2 A bizarre suit in which University officials accused two Harvard security guards of stealing two Poland Springs water coolers goes to trial. The guards are found innocent, with the debacle costing more than $100,000.

8 Harvard's largest teaching hospitals, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital, announce they will merge. Hospital officials say they will focus more on forming primary care networks.

15 Ten Cambridge police officers arrest an accused Bank robber in dramatic fashion after chasing him through Harvard Square. The suspect is carrying a replica gun and is walking towards the same bank he had allegedly robbed two weeks earlier.

JANUARY

4 The University begins an internal investigation of radiation experiments conducted during the Cold War by Harvard faculty members on retarded students in state schools throughout Massachusetts. A state task force later determines that the rights of the test subjects were violated and that they should be compensated.

9 Richard C. Marius announces he will step down as director of Expository Writing in June. Marius' resignation comes less than three months after former and current Expos teachers criticize him publicly. Nancy Sommers, the associate director, is named head of the program in May.

11 Candles left burning overnight set fire to a bookshelf in the Dudley House Co-op, forcing 19 residents to move out. The Cambridge Fire Department estimates the damage at $40,000.

FEBRUARY

6 seven female graduate students in the archaeology wing of the Anthropology Department go public with sexual harassment charges against Clay Professor of Scientific Archaeology Nikolaas J. Van der Merwe, claiming he made sexually explicit jokes. Van der Merwer denies the charges.

14 After beating Boston University in the first round of the Beanpot, Harvard Hockey loses 2-1 in overtime in the final to Boston College. The Crimson loses in the semifinals of the NCAAs in April to Lake Superior State, the eventuial national champion.

28 about 45 student leaders kicked off a Collegewide campaign to raise money to buy a truck to take victims of war out of Bosnia and supplies. The organization raised roughly $25,000 in one week.

MARCH

4 about 25 minority students protest the lack of minority professors and slow progress in the creation of ethnic studies courses at Harvard. The students rally again the next day and collect more than 500 signatures on petitions in support of their cause.

20 Members of the Undergraduate Council vote to raise the term-bill fee it charges students from $20 to $30. After the first campus-wide refernedum testing support for the measure is invalidated because of election improprieties, a second studentwide vote shows strong opposition to the fee hike.

APRIL