October

House masters extend the hours of official parties in House dining halls by one hour, to 2 a.m., on Friday and Saturday nights, as long as alcohol is not served.

Summers is officially installed as Harvard’s 27th president at a grand academic ceremony in Tercentenary Theatre, before 5,000 people. In his inaugural speech, Summers emphasizes the importance of undergraduate education and the development of a campus in Allston. The installation ceremony was the capstone to two days of festivities.

Harvard Hillel’s Rosovsky Hall is evacuated and two of its employees sent to the hospital after an employee finds a white powder while opening a mail package. It reopens on Oct. 22 after the powder tests negative for anthrax.

November

Nathan M. Pusey ’28, Harvard’s 24th president, dies at the age of 94. Serving during the 1950s and 1960s, his administration led the University’s first major fundraising campaign and also focused on undergraduate education. His presidency ended in controversy as a result of the 1969 bust of a University Hall takeover.

Don C. Wiley, Loeb professor of biochemistry and biophysics, is declared missing after police find his abandoned rental car on an Interstate 40 bridge over the Mississippi River near Memphis. Wiley was last seen on Nov. 15 at a dinner at the Peabody Hotel, where he was attending the annual meeting of the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital scientific advisory board.

For the first time since 1913, the Harvard football team finishes its season with a perfect record, defeating Yale 35-23 in New Haven to win the Ivy League championship.

Former President Clinton stresses the need for greater awareness of the dangers of interdependence in the modern world in a speech before 6,000 at the Gordon indoor track and tennis facility.

December

Sujean S. Lee ’03 is elected president of the Undergraduate Council. Lee’s victory, along with running mate Anne M. Fernandez ’03, marks the first time an all female ticket has won a popular presidential election since they were instituted in the council seven years ago.

The labor committee releases a report recommending substantial pay hikes for Harvard employees, specifically suggested the University boost wages for the school’s 1,000 lowest-paid service employees to at least $10.83 to $11.30 per hour. These figures exceed the $10.25 rallying cry of last spring’s Progressive Student Labor Movement sit-in and the then-$10.68 living wage established by the city of Cambridge.

Five weeks after he vanished, police find Professor Wiley’s body floating in the Mississippi River, 320 miles downstream from the Memphis bridge on which his abandoned car was found. His death is later ruled accidental and not a suicide, as was originally suggested by authorities.

January

Summers meets with Fletcher University Professor Cornel R. West ’74 in an effort to mend a rift that threatens to send the prominent member of the Afro-American studies department to Princeton. West’s allegation that Summers questioned his scholarship at an October meeting makes national news.