Harvard University is aprivateIvy Leagueresearch university inCambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded October 28, 1636, and named for its first benefactor, thePuritan clergymanJohn Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. Its influence, wealth, and rankings have made it one of the most prestigious universities in the world.[12]
In 1643, a Harvard publication defined the college's purpose: "[to] advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity, dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches when our present ministers shall lie in the dust."[22] In its early years, the college trained many Puritan ministers[23] and offered aclassical curriculum based on the English university model many colonial-era Massachusetts leaders experienced at theUniversity of Cambridge, where many of them studied prior to immigrating toBritish America. Harvard never formally affiliated with any particularProtestant denomination, but its curriculum conformed to the tenets of Puritanism.[24] In 1650, the charter forHarvard Corporation, the college's governing body, was granted.
In the 19th century, Harvard was influenced byEnlightenment Age ideas, including reason and free will, which were widespread amongCongregational ministers and which placed these ministers and their congregations at odds with more traditionalist,Calvinist pastors and clergies.[27]: 1–4 Following the death ofHollis Professor of DivinityDavid Tappan in 1803 and that ofJoseph Willard, Harvard's eleventh president, the following year, a struggle broke out over their replacements. In 1805,Henry Ware was elected to replace Tappan as Hollis chair. Two years later, in 1807, liberalSamuel Webber was appointed as Harvard's 13th president, representing a shift from traditional ideas at Harvard to more liberal andArminian ideas.[27]: 4–5 [28]: 24
In 1816, Harvard University launched new language programs in the study ofFrench andSpanish, and appointedGeorge Ticknor the university's first professor for these language programs.
From 1869 to 1909,Charles William Eliot, Harvard University's 21st president, decreased the historically favored position ofChristianity in the curriculum, opening it to student self-direction. Though Eliot was an influential figure in the secularization of U.S. higher education, he was motivated primarily byTranscendentalist andUnitarian convictions influenced byWilliam Ellery Channing,Ralph Waldo Emerson, and others, rather than secularism. In the late 19th century, Harvard University's graduate schools began admitting women in small numbers.[29]
Over the 20th century, as its endowment burgeoned and prominent intellectuals and professors affiliated with it, Harvard University's reputation as one of the world's most prestigious universities grew notably. The university's enrollment also underwent substantial growth, a product of both the founding of new graduate academic programs and an expansion of theundergraduate college.Radcliffe College emerged as the female counterpart of Harvard College, becoming one of the most prominent schools in the nation for women.
In 1923, a year after the percentage ofJewish students at Harvard reached 20%,A. Lawrence Lowell, the university's 22nd president, unsuccessfully proposed capping the admission of Jewish students to 15% of the undergraduate population. Lowell also refused to mandate forced desegregation in the university'sfreshman dormitories, writing that, "We owe to the colored man the same opportunities for education that we do to the white man, but we do not owe to him to force him and the white into social relations that are not, or may not be, mutually congenial."[32][33][34][35]
Between 1933 and 1953, Harvard University was led byJames B. Conant, the university's 23rd president, who reinvigorated the university's creative scholarship in an effort to guarantee Harvard's preeminence among the nation and world's emerging research institutions. Conant viewed higher education as a vehicle of opportunity for the talented rather than an entitlement for the wealthy, and devised programs to identify, recruit, and support talented youth. In 1945, under Conant's leadership, an influential 268-page report,General Education in a Free Society, was published by Harvard faculty, which remains one of the most important works incurriculum studies,[36] and women were first admitted to themedical school.[37]
Between 1945 and 1960, admissions were standardized to open the university to a more diverse group of students. Following the end ofWorld War II, for example, special exams were developed so veterans could be considered for admission.[38] No longer drawing mostly from prestigiousprep schools inNew England, the undergraduate college became accessible to striving middle class students from public schools; many more Jews and Catholics were admitted, but Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians remained underrepresented.[39] Over the second half of the 20th century, however, the university became incrementally more diverse.[40]
Between 1971 and 1999, Harvard controlled undergraduate admission, instruction, and housing for Radcliffe's women; in 1999, Radcliffe was formally merged into Harvard University.[41]
In February 2023, approximately 6,000 Harvard workers attempted to organize a union.[44]
Bacow retired in June 2023, and on July 1Claudine Gay, a Harvard professor in the Government and African American Studies departments and Dean of theFaculty of Arts and Sciences, became Harvard's 30th president.
In January 2024, just six months into her presidency, Gay resigned followingallegations of antisemitism andplagiarism.[45] Gay was succeeded byAlan Garber, the university's provost, who was appointed interim president. In August 2024, the university announced that Garber would be appointed Harvard's 31st president through the end of the 2026–27 academic year.
The 209-acre (85 ha) main campus of Harvard University is centered onHarvard Yard, colloquially known as "the Yard", inCambridge, Massachusetts, about 3 miles (5 km) west-northwest of downtownBoston, and extending to the surroundingHarvard Square neighborhood. The Yard houses several Harvard buildings, including four of the university's libraries,Houghton,Lamont,Pusey, andWidener. Also on Harvard Yard areMassachusetts Hall, built between 1718 and 1720 and the university's oldest still standing building,Memorial Church, andUniversity Hall
The university is actively expanding into Allston, where it now owns more land than in Cambridge.[52] Plans include new construction and renovation for the Business School, a hotel and conference center, graduate student housing, Harvard Stadium, and other athletics facilities.[53]
In 2021, theHarvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences expanded into the new Allston-based Science and Engineering Complex (SEC), which is more than 500,000 square feet in size.[54] SEC is adjacent to the Enterprise Research Campus, the Business School, and Harvard Innovation Labs, and designed to encourage technology- and life science-focused startups and collaborations with mature companies.[55]
There are 16,000 staff and faculty,[60] including 2,400 professors, lecturers, and instructors.[61]
As of 2025, Harvard differs radically from its peer universities in two important ways. First, Harvard does not make its governing statutes publicly available, meaning that members of the Harvard community interested in reform must first persuade the university to give them a copy of those documents. Second, Harvard does not have anacademic senate like most of its peers, although it is currently attempting to create one.[62]
Harvard has the largestuniversity endowment in the world, valued at about$50.7 billion as of 2023.[5][6]
During therecession of 2007–2009, it suffered significant losses that forced large budget cuts, in particular temporarily halting construction on the Allston Science Complex.[63] The endowment has since recovered.[64][65][66][67]
About$2 billion of investment income is annually distributed to fund operations.[68]Harvard's ability to fund its degree and financial aid programs depends on the performance of its endowment; a poor performance in fiscal year 2016 forced a 4.4% cut in the number of graduate students funded by theFaculty of Arts and Sciences.[69]Endowment income is critical, as only 22% of revenue is from students' tuition, fees, room, and board.[70]
In the late 1980s, during thedisinvestment from South Africa movement, student activists erected a symbolicshanty town on Harvard Yard and blockaded a speech by South African Vice Consul Duke Kent-Brown.[73][74]
In response to pressure, the university eventually reduced its South African holdings by$230 million out of a total of$400 million between 1986 and 1987.[73][75]
Harvard is a large, highly residential research university[76]offering 50undergraduate majors,[77]134 graduate degrees,[78] and 32 professional degrees.[79] During the 2018–2019 academic year, Harvard granted 1,665 baccalaureate degrees, 1,013 graduate degrees, and 5,695 professional degrees.[79]
Harvard College, the four-year, full-time undergraduate program, has aliberal arts and sciences focus.[76][77] To graduate in the usual four years, undergraduates normally take four courses per semester.[80]In most majors, an honors degree requires advanced coursework and a senior thesis.[81]
Though some introductory courses have large enrollments, the median class size is 12 students.[82]
Harvard is a founding member of theAssociation of American Universities[84] and a preeminent research university with "very high" research activity (R1) and comprehensive doctoral programs across the arts, sciences, engineering, and medicine, according to theCarnegie Classification.[76]
Themedical school consistently ranks first among medical schools for research,[85] and biomedical research is an area of particular strength for the university. More than 11,000 faculty and 1,600 graduate students conduct research at the medical school and its 15 affiliated hospitals and research institutes.[86] In 2019, the medical school and its affiliates attracted$1.65 billion in competitive research grants from theNational Institutes of Health, more than twice that of any other university.[87]
Harvard Library, the largestacademic library in the world with 20.4 million holdings, is centered inWidener Library inHarvard Yard. It includes 25 individual Harvard libraries around the world with a combined staff of more than 800 librarians and personnel.[88]
Houghton Library, the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, and the Harvard University Archives consist principally of rare and unique materials. The nation's oldest collection of maps, gazetteers, and atlases is stored inPusey Library onHarvard Yard, which is open to the public. The largest collection ofEast-Asian language material outside of East Asia is held inHarvard-Yenching Library.
Harvard was also ranked in the first tier of American research universities, along with Columbia, MIT, and Stanford, in the 2023 report from theCenter for Measuring University Performance.[99]
TheUndergraduate Council represented Harvard College undergraduate students until it was dissolved in 2022,[108] and replaced by the Undergraduate Association. TheGraduate Council represents students at all twelve graduate and professional schools, most of which also have their own student government.[109]
Harvard College competes in theNCAADivision IIvy League conference. The school fields 42 intercollegiate sports teams, more than any other college in the country.[110]
In the NCAA Division I era, which began in 1973, Harvard Crimson teams have won five NCAA Division I championships as of 2024:men's ice hockey in 1989, women's lacrosse in 1990, women's rowing in 2003, and men's fencing in 2006 and 2024. Including the pre-NCAA era, Harvard has won 159 national championships across all sports. Itsmen's squash team holds the record for the most national collegiate championships in the sport. Harvard's first national championship came in 1880, when its track and field team won the national championship.[113]
Harvard's athletic programs maintain a long-standing rivalry withYale in all sports, especially incollege football, whereHarvard andYale compete in anannual football rivalry, which has played 139 times as of 2024, dating back to its first meeting in 1875.[114]
Every two years, Harvard and Yale track and field teams come together to compete against a combinedOxford andCambridge team in the oldest continuous international amateur competition in the world.[115]
Inmen's rugby, Harvard maintains a rivalry withMcGill, as demonstrated by the biennial Harvard-McGill rugby games, alternately played inMontreal and Cambridge.[116]
Since its founding nearly four centuries ago, Harvard alumni have distinguished themselves in academia, activism, arts, athletics, business, entrepreneurship, government, international affairs, journalism, media, music, non-profit organizations, politics, public policy, science, technology, writing, and other industries and fields.
Harvard's reputation as a center of elite achievement or elitist privilege has made it a frequent literary and cinematic backdrop. "In the grammar of film, Harvard has come to mean both tradition, and a certain amount of stuffiness," film critic Paul Sherman said in 2010.[136]
Literature
In contemporary literature, Harvard University features prominently in multiple novels, including:
^An appropriation of £400 toward a "school or college" was voted on October 28, 1636 (OS), at a meeting which convened on September 8 and was adjourned to October 28. Some sources consider October 28, 1636 (OS) (November 7, 1636, NS) to be the date of founding. Harvard's 1936 tercentenary celebration treated September 18 as the founding date, though its 1836 bicentennial was celebrated on September 8, 1836. Sources: meeting dates,Quincy, Josiah (1860).The History of Harvard University. Crosby, Nichols, Lee & Company. p. 586.ISBN978-0-405-10016-1. Archived fromthe original on September 6, 2015., "At a Court holden September 8th, 1636 and continued by adjournment to the 28th of the 8th month (October, 1636)... the Court agreed to give £400 towards a School or College, whereof £200 to be paid next year...." Tercentenary dates:"Cambridge Birthday".Time. September 28, 1936. Archived fromthe original on December 5, 2012. RetrievedSeptember 8, 2006.: "Harvard claims birth on the day the Massachusetts Great and General Court convened to authorize its founding. This was Sept. 8, 1637 under the Julian calendar. Allowing for the ten-day advance of the Gregorian calendar, Tercentenary officials arrived at Sept. 18 as the date for the third and last big Day of the celebration;" "on Oct. 28, 1636 ... £400 for that 'school or college' [was voted by] the Great and General Court of theMassachusetts Bay Colony." Bicentennial date:Marvin Hightower (September 2, 2003)."Harvard Gazette: This Month in Harvard History". Harvard University. Archived fromthe original on September 8, 2006. RetrievedSeptember 15, 2006., "Sept. 8, 1836 – Some 1,100 to 1,300 alumni flock to Harvard's Bicentennial, at which a professional choir premieres "Fair Harvard." ... guest speaker Josiah Quincy Jr., Class of 1821, makes a motion, unanimously adopted, 'that this assembly of the Alumni be adjourned to meet at this place on September 8, 1936.'" Tercentary opening of Quincy's sealed package:The New York Times, September 9, 1936, p. 24, "Package Sealed in 1836 Opened at Harvard. It Held Letters Written at Bicentenary": "September 8th, 1936: As the first formal function in the celebration of Harvard's tercentenary, the Harvard Alumni Association witnessed the opening by President Conant of the 'mysterious' package sealed by President Josiah Quincy at the Harvard bicentennial in 1836."
Keller, Morton; Keller, Phyllis (2001).Making Harvard Modern: The Rise of America's University. Oxford University Press. pp. 463–481.ISBN0-19-514457-0.Harvard's professional schools... won world prestige of a sort rarely seen among social institutions. [...] Harvard's age, wealth, quality, and prestige may well shield it from any conceivable vicissitudes.
Spaulding, Christina (1989)."Sexual Shakedown". In Trumpbour, John (ed.).How Harvard Rules: Reason in the Service of Empire. South End Press. pp. 326–336.ISBN0-89608-284-9.... [Harvard's] tremendous institutional power and prestige [...] Within the nation's (arguably) most prestigious institution of higher learning ...
Collier's Encyclopedia. Macmillan Educational Co. 1986.Harvard University, one of the world's most prestigious institutions of higher learning, was founded in Massachusetts in 1636.
Leonhardt, David (September 17, 2006)."Ending Early Admissions: Guess Who Wins?".The New York Times.ISSN0362-4331.Archived from the original on March 27, 2020. RetrievedMarch 27, 2020.The most prestigious college in the world, of course, is Harvard, and the gap between it and every other university is often underestimated.
Wong, Alia (September 11, 2018)."At Private Colleges, Students Pay for Prestige".The Atlantic.Archived from the original on February 26, 2021. RetrievedMay 17, 2020.Americans tend to think of colleges as falling somewhere on a vast hierarchy based largely on their status and brand recognition. At the top are the Harvards and the Stanfords, with their celebrated faculty, groundbreaking research, and perfectly manicured quads.
^Story, Ronald (1975). "Harvard and the Boston Brahmins: A Study in Institutional and Class Development, 1800–1865".Journal of Social History.8 (3):94–121.doi:10.1353/jsh/8.3.94.ISSN0022-4529.S2CID147208647.
^Farrell, Betty G. (1993).Elite Families: Class and Power in Nineteenth-Century Boston. State University of New York Press.ISBN0-7914-1593-7.
^Harvard, John."John Harvard Facts, Information".encyclopedia.com. The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2008.Archived from the original on July 15, 2009. RetrievedJuly 17, 2009.He bequeathed £780 (half his estate) and his library of 320 volumes to the new established college at Cambridge, Mass., which was named in his honor.
^Wright, Louis B. (2002).The Cultural Life of the American Colonies (1st ed.). Dover Publications (published May 3, 2002). p. 116.ISBN978-0-486-42223-7.
^Harvard Office of News and Public Affairs (July 26, 2007)."Harvard guide intro". Harvard University. Archived fromthe original on July 26, 2007. RetrievedAugust 29, 2010.
^Shoemaker, Stephen P. (2006–2007). "The Theological Roots of Charles W. Eliot's Educational Reforms".Journal of Unitarian Universalist History.31:30–45.
^Steinberg, Stephen (September 1, 1971)."How Jewish Quotas Began".Commentary.Archived from the original on September 11, 2017. RetrievedSeptember 10, 2017.
^Kridel, Craig, ed. (2010). "General Education in a Free Society (Harvard Redbook)".Encyclopedia of Curriculum Studies. Vol. 1. SAGE. pp. 400–402.ISBN978-1-4129-5883-7.
^"Shanghai Center".Harvard.edu.Archived from the original on December 17, 2013. RetrievedJanuary 3, 2014.
^Bethell, John T.; Hunt, Richard M.; Shenton, Robert (2009).Harvard A to Z. Harvard University Press. pp. 166–.ISBN978-0-674-02089-4.Archived from the original on January 2, 2017. RetrievedMay 7, 2016.
^Burlington Free Press, June 24, 2009, page 11B, ""Harvard to cut 275 jobs" Associated Press
^"Degree Programs"(PDF).Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Handbook. pp. 28–30. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on September 9, 2015. RetrievedAugust 28, 2010.
^ab"Degrees Awarded".harvard.edu. Office of Institutional Research, Harvard University.Archived from the original on July 28, 2021. RetrievedDecember 13, 2019.
^Bracken, Chris (November 17, 2017)."A game unlike any other".yaledailynews.com.Archived from the original on October 21, 2020. RetrievedSeptember 9, 2020.
^Barzilay, Karen N."The Education of John Adams". Massachusetts Historical Society.Archived from the original on July 26, 2021. RetrievedSeptember 20, 2020.
^"John Quincy Adams". The White House.Archived from the original on October 5, 2021. RetrievedSeptember 21, 2020.
^Thomas, Sarah (September 24, 2010)."'Social Network' taps other campuses for Harvard role".Boston.com. Archived fromthe original on March 4, 2016. RetrievedFebruary 20, 2020.'In the grammar of film, Harvard has come to mean both tradition, and a certain amount of stuffiness.... Someone from Missouri who has never lived in Boston ... can get this idea that it's all trust fund babies and ivy-covered walls.'
^King, Michael (2002).Wrestling with the Angel. p. 371....praised as an iconic chronicle of his generation and his WASP-ish class.
^Halberstam, Michael J. (February 18, 1953)."White Shoe and Weak Will".Harvard Crimson.Archived from the original on November 26, 2015.The book is written slickly, but without distinction.... The book will be quick, enjoyable reading for all Harvard men.
^Yardley, Jonathan (December 23, 2009)."Second Reading".The Washington Post.Archived from the original on December 9, 2015. '...a balanced and impressive novel...' [is] a judgment with which I [agree].
^Du Bois, William (February 1, 1953). "Out of a Jitter-and-Fritter World".The New York Times. p. BR5.exhibits Mr. Phillips' talent at its finest
^"John Phillips, The Second Happiest Day".Southwest Review. Vol. 38. p. 267.So when the critics say the author of "The Second Happiest Day" is a new Fitzgerald, we think they may be right.
Howells, Dorothy Elia.A Century to Celebrate: Radcliffe College, 1879–1979 (1978). 152 pp.
Keller, Morton, and Phyllis Keller.Making Harvard Modern: The Rise of America's University (2001), major history covers 1933 to 2002"online edition". Archived fromthe original on July 2, 2012.
Morison, Samuel Eliot.Three Centuries of Harvard, 1636–1936 (1986) 512pp;excerpt and text search
Powell, Arthur G.The Uncertain Profession: Harvard and the Search for Educational Authority (1980). 341 pp.
Reid, Robert.Year One: An Intimate Look inside Harvard Business School (1994). 331 pp.
Rosovsky, Henry.The University: An Owner's Manual (1991). 312 pp.
Rosovsky, Nitza.The Jewish Experience at Harvard and Radcliffe (1986). 108 pp.
Seligman, Joel.The High Citadel: The Influence of Harvard Law School (1978). 262 pp.
Sollors, Werner; Titcomb, Caldwell; and Underwood, Thomas A., eds.Blacks at Harvard: A Documentary History of African-American Experience at Harvard and Radcliffe (1993). 548 pp.
Trumpbour, John, ed.,How Harvard Rules. Reason in the Service of Empire, Boston: South End Press, 1989,ISBN0-89608-283-0
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