Harvard Alumni

In one of the his last public speeches before succumbing to brain cancer in August 2009, Senator Ted Kennedy accepted an honorary Doctor or Laws degree from Harvard University. Harvard President Drew Faust conferred the degree before a standing room only audience in Harvard's Sanders Theatre on December 12, 2008.

The story of how three lifelong friends and educators returned to their HGSE alma mater for a very special class reunion. Meet Xonnabel Clark, Ed.M.'54, Barbara Cage, Ed.M.'54, Rosetta Sanders, Ed.M.'55.

Harvard Kennedy School's Student Government launched its first Shadowing Initiative program during the January term of the 2011-12 academic year through the Office of Career Advancement and the Alumni Relations Office. The program paired a student with an alumnus, with the alumnus hosting the student at his or her workplace for a half or full day. About 50 students participated in the program in its inaugural year. Student organizers hope to make this an annual event, matching pairings across the world.

What advice do you have for current students interested in pursuing careers in sustainability? And how did your experience being involved in sustainability at Harvard prepare you for your professional career? In the Green Alumni Perspectives Video Series the Harvard Office for Sustainability interviews seven Harvard alumni participating in the 2013 Public Interested Fair hosted by the Phillips Brooks House Association. The event, organized as part of January's Wintersession activities, included a breakout session on green careers at which the alumni -- ranging in age and experience -- spoke with a packed room of current Harvard College students interested in the environment, energy and sustainability.

A veteran of more than 50 films and 1993's winner of the same award, the longtime Texan was last year's recipient of the Harvard Arts Medal. During this interview conducted while on campus, Jones discusses his first glimpse of the foreign turf of New England, and a hard choice he had to make on arriving: Should he focus on football or acting? Read more in the Harvard Gazette:

Paul Tange, who graduated from Harvard College in 1981 and the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) in 1985, has created buildings around the world. But most of his work is in Asia, where his firm has contributed to the skylines of Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Beijing, and Taipei. Tange's firm, Tange Associates, designed the Mode Gakuen Cocoon Tower, completed in 2008 and named skyscraper of the year by Emporis.com. The tower is the second tallest school building in the world. Read more in the Harvard Gazette:

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg speaks April 5 at the W50 Summit at Harvard Business School. The summit was a two-day program focused on accelerating the advancement of women leaders who make a difference in the world.

The anthropology department at Shandong University was begun in 2010 by Harvard alumnus Zongze Hu, who graduated with a doctorate in anthropology in 2009. Hu has been working to raise the profile of a discipline rare in China — anthropology was once thought too "Western" and "capitalist" by government central planners, according to Hu — and that is still offered at only a handful of the nation's more than 2,000 universities. Read more in the Harvard Gazette:

A manmade stream that draws from Shanghai's Huangpu River takes in water so polluted it shouldn't be touched. The stream slows the water, aerates it, and filters it through vegetation, until it emerges clean enough that people can swim in it. The project, called Houtan Park, runs a mile along the riverbank through what was once an urban brownfield, a former industrial site and scar on the urban landscape that is similar to many others in cities around the world. The park, toured by Harvard President Drew Faust during a visit in 2010, is the brainchild of Kongjian Yu, a Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) alumnus, dean of architecture and landscape architecture at Peking University, and design critic in landscape architecture and urban design at the GSD. His environmental approach to landscape architecture has won him international acclaim. Read more in the Harvard Gazette: