In our first installment of “Inside the Middle East: Q&A,” Professor Mohamad Al-Ississ, Spring 2014 Kuwait Foundation Visiting Scholar at the Middle East Initiative, discusses his current research at Harvard Kennedy School, the constraints on economic development in the Middle East and attempts at education reform in the region. You can watch the interview, conducted […]

Governor Brewer’s veto of Arizona’s controversial “turn the gay away” bill isn’t as big of a victory as you might think. As many Americans cheered the demise of Arizona’s controversial “license to discriminate” bill, one thing seemed lost on the media, in progressive circles, and even among many LGBT activists: Even with Governor Jan Brewer’s […]

The public incorrectly assumes all male figure skaters are out and proud. Newsweek published an article last month overviewing homophobia in figure skating titled “The Frozen Closet.” Even Jonny Weir, the flamboyant two-time Olympian, didn’t publicly come out until he stopped competing, and there were no publicly out competitors in this crop of American male figure skaters at the […]

BY ALISON FLINT I first learned about hackathons when I saw an ad for an event called Datafest hosted at Stanford University three years ago. Like most people, I primarily associated ‘hacking’ with computer programming. However, this Datafest looked different. It turned out that Teresa Bouza, a Knight Fellow at Stanford, had organized the hackathon […]

Before the escalation of the Syrian conflict, general immunization rates for Syrian children were more than 90% [1]. Today, less than 70% of Syrian children are immunized [2]. This deterioration has manifested itself in at least 13 cases of polio as of November 2013 [3], a striking number for a debilitating disease eradicated in Syria more than a […]

WASHINGTON, D.C. –  February 2014 marks the second decade of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief or PEPFAR, the most ambitious program in human history to combat HIV/AIDS.   Last December, President Obama reaffirmed U.S. funding and support of this important program, albeit at lower levels than in the past due to acute budget constraints.  […]

Note: This post assesses President Obama’s State of the Union Address in 4 policy ares: K-12 Education, Higher Education, LGBTQ and Military Affairs. It is a follow up to KSR’s SOTU coverage here and here. POLICY AREA: K-12 EDUCATION BY ADRIENNE MURPHY As an education reform enthusiast, I was excited to hear the President kick […]

A Note of Explanation: For the first time, the Kennedy School Review has tapped into the policy expertise of students across the Harvard Kennedy School of Government to collect their perspectives on President Obama’s 2014 State of the Union Address.  For two days, HKS students are providing their analysis on a broad range of policy […]

A Note of Explanation: For the first time, the Kennedy School Review has tapped into the policy expertise of students across the Harvard Kennedy School of Government to collect their perspectives on President Obama’s 2014 State of the Union Address. Over the next two days we will share student analysis on a broad range of […]

BY ELIZABETH A. KISLIK In a lecture at Harvard University in mid-October, New York Times columnist Gail Collins discussed how fundamentally women’s roles in American society have changed over the past half-century. Her talk reflected the theme of her 2009 book, When Everything Changed. Collins recalled the days of “executive flights,” on which young, unmarried […]

This post is part of a series of reviews summarizing discussions that took place at the 2013 Harvard Arab Weekend. For more information about this event, the largest pan-Arab conference in North America, please visit http://harvardarabweekend.org/ Panel Speakers:   Nafez Dakkak, Manager, Online Education Initiative, Queen Rania Foundation Adel bin Mohammad Fakeih, Minister of Labor, Saudi Arabia […]

This post is part of a series of reviews summarizing presentations and discussions that took place at the 2013 Harvard Arab Weekend. For more information about this event, the largest pan-Arab conference in North America, please visit http://harvardarabweekend.org/ Panel Speakers:   On November 11 a panel of three regional experts came together during Harvard Arab […]