harvard essays 2008

A robot falls in love in a post-apocalyptic world. A French rat sets out to become a chef. A suburban family of superheroes defeats a power-hungry villain. Unexpected ideas, all—yet Pixar Animation Studios is turning these and other novel ideas into blockbuster films. How? As Catmull explains, Pixar’s leaders have discovered potent practices for structuring and operating a creative organization. For example, they give writers, artists, and other “creatives” enormous leeway to make decisions. They make it safe for people to share unfinished work with peers, who provide candid feedback. And they conduct project post-mortems in ways that extract the most valuable lessons for mitigating risk on subsequent projects. The effort has paid off. Pixar’s has racked up a unique track record of success: It’s the leading pioneer in computer animation. It has never had to buy scripts or movie ideas from outside. And since 1995, it has released seven films—all of which became huge hits. The Idea in Practice Catmull suggests these principles for managing your creative organization: Empower your creatives. Give your creative people control over every stage of idea development. Example:  At most studios, a specialized development department generates new movie ideas. Pixar assembles cross-company teams for this purpose. Teams comprise directors, writers, artists, and storyboard people who originate and refine ideas until they have potential to become great films. The development department’s job? Find people who’ll work effectively together. Ensure healthy social dynamics in the team. Help the team solve problems. Create a peer culture. Encourage people throughout your company to help each other produce their best work. Example:  At Pixar, daily animation work is shown in an incomplete state to the whole crew. This process helps people get over any embarrassment about sharing.
Exposé is a publication of the Harvard College Writing Program Third Digital Printing Printed by Joaquin Terrones Copyright © 2012–13, President and Fellows of Harvard College Colophon Neue Helvetica/Georgia. Helvetica was designed by Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann. One of the few typefaces that displays in a range of font weights online, Helvetica is distinctive for its neutral contours and clear letter forms. Matthew Carver designed for the Microsoft Corporation the serif font Georgia, whose large x-height makes it legible for long stretches of onscreen copy. Editors Tad DaviesJoaquin Terrones Creative Writing Editor Karen Heath Associate Editors Jim Herron Matt Levay Donna Mumme Elissa Krakauer Prize Committee Karen HeathTom Jehn Readers Jerusha Achterberg, Pat Bellanca, David Barber, Christina Becker, Owen Chen, Justine De Young, Dwight Fee, Liz Greenspan, Dave Hahn, Karen Health, Jim Herron, Jonah Johnson, Courtney Lamberth, Matt Levay, Michele Martinez, Kelsey McNiff, Donna Mumme, Tess O’Toole, Eoin Ryan, Yulia Ryzhik, Emily Shelton, Lindsay Silver Cohen, Rebecca Summerhays, Michelle Syba, Adrienne Tierney, Jane Unrue, Ken Urban, Aliza Watters, William Weitzel. Web Development & Design Joaquin Terrones Special Thanks Academic Technology Group at Harvard University Tom Jehn For more than 20 years, Exposé has annually showcased outstanding essays written by students in Harvard’s first-year course in the Harvard College Writing Program. All students are required to take “Expos,” a tradition since 1872. Expos asks students to work intensively with their teachers on the skill of writing thoughtful arguments that respond to challenging ideas, complex debates, and puzzling social phenomena. The work is not easy. Over the course of a semester, students must tackle three essay assignments on topics likely unfamiliar to them. For each.
David Edwards, creator, writer and Harvard University professor, is the leader of an international creativity movement, described in his book The Lab: Creativity and Culture (Harvard University Press 2010). Edwards’ commitment to social and cultural engagement through collaborative artistic and scientific discovery has led to remarkable arts partnerships, technological advances, and design solutions. Recently translated in French as Le Manifeste du Laboratoire (Odile Jacob, 2011), The Lab describes how, like a Bauhaus for the 21st century, cultural experimentation can provide a rich setting for socially beneficial innovation and learning. The Lab follows up Artscience: Creativity in the Post-Google Generation (Harvard University Press 2008), an essay that explores innovation as a creative process that is neither completely aesthetic nor scientific, but a fusion of the deductive logic of scientific experimentation with the intuitive inspiration of artistic creation. Edwards has founded several innovation organizations in the USA, Europe and Africa, including Le Laboratoire, a cultural center in Paris, and Idea Translation Labs in Boston, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Cape Town, South Africa.  These labs form the network of ArtScience Labs and manage the creative educational program, The ArtScience Prize. Edwards is also the founder of different for and not-for-profit organizations around the world. Edwards is the inventor of several commercial innovations available in stores internationally (as well as ArtScience Lab’s own Laboshop), including Le Whif (breathable chocolate, coffee and vitamin supplements), the ecological filter Andrea, and the new water transport product, The Pumpkin. His medical science innovations have led to several biopharmaceutical organizations and NGOs, including Advanced Inhalation Research (purchased by Alkermes in 1999), Pulmatrix.
Harvard Law Review Forum The Senate and the Recess Appointments Introduction The Senate and the President have sparred over recess appointments for nearly a decade, and the Supreme Court is poised to weigh in. National Labor Relations Board v. Noel Law and Behavior Shallow Signals When laws quietly permit people to act in ways usually forbidden, they create “shallow signals” that may lead others to act illegally. Harvard Law Review Forum Regional Differences in Racial Polarization in the 2012 Presidential Election: Implications for the Constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act I. Introduction Three years ago, when the Supreme Court last considered the constitutionality of the coverage formula of section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 19651 (VRA), we submitted Harvard Law Review Forum The Lawfulness of Section 5 — and Thus of Section 5 Few law review articles try to make their central legal argument in their very title — via title words that do not merely describe the argument that will be made Evidence The Distortionary Effect of Evidence on Primary Behavior In this Essay, we analyze how evidentiary concerns dominate actors’ behavior. Our findings offer an important refinement to the conventional wisdom in law and economics literature, which assumes that legal Legal Theory Inducing Moral Deliberation: On the Occasional Virtues of Fog Legal standards are often valued for their flexibility and their susceptibility to nuanced, context-sensitive interpretation. Legal rules are usually celebrated for their clarity and certainty. The received wisdom is that Federalism - Sep. of Pwr. The Conservative Insurgency and Presidential Power: A Developmental Perspective on the Unitary Executive This Essay traces successive elaborations through to the most recent construction of presidential power, the conservative insurgency’s “unitary executive.” Work on this.
Three decades of rapid economic growth in China have been accompanied by severe environmental degradation. In July 2007, the Financial Times headlined an article about a World Bank report on this problem, “750,000 a year killed by Chinese pollution.” Our estimate of the number of lives shortened by air pollution in 2002, described below, is very similar: 710,000. The World Bank report put annual health damages from air pollution in China at 3.8 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2003. The estimate of damages from rural water pollution alone was 1.9 percent of rural GDP. Both figures suggest huge pollution costs, in absolute terms and relative to other countries. Current levels of air pollution in China far exceed international environmental standards. Particulate matter from smoke damages health through fine particles that lodge deep in the lungs. In 2003, the average concentration of PM10 (particulate matter smaller than 10 microns) for 52 northern Chinese cities was 140 μg/m3 (micrograms per cubic meter), compared to the World Health Organization’s healthy air guideline of 20 μg/m3. Historically, estimates of pollution concentration are expressed in terms of total suspended particulates (TSP). The average TSP concentration in these northern cities, where coal is burned for heating, is 337 μg/m3. Although there has been improvement in many areas since the 1990s, the concentrations of particulate matter far exceed China’s own standards. The average TSP concentration of major cities in China in 1990 was 379 μg/m3 and by 2003 was still 256 μg/m3, exceeding the Chinese national standard of 200 μg/m3. By comparison, on the eve of the landmark Clean Air Act signed by President Richard Nixon in 1970, the average TSP concentration in the United States was 70 μg/m3. Even at the ninetieth percentile—the top tenth of most polluted areas—the U.S. concentration level in.
Courtesy of Paul Thompson / UCLA School Of MedicineTime-lapse MRI images of human-brain development between ages five and 20 show the growth and then gradual loss of gray matter, which consists of cells that process information. (Red areas contain more gray matter, blue areas less.) Paradoxically, the thinning of gray matter that starts around puberty corresponds to increasing cognitive abilities. This probably reflects improved neural organization, as the brain pares redundant connections and benefits from increases in the white matter that helps brain cells communicate. Your teenage daughter gets top marks in school, captains the debate team, and volunteers at a shelter for homeless people. But while driving the family car, she text-messages her best friend and rear-ends another vehicle. How can teens be so clever, accomplished, and responsible—and reckless at the same time? Easily, according to two physicians at Children’s Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School (HMS) who have been exploring the unique structure and chemistry of the adolescent brain. “The teenage brain is not just an adult brain with fewer miles on it,” says Frances E. Jensen, a professor of neurology. “It’s a paradoxical time of development. These are people with very sharp brains, but they’re not quite sure what to do with them.” Research during the past 10 years, powered by technology such as functional magnetic resonance imaging, has revealed that young brains have both fast-growing synapses and sections that remain unconnected. This leaves teens easily influenced by their environment and more prone to impulsive behavior, even without the impact of souped-up hormones and any genetic or family predispositions. Most teenagers don’t understand their mental hardwiring, so Jensen, whose laboratory research focuses on newborn-brain injury, and David K. Urion, an associate professor of neurology.