We are excited to share our annual report from the 2017-18 academic year! Check out highlights of our activities over the past year, and read stories of our collaborations with faculty and students.
At the May 5 kick-off event for the Bok Center’s 40th anniversary celebration, former Harvard president Derek Bok recalled his first speech to the faculty, in 1971 when his term began, which he devoted to the subject of teaching. Afterward Bok spoke to his friend the eminent physicist Gerald Holton, “and I asked him, Gerry, how did it go? And he said, well, 80 percent of the faculty have given up on you.”
The Herschbach teacher/scientist lecture series recognizes scholars who excel both as scientists and as educators. The lecture series honors emeritus professor Dudley Herschbach, a Nobel-prize winning chemist and a devoted educator.
Over the past 40 years, the Derek Bok Center has supported and enhanced instruction at Harvard through the training of faculty and graduate students in effective pedagogy. This commitment to the...
Each year, eight PhD candidates are chosen to receive in-depth, personalized mentoring and coaching by the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning. The program culminates in a symposium of brief, compelling talks where these scholars present their research from the Sanders Theatre stage.
The Bok Center's Learning Lab and other Science Center staff have moved to 50 Church Street, 3rd floor. Come visit us here!... Read more about We moved!
On 12 May, the Bok Center held its annual Spring Showcase, inviting friends and colleagues from around the university and beyond to experience some of the dozens of innovative projects and initiatives that Bok launched during the 2016–2017 academic year.... Read more about Sampling innovations in teaching and learning
Bok Center Faculty Fellow Elisa New and her General Education course "Poetry in America" have been featured in the Harvard Gazette. The article notes how the Bok Center's Learning Lab team has helped New create an online hybrid of her course:... Read more about Faculty Fellow Elisa New Featured in the Harvard Gazette
In the November 2017 issue of Harvard Magazine, Harvard President Drew Faust reflects on the ways that we measure and evaluate the success (and value) of a Harvard education, and highlights the Bok Center's efforts to innovate undergraduate pedagogy:... Read more about Measuring an Education
Congratulations to Learning Lab faculty partner Elena Kramer on receiving the 2016 Fannie Cox Prize for Excellence in Science Teaching! Over the past two years, Kramer worked with Bok Center Media, Literacy, and Visualization Fellows Morgan Furze and Claire Meaders to develop creative assignments for her course.... Read more about Innovative Teaching Recognized
Zach Nowak, a Bok Center Departmental Teaching Fellow, brought the canned meat product Spam to the first day of section for a course on American food history.
Spam, first created in the United States in the late 1930s and used to fuel troops during the Second World War, has since fallen out of favor, going the way of ersatz coffee as a food most people would probably rather avoid if given the choice. Today, Spam often conjures up associations of tastelessness and poor quality rivaled only, perhaps, by Dickensian gruel.
It came as no surprise to Nowak, then, when his...
Herschbach...
