The Harvard Alumni Association announced Tuesday it will hold its 2021 class reunions in a virtual-only format.
The reunions, which normally coincide with Harvard’s commencement exercises in the spring, will not take place in-person due to “the scope and complexity of hosting reunions, the announcement said. HAA also wrote that it chose not to postpone the reunions until the fall because of uncertainty regarding life on campus next fall. Spring 2020 reunions were also held virtually due to the pandemic.
“I was inspired by the creativity and collaboration that went into virtual programming earlier this year,” HAA Executive Director Philip W. Lovejoy wrote in a statement. “I’m confident the HAA and our volunteer leaders will create the best possible reunion experience this year.”
Adams House faculty deans Judith S. Palfrey â67 and John G. âSeanâ Palfrey â67 will retire from their positions at the end of the academic year, the pair announced in a Wednesday email to Adams House affiliates.
When they arrived at Adams House in 1999, Judith and John Palfrey were the only faculty deans unaffiliated with the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, working as professors at Harvard Medical School and Boston University of Medicine, respectively. Today, they are the longest-serving pair of current faculty deans.
The pair said in an interview that they are grateful for the two decades they spent serving in their roles at Adams House.
Academic continuity was a guiding principle in Harvardâs planning for the spring semester, Dean of the College Rakesh Khurana said in a Monday interview.
Harvardâs plan for the spring semester â announced earlier this month by Khurana, along with University President Lawrence S. Bacow and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Claudine Gay â welcomes roughly half of all undergraduates to live on campus. The plan gives preference to seniors, currently enrolled juniors, and students faced with learning environment or time zone challenges.
This past semester, the College hosted just a quarter of students â primarily first-years â in its dorms. Khurana said the success of the fall opened the door to bringing even more students back this spring.
Seventy-nine percent of Harvard College students plan to enroll for the remote spring semester, marking a small increase from the 77 percent who enrolled this fall, the Harvard College Open Data Project predicted in a report published Wednesday.
HODP, a student research group, began surveying undergraduates on their spring plans five days after Harvard announced Dec. 1 it would prioritize bringing seniors, currently enrolled juniors, students from far-flung timezones, and those without suitable learning environments back to campus. Juniors who took time off this fall are also eligible to petition for campus housing, and will be “accommodated to the greatest degree possible.”