Kent Garrett Sr., 97, still remembers how proud and happy he was when his son was admitted to Harvard in 1959. “I invited everybody over for dinner,” he recalls with a laugh.
Garrett was a subway motorman who worked a second job waxing floors. His son, also named Kent Garrett, was among an unprecedented group of 18 black students accepted into the class of 1963.
Garrett chronicles what that time was like for him and his fellow black classmates in the new book The Last Negroes at Harvard, co-authored with his partner, Jeanne Ellsworth. MORE
Yesterday evening the President issued a proclamation suspending
the entry of immigrants for a period of 60 days. The measure was first
announced in a tweet sent out by the President on Monday night. Because
we know that many of you are concerned as to whether and how this may
affect you, we want to provide the following summary of the
proclamation.
WHO:
The proclamation suspends entry of those seeking immigrant visas from
outside of the United States. It DOES NOT affect individuals that are
in the United States and applying for adjustment of status. It also
does not apply to those seeking entry as non-immigrants, such as
visitors (B-1/B-2), employees of intergovernmental organizations (G-4),
students (F-1/J-1) and temporary workers (H-1B). There are several
EXCEPTIONS to the proclamation for:
WHAT:
The proclamation is a temporary suspension on entry. It is anticipated
that application and processing steps that occur prior to the issuance
of such immigrants will continue. Once the proclamation is lifted or
expired, those individuals will be allowed to enter the United States.
It should be noted that most US Consulates have already been closed and
unable to conduct interviews due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
WHERE:
As noted above, this affects only those who are outside of the United States.
WHEN:
The proclamation went into effect at 11:59 PM April 23rd and is set to
expire in 60 days. It may be continued if deemed necessary.
Early one morning in April 2015, Christina Goldbaum was pounding on locked metal doors at the mostly closed Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi. She was trying to find an airline with a flight that would take her to the Kenyan city of Garissa, where terrorists had killed more than 145 people and wounded dozens more at a local university.
After hearing sketchy news reports of the attack, she had driven three hours to the airport from the small town where she had been working on a documentary for a nongovernmental organization. As she drove, she frantically emailed an editor she knew at Agence France-Presse (AFP) and learned that the international news agency did not have another freelancer available to cover the mass shooting.
With the few flights to Garissa already full, Goldbaum was able to snag a spot on a four-seat charter flight booked by a South African news crew. When she arrived in Garissa, she got to work, shooting video while under curfews and dealing with regular power outages and unreliable internet access.
“It was so important that journalists be there on the ground to show that those killed were so much more than statistics,” says Goldbaum, now a reporter for The New York Times. “People hear about terrorist attacks and they don’t connect” to the victims.
While it’s common for American journalists to start their careers by covering local news, Goldbaum, now 27, found her journalistic footing overseas. The Bethesda native, who graduated in 2010 from St. Andrew’s Episcopal School in Potomac, got her first reporting job at the Cape Times in Cape Town, South Africa, at the age of 22 after graduating from Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. She then spent four years in Africa as a freelance foreign correspondent and field producer for outlets including AFP, The Atlantic and Foreign Policy, shooting her own photos and video as she covered stories ranging from political upheaval in Burundi to a massive truck bombing in the Somali capital of Mogadishu in October 2017 that killed more than 550 people and injured more than 300. MORE
Yale is offering its most popular course, The Science of Well-Being, for free online.
Dear Members of the Harvard Community,
Earlier today, Adele and I learned that we tested positive for COVID-19. We started experiencing symptoms on Sunday—first coughs then fevers, chills, and muscle aches—and contacted our doctors on Monday. We were tested yesterday and just received the results a few minutes ago. We wanted to share this news with all of you as soon as possible.
Neither of us knows how we contracted the virus, but the good news—if there is any to be had—is that far fewer people crossed our paths recently than is usually the case. We began working from home and completely limiting our contact with others on March 14 in keeping with recommendations to adopt social distancing measures. In line with standard protocols, the Department of Public Health will be in touch with anyone with whom we have had close contact over the past fourteen days.
We will be taking the time we need to rest and recuperate during a two-week isolation at home. I am blessed with a great team, and many of my colleagues will be taking on more responsibility over the next few weeks as Adele and I focus on just getting healthy. Thanks, in advance, for your good wishes. Thanks also for your understanding if I am not as responsive to email as I normally am.
This virus can lay anyone low. We all need to be vigilant and keep following guidelines to limit our contact with others. Your swift actions over the past few weeks—to respond to the needs of our community, to fulfill our teaching mission, and to pursue research that will save lives—have moved me deeply and made me extraordinarily grateful and proud. I hope to see as few of you in our situation as possible, and I urge you to continue following the guidance of public health experts and the advice and orders of our government officials.
The world needs your courage, creativity, and intelligence to beat this virus—wishing each of you good health.
All the best,
Larry
Lawrence S. Bacow
President
Harvard University
First of all, though USCIS has announced numerous operational changes (including a temporary reprieve from the requirement for wet ink signatures, and the – not unexpected – suspension of premium processing) at this time they have not announced any changes to the cap lottery and filing timeline.
Here’s what you can expect:
March 31: Date by which USCIS intends to notify selected registrants.
April 1: The earliest date that FY 2021 H-1B cap-subject petitions may be filed.
Registration Selection Notifications USCIS intends to notify registrants (employers) and their representatives (attorneys) with selected registrations via their USCIS online accounts no later than March 31, 2020. A registrant’s USCIS online account will show one of the four following statuses for each registration:
Submitted: A registration status may continue to show “Submitted” after the initial selection process has been completed. “Submitted” registrations will remain in consideration for selection until the end of the fiscal year, at which point all registration statuses will be Selected, Not Selected or Denied.
Selected: Selected to file an FY 2021 H-1B cap-subject petition.
NotSelected: Not selected for this fiscal year.
Denied:
The same registrant or representative submitted more than one
registration on the beneficiary’s behalf for the same fiscal year. All
registrations the registrant or representative submitted on behalf of
the same beneficiary for the same fiscal year are invalid.
H-1B
cap-subject beneficiaries, including those eligible for the advanced
degree exemption, must have a “Selected” registration notification in
order for a registrant or representative to properly file an H-1B
cap-subject petition for FY 2021. Registrants and representatives will
not receive non-selection notifications until the conclusion of the
fiscal year. Until that time, the status of registrations not selected
as part of any initial random selection process and not denied will
remain as “Submitted.”
As always, feel free to contact us with any questions, to schedule a consultation, or to initiate an H-1B filing.
Erika James has a knack for making history.Five years after she was named the first African-American woman to be named dean of Emory University’s Goizueta Business School, James was named as the new dean at the University of Pennsylvania’s the Wharton School of Business.She’ll be the first woman and person of color to head the top business school in its 139-year history.”Erika is an award-winning scholar and teacher and a strong, proven leader who serves as dean of the Goizueta Business School at Emory University,” University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann said in a news release.”A passionate and visible champion of the power of business and business education to positively transform communities locally, nationally, and globally, she is exceptionally well prepared to lead Wharton into the next exciting chapter of its storied history,” she said.James was credited with growing Emory’s school faculty by 25% by the end of her first year, where she built an innovation and entrepreneurship lab that opened to all students. By last year the school had one of the most gender-diverse faculty populations in higher education, it said.”This is an exciting time to be in business education,” James said in the release. “The scope and platform of the Wharton School provides an opportunity to create far reaching impact for students, scholars, and the business community.”James served as the senior associate dean for executive education at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business prior to becoming the dean at Emory. She has a Ph.D. and master’s degree in organizational psychology from the University of Michigan, in Detroit and received a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Pomona College of the Claremont Colleges, in California. James will succeed Geoffrey Garrett, who became dean of the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business. MORE
Black girl magic was in full effect earlier this month when Mareena Robinson Snowden, became the first black woman to earn a Ph.D. from MIT in Nuclear Engineering. Snowden’s dissertation focused on the development of radiation detectors for future nuclear arms control treaties. According to her personal website, she is a native of Miami and earned a B.S. in Physics from the illustrious Florida A&M University. Snowden took to her Instagram to share some of her thoughts on her achievement:
“No one can tell me God isn’t. Grateful is the best word I have to describe how I feel. Grateful for every part of this experience – highs and lows. Every person who supported me and those who didn’t. Grateful for a praying family, a husband who took on this challenge as his own, sisters who reminded me at every stage how powerful I am, friends who inspired me to fight harder. Grateful for the professors who fought for and against me. Every experience on this journey was necessary, and I’m better for it.” MORE
Applications for the 2021-2022 Fulbright Foreign Student Program are now open. This world-renowned program offers scholarships to South Africans interested in pursuing a Master’s or Doctoral degree at any accredited tertiary institution in the United States. The scholarships cover the full cost of tuition and living expenses in the United States for up to 2 years.
