In fall 2008, Wyss’s first record-breaking donation led to the renaming of the Harvard Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering in his honor. Wyss, who received his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School in 1965, also gave a $25 million gift to the Business School in 2004.

“Mr. Wyss is extraordinarily generous, and we are deeply grateful that he has expanded his support of multidisciplinary research at Harvard,” University President Drew G. Faust said in a statement. “This additional gift will enable the Institute’s continued success and create new opportunities to improve people’s lives and the world in which we live.”

Wyss, who has a net worth of $8.7 billion, is currently ranked 123rd on Forbes magazine’s list of billionaires. He focuses on land conservation and education philanthropy through the Wyss Foundation, which he founded in 1998.

Born in Switzerland, Wyss made a fortune as an entrepreneur and businessman. He served as chief executive for Synthes, Inc., a Swiss-based medical device maker which was sold for more than $20 billion to Johnson and Johnson in June of last year.

“I could not have dreamt of the Institute’s remarkable discoveries thus far, and am proud and excited to help them continue to build, explore, and improve lives,” Wyss said in a statement.

The Wyss Institute, which exists as a consortium of Harvard University, Harvard-affiliated hospitals, Boston University, Tufts University, and the University of Massachusetts Medical School, aims to “transform healthcare, industry, and the environment by emulating the way nature builds,” according to its website. The collaboration currently consists of more than 350 staff members spread out over Harvard’s Longwood and Cambridge campuses.

The aim of the Wyss Institute is to incorporate existing designs in nature into modern engineering solutions. Since its founding, Wyss faculty members have built devices including an artificial lung to simplify drug testing, robotic insects capable of flight, and vibrating insoles to ease walking for the elderly.

“Four years ago, we were tasked with developing an entirely new model for innovation, collaboration, and technology translation that more effectively bridges academia and industry, and that is precisely what we did,” Wyss founding director Donald E. Ingber said in a statement.

“Mr. Wyss’s additional gift—for which we are beyond grateful—ensures that our adventure in high-risk research and technology translation will continue,” he added.

—Staff writer Brian C. Zhang can be reached at brianzhang@college.harvard.edu. Follow him on Twitter @brianczhang.

The Nieman Foundation of Journalism has named 24 journalists from across the globe to the 2013-2014 class of Nieman Fellows, who will take temporary leaves from their journalism careers to study at Harvard.

The mid-career fellowship gives journalists with at least five years of professional experience the opportunity to engage in a specific area of research, audit courses from across the University, and participate in various seminars for 10 months starting in the fall.

“It’s an intensity that is not focused on producing a story for tomorrow’s newspaper or magazine or radio station. It’s a chance to focus on skill-building and intellectual pursuits,” said Ann Marie Lipinski, curator of the Nieman Foundation.

The Nieman Foundation selected 12 U.S. journalists and 12 international journalists as Fellows, and received 136 U.S. applications and 136 international ones.

“It’s a chance for me to step back from a daily pressure and sit back and think about some of the bigger questions of trends I’ve been covering,” said Jeffrey R. Young, one of the 2013-2014 Nieman fellows, who covers technology as a senior editor and writer from the Chronicle of Higher Education.

While at Harvard, Young will study the impact of massive open online courses on higher education. Young said in an interview that he is specifically excited to be researching this issue at Harvard, where he will have the opportunity to connect with people from the Berkman Center, the Graduate School of Education, and EdX—Harvard and MIT’s joint online education venture.

“This new idea of doing online education in this way has raised a lot of questions and there are a lot left unanswered,” Young said. “I feel very much like a new student coming in.”

Tammerlin Drummond, another Nieman fellow and a metro columnist for the Bay Area News Group, said she is interested in engaging with professors at the School of Public Health to study gun violence as a public health issue.

“In order to get a full view of it, you have to take a step back from the day-to-day, going from the funerals and the homicide days,” Drummond said.

Dina Temple-Raston, a counterterrorism correspondent for National Public Radio, is the first to receive the Murrey Marder Nieman Fellowship in Watchdog Journalism, named in memory of Murrey Marder, a former Nieman Fellow who passed away in March.

Lipinski had been conversing with Marder last year about the future of watchdog journalism and how to integrate his interests with the Foundation.

“It’s great that [Temple-Raston is] a Washington journalist. I think Murrey would have liked that,” Lipinski said.

In addition to the individual projects, Nieman fellows will have the opportunity to meet and collaborate with each other. While 24 Nieman Fellows were picked for the coming class, Lipinski said she and the other members of the selection committee thought with 25 in mind.

“The 25th [fellow] is the character of the class. We want them very much connected to each other and finding opportunities in each other’s work,” Lipinski said.

For the 2012-2013 Nieman Fellows, crowdsourcing was a popular topic of collaborative study. Many of the fellows focused on the huge presence of social media in the coverage of the Boston Marathon bombings, Lipinski said.

“The extent to which their working together in teams has been part of what makes a class coming together, I see a lot of potential for that from the incoming class,” Lipinski said.

Many of the fellows are looking into the future of the journalism industry and how to take advantage of digital platforms. Tyler Cabot, a new Nieman Fellow and an article editor at Esquire, said he will explore long-form journalism.

“It’ll be great to trade notes with the other people in magazine. And in the end, we’re all doing storytelling in different ways,” Cabot said.

The Nieman Foundation will be celebrating its 75th anniversary in the fall, where the newest class will be able to participate in reunion programming.

—Staff writer Kerry M. Flynn can be reached at kflynn@college.harvard.edu.

The Harvard heavyweights had a strong performance across the board, earning them their fourth straight Rowe Cup for best team results. With a win in the second freshmen race on top of the first varsity win, the Harvard lightweights took second place in the Jope Cup for overall team performance.

HEAVYWEIGHTS

The Harvard heavyweights showed their dominance by taking both the first varsity and first freshmen races at the competition on Sunday. The Crimson’s first varsity was determined to reclaim its spot at the top after Brown had edged out Harvard by less than a second at last year’s Sprints.

“I thought that as a whole our squad had a really fantastic day,” senior Justin Mundt said. “The freshmen had a really great come-from-behind victory over Brown in their final. The first varsity had an outstanding race. It is very rare that you see a boat win the grand final of the Eastern Sprints by open water and they did so. It was a very impressive row for them.”

The Crimson faced tough competition in the second varsity race; the Harvard boat finished just behind the Tigers to take the third spot.

“In the second varsity, we faltered a little bit off the starting line,” Mundt said. “Then once we were able to get things together, we had a pretty good second half of the race. We weren’t quite able to catch up to Princeton for second place, but I thought we put in a really strong row, especially in the second half.”

Harvard’s fourth varsity eight took second place behind first-place finisher Princeton. The Crimson’s overall team performance allowed it to secure the Rowe Cup for the fourth-straight year.

“The Rowe Cup is huge for us,” Mundt said. “The senior class has now won the Row Cup all four of our years and that is something that is really special to us. That shows a commitment to creating fast boats at every level, and it only works if everyone on the team, from the top guys to the guys a bit further down, are showing up every day and putting in their best effort.”

The Harvard heavyweights will compete in IRA National Championships on May 31 and the 148th Harvard-Yale Regatta on June 9.

LIGHTWEIGHTS

After taking first place in a preliminary heat, the Crimson first varsity lightweight eight bested the competition to win a gold medal in the grand final for the third straight year. Harvard finished the course in 6:03.6, defeating second-place Yale by about four seconds. Dartmouth placed third with a time of 6:09.8.

“[Sunday’s race] was the best race we’ve had all year,” senior Matt O’Leary said. “We finally put all of the pieces together that we’ve been working on from the start.”

The Crimson’s second freshmen boat was the other gold medal winner of the day, defeating Penn with an open water margin. The closest contest for Harvard was in the second varsity race, where the Crimson fought Cornell down to the finish. Both crews thought they were victorious as the race came to a close, but a photo finish revealed that the Big Red had in fact defeated Harvard by 0.67 seconds. Due to this tough loss to Cornell, the Crimson placed second in the Jope Cup for overall team performance.

“We were disappointed to lose the Jope because that is always the signifier of team depth, which this team always usually has, and which we have this year,” senior Austin Meyer said. “We had first and second boats go undefeated all year.”

The Crimson third varsity eight achieved a third-place finish in its race, coming in behind Navy and Cornell. Harvard also faced tough competition in the first freshmen race. The Crimson finished sixth in 6:39.8 with Yale, Cornell, and Penn taking the top three spots.

The Harvard lightweights will conclude their spring season by competing at IRA National Championships on May 31.

—Staff writer Alexa N. Gellman can be reached at agellman@college.harvard.edu.

With these unpromising words the grave voice of the judge sums up the case of Scotsman Robbie (Paul Brannigan). In court again for charges of violent assault, after months of peace with a girlfriend (Siobhan Reilly) who will be due with their first child soon, Robbie looks to be caught again in the rough life he has tried to amend. This is a dark premise, but “The Angels’ Share,” the latest so-called social realist film by celebrated English director Ken Loach, turns out to be a by turns rude, heartening, and exquisite comedy.

Robbie’s fellow accused have been summoned prior to his case, one by one, for their crimes against humanity. There is Albert (Gary Maitland), a bald, bespectacled man accused of disrupting public transportation by accidentally falling off the platform before a coming train, who is unlike Robbie in that he only constitutes a threat to civilized society by virtue of his “profound stupidity.” There is Mo (Jasmin Riggins), a female kleptomaniac accused of making off with a pet shop animal and calling her arresting officer a “grumpy twat,” and Rhino (William Ruane), who has urinated on and variously defaced the statues of public dignitaries. Robbie, the endnote to this train of miscreants, is sentenced to community service instead of jail time and given a final chance.

From here, the plot becomes implausible and undercooked. On a trip to a distillery, the group learns of the famous Malt Mill cask, which houses the rarest, most expensive whiskey in the world. A certain amount is expected to simply evaporate from a sealed whisky cask—the angels’ share, said to be for the guardian spirits that watched over the aging mix. Robbie, who has conveniently just discovered his world-class gift for discerning whisky flavors, sets out with his convict friends to claim an angels’ share, an indiscernible amount, of the Malt Mill. Selling even one bottle would give them all enough money to start new lives. Never mind that Robbie’s got a neighborhood thug stalking him with death threats—halfway through the movie, after Robbie puts a knife to his throat and tells him to stop ruining his life, the film’s only villain politely complies and speeds away on a motorcycle, taunting him like a schoolboy. That was easy! As far as “social messages” go, this film is standard feel-good: good guys win because the cream always rises to the top, never mind how inexplicably.

What is most important about the film’s structure in this case is not how well it holds together—it doesn't—but rather how it presents scenarios to let its actors shine. The excellent acting in this production is especially impressive given that, for many of the cast members, it is their breakout piece. Brannigan’s small, expressive face, a long scar trailing down the left cheek, displays an impressive range of emotions in the film: he looks lovingly at his newborn son, he rages, he talks charmingly, he says nothing at all and looks pensively out the bus window through the miles of Scotland countryside. Gary Maitland’s baudy character, Albert, is delightfully obscene and frequently gives some of the funniest (if most offensive) lines: when he gets on a bus full of nuns, a startled Albert says, “Fuck me, ‘Sound of Music’!” Ruane and Riggins are both lively and fun as supporting actors. Another standout performance was that of John Henshaw as the rugged overseer of the cleaning convicts, whose almost paternal concern for Robbie is the most moving of the human relationships in the film.

The cinematography is a real treat for the eyes, a visual whiskey tasting of colors, textures, and terrains. As you can expect in any Loach film, there is no shortage of vividly rendered scenery. En route to the Malt Mill, the gang coasts on a bus through the watery Scottish landscape with its quaint European road signs. The cold, pale blues of the earlier settings are succeeded by the warm, earthy tones in the wine distillery and the wood of the casks and the deep pungent greens of the wet grass in the highway, a transition that reflects Robbie’s brightening prospects. Glowing images, from the elaborate swollen pipes in the distillery to the crisp cobblestones in the street, are in themselves inspiring reminders of the rich comedy and promise of life.

None of its lazy plotting ultimately prevents “The Angels’ Share” from being a cheering tale of redemption, provided the audience is willing to suspend its disbelief and just have a good time. Its fine flavor of comic experience, riotous in its acting and subdued in its camerawork, more than compensate for the rest.

—Staff writer Victoria Zhuang can be reached at vzhuang@college.harvard.edu.

The earliest and most egregious misstep in the film is the rewriting of Nick Carraway’s story. We find him in the winter after the summer of Gatsby, staring ponderously out of snow-frosted windows, speaking even more ponderously about his binge-drinking habits and general sense of malaise. It becomes clear that he is being treated at some sort of swanky sanatorium—taking time to decompress from all he witnessed. This setup leads to his doctor telling him to write it all down, even if no one will read what he produces. It is difficult to parse whether this order is based on a premonition that the ensuing book will be a great work of literature, or on a deep and utterly understandable desire to stop listening to Tobey Maguire’s listless narration as Carraway. On the occasions when the film does directly quote the novel, the timbre of Maguire’s voice has a kind of grating insistence to it that does considerable damage to Fitzgerald’s original prose. In fact, the novel seems largely at odds with the film, something not at all mitigated by the uncomfortably heavy-handed insertion of floating text during especially poignant moments, the letters of which dissolve into snowflakes more often than not.

It’s not all bad, though. In fact, it’s often dazzling and affecting, especially during the more intimate moments of character development. Carey Mulligan’s Daisy feels slightly too human for the role, rarely reaching the heights of cold vapidity that the character does in the book. However, her chemistry with both her husband Tom(Joel Edgerton) and of course Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio), is easily the cause of some of the best moments in the film. The infamously ambiguous shirt scene between Daisy and Gatsby has a resonance to it that transcends melodrama, and the final scenes between Daisy and Tom have almost palpable force thrumming beneath them.

The choice of DiCaprio for Gatsby feels almost too easy: the middle-aged star is easily the most bankable of available options for the tricky-to-cast role. However, though the choice seemed inevitable, DiCaprio certainly gives it his best effort. He truly shines in the moments when Gatsby is off-balance or vulnerable, seeming manic with the possibility of defeat, while always maintaining an iron sense of control. His characterization of Gatsby is not necessarily moving, but then again, Gatsby is not a pitiful character, and DiCaprio’s performance is true to this, erring on the side of giving the character distance instead of revealing him at his basest state.

The strong acting—though it holds the film together—is far from the focal point of the piece. The camera work seems committed in many parts of the film to turning debauchery and murder into a theme-park ride. The pans back and forth between the East and West Egg neighborhoods are unnerving and even nauseating in 3D as the camera skims the surface of the water. The party scenes at Gatsby’s are astonishing, replete with fireworks and mechanical Charleston dance moves.

The real problem at the core of the movie seems to be restraint: Luhrmann has none. When the aesthetics that marked the early party scenes carry over to the final, gory moments of the film, they feel plastic and hurried. There is no moment when the story breaks open to reveal its rotten core—even a concluding funeral scene has an impenetrable gloss over it. It seems apparent that Luhrmann is entranced with the first half of the story but confounded by the finale, and the film stumbles as it tries to explain why we should care about all this in the first place. While entertaining and visually magnificent, “The Great Gatsby” misses it mark for the sequins in its eyes.

—Staff writer Sorrel L. Nielsen can be reached at sorrelwestbrook-nielsen@college.harvard.edu

Evelynn M. Hammonds has been in negotiations about a possible departure from her position as Dean of Harvard College and is expected not to return to the post in the fall, a person with direct knowledge of the situation confirmed Friday.

The confirmation follows six weeks of speculation about the embattled dean’s future as the head of Harvard University’s flagship school.

The departure would draw to a close a five-year term marred of late by the College’s largest cheating case in recent memory and revelations that University administrators authorized two rounds of secret email searches, one of which explicitly broke the Faculty of Arts and Sciences email privacy policy.

In an emailed statement to The Crimson on Friday, Hammonds wrote, “I have not been asked to resign as dean, nor have I offered. I am dean of Harvard College and I think speculation to the contrary is unproductive.”

Her statement did not rule out the possibility that she could depart in the near future, either through a resignation or the expiration of her contract. When asked Friday evening whether she was preparing to step down as dean or whether she has been pressured to resign, Hammonds did not provide a direct response. Jeff Neal, a spokesperson for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, wrote in an email that Hammonds's statement earlier Friday answered both of those questions.

Ali S. Asani ’77, chair of the Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations Department who said he had no direct knowledge of the negotiations, said Friday the email searches likely led to a “loss of trust” between members of the faculty and the Administrative Board.

“I am sure it has affected her relationship with these resident deans who are so core to the College, and under the circumstances, it would make her job very difficult,” Asani said.

Even if Hammonds departs from University Hall, Asani warned that issues of trust among faculty and students will not simply disappear.

The action comes after nearly two months of scrutiny over those email searches that were covertly executed on the accounts of resident deans last fall. The Boston Globe first reported those searches on March 9. Two days later, on March 11, Smith and Hammonds released a joint statement saying that the searches had been targeted, meta-data queries of the resident deans’ administrative email accounts.

However, that statement contained a number of incorrect details, and on April 2, Hammonds informed faculty gathered for their monthly meeting that she had personally authorized a second round of searches on a single resident dean’s administrative and faculty email accounts. Though Hammonds said she consulted with the University Office of the General Counsel, she did not get Smith’s authorization and therefore broke the faculty email policy. Taking responsibility for the second round of searches, Hammonds told faculty that she had “failed to recollect” them when making the March 11 statement.

Faust has tasked Boston attorney Michael B. Keating with investigating the searches and preparing a report that, according to Harvard Corporation member William F. Lee ’72, will be shared with the Harvard community.

Administrators have said that those email searches were intended to plug leaks of information related to another scandal that has clouded Hammonds’ tenure—cheating allegations that implicated approximately 125 students in Government 1310: “Introduction to Congress.” The unprecedented Ad Board case ultimately required roughly 70 undergraduates to withdraw from the College.

Many have criticized the handling of the Government 1310 case, which took more than six months to adjudicate and included an unprecedented review of all students enrolled in the course, including many who were not initially suspected to have cheated.

As Dean of the College, Hammonds is the head of the Ad Board. All resident deans also sit on that board alongside select faculty members.

Hammonds was named Dean of the College in June 2008, becoming the first woman and the first African American to hold the position. She has spent much of her five-year tenure overseeing Harvard’s ongoing House Renewal project and working to expand the College’s social spaces. Early in her term, she also helped implement the College’s new General Education program.

While some undergraduates have questioned Hammonds’s visibility as dean, Asani said he believes Hammonds has done a “very good job” making the College administration more responsive to the needs of students during her time in the role.

Hammonds became dean after a two-year stint as Senior Vice Provost for Faculty Development and Diversity. She is a tenured faculty member of both the History of Science and the African and African American Studies departments. It is likely she will return to those positions in the fall even if she leaves her role as Dean of the College this summer.

As recently as Monday, Robert D. Reischauer, senior fellow of the Harvard Corporation—the University’s highest governing body—told The Crimson he had not heard that Hammonds would be leaving her post as dean. He declined to comment on Hammonds’s future Friday afternoon.

—Staff writer Nikita Kansra contributed to the reporting of this article.

—Staff writer Nicholas P. Fandos can be reached at nicholasfandos@college.harvard.edu. Follow him on Twitter @npfandos.

—Staff writer Samuel Y. Weinstock can be reached at sweinstock@college.harvard.edu. Follow him on Twitter @syweinstock.

An international ambassador for Harvard, a trailblazing judge and policymaker, and a seasoned College administrator will receive the 2013 Harvard Medal for “extraordinary service” to the University, the Harvard Alumni Association announced Wednesday.

University President Drew G. Faust will award the medals to James V. Baker ’68, William T. Coleman, Jr., and Georgene B. Herschbach at HAA’s annual meeting during Commencement on May 30, the organization wrote in a press release.

The press release stated that the Harvard Medal, awarded for the first time in 1981, recognizes contributions to the University in a variety of forms, including administration, fundraising, or volunteer work.

Baker, a graduate of the Business School who spent his career at Goldman Sachs, was the first international president of HAA and a former president of the Harvard Club of the United Kingdom.

He has also worked as HAA’s regional director for Europe, where, according to the press release, he organized a European Leadership Conference that included clubs from 13 countries. Since, the event has become an annual occurrence, and its format has been adopted by Harvard Clubs on other continents.

“He has always maintained an eye toward strengthening Harvard’s relationship with international alumni,” HAA wrote in its announcement.

Coleman also brings a distinguished record to the list of Harvard Medal winners. After graduating first in his class at the Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review, Coleman went on to clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, making Coleman the first African-American to clerk at the nation’s highest court.

After working with Thurgood Marshall to contribute to Marshall’s arguing of the 1954 case Brown v. Board of Education, Coleman served as president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and secretary of transportation under President Gerald Ford, making him the second African-American member of a presidential cabinet. In addition, Coleman received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1995.

Coleman has also stayed connected to Harvard, formerly serving as a member of the Board of Overseers, the University’s second highest governing body. He currently sits on the Law School Dean’s Advisory Board.

The third Harvard medalist, Herschbach, has served in a number of administrative roles at Harvard, including Co-Master of Currier House, registrar of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and dean of administration.

With a background in chemistry, Herschbach also co-founded the Harvard College Program for Research in Science and Engineering, which allows undergraduates to collaborate with faculty on scientific research during the summer.

In an email, Herschbach wrote that winning the medal was an “enormous surprise” and a “great honor,” and that she was grateful to have served in fulfilling positions at Harvard that allowed her to work with skilled and passionate colleagues. She wrote that the founding of PRISE was likely her most rewarding contribution to Harvard.

“In my experience as a woman scientist I witnessed and personally experienced quite negative attitudes toward women in STEM [science, technology, engineering, and mathematics] fields,” Herschbach wrote. “But the PRISE program, which offers Harvard undergraduates the opportunity to work with faculty on projects at the frontiers of science, is welcoming to students of all backgrounds.”

Herschbach added that female students have made up about half of PRISE’s enrollment since its founding in 2006, with minorities being represented in high numbers as well.

She also wrote that her background in science was conducive to using data in administrative roles like FAS registrar.

“As a trained scientist I naturally turned to data to help understand patterns in student life in Harvard College, and to inform administrative decisions in many different areas,” Herschbach wrote.

—Staff writer Samuel Y. Weinstock can be reached at sweinstock@college.harvard.edu. Follow him on Twitter @syweinstock.

History of science professor Anne Harrington ’82 and her husband John R. Durant have been appointed as the new Masters of Pforzheimer House, resident dean Lisa Boes announced in an email to the Pfoho community Thursday morning.

Harrington is the director of undergraduate studies in the History of Science Department, and Durant, an adjunct professor at MIT, serves as the director of the MIT Museum. Harrington and Durant also lead a Harvard Summer School program in Cambridge, England.

The couple will move into Pfoho at the beginning of the fall semester with their eight-year-old son Jamie, taking on the role currently held by House Masters Nicholas A. Christakis and Erika L. Christakis ’86, who will be leaving to take on new positions at Yale this summer.

“We cannot wait to get started, and are very excited,” Harrington said in a phone interview Thursday morning. “We think Pfoho is a House with tremendous spirit—already a thriving community, which we are looking forward to joining.”

Harrington said that Jamie was “thrilled” that he soon would be living alongside the college students that the family had met in a May 3 visit to Pfoho.

She added that as House Master she hopes to further strengthen a tight-knit community.

“We would like to build off of existing traditions, but also introduce some new programs and new traditions of our own,” she said.

Pfoho residents who met the new House Masters in their May 3 visit to the House said they were pleased to learn of the appointment.

Pfoho resident Kevin E. Sikah ’15 said he was practicing piano in the House when he met Harrington, Durant, and Jamie.

“It turned out that their son also plays,” he said. “It was nice to see the family-type environment that they have going on.”

Tiffany A. Lazo-Cedre ’16, who is assigned to live in Pfoho next year, said she thought Durant “seemed like a very personable guy” when they met, adding that he seemed to be trying to make the students with whom he was interacting comfortable.

Like Sikah, Lazo-Cedre was glad to see Durant involving his family in College life.

“I liked that he brought his son,” she said.

—Staff writer Antonio Coppola can be reached at acoppola@college.harvard.edu. Follow him on Twitter @AntonioCoppolaC.

—Staff writer Samuel Y. Weinstock can be reached at sweinstock@college.harvard.edu. Follow him on Twitter @syweinstock.

But when it came time for Gammoh to take the Medical College Admission Test, the exam every premedical student must take before applying to medical schools, he felt his Harvard education had left him underprepared. To fill the gaps in his knowledge, he chose to enroll in a Kaplan MCAT Advantage course prior to the exam.

Gammoh’s decision is not an unusual one for Harvard students on a premed track. Undergraduates generally say the information they learn in premed courses does not align with what is tested on the exam.

“I don’t think they’re really focused on the MCAT,” Jason A. Gandelman ’14, a neurobiology concentrator, said of Harvard courses. “Usually the classes are very focused on exploring what the professors are interested in and are not overtly helpful for the MCAT.”

Despite the disparity between material tested on the MCAT and information taught in the classroom, undergraduates say they appreciate the fact that professors do not try to teach for the test because it means students are exposed to a greater breath of material.

But with the Association of American Medical Colleges slated to introduce a new MCAT in 2015 that adds, among other things, sections on topics like psychology and sociology that are rarely touched upon in premed courses, Harvard students say that the premed track at Harvard does not adequately prepare them for the exam. And, they say, they often face prohibitively expensive costs when they turn to classes run by test preparatory companies for instruction.

THE PREMED HARVARD CLASS

Though the MCAT covers physics, general and organic chemistry, and biology topics that crop up in Harvard’s life sciences classes, students say that College classes are not particularly helpful for learning MCAT material.

Jennifer K. Cloutier ’13, a human developmental and regenerative biology concentrator, described the premed courses she has taken as not “based on what was covered on the MCAT, or vice versa.”

Students say that if anything, classes serve only as an introduction to the test material, rather than as instruction for the exam.

“When I sat down to learn the material, I had been exposed to pretty much everything that was going to be on the MCAT at least once,” Cloutier said. “But you definitely still need to study after taking the classes.”

Owen Farcy, director of pre-health programs at Kaplan Test Prep, said whatever disparity exists between class and exam material could be caused by the nature of the MCAT.

“The thing that a lot of students don’t realize about the MCAT is that it’s not a science test, but it’s a really different type of test,” Farcy said. “The test is designed to test their ability to apply their knowledge to particular situations. It’s a critical thinking and analyzation test.”

Many students said that although the material might not align, their experience in premed classes has been bettered by the fact that courses do not try to serve as test prep.

Gammoh said he appreciated that courses did not just focus on MCAT material because they provided him with an “even more deep understanding of the medical world.”

Krystle M. Leung ’15, a chemistry concentrator and premedical student, said she tries to choose classes “that are fascinating and foundational more for the material than for the MCAT itself.”

PREPPING FOR THE TEST

Students who find classes to be insufficient review often look for options outside the classroom to help them learn the material tested by the MCAT.

Gandelman described the studying he did on his own as “the most helpful” method of preparation.

Other students say courses offered by test prep companies are useful tools. Gammoh said the course he took with Kaplan was “definitely helpful in [the] sense that it provided me with a lot of resources” in the form of practice exams and other materials.

Farcy said Kaplan structures its program to provide specific details and strategies for the exam that students cannot replicate just by reviewing the material.

“We really build around the ideas of developing critical thinking skills and helping students understand the exam.... Our course is strategy-focused course, as opposed to just a review,” he said.

In 2015, the MCAT will implement changes to its format for the first time since 1991. A new section entitled “Psychological, Social, and Biological Foundations of Behavior” will focus on introductory psychology and sociology concepts and a new “Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills” section will involve analyzing information from humanities and social science disciplines, including ethics and cultural studies. In total, the test will also be approximately 90 minutes longer than the current MCAT exam.

Farcy said he thinks student demand for prep classes will increase with these changes.

“As the domain of the test continues to expand, expectation is that students will need more help to get ready for the exam,” Farcy said, adding that he believes changes to the test will make test prep courses more important.

But the high cost of test prep can make it inaccessible to students with limited financial resources. In Cambridge, Kaplan’s MCAT Advantage course costs $1,999 and Princeton Review’s Ultimate MCAT program comes with a $2,299 price tag.

“I think that the courses are great if you’re somebody who wants structure, but they are also...really expensive,” said Cloutier.

There are several programs currently in place to provide students with the resources to attend prep classes. The Harvard Premedical Society collaborates with test companies to auction off discounted courses and Kaplan offers several initiatives to help students with financial constraints, including a tuition assistance program that offers financial aid for the company’s graduate school prep courses.

But undergraduates say financial aid is not enough to allow everyone to take a test prep course. Gammoh supported the idea that Harvard should create a course in the style of what is offered by official companies to help its students prepare for the MCAT.

“I think it would be really helpful if Harvard did offer a class for the MCAT for students who don’t have the money to pay for a class,” Gammoh said. “The MCAT is a very specific exam and there are a lot of techniques you need to know to take it.”

—Staff writer Lauren E. Claus can be reached at laurenclaus@college.harvard.edu. Follow her on Twitter @LaurenEClaus.

She was not, however, expecting to witness a massive cheating investigation, two University-wide closures resulting from the weather, an email search scandal, or a deadly act of terrorism.

On April 15, standing one mile away from the scene of carnage at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, Barbosa felt “a little overwhelmed” as she approached the end of a year that was peppered with dismal and unusual events for Harvard and the larger community.

Yet looking back at her year in Cambridge, Barbosa pointed to interactive classroom environments and a wealth of extracurricular opportunities as the things she will remember most about her time here.

She and others in the Visiting Undergraduate Student Program, who are now preparing to return home after one or two semesters at Harvard, say that the abnormal events of the year, while disruptive, did not spoil their overall experience.

CHEATING IN THE SPOTLIGHT

Marco C. Y. Chu, who is visiting from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, had heard many stories about cheating rings in Hong Kong universities.

Back home, these cases typically involved no more than a dozen students who were often overcommitted to extracurricular activities.

So when he first learned of Harvard’s investigation into approximately 125 cases of alleged cheating in Government 1310 at the start of the fall semester, he was taken aback.

But while he called the scale of the scandal “astounding,” he said that upon further reflection, he was not surprised that it had happened at Harvard.

“Harvard students have a lot of ties [with one another],” he said.

“The fact that people are so tightly linked together contributes to the possibility that more people are likely to be involved.”

Chu was one of several visiting students who downplayed the cheating scandal even as it garnered international media attention.

Daniel Themessl-Huber, a visiting student whose home institution is the University of Vienna, said the scandal had “not changed” his impression of Harvard.

“Students are sometimes under pressure, and I think it could have happened anywhere,” Themessl-Huber said.

Can M. H. Knaut, from the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, echoed Themessl-Huber’s feelings, reflecting on the unavoidability of such incidents.

“You cannot expect a few thousands of people to have that high a moral standing, and not do that kind of things,” Knaut says. “[Students] are all human.”

Chu noted with fondness the fact that he encountered neither dishonesty nor carelessness throughout his time at Harvard in spite of the cheating scandal.

For Barbosa, the most surprising part of the scandal was not the cheating itself, but rather the administration’s severity in responding to the incident.

In February, administrators indicated that roughly 70 students had been asked to temporarily withdraw from the College in connection with the scandal.

“If caught cheating in my home university, you would just get a zero in that exam. The worst thing that could happen might be getting expelled from the class,” Barbosa reflected. “I think what happened here was good. I am not used to so much strictness, but it was fair. I would like to see something like that happen in Brazil.”

TERRORISM UP CLOSE

April’s Boston Marathon bombings and subsequent manhunt, however, came as more disturbing to many of the visiting students interviewed for this article.

Chu described his experience with the bombings from the vantage point of Harvard as “more or less like getting a close taste of what terrorism is”—a terrifying episode dissimilar from anything he had seen back in Hong Kong.

“It’s shocking for me to know that a horrible incident can be found near your community, especially coming from a society as safe as that of Hong Kong,” he said.

Knaut, an enthusiastic runner, remembered sending an email to his parents back in Europe soon after the bombings to assure them, even from a distance, that he was safe and unhurt.

Chu said he was also very scared during the manhunt for the suspected bomber, which shut down the University and the larger Boston community for a full day on April 19.

“It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but not in a good way,” Chu reflected.

During the manhunt, Themessl-Huber dared to venture onto the deserted streets of Cambridge for a few minutes with a group of friends.

“Everything was empty, only a couple of people walking around. It was actually very tragic. I had never experienced something like this,” he said.

Knaut said that though he was horrified by the bombings and their aftermath, he was happy to witness the reaction of the people of Boston and the nation more broadly.

“I felt upright solidarity, which was impressive. The way America dealt with it strengthened community at a national level,” he said.

Using similar words, Barbosa recounted being positively surprised by the surge of community spirit in the aftermath of the bombings.

“I was very touched by the American population, and by how they reacted.”

DEFINED BY OTHER THINGS

Despite the disruptions throughout the year, visiting students said that ultimately their experience at Harvard was defined more by the richness of everyday life than by a handful of abnormal days.

Themessl-Huber said he was “absolutely not disappointed” by his experience, citing “a different teaching style, closer ties to your professors, and a more intimate community” as factors that contributed to his happiness at Harvard.

“I loved my semester here. This has not changed because of things that nobody can prevent,” he said.

For his part, Knaut said that academic exploration and the opportunity to try his hands at graduate-level classes made his Harvard experience rewarding.

Chu, who said his time in Cambridge was shaped by Harvard’s interactive model of education and “vibrant” social life, struck a reflective tone in rendering judgment on the year.

“The important thing,” he concluded, “is what you do in spite of tragic or dismal events.”

—Staff writer Antonio Coppola can be reached at acoppola@college.harvard.edu. Follow him on Twitter @AntonioCoppolaC.

While that figure is about the same as last year’s, Harvard’s chief investment manager, who is paid far more than most administrators, saw a 52 percent increase in her earnings.

Faust’s compensation package includes $729,106 in reportable compensation, and the rest refers to benefits including her residence at 33 Elmwood, the Cambridge mansion that Harvard presidents have occupied since the early 1970’s.

In 2010, Faust’s total compensation equaled $875,331. Faust’s earnings are still significantly lower than those of many other University presidents, some of whom make well over a million dollars per year. The highest-paid University president in 2010 was J. Robert Kerrey of the New School, who made $3 million that year, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. Its review of executive compensation found that 36 presidents of private colleges made more than a million dollars in 2010.

But Faust’s pay is much lower than that of other top Harvard employees. The compensations of officials at the Harvard Management Company, which oversees the University’s $30 billion endowment as well as its other investments, as usual far outpaced those of any administrators involved directly in the University.

HMC President and CEO Jane L. Mendillo took home $5,323,753 in 2011, according to a press release Wednesday, while the company’s Head of Alternative Assets Andrew G. Wiltshire received $6,608,581 in total compensation, making him the top earner at HMC that year. HMC’s Head of Public Markets Stephen Blyth, who is also a statistics professor, made $6,161,489.

Those figures are significantly higher than their compensation in 2010, when Mendillo received $3.5 million and Wilshire, $5.5 million.

Still, they are far lower than those in the more distant past. In the early 2000s, some HMC investment managers earned more than $25 million per year, but those salaries fell following outcry from students and alumni.

The press release noted that more than 90 percent of the HMC officials’ compensation is variable and based on the performance of investments in a given year.

“This compensation system is designed to closely align the interests of the University with its investment professionals,” said James F. Rothenberg ’68, who is the University’s treasurer and chairman of HMC’s Board of Directors, in the announcement. “HMC’s market-beating performance in the reporting period once again added value to the resources upon which Harvard depends to fulfill its teaching and research mission.”

In addition to Faust, Harvard’s recent tax filing details the compensation of several other administrators in 2011. Provost Alan M. Garber ’76, who took office in September of 2011, received $432,808 in salary and benefits from Harvard that year, while Executive Vice President Katherine N. Lapp made a total of $620,534.

Including benefits, Dean of the Business School Nitin Nohria was the highest-paid school dean with a total compensation package worth $662,054, followed by Medical School Dean Jeffrey S. Flier at $621,373 and Public Health School Dean Julio Frenk at $606,612. Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Michael D. Smith received a total of $509,613 in salary and benefits.

—Staff writer Samuel Y. Weinstock can be reached at sweinstock@college.harvard.edu. Follow him on Twitter @syweinstock.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

CORRECTION: May 16, 2013

An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that compensation packages for Harvard administrators were reported for fiscal year 2011 when, in fact, those figures are for their compensation during the 2011 calendar year. The story also incorrectly stated that University President Drew G. Faust’s 2010 calendar year earnings were for 2010 fiscal year.

Before she was accepted to Harvard, Emily seriously considered getting married. A high school friend had offered; he was an American citizen, and marriage would have provided her with a sure path to citizenship. However, Emily, a freshman at the College, is now hoping for another path to citizenship. Emily, whose name has been changed in order to protect her privacy, is one of the 11 million undocumented immigrants who would be affected by the new immigration proposal in Congress.

The bill would provide undocumented immigrants who arrived before 2011 with a 13-year process that would lead to legalization and eventually citizenship. It would provide a quicker path to citizenship for students like Emily, who would have qualified for the DREAM Act, a proposition from immigration reform that was voted down by the Senate in 2010. However, it also gives the opportunity for citizenship to their parents and other immigrants not encompassed in previous immigration proposals. For Emily, the bill’s passing would mean real, comprehensive immigration reform and security in her future here.

LIVING WITH UNCERTAINTY

Emily’s family came to the United States when she was six, largely for economic reasons. While she considers her family to be fairly well off, she said feels constant uncertainty about their future here. “One of my biggest worries is coming home from school and finding out that my parents were taken in a raid,” she said.

Deborah E. Anker, a clinical professor of law and director of the Harvard Law School Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program, said one of the largest difficulties facing undocumented students here is “living with tremendous insecurity and uncertainty.”

This is a feeling that Emily knows only too well. Even though she has grown up in the United States, she says she lives with the fear that she will be forced to leave.

“There was a raid like two blocks down from where my dad worked once, so all these things are just always on your mind,” she said. “What happens if next time the raid is at my dad’s work? My whole life has been here. I can’t imagine going back and just starting a new life all over again.”

Emily has applied for and received DACA, a temporary two-year permit that allows her to live and work here. While it does give her some security, she said it still makes her feel unsure about her future. “I still don’t feel like a legal immigrant.”

Although Emily can renew DACA, it does not offer any permanent solutions. “What happens in two years, or in 4 years when Obama isn’t in office anymore? It depends on the administration if they want to keep up with it, and Romney was against it, so what makes me believe that another Republican won’t come and take it away?” she said.

Unlike DACA, the new proposal would allow Emily to stay here permanently as an American citizen. “My future would be more secure,” she said. There’s no chance of me going back to a country and having to learn everything all over again.

SHOULDERING THE RESPONSIBILITY

Like many teenagers, Emily plans to get her driver’s license. But unlike other teenagers, she may also obtain a mortgage. Emily’s parents cannot legally obtain a mortgage, but since Emily has DACA, they may be able to take out a mortgage under her name.

This is one of several responsibilities that Emily thinks will be eased if the new immigration bill passes. Unlike the DREAM Act, the new proposal would also give her parents the opportunity to become citizens, and would be able to legally take out their own mortgage.

Knowing that her parents would be able to legally stay in this country would give her a lot more peace of mind about being away from home. She said that one of the hardest things about being at college is worrying about something happening to her parents, and not being there to care of her two younger siblings.

“Knowing that my parents will be included in this bill, it’s a huge weight lifted off my shoulders,” she said. “It would allow my parents to get their own education and fulfill some of their own dreams as well.”

The bill would also impact her experience at Harvard, and allow her to concentrate in a subject about which she is truly passionate. Emily said that before receiving DACA and learning about the new immigration proposal in Congress, she felt that she had limited choices about what she could study.

“I was supposed to be the next breadwinner,” she said. “A lot of the things I was looking at were things I didn’t want to do. They were just things that I could take to another country and make a lot of money.”

However, knowing she might be able to become a citizen has made her reconsider her academic options. She is thinking about studying English, something she said would not help her if she were forced to leave the United States.

Emily also thinks that national immigration reform would impact her experience on campus. She said she has spun “a web of lies” for her roommates, and has only told one other student that she is undocumented. She thinks that passing the new proposal would make her feel more comfortable talking about her undocumented status.

THE HARVARD BUBBLE

For Emily, the attitude on campus towards immigration has largely been supportive.” I feel like Harvard keeps you in this bubble,” she said, adding that she feels this bubble protects her from some of the problems that usually face undocumented teenagers.

Francisco D. Hernandez ’13, however, has not experienced the protective benefits of this bubble. He said he thinks administrators could be more supportive of undocumented students, that immigration reform is not a prominent issue for most of the student body.

“There’s not a lot of talk on campus about immigration. We stay in the shadows,” Hernandez said of himself and other undocumented immigrants at Harvard. “If students don’t see or don’t know that we’re struggling, there can’t be a lot of push (for reform).”

However, he said that he has seen some change in attitude over his four years here.

“When I was a freshman, I felt like no one knew we were here,” he said.

He thinks that, because of movements towards immigration reform such as DACA, people are becoming more aware of immigration, though he said the shift is very slow.

“I don’t think we’d be having these talks on our camps if there wasn’t so much happening at the national level.”

While students here may not be well informed about the immigration debate, Anahi D. Mendoza Pacheco ’15, co-director of Act on a Dream, said that most are supportive. For example, she said some believe that the DREAM Act was for in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants, rather than citizenship. Mendoza also said that there is more support for undocumented student immigrants, since people believe that being undocumented is “not the fault of the student,” than for comprehensive immigration reform overall.

HOPING FOR CHANGE

Emily speaks of the opportunities the proposal would give her family in the future tense, and said she tries to stay positive about the bill’s chances. However, she does have her doubts. “Since I started following politics more, I’ve become very cynical about these things,” she said, citing the rejection of the DREAM Act.

Emily has thought her future if there is no reform. “We’re going to have to seriously start considering the marriage thing again,” she said.

Hernandez shares this cynicism, and said that he has stopped following the immigration debate because of the emotional toll it took.

“I used to follow the DREAM Act big-time,” he said. “It creates a lot of excitement. It creates a lot of hope. And to hear the results and that no, it didn’t pass, it just shuts me down.”

From a policy perspective, Anker sees immigration reform is inevitable.

“I don’t think we can continue on in the country this way with this underground population,” she said.

Anker also said she thinks a rejection of this bill would be “a setback to democracy and national security,” antagonizing the United States abroad and damaging relations with Mexico.

However, Emily said that it is important that people look beyond the politics.

“I think what a lot of people are forgetting is that these are people’s lives,” she said. “This is a human rights issue.”

—Staff writer Caroline T. Zhang can be reached at carolinezhang@college.harvard.edu.