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Articles by Peter Vanderwarker
May-June 2021 | Harvard Magazine
“I really had to talk to people about their experiences,” says Sandra Susan Smith about her revealing research. Photograph by Jim Harrison Sandra Susan Smith studies work and incarceration in an unequal, atomized America. Click on arrow at right to view full image An illuminated page showing Abu Zayd and his friend al-Harith, narrator of the Impostures, arriving in a village, from a copy of the Maqamat (“Impostures”) created in Baghdad in 1237 by Yahya ibn Mahmud al-Wasiti.
On the Harvard’s academic to-do list
In his installation address, President Lawrence S. Bacow said, “[W]e must strive to model the behavior we would hope to see elsewhere.” His context then was sustaining free speech on campus in the search for truth. When he invokes the phrase now, it seems broadly applicable to the ways Harvard must conduct itself, if it truly aspires to be a leading institution of higher education, at a moment when many institutions seem to be stumbling.
Harvard’s COVID-19 spring and fall outlook
In academic terms, the pandemic maintained its sway over campus during the spring semester—particularly in the wintry early weeks. But after the disappointing news of another virtual graduation, in lieu of a full Commencement, spring brought upbeat news about a more normal 2021-2022.
Why Petitioning is Vital for Democracies
At a time when the federal government seems distant and Congress gridlocked by partisanship and the filibuster, is there another way to ensure the people’s voice is heard? Daniel Carpenter thinks so: his study of citizens’ use of petitions in the past suggests that direct contact between the people and their representatives, complementing their occasional interaction in elections, might invigorate democracy.
Allston expansion, admissions litigation, center for cities
Enlarged Allston Ambitions Even as work proceeds toward construction of the first commercial buildings in Harvard’s 14-acre “enterprise research campus” (ERC) along Western Avenue in Allston, the University’s development partner, Tishman Speyer, has begun outlining ambitions for a successor phase. The initial program—a hotel and conference center, two residential towers, and two office/lab buildings, encompassing 950,000 square feet of space—may begin to rise next year.
Highfield Hall & Gardens, on Cape Cod
Cape Cod summons the quintessential summer vacation—sun, sand, and seafood—but also offers historical and cultural attractions that can be especially savored during the less-crowded shoulder seasons. Among these is Highfield Hall, a restored 1878 mansion in Falmouth. Saved from the wrecking ball in 1994, the Victorian-era house is one of the earliest Stick-style “cottages” on the shore, and marked the town’s nascent transition from a defunct whaling hub into a thriving summer resort.
Overseer and alumni association candidates
This spring, alumni can vote for a new group of Harvard Overseers and Harvard Alumni Association (HAA) elected directors. The slates appear below, in ballot order as determined by lot. Read Overseer nominees’ thoughts on the Board’s role and challenges facing the University at harvardmag.com/overseer-nomineeviews-21. Alumni may vote by paper ballot or online through May 18. For Overseer (six-year term): Nominated by HAA committee: Terah Evaleen Lyons ’14, San Francisco.
Chicago’s Lake Street ‘L’ was originally supposed to be a monorail
I bought a copy of The “L”: The Development of Chicago’s Rapid Transit System, 1888-1932, written by Bruce Moffat, a historian of electric trains in Chicago. Moffat currently works for the Chicago Transit Authority.
What did we learn?
Skip to content Feature Oct 31, 2019 Years after chronicling the evolution of Boston’s cityscapes, the architect-and-photographer duo recalibrate LOST Sep-Oct 2019 by Robert Campbell FAIA and Peter Vanderwarker A city to explore An aerial photo of part of the old city—it happens to be the Haymarket district—is superimposed on a map of the new. How could we have been so stupid that we lost the fun of investigating all those complicated streets?
Harvard final-club sanctions aftermath
As previously reported, the Harvard Corporation has adopted a policy that prohibits undergraduate members of unrecognized single-gender social organizations (USGSOs: final clubs, fraternities, and sororities) from holding leadership positions in recognized organizations or athletic teams, or receiving the College’s required endorsement for fellowships such as Rhodes and Marshall scholarships.
Sexual Harassment and Assault Complaints Increased 65 Percent Last Year
A new report released by the Title IX Office and the Office for Dispute Resolution (ODR) shares three years of data about gender-based discrimination, sexual harassment, and sexual assault at Harvard. In the past year, the number of formal complaints with the ODR has risen by 65 percent, from 26 to 43––a number that the office partially attributes to increased community awareness about the University’s resources.
Federal NLRB Throws Out Harvard’s Appeal in Grad Student Union Case
The federal National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) today rejected Harvard’s challenge to an earlier NLRB decision that had ordered a new graduate-student union election.
Federal NLRB Throws Out Harvard’s Appeal in Grad Student Union Case
The federal National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) today rejected Harvard’s challenge to an earlier NLRB decision that had ordered a new graduate-student union election.
Federal NLRB Throws Out Harvard’s Appeal in Grad Student Union Case
The federal National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) today threw out Harvard’s challenge to an earlier NLRB decision that had ordered a new graduate-student union election.
College Admits 14.5 Percent of Early-Action Applicants
THE COLLEGE has admitted 14.5 percent of early-action applicants to the class of 2022, the same percentage as last year, the admissions office announced today. Of the 6,630 students who applied through the program, 964 were admitted. The admissions office reports that “all measures of economic diversity” have improved for this year’s early-action applicants: “First-generation college students comprise nearly 10.6 percent of the early admitted students compared to 8.7 percent last year.
Harvard Files Plan for Allston “Innovation” District
Harvard has publicly filed its proposal to develop its “enterprise research campus” (ERC), a non-academic, commercial “innovation” district in Allston just south of Harvard Business School (HBS) and east of the new science and engineering complex. The filing triggers a 45-day period for public comment, after which the Boston Public Development Agency will consider the plan for approval. It covers an initial phase of what may, over time, become a much larger commercial district.
Harvard basketball: an early season report
In August 2012, Tommy Amaker welcomed an unusual visitor to Lavietes Pavilion: Kentucky men’s basketball coach John Calipari. It was mostly a social call; Calipari was in town to visit his daughter. He dropped by practice as the Crimson prepared for a trip to Italy to play several local teams and tour the country, recalled Trey Grayson ’94, the team’s then faculty fellow and a former Kentucky secretary of state, in a phone interview last week.
Harvard’s Social Club Sanctions: A Call for Reactions
This week, the College announced that it would impose sanctions on all students (matriculating in the fall of 2017 or later) who join unrecognized single-gender social organizations, including final clubs, sororities, and fraternities. Those students won’t be allowed to hold leadership positions in any official student organizations or athletic teams, or to receive the required College endorsement for competitive fellowships like the Rhodes and Marshall.
Harvard’s Social Club Sanctions: A Call for Reactions
This week, the College announced that it would impose sanctions on all students (matriculating in the fall of 2017 or later) who join unrecognized single-gender social organizations, including final clubs, sororities, and fraternities. Those students won’t be allowed to hold leadership positions in any official student organizations or athletic teams, or to receive the required College endorsement for competitive fellowships like the Rhodes and Marshall.
Harvard Imposes Single-Gender Social Club Sanctions
Harvard College will implement the sanctions on student membership in unrecognized single-gender social organizations (USGSOs: the final clubs, fraternities, and sororities) first announced by President Drew Faust and dean of Harvard College Rakesh Khurana in May 2016. The news came at the beginning of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) meeting this afternoon in University Hall, when Faust read a statement from herself and William F. Lee, senior fellow of the Harvard Corporation.
Kennedy School’s Campus Makeover
The Harvard Kennedy School’s (HKS) light and airy new campus, unveiled at a ribbon-cutting ceremony this morning, looks like an intentional antithesis to its older, stuffy buildings.
Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer boosts Harvard computer science faculty
Steve Ballmer ’77, then president of Microsoft, and William H. (Bill) Gates III ’77, LL.D. ’07, the company’s co-founder and long-time chief executive, jointly funded Harvard’s Maxwell Dworkin building—the 100,000-square-foot home for computer sciences and electrical engineering (within the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences; SEAS) that bears the names of their mothers, Mary Maxwell Gates and Beatrice Dworkin Ballmer.
Race in a Genetic World
“I am an African American,” says Duana Fullwiley, “but in parts of Africa, I am white.” To do fieldwork as a medical anthropologist in Senegal, she says, “I take a plane to France, a seven- to eight-hour ride. My race changes as I cross the Atlantic. There, I say, ‘Je suis noire,’ and they say, ‘Oh, okay—métisse—you are mixed.’ Then I fly another six to seven hours to Senegal, and I am white.
Harvard Corporation’s Bill Lee interviewed
In a conversation this afternoon, William F. Lee, senior fellow of the Harvard Corporation, reviewed the progress of the governing board’s most pressing current priority—conducting the search for the successor to President Drew Faust, who steps down next June 30—and touching on other University matters, from research in the life sciences to the operation of the Corporation itself.
Priscilla Chan Grants $12 Million for Public Service
When last seen on campus, during her tenth reunion, pediatrician Priscilla Chan ’07, poncho-clad, was applauding her husband, Mark Zuckerberg ’06, LL.D.’17, Facebook’s co-founder and CEO, as he finally got his Harvard degree and delivered the address at the Commencement afternoon exercises last May.
The Four Chaplains Are Honored in Memorial Church
From 1942 to 1944, Harvard served as home for the U.S. Army’s Chaplain School, where a five-week program during the height of World War II graduated 20 consecutive classes of “sky pilots”—6,449 in all: priests, ministers, and rabbis representing the three faiths then recognized by the American military. Their training included long marches, defense against chemical warfare, military law, first aid, military sanitation, and graves registration.
Harvard final clubs debate divided faculty
Following the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) meeting on November 7—and a vote that rejected a motion opposing the College’s regulation of final clubs, fraternities, and sororities—the Harvard Crimson headlined “Sanctions Vote a Sigh of Relief for Administrators” and “In Victory for Administrators, Anti-Sanctions Faculty Motion Fails.” In a very real sense, those headlines ring true.
A New Cast for the Harvard Semitic Museum
“Fun with goo!” chirped Peter der Manuelian, director of the Harvard Semitic Museum, observing the activity in its third-floor gallery. Kneeling on the floor, three student volunteers in protective coats and blue latex gloves smeared a grainy, salmon-colored paste over a rubbery template shaped like a tombstone.
Harvard basketball teams preview
Last March, Lavietes Pavilion, the home of Harvard basketball, took on an unusual feel. Coaches in sports jackets gave way to construction workers in neon vests, whose boots marked the hardwood where sneakers usually squeaked. The tabletop machine used to operate the electronic scoreboard sat idly on the floor. The baskets were wheeled away amid the work—begun the previous summer and mostly paused during the 2016-2017 season—to gut the 91-year-old building.
Final Clubs: Toward a Vote
This afternoon, at its second meeting of the semester, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) continued the protracted debate over unrecognized single-gender social organizations (USGSOs)—namely, proposals by Harvard College to regulate final clubs (and by extension, fraternities and sororities) by imposing sanctions on student members, or by prohibiting membership outright (read the background here—including a summary of past plans to regulate student behavior and the legislative proposals...
Taxing university endowments | Harvard Magazine
After a year in which President Drew Faust and fellow university leaders successfully persuaded members of Congress to sustain federal funding for scientific research—in opposition to the Trump administration’s budget outline—they now find the tax proposal advanced last week by the Republican leaders of the House of Representatives aiming for the first time at private institutions’ endowments.
A Transformative Gift of Dutch Drawings
The Harvard Art Museums have received 330 seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish master drawings—according to the museum, the finest private collection of such images anywhere—from George Abrams ’54, J.D. ’57. His gift includes work by more than 100 artists, including Rembrandt and de Gheyn, as well as lesser known names, and will distinguish Harvard and the Boston area as a top site for the study of Dutch art outside Europe.
Harvard Education and Radcliffe dean searches
Although she will depart Massachusetts Hall next June 30, President Drew Faust remains very much the University’s leader, and so she has announced searches for new deans of the Graduate School of Education (filling the vacancy that will occur when James E. Ryan leaves to become president of the University of Virginia) and the Radcliffe Institute (where Lizabeth Cohen is stepping down at the end of the academic year).
Football 2017: Harvard 25, Dartmouth 22
Ivy League football is like Hollywood: Nobody knows anything. Eight days after being steamrolled on its home turf by Princeton 52-17, and after spotting Dartmouth the first 14 points in this weekend’s game, Harvard’s football team rallied behind the resourceful play of quarterback Jake Smith ’21 for a 25-22 win over the Big Green. The victory moves the Crimson to 4-3 overall and 2-2 in the Ivy League. Dartmouth drops to 5-2 and 2-2 in league play.
Six alumni recognized for volunteer service
Six alumni were recognized with HAA Awards for outstanding service to the University during the HAA board of directors’ fall meeting. Leila T. Fawaz, Ph.D. ’79, of Cambridge, was a member of the Board of Overseers from 2006 to 2012, where she served on its executive committee, chaired the social-sciences committee, and was elected president for the 2011-2012 term.
"Comic license": showrunner Alan Yang on "Master of None" and what comes next
In the television show Master of None, two Asian-American friends treat their parents to dinner. Awkwardly, one announces the purpose of the meal: “We wanted to learn more about you and how you got here.” But when prompted to share a story, his father is stoic: “I cannot think of anything noteworthy.” The son persists. “Come on—there’s got to be something, right?
Harvard Berkman Center Fellow Judith Donath says pseudonyms make better citizens
People socialize online more than ever: posting photos on Instagram, job-hunting on LinkedIn, joking about politics on Twitter, and sharing reviews of everything from hotels to running shoes. Judith Donath, a fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, argues against using real names for most of these Internet interactions and relying instead on pseudonyms. A made-up handle is essential to maintain privacy and manage one’s online identity, she says.
Robert Frost revealed in his letters
It’s not often that a poet is famous enough to become the target of character assassination 50 years after his death. But in November 2013, a half-century after Robert Frost died, Harper’s Magazine published a withering attack on his legend, in the form of a short story by Joyce Carol Oates.
Brief life of novelist Ann Petry, by Farah Jasmine Griffin
Unlike many aspiring artists who move to New York, Ann (Lane) Petry did not come in search of celebrity or fame. She left her hometown of Old Saybrook, Connecticut, for Harlem in 1938 to join her new husband, George, to escape the expectations of her middle-class family, and to pursue her literary ambitions. Yet in less than a decade, she would become the most successful black woman writer of her day.
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