Editor's Note

Dear Reader, We’re back (again)! Spring break may be over but spring has only just sprung; the street rats are scurrying, the turkeys are strutting, the flowers are (sort of) budding, and it’s finally safe to wear something other than the same two pairs of jeans you’ve been wearing for months. In this week’s scrut, SSG and JQY uncover the hidden labor of CAs and TFs, investigating how the reliance on undergraduate and graduate student labor in large introductory courses affects the students who take the classes and the students who teach them. How do these labor practices shape the pedagogy of an institution that touts its “world-class” education? What do complaints of low pay and long hours from CAs and TFs say about how we value educators at large? SSG and JQY have been through the trenches writing this piece — though you too are highly utilized, you are also highly valued and very appreciated. JL writes about a Harvard Medical School paper that was cited by an anti-vax group. She summarizes the findings of the paper and dives into the controversy surrounding it, illustrating how the nuance of debates within the medical community can be misinterpreted and flattened by political media. Thank you, JL, for your patience and many, many weeks of reporting and editing. MMN talks with Rebecca Hall about her graphic novel, “Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts,” and about the limits of using academia to tell important stories. AKM writes a touching piece on a beloved Leverett security guard, Mike Grant, and his philosophy on the importance of kindness and the brevity of life. THK goes to the basement of the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology to behold the half-million stickleback fish in its ichthyology collection. SSL delves into the reputation of Harvard’s infamous freshman math class, Math 55, and how that reputation has changed, or at least tried to change, over the years due to concerns about the class’s inclusivity. Our 15 Questions for the week are asked by none other than CPRJ, and answered by none other than Professor Steven Levitsky. Read it to learn about preserving democracy and about that one time Levitsky met Fidel Castro. And congrats to SJ for her first FM piece, a levity on why being a boba shop is your best bet for making it into Harvard! Read on, hopeful high schoolers. Finally, in this issue’s endpaper, JQY (again!) recounts getting lost on a run at the beginning of freshman year, an experience that forced him to confront his new autonomy as a college student, faced with the excitement, fear, and confusion of calling a new place “home” — after he finds it, that is. As always, a big thank you to JJG, JH, MQ, SET, SS, MHS, and SCS for design diligence and multi mastery. Thank you to JL for two-part scroofing and to MX for second*-proofing, even in the throes of illness. Get some sleep. Thanks to BLK for the support. Thank you to IYG for being a steadfast editor, proofer, and friend — there’s no sturdier chair out there. And, of course, thank you to our scrut editor of the week, MG, for your dedication, kindness, brilliance, and constant positivity — honestly, I really can’t thank her enough because she does too much! *it’s really more like fifth-proofing FM Love AHL & IYG