Photo and video credits: Deighton Abrams, Adobe Stock, Grace DuVal, Rick Friedman, Eliza Grinnell/Harvard SEAS, Dylan Goodman, Harvard Museums of Science & Culture, Stephanie Mitchell, Jon Ratner, Niles Singer, Kris Snibbe
THANK YOU
Thanks to our Associates, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences continues to lead in teaching, learning, and research excellence. I am profoundly grateful for all that you do for Harvard.
You helped us strengthen the Harvard community, both in and out of the classroom.
Because of you, Harvard is a place where people have what they need to explore new ideas and find their purpose, where they are encouraged to be creative and take risks, and where their possibilities are limited only by their imaginations.
You’ve helped us tackle unexpected challenges, unearth new solutions, and advance positive change even in the most challenging times.
The following stories highlight some of the ways you’ve made a difference for our students and scholars. I hope you find them as inspiring as I have.
Sincerely,
Hopi Hoekstra
Edgerley Family Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences
C. Y. Chan Professor of Arts and Sciences
Xiaomeng Tong and Yu Chen Professor of Life Sciences
A LOOK AT THE IMPACT OF GIVING IN 2023–24
CIVIC DISCOURSE IN POLARIZING TIMES
Unparalleled Teaching and Learning
What does it mean to learn in a fractured democracy? Beginning in January, undergraduates took deep dives into the complexities of academic freedom, disagreement, and free speech as part of the new FAS Civil Discourse initiative. This pilot series of academic and residential programs was launched by Dean Hoekstra following Harvard’s challenges on campus that erupted last fall and builds on the College’s developing Intellectual Vitality program.
The goal? To foster an inclusive academic environment and to give students the tools they need to respond to disagreement and embrace new ideas in classrooms, seminar halls, and meeting rooms. Leading the effort is Professor Eric Beerbohm, director of the Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics and faculty dean of Quincy House, who Dean Hoekstra named the FAS senior advisor for civil discourse.
Activities included the new “Harvard Dialogues” series, which featured an examination on how to engage with hard moral and political questions with Michael Sandel, Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government. Undergraduates also discussed censorship, disinformation, and freedom of speech as part of a two-day Summit on Intellectual Vitality and Free Expression. Conversations tackling race, ethnicity, identity, and religion were held throughout the Houses this spring.
Plans are underway for additional training and new curricula to ensure productive dialogue thrives in all aspects of student life on campus. Thanks to the generosity of our alumni and parent donors, this is only the beginning.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Brave New World
Put simply, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein centers on an incredible monster whose creation cannot be reversed. "For me, Frankenstein and its themes sit at the heart of one of those key transitions in history,” says Logan McCarty ’96, PhD ’07, assistant dean of science who coteaches the new General Education course “Rise of the Machines” along with former dean of science Chris Stubbs. Undergraduates in the class contend with the technical, legal, moral, and philosophical questions that surround generative AI large language models.
“I think teaching our students to be knowledgeable, ethical, AI-literate, and appropriately skeptical users should be a major objective for a Harvard College undergraduate education,” says Stubbs, who was recently named senior advisor for artificial intelligence by Dean Hoekstra and serves as the Samuel C. Moncher Professor of Physics and of Astronomy.
The course is part of intensive conversations across the Faculty of Arts and Sciences on how AI technology will change the ways we teach, learn, research, and work. This included student-focused discussions, such as the Harvard Dialogues series on “Hard Questions: Ethics at the Age of AI,” which challenged the audience to consider how AI may change what it means to be human. Faculty also demonstrated how they are using the latest technology in classrooms as part of an FAS AI symposium.
Harvard’s efforts to build a stronger community of practitioners are made possible by Associates donors. Your generosity helps our leaders seize opportunities to lead in all areas of global impact.
55%
of Harvard undergraduates receive financial aid
2/3
of incoming students enroll in one of seven community-building pre-orientation programs
BRILLIANT UNDERGRADUATES
Changing the World Through Text
“I think we get a fuller picture of humanity if we understand where others are coming from,” says Shira Hoffer ’25. Her persistent belief in the power of conversation inspired her to launch the Hotline for Israel/Palestine: a multipartisan texting hotline that provides transparent, dialogue-focused information about the conflict from multiple perspectives.
Through text conversations, Hoffer and her team of volunteers share context, information, and resources so hotline users can understand the diversity of beliefs and develop their own informed viewpoints. They were aided by Harvard faculty who volunteered to help the hotline team compile diverse resources to share.
For Hoffer, her work in dialogue is only beginning. Upon her graduation, she will serve full-time as the executive director of the Institute for Multipartisan Education, the nonprofit she built out of the Hotline project, which supports education institutions in fostering atmospheres of curious disagreement.
FLEXIBLE FUNDS
Resources for Real Times
Gifts to the Harvard College Fund sustain our core mission, greenlight new ideas, and give leaders the ability to respond to immediate needs. This has never been more important than over this past year. Thanks to Associates donors who made these flexible gifts, Harvard was able to strengthen mental health support, bolster campus security, and create new community programming for all students, including those most impacted by the war in the Middle East. Donor generosity also made it possible for administrators to expand initiatives to advance constructive dialogue in classrooms and across campus. You helped Harvard take action when our community needed critical support.
TEACHING AND LEARNING
Shaking Up the Curriculum
Several of Harvard’s expansive course offerings connect popular culture with academic frameworks, supporting student’s intellectual curiosity in any area. In “Taylor Swift and Her World,” students analyze songwriting as an art form. Students from all disciplines were excited to learn about Taylor Swift from English professor Stephanie Burt ’93 and the class made national news.
Another popular course across all disciplines is “The Age of Anxiety.” Professor Beth Blum asked students to reflect on how authors have historically channeled anxiety into works of art. In “Vision & Justice,” Professor Sarah Lewis '01 guided students to consider how visual representation, especially social media, interacts with our understanding of American citizenship. These examples highlight the College’s innovative and ever-evolving curriculum, which is bolstered by gifts to the Harvard College Fund.
ATHLETICS
Record-Breaking Olympians
It was lucky 13 for Harvard student-athletes at Paris 2024, the most medals earned by Crimson competitors at a modern-day Olympics. The storied group of nine included cyclist Kristen Faulkner ’16, who made headlines for her phenomenal performance in the women’s road race, and Lauren Scruggs ’25, who graced the podium as the first Black woman to win an individual medal in fencing.
Sprinter Gabby Thomas ’19 won three gold medals and became the first female student-athlete to receive gold in track and field competition in Harvard's program history.
"Harvard was a great community for me," says Thomas. "Everyone from my teammates, to my coaches, to friends there have all been such an influential part of this journey."
A group of around 30 from her Harvard network flew to Paris to support her, according to Thomas. "I saw them when I was on the starting blocks," she says. "And I thought, 'Okay, this is amazing, this is a really special and unique moment.' ”
UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH
Unparalleled Teaching and Learning
Nearly 700 undergraduates received both travel and research grants and fellowships this year, including 10 Rhodes Scholars and six Marshall Scholars.
“The Harvard community has really pushed me to think about every single question in about a hundred different ways and that has been foundational to the way I approach writing, research, and legal advocacy,” says Lucy Tu ’24, a Rhodes Scholar looking ahead to postgraduate studies on the nexus of reproductive medicine and law.
Her excitement was echoed by her fellow recipients attending the first Fellowships Celebration hosted by the Harvard College Undergraduate Research & Fellowships office. Associates donors like you help to bolster advising, mentorship, travel expenses, and unparalleled opportunities that support their ambitions.
$50,000
Griffin GSAS raises annual PhD stipends
16%
increase in applications to Harvard Griffin GSAS over the last three years
ELIMINATING BARRIERS
Set Up to Thrive
Harvard recently launched Rising Scholars, a new pilot program to help first-years start strong. This yearlong initiative is offered to a group of incoming undergraduates from high schools with limited resources. Before their first semester as undergraduates, selected students arrive on campus for a seven-week introduction to academic expectations at Harvard. They continue to receive guidance throughout the year through additional programming, enhanced advising, and guaranteed funding to participate in faculty-led research or for additional coursework during their second summer.
The inaugural cohort of 30 students shared that being a part of a supportive community was especially helpful as they began their Harvard educations.
INTELLECTUAL VITALITY
Hunger for Conversation
Sambuddha Chattopadhyay ’21 remembers spending hours in the Winthrop dining hall as an undergraduate, just talking. “I really enjoyed getting together with a few people, sharing your opinions, working through things, and getting things wrong sometimes,” he says. “I learned a lot from these discussions.”
He’s continued to seek out these conversations as an inaugural Intellectual Vitality Fellow, a pilot program seeking to promote ethical reflection and a culture of civil disagreement in undergraduate community life. He was one of 27 tutors and proctors in the Houses selected to help students grapple with hard topics together.
Chattopadhyay began serving as a nonresident tutor three years ago. He started the PhD program at Harvard Griffin GSAS not long after he graduated from the College and is now a theoretical physicist working at the intersection of quantum optics and condensed matter physics.
“For me, the Intellectual Vitality program is about having extremely difficult conversations in a way that allows you to make mistakes,” says Chattopadhyay. Last spring, he and a group of six undergraduates watched thought-provoking movies together and then went to dinner to talk about them.
“We watched the Act of Killing, which is about Indonesian genocide,” he says. “We talked for three hours afterwards. One of the students told me that this was the most productively uncomfortable they’ve been on campus.”
He believes small conversations build and grow into a culture of intellectual vitality. “Harvard students have this incredible capacity to create extremely meaningful conversations. They're curious people,” he says. “There is such an appetite for this.”
Next Generation Talent
From biophysics to bog crawls
Melissa Mai didn’t expect to work with plants when she came to Harvard. However, she was drawn to the Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences by the ability to rotate through different labs before choosing a final research topic. And once she started learning about the physical problems faced by plants and their relationship to the environment, she knew she had found her place at the intersection between biophysics and plant physiology.
Mai is pursuing a doctorate in biophysics. Her work focuses on the structural basis of transport within plants through the study of salt management in desert shrubs, sugar traffic in conifer leaves, and methane emissions from wetland trees.
She has had many unique experiences during her time at Harvard, from conducting research in Chile and Denmark, to mentoring students from underrepresented backgrounds, teaching a course on generative AI, working with the Harvard Museum of Natural History, and even leading bog crawls around New England!
RECRUITING THE BRIGHTEST MINDS
The Power of Music
Professor Charrise Barron ’98, PhD ’17 explores the evolution of power and racial justice from a unique lens: music. Barron is a scholar of ethnomusicology, the study of music and culture, with a particular interest in Black popular music. Barron studies the music of change, such as gospel, hip-hop, and protest genres.
Her background as a clergyperson and a musician informs her scholarship. “I want my work to build a bridge,” she says, “so that the people in churches and other musical communities can pick up an academic book and actually feel as if their stories are being told in a way that’s honest and accurate.”
CLIMATE EDUCATION
Action in Classrooms and Houses
In the two years since the Committee on Climate Education released a report on recommended actions, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences has increased curriculum offerings, launched a cluster hire for faculty, and created opportunities for students to put what they learn into practice.
The FAS is now offering more than 50 courses on sustainability and climate change. These include courses on climate change literature, principles of economics with a focus on the impact of climate, environmental histories of war, and the First-Year Seminar “Oil and Empire.”
Efforts to recruit more faculty with a climate focus include new hire Zachary Schiffer, who joined the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences as an assistant professor in applied physics in January. Schiffer has been recognized for his work to decarbonize and electrify chemical processes that traditionally rely on fossil fuels as energy sources.
Adams House also announced a two-year program to fund climate projects led by residents. The initiative will support climate-related sandbox projects, programming events, and internships or job opportunities. It allows students the freedom to proactively launch their own climate-related projects, according to Hannah B. Swift ’26: “If you notice a change that you want made, you can be the one to do it, which is really exciting.”
FACULTY RESEARCH
Pioneering Brains
Ever since arriving at Harvard in 2004, neuroscientist Jeff Lichtman has been laying the groundwork to create an unprecedented map of the brain. His “connectome” seeks to provide a comprehensive diagram of nearly 100 billion neurons in the hopes it will provide critical insights into disorders in the brain.
And some of his most recent work started small: with a mouse. He and his team seek to capture synapse-level connectome data from a mouse brain with unprecedented clarity and resolution. Their goal: to reconstruct the neural wiring inside a mouse’s brain and use that knowledge to complete a map of the brain’s complex connective pathways.
Lichtman has long been known for his pioneering vision. This spring, the Jeremy R. Knowles Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology was appointed dean of science. Says Lichtman: “Thinking about our educational mission, as dean, I’d like to explore not just how we can more effectively convey to our students the explosive growth in scientific research, but also how we can better instill in them the essential importance of learning how to ask questions that don’t yet have satisfactory answers.”
SEAS
Citizens in an Engineered World
“For me, engineering is all about civic responsibility,” says Zeynep Bromberg ’24. “Being in a place like Harvard has encouraged me to push myself to achieve and hopefully make me the type of engineer I want to be.”
One of these opportunities was the chance to collaborate on adaptive technology with the late disability rights activist Brooke Ellison ’00, MPP ’04. Ellison, the first quadriplegic to graduate from Harvard, partnered with SEAS to work with students taking ES100: “Engineering Design Projects” before her death last year.
As part of her senior capstone, Bromberg designed a system to safely strap wheelchairs to public transportation vehicles.
A self-described theater kid, Bromberg didn’t plan on becoming a mechanical engineer when she came to Harvard. She is now pursuing a master’s degree in sustainable design and infrastructure with dreams of working in public transportation. She says of Harvard, “Going to a liberal arts college is really important, and I think it’s made me into a better person and a better engineer.”
Associates donors ensure Harvard A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) is a world-leading engineering school uniquely positioned within the liberal arts and sciences. Your giving helps support the leadership of new John A. Paulson Dean David C. Parkes and the groundbreaking research and innovations underway, which includes 10 startups and 10 licensing opportunities a year.
Thank you for supporting the Faculty of Arts and Sciences in 2023–24. We hope you will help fortify our teaching and research mission again this year. Your generosity will help provide our students and faculty with the annual support they need to flourish.
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