May 25, 2000

Rudenstine leaving presidency in 2001
Neil L. Rudenstine announced May 22 that he will conclude his tenure as President of Harvard University at the end of the 2000-01 academic year.

Rudenstine receives praise from many
"[President Clinton] appreciates Neil Rudenstine's leadership at Harvard, particularly his commitment to federal research and science and technology and also his efforts to expand the African-American Studies department there."

Five fellows named by HDS' Women's Studies
The Women’s Studies in Religion Program at Harvard Divinity School has named five visiting fellows for the 2000-01 academic year. They are Sidnie Crawford, Sue Houchins, Oyeronke Olajuba, Tracy Pintchman, and Traci West. Each fellow will teach one course during the academic year, and devote the rest of her time to scholarly projects of her choice.

Weatherhead Center awards 2000-01 travel grants
The Weatherhead Center for International Affairs has announced that 16 Harvard juniors will become 2000-01 Undergraduate Associates of the Center. These students have received summer travel grants to support senior thesis research on topics related to international affairs.

Importance of voting registers with students
Next September, first-year students at Harvard College will be able to register for more than Molecular Biology, Expository Writing, and Introduction to Old Norse; they will also have the opportunity to register to vote.

Mock Web site raises tough ethical issues about privacy
There’s a lot going on in Gotham City.

Internet is revolutionizing the way designers (and others) work
When Graduate School of Design (GSD) Professor of Design Technology and Managment Spiro Pollalis was selected co-chair of the Third Biennial International Conference on Internet & Society (iS2k), beginning next week at Harvard, he didn’t have to look very far to get his inspiration.

Police Log
Following are some of the incidents reported to the Harvard University Police Department for the week ending May 20. The official log is located at Police Headquarters, 29 Garden St.

Notes

Newsmakers

Twelve Nieman Fellows named
Twelve international journalists have been named Nieman Fellows for the 2000-01 academic year. They will join twelve U.S. journalists whose names were announced earlier in May to make up the 63rd class of Nieman Fellows.

New 'my.Harvard.edu' portal will speed access to database links
The password isn't "open sesame" but the new cyber-gateway into Harvard databases still seems like something of a marvel (at least to the non-techies among us).

Faculty of Arts and Sciences -- Memorial Minute -- Earl Kim
"I am reducing everything to its maximum." This was Earl Kim's way of describing his own music and the compositional processes and aesthetic which assured its distinctive, individual character. Spare, elegant, refined, elusive, beautiful and profound are terms repeatedly used by commentators in attempts to describe the music and evoke its spirit. It inhabits a sound-world which indeed is sparse but never desolate; elegant though tough; refined yet bold; elusive but precise; beautiful in its complexity; profound in its simplicity. Stripped of conventional musical rhetoric, the melodic, harmonic, timbral and rhythmic dimensions of Kim's music cohere with an uncanny visionary rightness. It is unique.

'Virtual' innovations change our lives for real
Just how – and how much – is the dotcom world changing our lives? In a V.I.P.-studded attempt to answer this question, the Harvard community is hosting the third Internet & Society Conference in Sanders Theatre from Wednesday, May 31, Friday, June 2. Keynote speakers include Mitch Kapor, founder of Lotus Development Corporation; Andy Grove, chairman of the board of Intel; Candice Carpenter, the CEO of ivillage.com; Jerry Greenberg, Sapient’s co-CEO; and Peter Neupert, the CEO of Drugstore.com.

Hoopes Prize winners named
Sixty-four undergraduates have won the Thomas T. Hoopes Prize for outstanding scholarly work or research. The Prize is funded by the estate of Thomas T. Hoopes ’19, a firearms expert who was curator of the City Art Museum in St. Louis for more than 25 years.

Harvard Foundation honors students for improving racial climate
Racial harmony doesn’t happen by accident on a college campus. It often takes hard work.

Cub reporters join Gazette
It is 2 p.m. at Graham & Parks School in Central Square. Susan McCray passes out a letter to each student in her seventh-grade homeroom. Tension was building as the students slid a piece of paper out of each envelope. The time had come for each one of them to discover what his or her City Sites jobs would be.

Faculty of Arts and Sciences -- Memorial Minute -- John H. Finley
On a festive occasion marking John Finley's retirement as Master of Eliot House in 1968, an admiring colleague evoked the mythical image of Cheiron, the wise centaur who was teacher to the greatest men of heroic times, even to Achilles. Cheiron was different from other centaurs because he was son of Kronos, ruler of the Golden Age. In his own way, Finley's father came from another such Golden Age: he was editor of The New York Times in the era of Woodrow Wilson.

A-crewing honors -- Harvard heavyweights churn up the Charles
Radcliffe and Harvard crews advanced to the Grand Finals in all six of the major divisions at the 55th annual Eastern Sprints Championships, held May 21, on Worcester's Lake Quinsigamond, an accomplishment matched only by Princeton.

Biological clock genes identified
Scientists have gotten the closest look yet at the inner works of biological clocks that drive our natural sleep-wake cycle. They’re surprised at how complicated the mechanism is.

25-year recognition
Harvard University President Neil L. Rudenstine (left) congratulates 25-year Harvard employee Bertha Demirjian, who works at the Admissions and Financial Aid Office. Demirjian has worked in different departments within Harvard University. The recognition ceremony took place inside the Ropes-Gray Room, Pound Hall, Harvard Law School. Staff photo by Kris Snibbe