to art school in his native Russia when he was 11 years old. He was given a piece of paper … Continue reading →

Within Each of Us, a Legacy of Collaboration

In exploring how humans harness energy to do work, Robert A. Lue – faculty director of HarvardX, professor of the practice of Molecular and Cellular Biology, and the Richard L. Menschel Faculty Director of the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning – said the answer lies within. Very deep within. “When we think about work, we think … Continue reading →

A Global System That Failed

Between 1976 and 2012, Ebola outbreaks claimed approximately 1,600 lives. But the most recent outbreak of 2013–14, which consumed the coast of West Africa and spread to the U.S. and Europe, claimed more than 11,000. Why was this Ebola outbreak so different? “If you look at what happened in this global catastrophe, it was completely … Continue reading →

How They Got to Harvard

Thomas Hehir, Ed.D. ’90, the Silvana and Christopher Pascucci Professor of Practice in Learning Differences at the Harvard Graduate School of Education(HGSE), spent much of his career helping children with disabilities, including a decade teaching in Boston Public Schools. But when he came to Harvard to teach, he found a surprising number of students with disabilities … Continue reading →

The Scholarship of Things

Addressing an audience at the Harvard Ed Portal, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, the 300th Anniversary University Professor and a Pulitzer Prize winner for history, said that many objects in Harvard’s collections defy easy categorization. Consider, she said, the tortilla. “It’s one of my favorite objects in Harvard’s museums,” she said of the University’s 118-year-old tortilla, which … Continue reading →

How it Really Happened

Speaking to a crowd at the Harvard Allston Education Portal, Professor Annette Gordon-Reed smiled when an audience member asked: Did Thomas Jefferson love Sally Hemings? It’s a familiar question for Gordon-Reed, the Charles Warren Professor of American Legal History, Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor with the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and a history professor with … Continue reading →