The festivities, which drew 44,000 attendees, were part of one of the largest and most extravagant birthday parties the country has ever seen and brought together members of the Harvard community from the class of 1918 to the Class of 1990.

Their jubilee year became an occasion not only to invite celebrities and call caterers but also to reflect and look forward.The 50th anniversary marked the beginning of these graduate schools’ shift from a professional orientation to a more academic approach.

After the effects of the 2008 financial crisis have now lessened, Harvard has restarted its planning for a campus across the river, in Allston. But as the University now chugs along, Allston residents still maintain old concerns of community integration.

In 2008, University President Drew G. Faust announced that Harvard would attempt to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent by 2016. Halfway into its commitment, Harvard has only logged a 7 percent reduction in GHG emissions.

Harvard administrators have proposed a new plan for the Barry’s Corner Housing and Retail Commons, which would shift the complex’s center across the intersection from its originally-planned location.

A. Clayton Spencer, Harvard’s vice president for policy, has served as the right-hand woman for four Harvard presidents.

Paul J. Finnegan ’75 has been selected as the newest member of the Harvard Corporation, the University’s highest governing body, the University announced Wednesday.

Ten finalists for the President’s Challenge showed demos of their social entrepreneurship projects to a large crowd at the Innovation Lab on Friday evening.

As Harvard’s peer institutions move to update their sexual misconduct policies by lowering the standard of evidence required for a guilty conviction, two lawyers interviewed for this article say that these universities’ changes may encourage Harvard to follow suit.

Richard A. Meserve will lead Harvard’s Board of Overseers—Harvard’s second highest governing body—for the 2013 academic year, the University announced Monday.