other communities programs

The Schlesinger Library draws thousands of researchers each year to study women’s history, gender issues, and United States social history. Officially known as the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, its impressive holdings include letters and diaries, photographs, books and periodicals, ephemera, oral histories, and audiovisual materials—all of them documenting women’s lives and women's issues, primarily in the 19th and 20th centuries.

With well over 100 members, the Harvard Black Law Students Association (HBLSA) truly reflects the diversity that exists within the black community of Harvard Law School (HLS). Founded in 1967 and now the largest chapter in the National Black Law Students Association, HBLSA dedicates itself to the support and guidance of Black students in academic, professional, and social endeavors.

The Broadmoor Project is a multi-year collaboration with residents of the neighborhood of Broadmoor in New Orleans, LA, to help bring their community back after the devastation of hurricane Katrina in 2005. Eighty Harvard University graduate students – most of them from Harvard Kennedy School – have spent either spring, winter, or summer break in New Orleans consulting and collecting data on repopulation, education, housing, and economic development.

When it comes to legal matters, children need powerful allies. The Child Advocacy Program (CAP) prepares Harvard Law School (HLS) students to advance the interests of society’s most vulnerable members. Through CAP, students undertake the responsibility of representing children in individual advocacy cases, as well as the long-term goal of promoting law reform and social change.

Fighting domestic violence requires multiple strategies. The Coalition Against Gender Violence dedicates itself to the assistance of domestic violence victims through advocacy, community outreach, and education. The Coalition provides domestic violence support, legal research, and crisis counseling, and it examines gender violence in both a local and global context through conferences, speakers, and advocacy projects. Group members advocate for and raise funds to help gender violence prevention programs at all levels—local, national, and international.

The HMS Office for Diversity and Community Partnership offers a college-planning workshop for high school students and their parents.

Harvard Law students start on their path to serving society in the courtroom, gaining both instruction and hands-on experience in the Criminal Justice Institute (CJI). The cornerstone of CJI is the course Introduction to Trial Advocacy: Criminal Justice, taught by Professor Charles Ogletree, where students study defense theories, litigation strategies, and ethical issues, as well as focusing on advocacy skills and substantive legal issues in the context of client representation.

Even before they earn their degrees, some Harvard Law students serve the state in the Criminal Prosecution Clinic. Here, representing the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, these HLS students gain invaluable experience prosecuting non-jury District Court criminal cases.

Current Science & Technology Center (CS&T) works with Harvard faculty and students to develop educational talks and programs for the general public that cover the latest discoveries in small-scale science and engineering. CS&T's wide range of topics include: health sciences, genomics, immunology, the brain, behavior, biotechnology, Earth and space, matter and energy, nanotechnology, information technology, A.I., materials science, engineering, robotics, technology, and more.

The Death Penalty Clinic places Harvard Law students in capital punishment resource centers in the southern United States. There they participate in the litigation of cases involving inmates who have received capital sentences, giving them the opportunity to remove convicts from death row and appeal their cases for lesser sentences or possible exoneration.

The Harvard Extension School offers more than 600 fall and spring term courses in 65 fields, including health sciences, humanities, social sciences, computer science, management, environmental management, writing and languages. One hundred of these courses may be taken online from anywhere in the world. Open enrollment, reasonable tuition, part-time study, and evening classes remain cornerstones of the Extension School.

In the fall of 2007, Harvard Law School (HLS) launched its new Environmental Law and Policy Clinic (ELPC) under the leadership of Wendy Jacobs, a former appellate lawyer and special litigator for the U.S. Department of Justice in the Environment Division.

No food is actually wasted (or thrown) at Food Fight, an annual fundraiser that collects non-perishable food and financial donations for hunger relief charities. Business schools across the country, Harvard among them, join in Food Fight every November. Harvard’s proceeds are donated to the Greater Boston Food Bank.

FIMRC-Harvard is dedicated to improve the lives of children around the world primarily through health education and medical supply distribution. Each year, groups of volunteers travel during intercession, spring break, and the summer to international clinic sites to help in the local effort of disseminating invaluable information to village residents. On campus, FIMRC members seek to broaden awareness on international health concerns and fundraise to provide medical supplies.

An annual parade of children from neighborhood schools, community health organizations and youth centers attend the Give Kids a Smile program of the American Dental Association (ADA) at the Harvard Dental Center on Longwood Avenue. Many of the children who attend this one-day event have never visited a dentist. Some learn for the first time the need to floss. The HSDM Dental Center is Harvard’s only direct care provider and students and faculty provide free oral-health education, dental exams, teeth cleaning, and fluoride treatment for local children during GKAS.

The Harvard Art Museum consists of three renowned museums: the Fogg Museum, Busch-Reisinger Museum, and Arthur M. Sackler Museum. The Fogg’s collection contains Western art from the Middle Ages to the present; the Busch-Reisinger is the only museum in America devoted to promoting the arts of Central and Northern Europe, with a special emphasis on the German-speaking countries; and the Sackler’s holdings include ancient, Asian, Islamic and later Indian art. As an integral part of Harvard and the community, the three art museums serve as resources for students, scholars, and visitors.

The Harvard Art Museum’s collections are a valuable resource available to the community through partnerships with local libraries. The Art Museum’s Partnership for Cultural Literacy, a collaboration with the Cambridge Public Library, offers all Cambridge library card holders the opportunity to visit the Harvard Art Museum for free at any time. Members of the Allston-Brighton community can also take advantage of the Harvard Art Museum partnership with the Honan-Allston, Brighton, and Faneuil branches of the Boston Public Library.

The Art Museum encourages and welcomes student visitors to its galleries, and thousands of local students of all ages make the trip with their class each year. The Art Museum’s Education Department plays a role in all visits, working closely with area schools to develop museum visits that complement the students’ curricula and educate the students in the art of looking. Admission charges and other materials are free, as are the docent-led tours tailored to the individual needs of school and community groups.

Founded in 1949, Harvard Defenders is one of the largest and oldest student-practice clinical organizations at Harvard Law School. It serves the greater community by addressing gaps in the criminal justice system and providing access to counsel for those who might not otherwise have it.

Imagine working with victims of human rights abuse. It’s an unlikely scenario for most of us, but for some Harvard Law students, helping these individuals apply for U.S. refugee status and related protections is all part of their experience in the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic. A collaborative project between Harvard Law School and Greater Boston Legal Services (GBLS), the Clinic involves students in the direct representation of these refugees, sometimes involving family reunification and avoidance of forced removal in immigration proceedings.

Every year, Harvard Law School (HLS) invites well-known speakers to campus to participate in presentations on a wide array of subjects relevant to the HLS community. Student groups also host lectures and discussions by renowned speakers on topics of interest pertaining to local, national, and international law. Often these lectures—which, although specialized, touch on subjects of import—are open to the public.

The Harvard Legal Aid Bureau is the oldest student-run legal services organization in the United States. Established in 1913 “for the purpose of rendering legal aid and assistance, gratuitously, to all persons or associations who by reason of financial embarrassment or social position, or for any other reason, appear worthy thereof,” the Legal Aid Bureau works tirelessly for progressive change and social justice.

Rather than going to court, it’s generally preferable for disputing members of the community to resolve their differences without a judge. Of course, that has its own challenges, which is why the Harvard Mediation Program works to provide a fair and effective process in which individuals involved in a dispute can come to a mutual agreement.

Each month the museum presents a weekend program for children and families featuring authors, naturalists, and Harvard researchers. Topics range from Darwin’s voyage on the Beagle, to techniques for plant collecting, to wildlife photography. Family programs are free with museum admission. Visit www.hmnh.harvard.edu for details and to sign up for the museum’s enewsletter.

The museum is a portal to the research and expertise of the University, not only through permanent and changing exhibits but also through public programs presented year-round. Public lectures feature Harvard faculty and other researchers and scientists presenting current research on a diverse set of topics, from paleontology and evolution to botany and earth sciences. Visit www.hmnh.harvard.edu for details and to sign up for the museum’s enewsletter. Most programs are free.

More than 30,000 students and teachers visit the museum annually on field trips and other group visits. In addition to self-guided exploration of the museum, the Education Department offers a variety of classroom programs on topics ranging from human evolution to climate change. Cambridge Public School groups are granted free admission and classroom programs, and Boston Public School groups are offered free admission for self-guided visits. For more information visit www.hmnh.harvard.edu.

Wonders on Wednesdays (WoW) is a free program for community-based youth and after-school groups. Students can investigate the galleries with a special exhibit exploration and participate in hands-on activities with museum specimens to find out how scientists learn about the natural world. Repeat visits are encouraged. With more than 12,000 objects on display, it’s easy to discover something new every visit. Groups of 10-30 students and at least one adult for every five students is ideal. Reservations are required and space is limited.

The ability to negotiate and mediate effectively is rarely an innate skill, but it’s quite clearly an important talent for those in the field of law. The Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program works to train a new generation of lawyers with the skills they need to help clients manage disputes efficiently and creatively.

Often, low and moderate-income tenants do not know their rights and struggle to represent themselves. This is where the Harvard Tenant Advocacy Project (TAP) steps in. A student practice organization dedicated to representing residents of publicly subsidized housing before local housing authorities, TAP provides badly needed assistance tenants who are facing eviction or who have been denied admission to public housing or a subsidy program. TAP also provides advice on general landlord-tenant questions.

MBA students learn firsthand about nonprofits when they become Harvard Business School Board Fellows. Supervised by a board member for a local nonprofit, each undertakes a project of strategic or organizational importance for that organization. Through the assigned project and attendance at board meetings, the fellows learn about the inner workings of nonprofits—something they might later put to good use in society.