Harvard students awoke to a somber campus following Donald Trump’s reelection to the presidency early Wednesday morning. “My heart dropped a little bit,” one student said.

Some Harvard professors canceled classes. Others tweaked their lesson plans and asked students to care for their mental health. This week on Newstalk, Harvard reacts to Trump's return to the White House.

When you think about election organizing at Harvard, a few words might come to mind. Privilege. Access. Money.

The Harvard College Democrats are backed by a federally recognized PAC. Student leaders at the Harvard Republican Club have dined with former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and pulled off speaking events with multi-billionaire Peter Thiel.

Talk to them, and you’ll find that the name-dropping is constant, and the access is unparalleled. They’ll also tell you that all of it — the organizing, the networking — is available to any Harvard student who wants in on the action.

You’ll get the sense that Harvard’s run-up to Election 2024 goes far beyond the confines of campus. It takes students to the Republican National Convention and Democratic National Convention — to Pennsylvania, to Georgia — rubbing shoulders with some of America’s most powerful politicians, in some of the election’s most high-profile moments. Today on Newstalk, in an election special, we talk to the presidents of the Harvard Republican Club and Harvard College Democrats about the world of election organizing at Harvard.

As we neared the one-year anniversary of October 7 earlier this month, the Harvard Institute of Politics — the largest student organization on Harvard’s campus and its flagship platform for political discourse — saw a high-profile shakeup in its student leadership.

Citing the Palestinian exception to free speech, a vocal pro-Palestine activist resigned as the chair of one of the IOP’s popular programs on campaigns and advocacy.

The reason? Closed-door infighting over how to handle the 2024 elections and Israel-Palestine conflict in its programming.

As concerns about free speech and censorship ramp up, the IOP shakeup marked a fundamental disagreement between the IOP’s top student leadership on how to handle political campus discourse on Israel and Palestine.

Today on Newstalk, we join our reporters to break down the dispute — and we join the student who resigned to hear his version of the story.

If you've been a student at Harvard at any point over the past three years, there’s one thing you’ve probably heard over and over again: intellectual vitality.

You’ll see it in emails, in videos, from students, from our deans — it’s everywhere.

And, overwhelmingly, you’ll get the sense that Harvard’s concerned about the state of discourse on campus.

So what is intellectual vitality? A Harvard website says it’s about the college’s attempts to “establish a culture in which all members speak, listen, and ask questions of each other and ourselves with curiosity and respect.” The implication here is that the college isn’t quite hitting the mark. That there isn’t as much curiosity and respect as there should be. That Harvard’s civil discourse isn’t intellectually vital.

And that’s meant that the college has rolled out measure after measure to try to change that. Hiring new people, putting on speaking events, getting students to talk about it with each other. And one of the newest phases of that came this fall, when intellectual vitality was included for the first time in mandatory training for freshmen entering the college and getting to know what Harvard is all about.

But some people think that Harvard’s approach to all of this is wrong. That its attempts at intellectual vitality aren't helping. That it’s missing the real point — and the real problem.

One of them, Matteo Diaz, is a student who was asked by a Harvard administrator to record a video for that training. He didn’t see what came of it until this fall, when he and one of his peers, Saul Arnow, saw that intellectual vitality training before it was shown to freshmen. Matteo and Saul are on The Crimson’s editorial board, and they join host Frank S. Zhou to talk about why they think Harvard is falling short.

This week on Newstalk: is Harvard doing discourse wrong?

Audio excerpted in this episode from the Harvard College YouTube channel and Harvard College Dean of Students YouTube channel.

In 2022, Harvard earmarked $100 Million dollars for an initiative focused on making amends for Harvard’s ties to slavery. Now, that same initiative has faced infighting, a series of resignations, and allegations of attempts to limit the project’s scope. So how exactly did we get here? This week on Newstalk, inside Harvard's Legacy of Slavery Initiative.

Newstalk is co-hosted and co-produced by Yael S. Goldstein and Frank S. Zhou.

Harvard released its admissions demographic data for the Class of 2028 last week. This year more so than many years past, those numbers were a big deal.

Few things at Harvard are as tightly kept a secret as its admissions process. Every year, tens of thousands of applicants around the world hit submit, hope for the best. And then… it’s sort of a black box. The applications get sent off through the portal. Harvard’s admissions officers do their thing. And then on decision day, people get a yes, a maybe, or a no.

At least, that’s how it used to be. For the past decade, Harvard’s admissions processes have been under the microscope. Its details scrutinized again, and again, and again — in the public eye, in a public controversy that made its way all the way up to the Supreme Court.

It hinged on how Harvard thinks about race in its admission process, and whether its practices give preference to some racial groups more than others. On one end, we had SFFA: Students for Fair Admissions, led by a man named Ed Blum, alleging that Harvard’s admissions affirmative action practices did unfairly advantage some racial groups more than others. That they did break the law. On the other, we had Harvard insisting that affirmative action was absolutely essential to creating a more diverse Harvard. That there’d be no way to maintain its diversity without it.

In June of last year, after nearly a decade of lawsuits, the Supreme Court weighed in.

In a decision that made waves around the world, the Supreme Court ruled SFFA’s way. It said that Harvard would have to end all of its racial preferences in admissions. And Harvard said it would comply.

So all eyes turned to Harvard’s demographic numbers for the Class of 2028: the first class applied and admitted after the ruling. The first chance to see the ruling’s true impact on the University.

Last week, after being delayed for months, those numbers came out.

If people thought those numbers would tell the whole story, they were disappointed. Because they didn’t. But, if you looked closely, there was still a lot to see. And that’s exactly what our reporters did. This week on Newstalk, Harvard’s demographics for the class of 2028.

Newstalk is co-hosted and co-produced by Frank S. Zhou and Yael S. Goldstein.

It’s Harvard’s second week back in class and campus tensions are already back in the headlines.

Two Harvard graduate students charged with assault and battery during a pro-Palestine protest last May face yet another delay in their arraignment date.

A September 5th statement from the University provided updated guidance for those affected by doxing attacks, following months of criticism of its failure to protect students.

On Friday, President Alan Garber met with eight members of Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine in the Smith Campus Center to discuss the Harvard endowment. Outside the building, more than 80 students demanded divestment from Israel in the first pro-Palestine protest of the semester.

And, from our colleagues on the news desk, a deep dive into the Harvard Corporation’s selection of Harvard’s 31st president. How did Alan Garber successfully secure his position after a semester of extraordinary crisis?

Design by Sami E. Turner.

Alan M. Garber ’76, Harvard’s longtime provost who suddenly became the interim leader as he sought to steer the University through its worst leadership crisis in decades, was officially confirmed as the 31st president, the Harvard Corporation announced on Friday.

Eight months after Garber was appointed interim president, the Corporation — the University’s highest governing body — announced it will delay a formal search until 2026. Garber will serve in the position until June 2027.

Stay on top of the news at thecrimson.com.