The sky over Cambridge is grayer these past few months. It has been a difficult semester for Harvard. We lost two students—one to an accident and the other to suicide. The former was a prodigious and ambitious young scientist set on shaking up the world for the better, the latter a kind and poetic soul … Read more
Next week, Americans will choose their President. Yet, when voters most need the truth, and facts are available instantaneously from many sources, a recent Gallup poll shows that Americans’ confidence in media has reached new lows. This distrust largely stems from perceptions of bias. However, the pursuit of balance should be an equal cause for … Read more
A casual observer of the Syrian uprising could be excused for viewing the conflict as a battle between good and evil. The narrative that dominates Western media coverage certainly paints the struggle as a black and white contest between freedom-lovers and bloodthirsty authoritarians. But in reality, this ethnic quarrel should be described only in a smear … Read more
The Buckeye State serves as America’s microcosm, a sort of melting pot between Northern manufacturing, Midwestern farmland, Appalachian terrain, and Upper Southern culture—all squeezed in between bustling urban centers. It’s often remarked that candidates in Ohio really run five campaigns, each with a different message tailored to the four corners and central area of the … Read more
Dear Readers, More than any other university, Harvard lies at the nexus of American public policy, politics, and academia. Eight presidents have graduated from Harvard, and on Nov. 6, the nation will choose yet another alumnus to be commander-in-chief. Similar statistics hold for Supreme Court justices, senators, and members of Congress. For these astonishing numbers, … Read more
In an interview with the Harvard Crimson last year, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger mentioned something unique about the Kennedy administration: it was the first to heavily utilize college professors. Kissinger said, “it was only in the Kennedy administration in the sixties that an organic relationship was established between the White House and Harvard… … Read more
Today, there an estimated 80 million American “Millennials,” the generational cohort comprised of those born between the early 1980s and early 2000s. But, given the current policy debates, you might not even know they exist. Matthew Warshauer, student director of Harvard’s Public Opinion Project, tells the HPR that, “If [Millennials] were more organized, they would … Read more
Both the Obama and Romney campaigns are employing digital technology to outspend, outmaneuver, and outfox one another. Millions of dollars are being poured into data servers that collect your personal information in an attempt to determine whether you will commit money or votes. If Howard Dean pioneered the digital campaign in 2004 and Barack Obama … Read more
Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are going to make professors famous, not for research awards, books, Ted Talks, or columns, but for-dare I say it-teaching. Until now, professors have become famous by venturing outside their profession. While they can only lecture to a few hundred at most, other outlets and positions have offered more. For … Read more
This article is written in response to “New York Got it Right,” by Andrew Seo. When the New York City Board of Health ratified Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposed ban on large soft drinks just a few weeks ago, it placed itself at the forefront of a dangerous new movement in American governance. Indeed, many condemned … Read more