Meeting Archive
Learn more about past Global Advisory Council meetings:
- 2023 Meeting
- 2022 Meeting
- 2021 Meeting
- 2020 Meeting
- 2019 Meeting
- 2018 Meeting
- 2017 Meeting
- 2016 Meeting
- 2015 Meeting
- 2014 Meeting
- 2013 Meeting
- 2012 Meeting
2020 Annual Meeting
Highlights from the 2020 meeting include:
- An update from Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Claudine Gay on virus control, remote learning, and international students at Harvard College this unique fall semester.
- An interactive discussion on best practices for leading during tumultuous times.
- Lightning talks by leading faculty members on the cycles of history, from global economic growth to breakdowns in democracy.
- A conversation with President Larry Bacow about Harvard’s global path forward and responsibilities to the world during times of crisis.
Fall Semester Update by Claudine Gay, Edgerley Family Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the Wilbur A. Cowett Professor of Government and of African and African American Studies
Leadership in Tumultuous Times
- Juliette Kayyem, Belfer Senior Lecturer in International Security, Faculty Director of the Homeland Security Project and Security and Global Health Project, Harvard Kennedy School
- Dutch Leonard, George F. Baker, Jr. Professor of Public Sector Management, Harvard Kennedy School; Eliot I. Snider and Family Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School
Cycles of History Lightning Talks
- The History of Health Care and Economics in China with Winnie Yip, Professor of the Practice of Global Health Policy and Economics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
- The History of Global Economic Growth and Opportunity with Melissa Dell, Andrew E. Furer Professor of Economics, Faculty of Arts and Sciences
- The History of Breakdowns in Democracy with David Moss, Paul Whiton Cherington Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School
- The History of Power Dynamics and Privilege with Annette Gordon-Reed, Carl M. Loeb University Professor, Harvard University
Executive Session with President Bacow
Pre-reads:
- The Emotionally Challenging Next Phase of the Pandemic, by Juliette Kayyem, published in the Atlantic
- Never Go Back to the Office, by Juliette Kayyem, published in the Atlantic
- Leaders, Crisis Management and COVID-19, by Dutch Leonard, published in Crisis Response Journal
- Crisis Communications During COVID-19, by Dutch Leonard, published in Crisis Response Journal
2019 Annual Meeting
Highlights from the 2019 meeting include:
- Visits to Harvard Medical School laboratories focused on global public health, cancer, Alzheimer’s, and more.
- An interview with Len Blavatnik on business, scientific discovery, and philanthropy; see Harvard Gazette coverage.
- Dinner at Harvard Medical School with a performance by the Longwood Symphony Orchestra.
- Lightning talks by leading faculty members on today’s biggest challenges from climate change to quantum technology in Harvard Business School’s new Klarman Hall.
- A conversation with President Larry Bacow about Harvard’s global recruitment and research strategy in the new Harvard Art Lab.
Breakfast with Harvard Horizons PhD Scholars
Global Challenges and Big Ideas
Using technology to tackle climate change and improve health with Gina McCarthy
- “The EPA Is Losing Its Mandate”: A former EPA leader on how Trump is eroding its authority
- “Demands from the recent climate strike”: Here’s what the youth-led climate movement is asking for
New frontier of quantum technology with Misha Lukin
- “Harvard’s quantum leap”: As quantum science and engineering come into their own, co-directors of new initiative say anything is possible
- “Quantum Supremacy Is Coming: Here’s What You Should Know”
#MeToo as a revolutionary cascade with Cass Sunstein
- “#MeToo As A Revolutionary Cascade”: Why do revolutions happen? Why are they so difficult to anticipate?
Solar geoengineering as a response to climate change with David Keith
- “Toward a Responsible Solar Geoengineering Research Program”: The seriousness of the risks posed by climate change demands that we examine all possible means of response, but how we do so makes all the difference
Generating 3D cerebral organoids with Paola Arlotta
- “Rewinding the brain”: In the glimpse of the past provided by organoids, Paola Arlotta sees a chance to shape the future of how we fight neurological disease
- Watch “How Stem Cell Biology Sheds New Light on Neurological Disorders”
The Ethics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence with Jonathan Zittrain
- “The Hidden Costs of Automated Thinking”: How an overreliance on artificial intelligence may put us in an intellectual debt
Executive Session with President Lawrence S. Bacow
Questions for reflection, as posed by President Bacow:
- Have universities in your country changed their behavior in response to a less welcoming environment in the U.S. to immigrants and visitors from abroad? For example, have they expanded efforts to recruit international students?
- Recent events in Saudi Arabia and China have raised questions about the propriety of accepting research support from some governments as well as corporations from certain countries (e.g., Huawei). Do you have thoughts on how we should be thinking about these issues?
- In a “post-truth” age often described as populist, polarized, and full of “fake news,” how can we best make the case that great universities, and Harvard specifically, should be valued by all of society as places where facts, truth, expertise, and real knowledge all matter?
2018 Annual Meeting
Highlights from the 2018 meeting include:
- The inaugural Mahindra Award ceremony honoring Nobel Laureate and author J. M. Coetzee.
- Dinner at the Harvard Art Museums with a performance by Yo-Yo Ma’s The Silk Road Ensemble.
- Breakfast with student innovators and young alumni advancing global well-being through entrepreneurial start-ups focused on science, education, and environmentalism.
- Panel discussions on the impact and direction of global trade and the roots of inequality.
- A conversation with President Larry Bacow in his first year as president.
Breakfast with student innovators and young alumni entrepreneurs. Click here for participants.
Panel #1 Global Trade and Where It’s Going with Robert Rubin, Gita Gopinath, Willy Shih, and Mark Wu discussed the current state of global trade and trade conflicts.
READ: "Interview with Gita Gopinath" (Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis)
VIDEO: "Trade: It’s All About the Dollar" (YouTube)
READ: "When Will the Tariff Battle with China Start To Affect Us?" (Forbes)
VIDEO: "The Big Picture on Trade" (YouTube)
READ: "The 'China, Inc.' Challenge to Global Trade Governance" (Harvard Innovation Law Journal)
VIDEO: "International Trade in the Digital Age" (YouTube)
Panel #2 Improving Equality of Opportunity: New Insights from Big Data with Raj Chetty, Shaun Donovan, and Claudine Gay.
READ: "Detailed New National Maps Show How Neighborhoods Shape Children for Life" (New York Times)
READ: "What Government Does" (New York Times)
VIDEO: TED Talk (YouTube)
READ: "Reflections on Inequality in America Initiative’s First Year" (Harvard Gazette)
Conversation: Advice to the President from the Global Advisory Council
Questions for reflection, as posed by President Bacow:
- As I begin my tenure as Harvard’s president, I have received a lot of advice—some solicited, and much unsolicited. As you are distinguished leaders who successfully run organizations, and good friends of Harvard I have come to know and respect, I would like to ask for your directed advice and guidance to me as I am starting out my presidency, and for Harvard in the coming years.
- Harvard is a global institution. In a time of growing populism and nationalism throughout the world, how should Harvard engage with other institutions across the world and respond to trends that are more inward looking?
2017 Annual Meeting
Highlights from the 2017 meeting include:
- Reception and dinner in Loeb House with a musical tribute to creativity and conversation with Grammy award-winning jazz artist and Department of Music Professor of the Practice Esperanza Spalding, and Council Chair David Rubenstein.
- Breakfast with student and young alumni entrepreneurs.
- Conversation with President Faust on how Harvard can best respond to nationalist sentiment.
- Three faculty panel discussions on science, U.S. foreign policy, and global citizenship.
- Final roundtable discussion with President Faust and Council Chair David Rubenstein offering advice, guidance and reflections on Harvard's role as a global university.
- Harvard Presidential Search briefing and discussion.
- Announcement of the Mittal family’s transformative gift to rename the South Asia Institute at Harvard University to the Lakshmi Mittal South Asia Institute at Harvard University. Read more about the Mittal family’s gift in the Harvard Gazette.
We are pleased to share minutes from each of the meeting sessions along with briefing materials.
Breakfast with student and young alumni entrepreneurs. Click here for a list of participants.
Conversation with President Faust
David Rubenstein and President Faust opened this year’s meeting by posing questions to the audience for discussion, such as the role can Harvard play in tackling current global challenges like nationalism.
Faculty Panel #1: Pathbreaking Science: Where Hope and Democracy Begin
A conversation with scientists John Holdren, Jennifer Lewis, Steven McCarroll, and Rachel Wilson about the role and impact of the University in expanding scientific knowledge and influencing policy for the common good.
Faculty Panel #2: U.S. Foreign Policy: Where Do We Go From Here?
A conversation led by E.J. Dionne Jr., with Ash Carter, Noah Feldman, and Samantha Power on how U.S. foreign policy will affect the University's role in—and view of—the world.
Faculty Panel #3: Global Citizenship and Global Responsibility
Michael J. Sandel facilitated a large-group discussion about what it means to be a global citizen.
GAC Roundtable and Closing Session
This year’s meeting closed with a conversation between David Rubenstein and President Faust, who reflected on how the world and the University have changed since 2007, when she became Harvard’s 28th president, and shared her hopes for Harvard in the years to come.
2016 Meeting
Thank you for a successful fifth annual Harvard Global Advisory Council meeting in October 2016.
The meeting provided an opportunity for members to connect with each other, examine topics of concern to the University and the world, and to hear from President Drew Faust on the progress of Harvard's global engagement. For an overview and summary of the meeting, please refer to this link of the 2016 meeting notes.
Highlights from the meeting include:
- Before dinner, GAC members and guests viewed a specially curated exhibit of rare documents and manuscripts from The Harvard Library, displayed and discussed with curators from the Library.
- After dinner, GAC members and their guests were treated to a special performance with faculty and student jazz musicians.
- Young alumni and student entrepreneurs shared their inventions during an informal breakfast. Click here for a list of start-ups participating in the session.
- GAC members joined small group discussions on our black holes and our expanding universe, the potential of gene editing technologies, and conversation with researchers in issues ranging from poverty to women's health and brain science.
- In the midst of this polarizing U.S. presidential campaign, GAC members participated in a discussion led by David Rubenstein on the implications of the U.S. election.
- David Rubenstein presented President Faust with two historical gifts: a photo of the Harvard Board of Overseers in 1913 signed by all members, including Theodore Roosevelt; and a hand-edited version of John F. Kennedy’s Harvard Commencement Address from 1956.
Listen to audio recordings of the discussions:
2016 Meeting Materials
Post-reads:
- Read Avi Loeb’s article, "Good data are not enough,” on Nature.com.
- Read the Harvard Gazette’s review of the Harvard Global Institute’s recent event convening Harvard’s experts to discuss the urgency of climate change at Harvard Law School in “Global Concerns on Climate Change.”
- Book Critics from the Washington Post and the New York Times are some of the many who are calling Matthew Desmond’s Evicted one of the best books of 2016.
- Read about George Church’s path to success in the Harvard Gazette’s feature on the ground-breaking geneticist: “If you’re not failing, you’re probably not trying as hard as you could be.”
- Read Harvard Kennedy School Professor Robert Stavins’ work "The Paris Agreement and Beyond: International Climate Change Policy Post-2020," published by the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements. Following the results of the presidential election, Professor Stavins shared his thoughts on the climate repercussions in an op-ed piece in the New York Times.
- Nicholas Burns appeared on “Bloomberg Daybreak,” to talk about the advice he would give President-elect Donald Trump on his dealings with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
- As part of their “Persons of Interest” column, The New Yorker profiled Lisa Randall in “The Dark Energy of a Theoretical Physicist.”
- Harvard Medical School recently announced that Dr. Beth Stevens was honored with the National Alliance on Mental Illness’ 2016 Scientific Research Award for her work with colleagues on the biology of schizophrenia.
Pre-reads:
- Harvard’s international data.
- Harvard Magazine article to learn more about the history of Widener Library, which celebrated its centennial last year.
- Yosvany Terry, senior lecturer on music, director of jazz ensembles, and Grammy-nominated saxophonist, percussionist, and composer.
- Harvard student innovators in the Boston Globe, and the breakfast innovation teams.
- Editing the Human Blueprint Session related articles:
- "The Gene Hackers," the New Yorker
- "Everything You Need to Know about Why CRISPR is Such a Hot Technology," the Washington Post
- "Monsanto Licenses CRISPR Technology to Modify Crops—with Key Restrictions," STAT
- MacArthur Fellows Session related articles:
- Matthew Desmond: "A Harvard Sociologist on Watching Families Lose Their Homes," the New York Times
- Nawal M. Nour MD '94, MPH '99: "Effects of Ancient Custom Present New Challenge to U.S. Doctors," the New York Times
- Beth Stevens: "The Rogue Immune Cells that Wreck the Brain," MIT Technology Review
- Interstellar Exploration and Humanity Session related articles:
- "Much-Discussed Views That Go Way Back," a conversation with Avi Loeb, the New York Times
- "Dark Matter's Invisible Hand," an investigation of one of the greatest mysteries of the universe, NOVA Next, PBS
- Lunch discussion on presidential election related articles:
- "Economic Policies for the Next Administration," by Doug Elmendorf
- "Restoring the Power and Purpose of the NATO Alliance," coauthored by Nicholas Burns and James L. Jones
2015 Meeting
2015 Meeting Materials
- Review Harvard's Global Update.
- Learn more about the new Harvard Global Institute.
- "The Science of Scarcity" — Read the article by Sendhil Mullainathan in Harvard Magazine.
- "The Iran Nuclear Deal: A Definitive Guide" — View the Belfer Center report.
- "9 Reasons to Support the Iran Deal" — Read the article by Graham Allison in the Atlantic.
- "The New Deal" — Read the article by Jessica Tuchman Mathews in the New York Review of Books.
- Energy: Perspectives, Problems, and Prospects — Read a selection from Michael McElroy's book.
- "Catalyzing Climate Change Solutions" — Watch the video.
- "Political Climate, Changed" — Read the article in the Harvard Gazette.
- Learn about the "Harvard Project on Climate Agreements" from the Belfer Center.
- "Faust: Step Up on Climate Change" — Read the article in the Harvard Gazette.
- "A World Without Work" — Read the article in the Atlantic.
- "Why What You Learned in Preschool Is Crucial at Work" — Read the article in the New York Times.
- "Engineering the Future" — Watch the video.
- "Harvard's Tiny Robotic Bee Can Do Incredible Things" — Read the article in Tech Insider.
- "Meet Atlas, the Humanoid Robot" — Learn more about Atlas created by Boston Dynamics, Inc.
- "New Frontiers in 3D Printing" — Read the article from the Wyss Institute.
2014 Meeting
2014 Meeting Materials
- Learn more about the Harvard Art Museums renovation journey.
- Harvard's global reach expands every year. Review Harvard's 2014 international statistics.
- Harvard scientist Pardis Sabeti discussed her research surrounding the devastating Ebola outbreak. Read more about Sabeti's work, including a recent article in the New Yorker, and her inspiration to produce a music video, which is now being used in public service announcements on television and radio in Nigeria.
- Learn more about three nonprofits with Harvard ties that have joined forces to confront the Ebola epidemic in West Africa.
- Methods for teaching and learning are constantly evolving. Through online learning, classrooms can now span the globe. Review background information and additional details on Harvard's online learning initiatives and preview an online course: Improving Global Health or Modern China.
- Read more about the ever-changing landscape of cyber security.
- Learn more about Harvard's Global Institutes, a new global initiative that brings Harvard faculty and students to global locations for research and collaboration.
2013 Meeting
2013 Meeting Materials
- Learn more about the Harvard Emerging Global Leadership Education Program. The program expands the January term program you learned about at the September 2013 meeting into a three-year pilot and is led by Rakesh Khurana, Dean of Harvard College, Marvin Bower Professor of Leadership Development, Professor of Sociology, and Co-Master of Cabot House, and Stephanie Khurana, Co-Master of Cabot House. We need your help to advance this proposal. Please share your thoughts with us on how we might raise the $7M needed to fund this important learning and teaching initiative.
- Review a global public health report that proposes an unprecedented global health investment framework. The report was co-authored by Lawrence H. Summers, President Emeritus and Charles W. Eliot Professor, Harvard University; Julio Frenk, Dean, Harvard School of Public Health, T & G Angelopoulos Professor of Public Health and International Development, Harvard School of Public Health and Harvard Kennedy School; and Sue J. Goldie, director of Global Health Education and Learning Incubator, Harvard University.
- HarvardX continues to push the boundaries of innovative learning and teaching for students at Harvard and across the globe. To date, over 800,000 learners in 226 countries have registered for courses through HarvardX.
- Eric Bland, "The Art of Getting Things Done," Harvard Public Health, Spring/Summer 2012
- Madeline Drexler, "Life After Death: Helping Former Child Soldiers Become Whole Again," Harvard Public Health Review, Fall 2011
- Julio Frenk, "Globalization and Health: The Role of Knowledge in an Interdependent World," David E. Barmes Global Health Lecture, December 15, 2009
- Julio Frenk and Suerie Moon, "Governance Challenges in Global Health," New England Journal of Medicine, March 7, 2013
- Felicia Marie Knaul and Julio Frenk, "Strengthening Health Systems to Address New Challenge Diseases (NCDs)," Harvard Public Health Review, Fall 2011
- Atul Gawande, "Slow Ideas," New Yorker, July 29, 2013
- Peter Reuell, "Good Health Lasts Later in Life," Harvard Gazette, July 30, 2013
2012 Meeting