Museums have long been a place of passion, community, and connection for Horace D. Ballard, the newly appointed Theodore E. Stebbins Jr. Associate Curator of American Art at the Harvard Art Museums, who took over his new role on Sept. 1. They have also been an important constant in his life. Ballard, who began frequenting museums as a child and started working in them as a teenager, got a B.A. in English literature and American studies from the University of Virginia in 2006, an M.A.R. in religion and visual culture from the Institute of Sacred Music and Yale Divinity School in 2010, and...

Harvard is welcoming students, faculty, and staff back to campus this month, a year and a half after the coronavirus upended life at the University and around the world. In a Zoom interview with the Gazette, President Larry Bacow reflected on leading Harvard while working remotely and the lessons learned from the pandemic. He also discussed the University’s responses to immigration policy and climate change, and shared priorities for the year ahead. The interview was edited for clarity and length.

Q&A

Larry Bacow

It goes without saying that regular maintenance is key to the good looks of the Old Yard’s most popular resident who is nearing 140 and has endured much at the hands of visitors and vandals.

The iconic John Harvard Statue, modeled after a student from the 19th century (not the 17th-century English minister and generous College benefactor, John Harvard), receives occasional washings by Harvard’s Landscape Services team, but last month he had a kind of statuary spa treatment.

For several days in July and August, a team specializing in the restoration of public monuments carefully ...

Calling on students to savor the moment and exult in being together in physical community, President Larry Bacow officiated a double Convocation, one for the Class of 2024 and another for the Class of 2025, Tuesday at Tercentenary Theatre.

“Spend some time during these first few weeks noticing and marking those aspects of community that you missed last year — the everyday exchanges and experiences that narrow gaps in understanding and make friends of strangers,”  Bacow said to the Class of 2024 in the morning celebration.