Columns
An Ode to Columns
Everyone on the Editorial Board knows two facts about me. First, my dad is a pastor and my mom is a therapist. Second, my name is synonymous with columns.
Money or Sustainability: Choose One
Despite efforts to sell off its land investments, Harvard’s transition away from this extractive practice is not complete. Harvard should make a point to end not just individual investments, but the practice of land grabbing overall.
Students Make Bad Career Choices. Harvard Should Step In.
Harvard isn’t a government, but it does have a vested interest in the contributions that students make to society once they graduate. As such, Harvard can and should take similar steps to influence students’ choices.
The Courtyards
So, there you have it — a tour of the House courtyards, minus most of the usual Lowell bias. Next time you're sprinting to another House’s dining hall, take a moment to pause, relax, and find a new way to escape.
Instagram, Infographics, and The Information We Consume
Given the recent crises in the Middle East, and subsequently on our campus, I have become acutely aware of the information I consume and where it comes from, especially on social media.
Don’t Take Harvard Too Seriously
For us here at Harvard, it’s also important to recognize that our statements are paid disproportionately more attention to. We also should recognize that just because we’re paid more attention doesn’t mean we’re more correct. Just as the public shouldn’t take us too seriously, neither should we.
Graduating Public School Doesn’t Make You an Imposter
Currently, at every level, the American educational system seems to leave disadvantaged students behind, while praising the most privileged students for making the most of opportunities only they can access.
Crisis Careers
If Harvard has acknowledged this industry is imprudent to invest its endowment in, why would it invest its students in fossil fuel jobs? Why would Harvard allow any of the talent it has cultivated to be funneled into an industry focused on making the world worse?
To Harvard’s Leading Women
Some of the women I spoke to from the Class of 1973 highlighted how their trajectory at the College was immensely shaped not only by women they called their friends and peers, but often by those who advised and taught them. They were women of Harvard, too.
I Admitted Myself to the Psych Ward a Month Ago.
I am immensely grateful that the psychiatric ward was life-saving, in no small part because of incredible Harvard administrators who advocated for me. However, I am also deeply troubled that the College’s ambiguous protocols, rather than my wellness, dictate my journey to stability.
Past and Present: The (In)Visibility of Black Lower Level Faculty
Harvard must strike a balance between hiring extraordinary scholars and professors — those who have broken the glass ceiling in their fields — and hiring lower level Black faculty who are just entering academia, but have so much to offer.
Religion as a Mover of Social Change: The Pronoun Envy Episode
Religion can be more than its repressive associations, as the women of Harvard’s religious history have embodied. We must give religion the possibility to continue to become more.
Why You Should Support The Harvard Undergraduate Workers Union
We cannot isolate the Harvard Undergraduate Workers Union from Harvard or the labor movement within higher education. It is part of a national and global working-class struggle.
Only a Brief Detour
The Adolphus Busch courtyard is not just a space but an experience. If you ever find yourself in the vicinity, you really have no excuse not to venture into this gem. And even if you’re a tad bit late to class, do take this seemingly out-of-the-way shortcut.
Beyond Embedding Ethics: Understanding Technology and Society at Harvard
I’ve spent the last few weeks speaking to College students studying technology about their impressions of the Embedded EthiCS program. I’ve been trying to answer the question: Is Harvard adequately preparing its students for this dangerous and uncertain technical future?
Hidden Voices, Public Consequences
Regardless of whether you agree with the PSC’s statement, the revealing of student identities and the subsequent threats to their safety raise an important question for free speech: Does anonymity subvert free speech or protect it?
Teach for Prestige
The million dollar question: How can we incentivize more college students — especially ones graduating from Harvard and other elite institutions — to become teachers?
Big Oil in the Classroom
Harvard needs top environmental talent in its classrooms as it works to train the next generation of climate leaders. The oil industry cannot be allowed to divert that talent for its own gain, taking energy away from the education that is the school’s central mission.
Beyond Bourdain: Disassembling the Meat-Eater’s Anti-Vegan Bias
Vegan and vegetarian food absolutely can be, should be, and often is incredibly tasty when given the same attention and care as meat dishes. We should all be saying “yes” to more meatless options, more often, and saying no to the built in meat-eater bias that rejects a food just because it’s labeled with a “V.”
The Fight for Ethnic Studies Is a Fight for All Identities, Everywhere
The movement for ethnic studies is larger than a single concentration. It is about leveraging the influence of our institution to defy the unchecked censorship and hate that seeks to erase identity from our earliest educational systems.
Gifted and Talented, or Left Behind: The Educational Inequality of Exam Schools
Rather than telling students what they deserve solely on the basis of deeply flawed standardized tests that only measure prior academic experience, an equitable schooling system would divide students not by privilege, but instead by their individual academic needs.
The Best-Kept SECret
Despite the SEC’s grandeur, mentions of it still seem to evoke images of endless slabs of concrete and problem sets. Why, given its architectural brilliance and natural splendor, does it remain overshadowed by the charm of Harvard’s more traditional spots?
Of Writers and Rowers
McKenna E. McKrell ’26, a Crimson Editorial editor, lives in Adams House. Her column, “Seven Sisters and the Old Boys’ Club” runs tri-weekly on Wednesdays.
About Those Free Speech Rankings
While we disagree with FIRE in specific instances, their fundamental diagnosis is not too far off. Free speech is under threat at Harvard.
The New AFRO: A Call For Black Political Organization
Effective Black political organizing will see to it that new University leadership catches up to our vision of safety, education, and health for Black students in a truly anti-racist campus.