‘Let us begin again’
Harvard President Drew Faust opened the first day of fall classes Tuesday by welcoming students and faculty during the traditional Morning Prayers session held in Appleton Chapel at the Memorial Church. “In this annual ritual, I come to you to mark change,” Faust told her listeners, some in suit jackets, others in flip-flops, who jammed into the chapel’s elegantly carved wooden pews and spilled into the aisles for the 15-minute service. It is “a change we feel in the weather and light around us as we welcome the pellucid days of New England autumn, change we at once embrace and regret as we abandon the less-hurried pace of summer for renewed dedication to the work ahead in a new season of teaching and learning.” The worship service is a tradition that began in 1636, at the time of Harvard’s founding, as a way for students, faculty, and others in the community to...