On Oct. 26, Harvard Kennedy School’s John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum hosted actor Keri Russell, showrunner Debora Cahn, and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power to discuss the creation of the television show “The Diplomat.” Titled “The Diplomat: On Screen and in the World” and moderated by Shorenstein Center Director Nancy Gibbs, […]
On Oct. 9, the Class of 2029 gathered on the steps of Widener Library to celebrate their concentration declarations. Their decisions come at a pivotal time, as critics fear artificial intelligence will erode the first rung of the corporate ladder and make entry into higher education more competitive. Meanwhile, the looming grade cap, set to […]
On Aug. 24, a week before the start of the 2026 fall semester, Dean of Undergraduate Education Amanda Claybaugh told Peer Advising Fellows that Harvard College would automatically turn all course A grades into A-minuses if professors refused to comply with the new grade cap. Claybaugh then retracted her statement on Aug. 27, claiming the […]
On April 22, Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics’ John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum hosted a conversation between Margaret Spellings, the U.S. Secretary of Education under President George W. Bush from 2005 to 2009, and John King ’96, the U.S. Secretary of Education from 2016 to 2017. The forum was moderated by Virginia Secretary of […]
From March 25 to 29, the Harvard Asian Student Arts Program presented “Asian Women I Know,” a one-hour play written by Mira Jiang ’26 and directed by Crystal Manyloun ’26. Inspired by a real dim sum dinner between Jiang, Manyloun, and their friends, the two transformed a meaningful conversation into a fully realized production. “Having […]
“Neo-Nazis at Harvard? Not surprised,” Aaron Thompson ’27 said. “They’re just very ‘red pill,’ irritating men, you know? Just terrible,” an anonymous sophomore in Mather House added. “I think the revamp is a scam,” another sophomore in Cabot House commented. In the wake of a leadership shakeup at the “Salient” due to past publication of […]
Eileen Gu and Alysa Liu are two of the most prominent young athletes in international winter sports, whose lives seem to run in parallel. Both were born in the United States to Chinese single parents who had their children by surrogacy with white American donors, and both rose quickly to the top of their respective […]
Chloe Lee ’29 entered the Holworthy basement with her friends at midnight on Feb. 23, at the tail end of the second blizzard Boston has experienced this year. “As I walked in, there was a common room with a bunch of couches, and along the couches was a HUDS worker asleep,” Lee said to the […]
Last Friday, on Feb. 6, Dean of Undergraduate Education Amanda Claybaugh shared an email with Harvard College students and faculty titled “Grading Policy Proposal.” In the email, she suggested a new grading policy that will be implemented with the College faculty’s approval. The plan suggests a 20% cap on A-grades given, with the instructor’s discretion […]
The “Harvard Independent” 2026 Love Survey offers insight into the common romantic dynamics, or lack thereof, on Harvard College’s campus. The survey points to a campus that doesn’t reject intimacy, but approaches it cautiously and strategically. Respondent Demographics The “Independent” collected 107 responses across all four undergraduate class years and residential houses. Of all respondents, […]
Harvard College’s 2025-2026 Winter Recess spurred feelings of uncertainty and caution for its international student population. Averaging around 27% of each undergraduate class, the College’s international students had to navigate whether to remain on campus or travel abroad during the four-week intermission between semesters, as the Trump Administration continues to pursue actions directed toward international […]
Danoff Dean of Harvard College David J. Deming hosted an open student forum on Jan. 27 in the Lowell House Junior Common Room. Approximately 30 attendees guided the conversation around subjects including recent funding cuts to college student services as a result of Harvard’s endowment tax, the College’s push for grade deflation, Deming’s perspective on […]
The United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released more than 33,000 pages of Epstein-related records obtained from the Department of Justice from Sept. 1 to Nov. 12. Although much of the material reiterated information already made public in Jan. 2024, the timing and volume of the release reignited campus debate over how […]
The ground is shifting quickly beneath the feet of immigrants, their families, and the lawyers who represent them. Since Jan. 20, 2025, immigrants in Los Angeles, Boston, and other major United States cities have faced a sharply altered law enforcement landscape as the Trump administration and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement expand interior operations and […]
As generative artificial intelligence becomes increasingly central to how people seek information, the journalism industry faces a dilemma. Large language models may not yet be able to break news, but they can synthesize it immediately. With this, what incentivizes readers to visit multiple online publications and sustain civic participation; and if journalism becomes an obsolete […]
Since the writing of this review, on Sept. 9, ABC7 Los Angeles reported that a woman’s decomposing body was discovered in an impounded Tesla registered to d4vd. The investigation is ongoing, and a spokesperson for d4vd said that he is cooperating with authorities. There’s a particular scream that only happens in the two seconds between […]
On the morning of March 8, federal agents entered a Columbia University-owned apartment and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian graduate student, campus activist, and lawful U.S. resident. Officials cited unspecified national security concerns, stripping his green card and transferring him to an ICE facility in Louisiana, without trial. No formal charges were announced. The detention […]
On the left side of my mother’s kitchen, a cabinet is filled with mismatched china bowls. At family dinners, we all eat from different portion sizes, but through second helpings, we somehow eat the same amount of rice and chicken. Usually, I use a white china bowl, its rim lined with a blue pattern, and […]
The real world is never as stable as we think—especially when a story dares to break it right before our eyes. From March 6-9, Harvard students sold out the original play “be cozy,” which distilled a whole world into a living room—a living room where the lines between performance and reality blurred with unsettling ease. […]
While some Harvard students never knew the “old Kanye,” they certainly do not condone the recent rhetoric of the “new Kanye.” In a three-day tirade, Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, posted a series of tweets targeting Jewish and Black communities, women, and other Hollywood public figures. As Ye headlined news outlets for making loaded […]
