Editor's Note

Dear FM, On Thursday in my Gen Ed, three other students and I went in front of the class “Shark Tank” style and gave five minute pitches for a hypothetical intervention to combat fake news, misinformation, or polarization. At the end of class, we all voted on which two proposals we would fund, and, by a wide margin, my presentation came dead last. Luckily, I have a different intervention in mind now — a completely free, non-hypothetical way to address the worrisome deficiency of top-tier campus magazine writing in your life — the latest issue of FM. Who needs Shark Tank: Gen Ed edition anyway? In this week’s scrutiny, CPRJ and MTB take questions about Harvard’s influence abroad back to a major flashpoint from decades past — and uncover the history behind it. In 1992, a group of experts affiliated with Harvard’s Institute for International Development arrived in Russia aiming to transform its economy into that of a Western capitalist country. Instead, they left in scandal, eventually leading Harvard (along with some of the experts) to pay a $31 million settlement to the U.S. government. As Harvard faces criticism today over its wide-ranging influence and lack of institutional neutrality, the story of HIID and its Russia project provides a fresh lens into the risks of Harvard’s global power. This was a massive reporting and research effort (and, to my knowledge, the first Crimson article written in at least four different countries) by first-time scrut writers, and I am so proud of them. To CPRJ and MTB, your perseverance and dedication fills me with hope about what this magazine is capable of. Elsewhere in the issue, SSL peppers computer science professor Elena Glassman with fifteen questions, covering everything from her takes on CS education to the time she walked on to the MIT men’s wrestling team. In a fitting twist for our first issue post-spring break, DRZ brings back a time-tested classic FM medium — the Venn Diagram — to compare the four shops in the Square that sell boba and a spring break trip to Cordoba. Back again for another conversation, SSL sits down with Hist & Lit concentrator and distance running star Maia Ramsden to talk about her thesis, fashion, and her impending transition from full time academics and part time athletics to full time athletics. Finally, comp director extraordinaire JKW delivers a stunning endpaper on her relationship with her grandmother and how to grieve in a way that measures up to the complexity of a person. I struggle to describe how beautiful, vivid, and life-giving this piece is — you really have to read it. Many thanks are in order. To AEP, thanks for a thorough and crucial scrut proofing job. To XCZ, JND, OWZ, and all the rest of design, thanks for seeing our vision even when we don’t have one. To LLL and BHP, thanks for grounding our words in the material world. To MJH, CY, and EJS, thanks for having our backs. To our FM execs (FMdashes? FMdashes.), thanks for great banter and sharp sentences — y’all are superstars. To JL (and YAK in absentia), thanks for excellent EALing and hanging in there. Finally, a special thanks goes to CY, for bringing the soap and the wand into the FMoffice, and to KT for joining me as we unleashed our inner kindergarteners and blew some bubbles. FMLove, HD + KT