The Harvard Culture Lab Innovation Fund(HCLIF)has awarded grants to 13 teams that have designed and created projects aimed at fostering diversity and equity on campus while helping advance aculture of inclusion.“Changing culture around equity,diversity,inclusion,and belonging at Harvard and elsewhere requires new ideas not just from leaders,but also from those with the daily lived experiences of their communities,”said Sherri Charleston,Harvard’s chief diversity and inclusion officer.“I’m inspired by all the individuals who have received agrant and commend their collective ambition to make Harvard amore equitable and inclusive space.I’m looking forward to seeing the outcomes of each project.”This year’s recipients include undergraduates,graduate students,postdoctoral researchers,staff,and faculty,representing arange of Harvard’s Schools and units,with several teams made of up of representatives from more than one School.The awardees include new projects like To Be Seen,which aims to add signs acknowledging Indigenous lands on public trails,thereby interrupting the dominant colonizer narratives that devalue the lived experiences of Indigenous community members,and redesign signage that acknowledges Indigenous land.The project is acollaboration between apostdoc,undergraduate students,the Harvard Forest,Harvard University Native American Program,and the Nipmuc community to amplify Indigenous voices on public lands.Other projects include more established initiatives that are developing new ways to engage the community,like the Inclusive Teaching Institute,which helps faculty and instructors explore inclusive and blended teaching.The group plans to use the grant to expand their network into Harvard Extension School and Harvard Summer School.Mary DiSalvo,whose project,the Language Exchange,was awarded agrant,and who works as the language support manager and IT liaison at Harvard’s Language Center,spoke about why the program that helps people practice speaking other languages will make adifference.“The Language Exchange provides ashared social and linguistic space like no other at Harvard,”she said.“When used to its full potential,the Language Exchange allows Harvard community members to take full advantage of the breadth of cultural and linguistic experience,just afew clicks away.”Octavious Talbot,a Ph.D.candidate in biostatistics at the School of Public Health and the leader of StatStart,another awardee,said his project to bring STEM learning to underrepresented high school students will continue to improve learning outcomes with support from the grant.“StatStart has demonstrated that,in ashort month,students from adiverse background can be motivated to pursue STEM by focusing on their strengths,fellowship,and mentorship,”he said. 查看详细>>

The summer between high school and college is often filled with fleeting farewells and nervous energy as students prepare themselves for their lives ahead in anew home.At Harvard,one of the most transformative aspects of the college experience is students sharing their own formative experiences and perspectives with one another.That’s where the SPARK program has been atremendous catalyst for learning and growth.SPARK is an immersive six-week public service program for incoming first-year students where students work on apublic service project of their own design at home while receiving ongoing support from the Harvard community.The program began in 2019 to create greater awareness and visibility of public service work at Harvard College.Incoming students meet with student leaders from Phillips Brooks House Association and the Institute of Politics,along with campus leaders including Dean Rakesh Khurana and Michael Brown,past president of the Harvard College Board of Overseers and co-founder of City Year.Ally Phillip from the Social Innovation and Change Initiative(SICI)led aworkshop on helping students identify sources of power,focusing on SICI’s 3P framework for social change:1)understanding the problem 2)demonstrating personal ability to lead change 3)and offering apromising pathway for change.Leah Robinson led aworkshop to help students cultivate efficacy.Many students among the 100 participants in the 2022 SPARK cohort provided critical term-time support to community-based programs.While the students provided critical services and support to their neighbors,they also learned more about themselves.“After seeing students fearlessly chart new territory into unexplored career paths,I became more motivated to embrace the same liberty and confidence.I began exploring more options for what career path Imight go down and imagining ways these careers would intersect with public service.Learning from the students Iworked with was empowering both for me and for them and really at the heart of what SPARK is all about!”said Mukta Dharmapurikar’26,who worked with Durham County Cooperative Extension in North Carolina.The opportunity to learn and reflect with staff,faculty,and fellow incoming students in the SPARK community was also agreat benefit.“I am forever grateful for this program and the incredible community Ifound along the way,”said Rosie Couture’26,who worked at Generation Ratify in Arlington,Virginia.The SPARK program also gave many students the opportunity to thank the communities that nurtured their growth.Maya Dummett’26 worked with Oasis,an organization that provided social services,educational support,and basic needs to women and girls in New Jersey.“As ayoung Black girl who grew up in aneighboring town of Paterson,the community that Oasis serves reminded me so much of my own.Truly,the children of Oasis reminded me so much of myself too.However,I never had my own Oasis growing up.I knew then and there that Iwanted to pour all of myself into supporting their work,”she said. 查看详细>>

he Harvard Innovation Labs(HIL)is thrilled to announce the student-founded ventures that will participate in the 2019 Fall Venture Incubation Program.The Harvard Innovation Labs’primary purpose is to provide experiential education—helping students,faculty,and select alumni explore innovation and entrepreneurship across industries and stages.The 176 teams who are part of the Fall Venture Incubation Program are working to solve problems across industries,and the startup founders come from all 13 Harvard schools—very much in keeping with the university innovation center’s focus on fostering collaboration and connection across the entire Harvard community. 查看详细>>

This week,the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development(HPAIED or the Harvard Project)announced it is joining the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation.The Harvard Project was founded in 1987 and works to understand and foster the conditions under which sustained,self-determined social and economic development is achieved among the U.S.American Indian nations and Indigenous communities worldwide.Project co-founder Joe Kalt,Ford Foundation Professor of International Political Economy,Emeritus,said,“Over the years,our work has increasingly focused on good self-governance as key to strengthening Indigenous communities.This emphasis makes for aperfect fit with the Ash Center.”The Harvard Project’s Honoring Nations Award program has long been apartner of the Ash Center’s Innovations in American Government Awards program,a force in recognizing and promoting excellence and creativity in the public sector.“We’re thrilled that the Harvard Project will be joining the Ash community,which we hope will lead to added opportunities to collaborate with the faculty and staff of the Ash Center’s Innovations and other programs and initiatives,”said Ash Center Director and Daewoo Professor of International Affairs Tony Saich. 查看详细>>

Today,iRobot Corp.announced its acquisition of Root Robotics,Inc.,whose educational Root coding robot got its start as asummer research project at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University in 2011.Since then,it has developed into arobust learning tool that is being used in over 500 schools to teach children how to code in an engaging,intuitive way.iRobot plans to incorporate the Root robot into its growing portfolio of educational robot products,and continue the work of scaling up production and expanding Root’s programming content that began when Root Robotics was founded by former Wyss Institute members in 2017.“We’re honored that we got to see aWyss Institute technology go from its earliest stages to where we are today,with the opportunity to make agigantic impact on the world,”said Zivthan Dubrovsky,former bioinspired robotics platform lead at the Wyss Institute and co-founder of Root Robotics who is now the general manager of Educational Robots at iRobot.“We’re excited to see how this new chapter in Root’s story can further amplify our mission of making STEM education accessible to students of any age in any classroom around the world.” 查看详细>>

This fall,Harvard College will launch anew General Education(Gen Ed)program for undergraduates.The program features 160 courses,including some that have been restructured and many new ones.Professors Suzannah Clark and Amy Wagers,co-chairs of the Standing Committee on General Education,worked to revise the program,which begins this fall under Dean of Undergraduate Education Amanda Claybaugh.The Gazette talked to Claybaugh for apreview of what the new Gen Ed will look like,and how she and her team arrived at this milestone. 查看详细>>

Nature has aknack for producing things that seem to be perfectly designed for their place in the world:the sticky pads on geckos’feet that help them grip slick surfaces,the way sunflowers turn to‘follow”the sun throughout the day,the shape of snakes’scales that allow them to grip the ground when flexed and slither over it when relaxed.The growing recognition that the natural world is asource of nearly boundless inspiration for design is the basis of“Nature—Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial,”an exhibition that opens today simultaneously at the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum in New York and the Cube Design Museum in Kerkrade,The Netherlands.Featured among the more than 60 exhibits are five designs that represent Wyss Institute projects ranging from multi-scale molecular animations to asoft robotic glove to anew medical-grade adhesive,all of which take their cues from nature. 查看详细>>

For over thirty years,the Innovations in American Government Award,heralded as the premier public-sector honor in the nation,has been given to programs that serve as examples of creative and effective government at its best.The application is open to programs at all levels of government—federal,state,local,tribal,and territorial—from within the United States.Applicants will be judged on the Innovations in American Government Awards’criteria of novelty,effectiveness,significance,and transferability,as well as their impact on issues of economic and social mobility,inequity,and stratification.The Ash Center will utilize resources and expertise from across the Harvard University community,as well as preeminent authorities in the field,to select the top finalists and ultimate winner of the Innovations in American Government Award. 查看详细>>

The Center for Education Policy Research(CEPR)at Harvard University has been awarded a$10 million grant from the Institute of Education Sciences at the U.S.Department of Education to launch the National Center for Rural Education Research Networks(NCRERN).The national center,to be led by Thomas Kane of the Harvard Graduate School of Education,Douglas Staiger of Dartmouth College,and Christopher Avery of the Harvard Kennedy School,will build on CEPR’s existing Proving Ground initiative and apply its model of evidence-based improvement to address chronic absenteeism,college readiness,and college enrollment—and the particular ways rural schools experience those challenges. 查看详细>>

Campus&Community.In San Diego,Bacow stresses power of learning.Campus&Community.In San Diego,Bacow stresses power of learning.Harvard President Larry Bacow meets Jordan Harrison,a 2018 Graduate School of Education alumnus who helps guide young people into college through the San Diego nonprofit Reality Changers.Photos by Spark Photography 2018 He meets with alumni and tells high school students:‘You can get agreat education anywhere’.Date December 6... 查看详细>>