{"id":505348,"date":"2010-04-02T13:37:44","date_gmt":"2010-04-02T17:37:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/?p=42407"},"modified":"2010-04-02T13:37:44","modified_gmt":"2010-04-02T17:37:44","slug":"in-last-semester-%e2%80%98last-lectures%e2%80%99","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/505348","title":{"rendered":"In last semester, \u2018Last Lectures\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em> <\/em><\/p>\n<p>Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice <a href=\"http:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2010\/02\/speaker-release\/\">David H. Souter<\/a> will deliver official words of wisdom to the Class of 2010 next month at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.commencement.harvard.edu\/\">Commencement<\/a>. Until then, a new \u201cLast Lecture\u201d series organized by the Senior Class Committee is giving College seniors a less formal venue for parting words of inspiration from some favorite professors.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWith just eight semesters here at Harvard, many of us\u00a0have not had the chance to hear from all the tremendous professors in Harvard\u2019s faculty, or to dig into all the topics we\u2019d hoped to during college,\u201d said senior Ami Nash, a marshal for the Class of 2010. \u201cWe hope this series can help in introducing the Class of 2010 to some of Harvard\u2019s most fascinating thinkers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The \u201cLast Lecture\u201d series kicked off Thursday (April 1) with a talk by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hcp.med.harvard.edu\/people\/hcp_core_faculty\/nicholas_christakis\">Nicholas Christakis<\/a>, professor of medical sociology and medicine at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.harvardscience.harvard.edu\/directory\/programs\/harvard-medical-school\">Harvard Medical School<\/a>, professor of sociology in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fas.harvard.edu\/home\/\">Faculty of Arts and Sciences<\/a>, and master of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hcs.harvard.edu\/pfoho\/v2\/\">Pforzheimer House<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Christakis spoke to a full Lowell Junior Common Room on his study of the spread of behaviors through social networks, framing some of his research themes as advice to the graduating seniors as they prepare to head into the world.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYour thoughts and your feelings and your body depend on those around you,\u201d he said. \u201cAs you better yourself, that betterment can ripple out to hundreds or even thousands of other people.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGood things are required for social networks to flourish,\u201d he added, referring to his findings that beneficial attributes such as happiness and altruism, as well as positive behaviors such as voting and exercising, can spread through social networks.<\/p>\n<p>Christakis told the assembled students that 70 percent of them will end up marrying someone within three degrees of themselves in their social network.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYour social network will fold up around you and, like a yenta, introduce you to one another,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Nash says the \u201cLast Lecture\u201d speakers are faculty identified by graduating seniors as formative in their college careers. More lectures will take place on upcoming Thursdays, and are free and open to the Harvard community.<\/p>\n<p>Speakers in the &#8220;Last Lecture&#8221; series include:<\/p>\n<p><strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cfa.harvard.edu\/~dcharbon\/Site\/Welcome.html\">David Charbonneau<\/a><\/strong>, Thomas D. Cabot Associate Professor of Astronomy, April 8, 5:30 p.m., location to be announced.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.niallferguson.com\/site\/FERG\/Templates\/Home.aspx?pageid=1\">Niall Ferguson<\/a><\/strong>, Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History and Professor of Business Administration and William Ziegler Professor of Business Administration, April 15, 5:30 p.m., Lowell Junior Common Room.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.people.fas.harvard.edu\/~levitsky\/\">Steven Levitsky<\/a><\/strong>, professor of government, April 29, 5:30 p.m., Winthrop Junior Common Room.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hsph.harvard.edu\/faculty\/judith-palfrey\/\">Judith Palfrey<\/a><\/strong>, T. Berry Brazelton Professor of Pediatrics and master of Adams House, May 6, 5:30 p.m., location to be announced.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/event.php?eid=103657519674856\">For more information<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter will deliver official words of wisdom to the Class of 2010 next month at Commencement. Until then, a new \u201cLast Lecture\u201d series organized by the Senior Class Committee is giving College seniors a less formal venue for parting words of inspiration from some favorite professors. \u201cWith just [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4175,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-505348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4175"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=505348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505348\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}