The Year In Review

FEBRUARY 2

Doctors at the Harvard-alliterated Brigham and Women's. Hospital perform the first successful heart transplant operation in New England.

In a three-and-one-half-hour operation a South Hadley. Mass. resident received the heart of a Connection nurse who had died two days earlier in a highway accident. The transplant has been heralded as a key step in paying the way for future transplants with immunostippressant drugs which increase the rate of recovery.

FEBRUARY 10

Doctors at Brigham and Women's hospital perform the second successful heart transplant in New England only eight days after the first one.

The recipient was a 16-year-old resident of Bolton. Mass who had been suffering for seven months from a terminal disease involving deterioration of the heart muscles.

FEB 14

Four Harvard professors, including. Cabot Professor of the Natural Sciences Matthew S. Meselson and professor of Physics David Nelson, were named as recipients of MacArthur Fellow ships, one of the most prestigious academic awards granted in the United States.

Meselson was honored for his ground breaking research in molecular biology and his manipulation of DNA for genetic engineering. Nelson was recognized as a leader in the field of condensed matter and glass, and is dealing with the question of the transition from solid to liquid matter.

FEBRUARY 16

Harvard officials announce a plan to prevent the emergence of a black market in cut-rate computers which were provided to students by the Apple Computer Corporation.

Fearing that students would resell the computers for a profit, the administration, in conjunction with the Apple Company, said that students would be allowed only to lease the computers for the first year, and that students caught reselling the computers would be liable for disciplinary action.

Since then, no black market has emerged, administrators said.

FEBRUARY 26

Harvard announces that it would receive a $1.2 million federal government grant aimed to make the University one of the nation's leading developers of futuristic materials, such as solar cells and metallic glasses.

MARCH 7

Harvard announce that would consolidate its four biological institutions to centralize plant studies and help alleviate a shortage of funds. The move consolidated the Botanical Museum, the Farlow Library and Herbarium, the Gray Herbarium, and parts of the Arnold Arboretum to form the Harvard University Herbaria.

MARCH 8

The Statistics department, one of the University's smallest concentrations, announces a long-range expansion plan aimed at increasing the number of senior faculty members and beefing up computer facilities.

They also announced the tenure appointment of Donald B. Rubin, a leading social science statistician from the University of Chicago.

He became only the second professor to receive tenure in the department since 1961 and the fifth in the department 26-year history.

APRIL 4

A Harvard expedition in Kenya, led by Professor of Anthropology Davd Pilbream, discovers the world's oldest "man".

The two inch jawbone fragment that was unearthed dates back five million years--a million years earlier than any other previously discovered hominid, or member of the human family.

APRIL 10

President Bok announces the appointment of Professor of Health Policy and Public. Managemnt Harvey V. Fineberg as the new dean of the School of Public Health.

The appointment ended an eight month search to fill the position which was held previously by Dean Howard H. Hratt '44.

APRIL 23

Almost 50 demonstrators begin a 24-hour vigil at the Medical School to protest Harvard's use of animals in laboratory experiments.

Mobilization for Animals--an organization dedicated to the complete cessation of the use of animals in scientific experiments-targeted. Harvard as part of a larger nationwide series of protests against animal research.

APRIL 27

A Harvard Medical School professor. Albert M. Galaburda researching brain abnormalities makes nationwide headlines when he requests the brain of suspected murderer-rapist, who had died two weeks earlier of a self inflicted gunshot wound.

Galabruda, who works at Harvard affiliated. Beth Israel Hospital, said he had become interested in the brain because of the "very dramatically abnormal behavior" the criminal had exihibited.

MAY 17

Making another move to enlarge its computer facilities. Harvard announces an agreement with the Digital Electronics Corporation to make three of the company's best selling personal computers available to students and staff at cut-rate prices.

The Rainbow 100, the DECMate II and the Professional 350 all became available for approximately 30 to 40 percent off the standard retail values.

JUNE 28

A team of scientists in Geneva, headed by Professor of Physics Carlo Rubbia, finds evidence of a sixth kind of quark, one of the three most-sought-after discoveries in modern physics.

Quarks are believed to be the basic building blocks of all larger atomic particles. Three of them are bound together to form each proton and neutron in the neuclei of atoms.

JULY 10

Despite a several-month delay, Harvard's first large scale computer network linking several on campus locations became fully operational. The system marked the first step in what administrators described as the University's march towards a larger, more comprehensive computer system to speed on-campus communications.

The several hundred thousand dollar system is similar to but less extensive than, networks at schools such as Brown and MIT.

SEPT. 17

Harvard announces a plan to construct an approximately $1 million high technology greenhouse to accommodate a newly tenured plant ecologist. The greenhouse is also part of the Biology departments larger effort to expand its experimental botany programs.

The department originally conceptualized the plan to help here Professor of Botany Fakhri A. Bazenz and his ten-member lab team away from the University of litigants.

SEPT. 26

An unidentified man present Bigelow Professor of Ichthyology Karel E. Liem with a $5000 check to bad our the professor's financially troubled course. Biology 7b "Introductory Biology.

The anonymous donation came after Ltem one week earlier told the class that unless he received additional University funding the course would face serious problems including cancelled labs and review and the possibility of shutting down completes.

OCT. 17

Professor of Physics Carlo Rubbia wins the 1984 Nobel Prize of physics for his research into the basis forces of nature.

Rubbia, who shared the Prize with Simon van der Meer of Holland, headed a team that used a 200-ton atom smasher to produce clear evidence of the subatomic W and Z particles. These particles, sought by physicists for 10 years, are believed to carry the "week force," one of the four fun damental natural forces in the universe.

NOV. 5

Harvard Astronomy professor announces the completion of a study which art historians said might lead to a re-evaluation of traditional interpretations of some of Vincent van Gogh's most famous paintings.

Basing his novel theory on a year-long scientific analysis of mysterious astronomical patterns in several van Gogh paintings. Professor of Astronomy Charles A. Whitney concluded that Van Gogh produced an almost exact reproduction of the night sky in his own time.

DEC. 3

The first man to undergo a heart transplant in New England dies after his Harvard doctors tried in vain to find him a third heart.

Gerald Boucher of South Hadley. Mass., died from rejection of his second heart after doctors at the Harvard's affiliated Brigham and woman's Hospital and the donor mine himm a new leave on life to mouths earlier.