Currier House is one of twelve undergraduate residential Houses of

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...

, in

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, ...

, United States. Opened in September 1970, it is named after Audrey Bruce Currier, a member of the

Radcliffe College Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and functioned as the female coordinate institution for the all-male Harvard College. Considered founded in 1879, it was one of the Seven Sisters colleges and he ...

Class of 1956 who, along with her husband, was killed in a plane crash in 1967. The area was formerly used as housing for

, and as such the four towers of Currier House are named for distinguished alumnae of Radcliffe, including the author

Barbara Tuchman Barbara Wertheim Tuchman (; January 30, 1912 – February 6, 1989) was an American historian and author. She won the Pulitzer Prize twice, for ''The Guns of August'' (1962), a best-selling history of the prelude to and the first month of World ...

. Along with

Cabot House Cabot House is one of twelve undergraduate residential Houses at Harvard University. Cabot House derives from the merger in 1970 of Radcliffe College's South and East House, which took the name South House (also known as "SoHo"), until the name ...

and

Pforzheimer House Pforzheimer House, nicknamed PfoHo (''FOE-hoe'') and formerly named North House, is one of twelve undergraduate residential Houses at Harvard University. It was named in 1995 for Carol K. and Carl Howard Pforzheimer Jr, major University and Radc ...

, Currier is part of the former

Radcliffe Quadrangle The Radcliffe Quadrangle (or Rad Quad as it is known to students of the College) is the second Quadrangle (architecture), quadrangle of University College, Oxford, University College, University of Oxford, Oxford, England. The buildings have b ...

, known colloquially as simply "the Quad."

Faculty Deans and Resident Dean

The current Faculty Deans are Latanya Sweeney and Sylvia Barrett. The

Allston Burr Resident Dean In each of the twelve Houses in the Harvard College House system, the Allston Burr Resident Dean (for many decades the ''Allston Burr Senior Tutor'') is an Assistant Dean of the College, responsible for the academic and disciplinary well-being of t ...

is Laura Johnson. Previous deans have included scholar of

Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...

and former Dean of

Harvard Divinity School Harvard Divinity School (HDS) is one of the constituent schools of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school's mission is to educate its students either in the academic study of religion or for leadership roles in religion, gov ...

William A. Graham, chemist and Nobel laureate Dudley R. Herschbach, and

classicist Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

Gregory Nagy Gregory Nagy ( hu, Nagy Gergely, ; born October 22, 1942 in Budapest)"CV: Gregory Nagy"
''gr ...

Athletic success

In 2004–2005, Currier House won the Straus Cup for the first time in over twenty years. The cup is given to the house that scores the most points in intramural athletic competition during the school year.

Housing arrangements

Currier House consists of four towers containing mostly single rooms adjoined by a sink room or bathroom. In addition to these rooms, Currier also has some of the most coveted senior living arrangements, including the "Ten-Man," which is a suite of ten singles and three full bathrooms arranged around Harvard's largest common room, and 3 penthouse suites nicknamed "Solarium rooms."

Student government

Student government in Currier House consists of the Currier House Committee, of which all house residents are members. The committee operates separate from the

Harvard Undergraduate Council The Harvard Undergraduate Council, Inc., colloquially known as "The UC," was the student government of Harvard College between 1982 and 2022, when it was abolished by a student referendum after a series of scandals. The UC had faced widespread ...

, to organize student events and manage funding. The Currier HoCo, as the other student government organizations in the Houses, are funded by the UC and maintained by an executive council run my students in leadership positions. Elections for the two Chair positions, as well as all other social organization positions, are held every January during the Super Bowl Halftime show, broadcast in the Fishbowl common space. The two HoCo co-chairs are Jacob Miller and Annie Garofalo.

Famous alumni

Notable alumni include: *

Michael Chertoff Michael Chertoff (born November 28, 1953) is an American attorney who was the second United States Secretary of Homeland Security to serve under President George W. Bush. Chertoff also served for one additional day under President Barack Obama. H ...

(class of 1975) *

Yo-Yo Ma Yo-Yo Ma (''Chinese'': 馬友友 ''Ma Yo Yo''; born October 7, 1955) is an American cellist. Born in Paris to Chinese parents and educated in New York City, he was a child prodigy, performing from the age of four and a half. He graduated from ...

(1976) *

Bill Gates William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate and philanthropist. He is a co-founder of Microsoft, along with his late childhood friend Paul Allen. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions ...

(class of 1977, but left before graduating) *

Steve Ballmer Steven Anthony Ballmer (; March 24, 1956) is an American business magnate and investor who served as the chief executive officer of Microsoft from 2000 to 2014. He is the current owner of the Los Angeles Clippers of the National Basketball Associ ...

(1977) *

Caroline Kennedy Caroline Bouvier Kennedy (born November 27, 1957) is an American author, attorney, and diplomat serving in the Biden administration as the United States Ambassador to Australia since 2022. She previously served in the Obama administration as th ...

(1980) *

Neil deGrasse Tyson Neil deGrasse Tyson ( or ; born October 5, 1958) is an American astrophysicist, author, and science communicator. Tyson studied at Harvard University, the University of Texas at Austin, and Columbia University. From 1991 to 1994, he was a po ...

(1980) *

Paul Attanasio Paul Albert Attanasio (born November 14, 1959) is an American screenwriter and film and television producer. He has twice been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, for ''Quiz Show (film), Quiz Show'' (1994) and ''Donnie ...

(1981) *

Alan Khazei Alan Khazei (; born May 28, 1961) is an American social entrepreneur. He served as chief executive officer of City Year, an AmeriCorps national service program he co-founded with Michael Brown, his friend and roommate at Harvard College and Har ...

(1983) *

Tom Morello Thomas Baptist Morello (born May 30, 1964) is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter, and political activist. He is best known for his tenure with the rock band Rage Against the Machine and then with Audioslave. Between 2016 and 2019, Morello ...

(1986) *

Sylvia Mathews Burwell Sylvia Mary Burwell (; born June 23, 1965) is an American government and non-profit executive who has been the 15th president of American University since June 1, 2017. Burwell is the first woman to serve as the university's president. Burwell ...

(1987) *

Seth Moulton Seth Wilbur Moulton (born October 24, 1978) is an American politician serving as the U.S. representative for Massachusetts's 6th congressional district since 2015. A former Marine Corps officer, he is a member of the Democratic Party. After gra ...

(2001) *

Damien Chazelle Damien Sayre Chazelle (; born January 19, 1985) is an American film director, screenwriter and producer. He is known for his films ''Whiplash'' (2014), ''La La Land'' (2016), and '' First Man'' (2018). For ''Whiplash'', he was nominated for the ...

(2007/08) *

Justin Hurwitz Justin Gabriel Hurwitz (born January 22, 1985) is an American film composer and a television writer. He is best known for his longtime collaboration with director Damien Chazelle, scoring each of his films: ''Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench'' (2 ...

(2007/08) *

Michelle Wu Michelle Wu ( zh, t=吳弭, first=t; born January 14, 1985) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the mayor of Boston, mayor of Boston, Massachusetts since 2021. She is a member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party ...

(2007) Gates and Ballmer met in Currier House, where the two lived on the same floor, and formed a friendship that later led Gates to recruit his college friend to join his budding software company. Gates also described during his 2007 commencement address at Harvard how he initiated one of his first software deals while making a call from his room in Currier House."Remarks of Bill Gates", ''Harvard University Gazette Online''
/ref>

References

External links

Currier House official site

Harvard Quadrangle map

Photo album featuring Currier House life, by the Harvard Gazette
{{Harvard , state=collapsed Harvard Houses Radcliffe College and Institute