Harvard University is a

private Private or privates may refer to: Music * " In Private", by Dusty Springfield from the 1990 album ''Reputation'' * Private (band), a Denmark-based band * "Private" (Ryōko Hirosue song), from the 1999 album ''Private'', written and also recorde ...

Ivy League The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference comprising eight private research universities in the Northeastern United States. The term ''Ivy League'' is typically used beyond the sports context to refer to the eight school ...

research university A research university or a research-intensive university is a university that is committed to research as a central part of its mission. They are the most important sites at which knowledge production occurs, along with "intergenerational kn ...

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, ...

. Founded in 1636 as

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 ...

and named for its first benefactor, the

Puritan The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become more Protestant. ...

clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and one of the most prestigious and highly ranked universities in the world. The university is composed of ten academic faculties plus

Harvard Radcliffe Institute The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University—also known as the Harvard Radcliffe Institute—is a part of Harvard University that fosters interdisciplinary research across the humanities, sciences, social sciences, arts, a ...

. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences offers study in a wide range of undergraduate and graduate

academic discipline An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...

s, and other faculties offer only graduate degrees, including professional degrees. Harvard has three main campuses: the Cambridge campus centered on

Harvard Yard Harvard Yard, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is the oldest part of the Harvard University campus, its historic center and modern crossroads. It contains most of the freshman dormitories, Harvard's most important libraries, Memorial Church, seve ...

; an adjoining campus immediately across

Charles River The Charles River ( Massachusett: ''Quinobequin)'' (sometimes called the River Charles or simply the Charles) is an river in eastern Massachusetts. It flows northeast from Hopkinton to Boston along a highly meandering route, that doubles bac ...

in the

Allston Allston is an officially recognized neighborhood within the City of Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It was named after the American painter and poet Washington Allston. It comprises the land covered by the zip code 02134. For the most pa ...

neighborhood of

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

; and the medical campus in Boston's

Longwood Medical Area The Longwood Medical and Academic Area (also known as Longwood Medical Area, LMA, or simply Longwood) is a medical campus in Boston, Massachusetts. Flanking Longwood Avenue, LMA is adjacent to the Fenway–Kenmore, Audubon Circle, and Mission ...

. Harvard's endowment is valued at $50.9 billion, making it the wealthiest academic institution in the world. Endowment income enables the undergraduate college to admit students regardless of financial need and provide generous financial aid with no loans.

Harvard Library Harvard Library is the umbrella organization for Harvard University's libraries and services. It is the oldest library system in the United States and both the largest academic library and largest private library in the world. Its collection ...

is the world's largest academic library system, comprising 79 individual libraries holding 20 million items. Harvard's founding was authorized by the Massachusetts colonial legislature, "dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches, when our present ministers shall lie in the dust"; though never formally affiliated with any denomination, in its early years Harvard College primarily trained

Congregational Congregational churches (also Congregationalist churches or Congregationalism) are Protestant churches in the Calvinist tradition practising congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its ...

clergy. Its curriculum and student body were gradually secularized during the 18th century. By the 19th century, Harvard emerged as the most prominent academic and cultural institution among the Boston elite. Following the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and t ...

, under President

Charles William Eliot Charles William Eliot (March 20, 1834 – August 22, 1926) was an American academic who was president of Harvard University from 1869 to 1909the longest term of any Harvard president. A member of the prominent Eliot family of Boston, he transfor ...

's long tenure (1869–1909), the college developed multiple affiliated professional schools that transformed the college into a modern

. In 1900, Harvard co-founded the

Association of American Universities The Association of American Universities (AAU) is an organization of American research universities devoted to maintaining a strong system of academic research and education. Founded in 1900, it consists of 63 universities in the United States ( ...

James B. Conant James Bryant Conant (March 26, 1893 – February 11, 1978) was an American chemist, a transformative President of Harvard University, and the first U.S. Ambassador to West Germany. Conant obtained a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Harvard in 1916. ...

led the university through the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

and

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, and liberalized admissions after the war. Throughout its existence, Harvard alumni, faculty, and researchers have included numerous heads of state,

Nobel laureates The Nobel Prizes ( sv, Nobelpriset, no, Nobelprisen) are awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Swedish Academy, the Karolinska Institutet, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee to individuals and organizations who make ou ...

Fields Medalists The Fields Medal is a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians under 40 years of age at the International Congress of the International Mathematical Union (IMU), a meeting that takes place every four years. The name of the award h ...

members of Congress A Member of Congress (MOC) is a person who has been appointed or elected and inducted into an official body called a congress, typically to represent a particular constituency in a legislature. The term member of parliament (MP) is an equivalen ...

MacArthur Fellows The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to between 20 and 30 indi ...

Rhodes Scholars The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom. Established in 1902, it is the oldest graduate scholarship in the world. It is considered among the world' ...

Marshall Scholars The Marshall Scholarship is a postgraduate scholarship for "intellectually distinguished young Americans ndtheir country's future leaders" to study at any university in the United Kingdom. It is widely considered one of the most prestigious sc ...

, and

Fulbright Scholars The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people o ...

; by most metrics, Harvard ranks at the top, or near the top, of all universities in the world in its alumni in each of these categories. Its alumni include eight U.S. presidents and 188 living billionaires, the most of any university. Fourteen

Turing Award The ACM A. M. Turing Award is an annual prize given by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for contributions of lasting and major technical importance to computer science. It is generally recognized as the highest distinction in compu ...

laureates have been Harvard affiliates. Students and alumni have won 10

Academy Awards The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...

, 48

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made ...

s, and 110 Olympic medals (46 gold), and they have founded many notable companies.

History

Colonial era

Harvard was established in 1636 in the colonial, pre-Revolutionary era by vote of the Great and General Court of

Massachusetts Bay Colony The Massachusetts Bay Colony (1630–1691), more formally the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, was an English settlement on the east coast of North America around the Massachusetts Bay, the northernmost of the several colonies later reorganized as th ...

. In 1638, the university acquired

British North America British North America comprised the colonial territories of the British Empire in North America from 1783 onwards. English colonisation of North America began in the 16th century in Newfoundland, then further south at Roanoke and Jamestow ...

's first known printing press. In 1639, it was named

after John Harvard, an English clergyman who had died soon after immigrating to Massachusetts, bequeathed it £780 and his library of some 320 volumes. The charter creating

Harvard Corporation The President and Fellows of Harvard College (also called the Harvard Corporation or just the Corporation) is the smaller and more powerful of Harvard University's two governing boards, and is now the oldest corporation in America. Together with ...

was granted in 1650. A 1643 publication defined the university'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." The college trained many

ministers in its early years and offered a classic curriculum that was based on the English university modelmany leaders in the colony had attended the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

but also conformed to the tenets of

Puritanism The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become more Protestant. P ...

. While Harvard never affiliated with any particular denomination, many of its earliest graduates went on to become Puritan clergymen.

Increase Mather Increase Mather (; June 21, 1639 Old Style – August 23, 1723 Old Style) was a New England Puritan clergyman in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and president of Harvard College for twenty years (1681–1701). He was influential in the admini ...

served as Harvard College's president from 1681 to 1701. In 1708,

John Leverett John Leverett (baptized 7 July 1616 – 16 March 1678/79In the Julian calendar, then in use in England, the year began on 25 March. To avoid confusion with dates in the Gregorian calendar, then in use in other parts of Europe, dates between ...

became the first president who was not also a clergyman, marking a turning of the college away from Puritanism and toward intellectual independence.

19th century

John Harvard statue at Harvard University

In the 19th century, Enlightenment ideas of reason and free will were widespread among

ministers, putting those ministers and their congregations at odds with more traditionalist,

Calvinist Calvinism (also called the Reformed Tradition, Reformed Protestantism, Reformed Christianity, or simply Reformed) is a major branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice set down by John C ...

parties. When

Hollis Professor of Divinity The Hollis Chair of Divinity is an endowed chair at Harvard Divinity School. It was established in 1721 by Thomas Hollis, a wealthy English merchant and benefactor of the university, at a salary of £80 per year. It is the oldest endowed chair in ...

David Tappan David Tappan (1752–1803) was an American theologian. He occupied the Hollis Chair at Harvard Divinity School until his death in 1803. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sci ...

died in 1803 and

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university * President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...

Joseph Willard died a year later, a struggle broke out over their replacements. Henry Ware was elected Hollis chair in 1805, and liberal

Samuel Webber Samuel Webber (1759 – July 17, 1810) was an American Congregational clergyman, mathematician, academic, and president of Harvard University from 1806 until his death in 1810. Biography Samuel Webber was born in Byfield, Massachusetts in 1759. ...

was appointed president two years later, signaling a shift from traditional ideas at Harvard to liberal,

Arminian Arminianism is a branch of Protestantism based on the theological ideas of the Dutch Reformed theologian Jacobus Arminius (1560–1609) and his historic supporters known as Remonstrants. Dutch Arminianism was originally articulated in the '' ...

ideas.

, Harvard president from 1869–1909, eliminated the favored position of Christianity from the curriculum while opening it to student self-direction. Though Eliot was an influential figure in the secularization of American higher education, he was motivated more by Transcendentalist Unitarian convictions influenced by

William Ellery Channing William Ellery Channing (April 7, 1780 – October 2, 1842) was the foremost Unitarian preacher in the United States in the early nineteenth century and, along with Andrews Norton (1786–1853), one of Unitarianism's leading theologians. Channi ...

Ralph Waldo Emerson Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a cham ...

, and others of the time than by secularism. In 1816, Harvard launched new programs in the study of

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

and

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

with

George Ticknor George Ticknor (August 1, 1791 – January 26, 1871) was an American academician and Hispanist, specializing in the subject areas of languages and literature. He is known for his scholarly work on the history and criticism of Spanish literature. ...

as first professor for these language programs.

20th century

Harvard's graduate schools began admitting women in small numbers in the late 19th century. During

, students at

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 h ...

(which, since its 1879 founding, had been paying Harvard professors to repeat their lectures for women) began attending Harvard classes alongside men. In 1945, women were first admitted to the

medical school A medical school is a tertiary educational institution, or part of such an institution, that teaches medicine, and awards a professional degree for physicians. Such medical degrees include the Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS, ...

. Since 1971, Harvard had controlled essentially all aspects of undergraduate admission, instruction, and housing for Radcliffe women; in 1999, Radcliffe was formally merged into Harvard. In the 20th century, Harvard's reputation grew as its endowment burgeoned and prominent intellectuals and professors affiliated with the university. The university's rapid enrollment growth also was a product of both the founding of new graduate academic programs and an expansion of the undergraduate college. Radcliffe College emerged as the female counterpart of Harvard College, becoming one of the most prominent schools for women in the United States. In 1900, Harvard became a founding member of the

. The student body in its first decades of the 20th century was predominantly "old-stock, high-status

Protestants Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

, especially

Episcopalians Anglicanism is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Euro ...

Congregationalists Congregational churches (also Congregationalist churches or Congregationalism) are Protestant churches in the Calvinist tradition practising congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs i ...

, and

Presbyterians Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their n ...

," according to sociologist and author

Jerome Karabel Jerome Bernard Karabel (born May 20, 1950) is an American sociologist, political and social commentator, and Professor of Sociology at the University of California at Berkeley. He has written extensively on American institutions of higher educat ...

. In 1923, a year after the percentage of Jewish students at Harvard reached 20%, President A. Lawrence Lowell supported a policy change that would have capped the admission of Jewish students to 15% of the undergraduate population. But Lowell's idea was rejected. Lowell also refused to mandate forced desegregation in the university's freshman 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." President

led the university from 1933 to 1953; Conant reinvigorated 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. As such, he devised programs to identify, recruit, and support talented youth. An influential 268-page report issued by Harvard faculty in 1945 under Conant's leadership, ''

General Education in a Free Society ''General Education in a Free Society'', also known as the Harvard Redbook, is a 1945 Harvard University report on the importance of general education in American secondary and post-secondary schools. It is among the most important works in ...

'', remains one the most important works in

curriculum studies Curriculum studies (CS) is a concentration within curriculum and instruction concerned with understanding curricula as an active force of human educational experience. Overview Specific questions related to curriculum studies include the followin ...

. Between 1945 and 1960, admissions standardized to open the university to a more diverse group of students; for example, after

, special exams were developed so veterans could be considered for admission. No longer drawing mostly from select New England prep schools, the undergraduate college became accessible to striving middle class students from public schools; many more Jews and Catholics were admitted, but still few Blacks, Hispanics, or Asians versus the representation of these demoraphics in the general population. Throughout the latter half of the 20th century, Harvard incrementally became vastly more diverse.

21st century

Drew Gilpin Faust Catharine Drew Gilpin Faust (born September 18, 1947) is an American historian and was the 28th president of Harvard University, the first woman to serve in that role. She was Harvard's first president since 1672 without an undergraduate or gradu ...

, who was dean of

, became Harvard's first female president on July 1, 2007. In 2018, Faust retired and joined the board of

Goldman Sachs Goldman Sachs () is an American multinational investment bank and financial services company. Founded in 1869, Goldman Sachs is headquartered at 200 West Street in Lower Manhattan, with regional headquarters in London, Warsaw, Bangalore, Ho ...

. On July 1, 2018,

Lawrence Bacow Lawrence Seldon Bacow (; born August 24, 1951) is an American lawyer, economist, author and university administrator, and the current and 29th president of Harvard University. He took office on July 1, 2018, succeeding Drew Gilpin Faust. Before ...

was appointed Harvard's 29th president. Bacow intends to retire in 2023, and on December 15, 2022, it was announced that

Claudine Gay Claudine Gay is a political scientist and university administrator. On July 1, 2023 she will become the 30th and first Black President of Harvard University. She serves as Harvard's Wilbur A. Cowett Professor of Government and of African and A ...

will succeed him.

Campuses

Cambridge

Harvard's main campus is centered on

("the Yard") in Cambridge, about west-northwest of downtown

, and extends into the surrounding

Harvard Square Harvard Square is a triangular plaza at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue, Brattle Street and John F. Kennedy Street near the center of Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. The term "Harvard Square" is also used to delineate the busi ...

neighborhood. The Yard contains administrative offices such as University Hall and Massachusetts Hall; libraries such as Widener, Pusey, Houghton, and Lamont; and Memorial Church. The Yard and adjacent areas include the main academic buildings of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, including the college, such as

Sever Hall Sever may refer to: Places in Portugal * Sever (Santa Marta de Penaguião), a civil parish in the municipality of Santa Marta de Penaguião * , a civil parish in Moimenta da Beira Municipality * Sever do Vouga Municipality, a municipality in the ...

and Harvard Hall. Freshman dormitories are in, or adjacent to, the Yard. Upperclassmen live in the twelve residential housesnine south of the Yard near the

, the others half a mile northwest of the Yard at the

Radcliffe Quadrangle The Radcliffe Quadrangle (or Rad Quad as it is known to students of the College) is the second quadrangle of University College, Oxford, England. The buildings have been Grade I listed since 1954. The quadrangle was started in 1716 and f ...

(which formerly housed

students). Each house is a community of undergraduates, faculty deans, and resident tutors, with its own dining hall, library, and recreational facilities. Also in Cambridge are the

Law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...

Divinity Divinity or the divine are things that are either related to, devoted to, or proceeding from a deity.divine< ...

(theology), Engineering and Applied Science,

Design A design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or process or the result of that plan or specification in the form of a prototype, product, or process. The verb ''to design' ...

(architecture),

Education Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty ...

, Kennedy (public policy), and

Extension Extension, extend or extended may refer to: Mathematics Logic or set theory * Axiom of extensionality * Extensible cardinal * Extension (model theory) * Extension (predicate logic), the set of tuples of values that satisfy the predicate * Ext ...

schools, as well as the

Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University—also known as the Harvard Radcliffe Institute—is a part of Harvard University that fosters interdisciplinary research across the humanities, sciences, social sciences, arts, a ...

in Radcliffe Yard. Harvard also has commercial real estate holdings in Cambridge.

Allston

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA ...

Harvard Innovation Labs Harvard Innovation Labs (i-Lab) is an institution which aims to promote team-based and entrepreneurial activities among Harvard students, faculty, entrepreneurs, and members of the Allston and Greater Boston communities. The i-Lab's mission is to ...

, and many athletics facilities, including

Harvard Stadium Harvard Stadium is a U-shaped college football stadium in the northeast United States, located in the Allston neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. The stadium is owned and operated by Harvard University and is home to the Harvard Crimson footb ...

, are located on a campus in

, a Boston neighborhood just across the

from the Cambridge campus. The John W. Weeks Bridge, a pedestrian bridge over the Charles River, connects the two campuses. The university is actively expanding into Allston, where it now owns more land than in Cambridge. Plans include new construction and renovation for the Business School, a hotel and conference center, graduate student housing, Harvard Stadium, and other athletics facilities. In 2021, the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences will expand into a new, 500,000+ square foot Science and Engineering Complex (SEC) in Allston. The SEC will be adjacent to the Enterprise Research Campus, the Business School, and the Harvard Innovation Labs to encourage technology- and life science-focused startups as well as collaborations with mature companies.

Longwood

The schools of

Medicine Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pr ...

Dental Medicine Dentistry, also known as dental medicine and oral medicine, is the branch of medicine focused on the teeth, gums, and mouth. It consists of the study, diagnosis, prevention, management, and treatment of diseases, disorders, and conditions of ...

, and

Public Health Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals". Analyzing the det ...

are located on a campus in the Longwood Medical and Academic Area in Boston, about south of the Cambridge campus. Several Harvard-affiliated hospitals and research institutes are also in Longwood, including

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) in Boston, Massachusetts is a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. It was formed out of the 1996 merger of Beth Israel Hospital (founded in 1916) and New England Deaconess Hospital (founde ...

Boston Children's Hospital Boston Children's Hospital formerly known as Children's Hospital Boston until 2012 is a nationally ranked, freestanding acute care children's hospital located in Boston, Massachusetts, adjacent both to its teaching affiliate, Harvard Medical Scho ...

Brigham and Women's Hospital Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) is the second largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School and the largest hospital in the Longwood Medical Area in Boston, Massachusetts. Along with Massachusetts General Hospital, it is one of the two ...

Dana–Farber Cancer Institute Dana–Farber Cancer Institute is a comprehensive cancer treatment and research institution in Boston, Massachusetts. Dana–Farber is the founding member of Dana–Farber/Harvard Cancer Center, Harvard's Comprehensive Cancer Center designated ...

, Joslin Diabetes Center, and the

Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering The Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering (pronounced "veese") is a cross-disciplinary research institute at Harvard University focused on bridging the gap between academia and industry (translational medicine) by drawing inspira ...

. Additional affiliates, most notably

Massachusetts General Hospital Massachusetts General Hospital (Mass General or MGH) is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School located in the West End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. It is the third oldest general hospital in the United Stat ...

, are located throughout the Greater Boston area.

Other

Harvard owns the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection in Washington, D.C., the Harvard Forest in Petersham, Massachusetts, the Concord Field Station in

Estabrook Woods The Estabrook Woods is a wild tract of more than of woodland, hills, ledge, and swamp straddling Concord and Carlisle Massachusetts, two miles (3 km) north of the center of Town of Concord. It is the largest contiguous and undeveloped woodla ...

Concord, Massachusetts Concord () is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, in the United States. At the 2020 census, the town population was 18,491. The United States Census Bureau considers Concord part of Greater Boston. The town center is near where the co ...

, the

Villa I Tatti Villa I Tatti, The Harvard Center for Italian Renaissance Studies is a center for advanced research in the humanities located in Florence, Italy, and belongs to Harvard University. It houses a collection of Italian primitives, and of Chinese ...

research center in

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico ...

, Italy, the Harvard Shanghai Center in Shanghai, China, and the

Arnold Arboretum The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University is a botanical research institution and free public park, located in the Jamaica Plain and Roslindale neighborhoods of Boston, Massachusetts. Established in 1872, it is the oldest public arboretum in ...

in the

Jamaica Plain Jamaica Plain is a neighborhood of in the City of Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Settled by Puritans seeking farmland to the south, it was originally part of the former Town of Roxbury, now also a part of the City of Boston. The commun ...

neighborhood of Boston.

Organization and administration

Governance

Harvard is governed by a combination of its Board of Overseers and the

President and Fellows of Harvard College The President and Fellows of Harvard College (also called the Harvard Corporation or just the Corporation) is the smaller and more powerful of Harvard University's two governing boards, and is now the oldest corporation in America. Together with ...

(also known as the Harvard Corporation), which in turn appoints the

President of Harvard University The president of Harvard University is the chief administrator of Harvard University and the '' ex officio'' president of the Harvard Corporation. Each is appointed by and is responsible to the other members of that body, who delegate to the pr ...

. There are 16,000 staff and faculty, including 2,400 professors, lecturers, and instructors. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences is the largest Harvard faculty and has primary responsibility for instruction in

, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), and the Division of Continuing Education, which includes

Harvard Summer School Harvard Summer School, founded in 1871, is a summer school run by Harvard University. It serves more than 5,000 students per year. History Harvard Summer School was founded in 1871. It is the first academic summer session established and the o ...

and

Harvard Extension School Harvard Extension School (HES) is the extension school of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school is one among 12 schools that grant degrees and falls under the Division of Continuing Education in the Harvard Faculty of A ...

. There are nine other graduate and professional faculties as well as the

. Joint programs with the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of th ...

include the

Harvard–MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology The Harvard–MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology, or HST, is one of the oldest and largest biomedical engineering and physician-scientist training programs in the United States. It was founded in 1970 and is the longest-standing colla ...

, the

Broad Institute The Eli and Edythe L. Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard (IPA: , pronunciation respelling: ), often referred to as the Broad Institute, is a biomedical and genomic research center located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. The insti ...

The Observatory of Economic Complexity The Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC) is a data visualization site for international trade data created by the Macro Connections group at the MIT Media Lab. The goal of the observatory is to distribute international trade data in a visual ...

, and edX.

Endowment

Harvard has the largest

university endowment A financial endowment is a legal structure for managing, and in many cases indefinitely perpetuating, a pool of financial, real estate, or other investments for a specific purpose according to the will of its founders and donors. Endowments are of ...

in the world, valued at about $50.9 billion as of 2022. During the recession of 2007–2009, it suffered significant losses that forced large budget cuts, in particular temporarily halting construction on the Allston Science Complex. The endowment has since recovered. About $2 billion of investment income is annually distributed to fund operations. 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 the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Endowment income is critical, as only 22% of revenue is from students' tuition, fees, room, and board.

Divestment

Since the 1970s, several student-led campaigns have advocated

divesting In finance and economics, divestment or divestiture is the reduction of some kind of asset for financial, ethical, or political objectives or sale of an existing business by a firm. A divestment is the opposite of an investment. Divestiture i ...

Harvard's endowment from controversial holdings, including investments in

apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

South Africa,

Sudan Sudan ( or ; ar, السودان, as-Sūdān, officially the Republic of the Sudan ( ar, جمهورية السودان, link=no, Jumhūriyyat as-Sūdān), is a country in Northeast Africa. It shares borders with the Central African Republic t ...

during the

Darfur genocide The Darfur genocide is the systematic killing of ethnic Darfuri people which has occurred during the ongoing conflict in Western Sudan. It has become known as the first genocide of the 21st century. The genocide, which is being carried out agai ...

, and the

tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...

fossil fuel A fossil fuel is a hydrocarbon-containing material formed naturally in the Earth's crust from the remains of dead plants and animals that is extracted and burned as a fuel. The main fossil fuels are coal, oil, and natural gas. Fossil fuels ma ...

, and

private prison A private prison, or for-profit prison, is a place where people are imprisoned by a third party that is contracted by a government agency. Private prison companies typically enter into contractual agreements with governments that commit ...

industries. In the late 1980s, during the divestment from South Africa movement, student activists erected a symbolic "shantytown" on Harvard Yard and blockaded a speech by South African Vice Consul Duke Kent-Brown. The university eventually reduced its South African holdings by $230 million (out of $400 million) in response to the pressure.

Academics

Teaching and learning

Harvard is a large, highly residential research university offering 50

undergraduate Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, in the United States, an entry-le ...

majors, 134 graduate degrees, and 32 professional degrees. During the 2018–2019 academic year, Harvard granted 1,665 baccalaureate degrees, 1,013 graduate degrees, and 5,695 professional degrees. The four-year, full-time undergraduate program has a liberal arts and sciences focus. To graduate in the usual four years, undergraduates normally take four courses per semester. In most majors, an honors degree requires advanced coursework and a senior thesis. Though some introductory courses have large enrollments, the median class size is 12 students.

Research

Harvard is a founding member of the

and a preeminent research university with "very high" research activity (R1) and comprehensive doctoral programs across the arts, sciences, engineering, and medicine according to the Carnegie Classification. With the

consistently ranking first among medical schools for research, biomedical research is an area of particular strength for the university. More than 11,000 faculty and over 1,600 graduate students conduct research at the medical school as well as its 15 affiliated hospitals and research institutes. The medical school and its affiliates attracted $1.65 billion in competitive research grants from the

National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the lat ...

in 2019, more than twice as much as any other university.

Libraries and museums

Henry Moore sculpture, Harvard University

The

system is centered in

Widener Library The Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library, housing some 3.5million books in its "vast and cavernous" stacks, is the centerpiece of the Harvard College Libraries (the libraries of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences) and, more broadly, of the ...

and comprises nearly 80 individual libraries holding about 20.4 million items. According to the

American Library Association The American Library Association (ALA) is a nonprofit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with 49,727 members ...

, this makes it the largest academic library in the world. 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. America's oldest collection of maps, gazetteers, and atlases both old and new is stored in Pusey Library and open to the public. The largest collection of East-Asian language material outside of East Asia is held in the Harvard-Yenching Library The

Harvard Art Museums The Harvard Art Museums are part of Harvard University and comprise three museums: the Fogg Museum (established in 1895), the Busch-Reisinger Museum (established in 1903), and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum (established in 1985), and four research ...

comprise three museums. The

Arthur M. Sackler Museum The Harvard Art Museums are part of Harvard University and comprise three museums: the Fogg Museum (established in 1895), the Busch-Reisinger Museum (established in 1903), and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum (established in 1985), and four research ...

covers Asian, Mediterranean, and Islamic art, the

Busch–Reisinger Museum The Harvard Art Museums are part of Harvard University and comprise three museums: the Fogg Museum (established in 1895), the Busch-Reisinger Museum (established in 1903), and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum (established in 1985), and four research ...

(formerly the Germanic Museum) covers central and northern European art, and the

Fogg Museum The Harvard Art Museums are part of Harvard University and comprise three museums: the Fogg Museum (established in 1895), the Busch-Reisinger Museum (established in 1903), and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum (established in 1985), and four research ...

covers Western art from the Middle Ages to the present emphasizing Italian

early Renaissance Renaissance art (1350 – 1620 AD) is the painting, sculpture, and decorative arts of the period of European history known as the Renaissance, which emerged as a distinct style in Italy in about AD 1400, in parallel with developments which occ ...

, British

pre-Raphaelite The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (later known as the Pre-Raphaelites) was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, Jam ...

, and 19th-century French art. The

Harvard Museum of Natural History The Harvard Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum housed in the University Museum Building, located on the campus of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It features 16 galleries with 12,000 speciments drawn from the col ...

includes the Harvard Mineralogical Museum, the

Harvard University Herbaria The Harvard University Herbaria and Botanical Museum are institutions located on the grounds of Harvard University at 22 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Botanical Museum is one of three which comprise the Harvard Museum of Natura ...

featuring the Blaschka Glass Flowers exhibit, and the

Museum of Comparative Zoology A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make thes ...

. Other museums include the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, designed by

Le Corbusier Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (6 October 188727 August 1965), known as Le Corbusier ( , , ), was a Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer, and one of the pioneers of what is now regarded as modern architecture. He was ...

and housing the film archive, the

Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology The Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology is a museum affiliated with Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1866, the Peabody Museum is one of the oldest and largest museums focusing on anthropological material, wi ...

, specializing in the cultural history and civilizations of the Western Hemisphere, and the

Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East The Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East (HMANE, previously the Harvard Semitic Museum) is a museum founded in 1889. It moved into its present location at 6 Divinity Avenue in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1903. Description From the beginning, ...

featuring artifacts from excavations in the Middle East.

Reputation and rankings

Among overall rankings, the ''

Academic Ranking of World Universities The ''Academic Ranking of World Universities'' (''ARWU''), also known as the Shanghai Ranking, is one of the annual publications of world university rankings. The league table was originally compiled and issued by Shanghai Jiao Tong Universi ...

'' (''ARWU'') has ranked Harvard as the world's top university every year since it was released. When ''QS'' and ''

Times Higher Education ''Times Higher Education'' (''THE''), formerly ''The Times Higher Education Supplement'' (''The Thes''), is a British magazine reporting specifically on news and issues related to higher education. Ownership TPG Capital acquired TSL Education ...

'' collaborated to publish the ''

Times Higher Education–QS World University Rankings The term Times Higher Education–QS World University Rankings refers to rankings published jointly between 2004 and 2009 by ''Times Higher Education'' and Quacquarelli Symonds (QS). After QS and ''Times Higher Education'' had ended their collabora ...

'' from 2004 to 2009, Harvard held the top spot every year and continued to hold first place on '' THE World Reputation Rankings'' ever since it was released in 2011. In 2019, it was ranked first worldwide by ''

SCImago Institutions Rankings The SCImago Institutions Rankings (SIR) since 2009 has published its international ranking of worldwide research institutions, the SIR World Report. The SIR World Report is the work of the SCImago Research Group,Center for Measuring University Performance The Center for Measuring University Performance is a research center at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. ''The Center'' is best known for an annual report it produces, The Top American Research Universities, that ranks American univers ...

. Harvard University is

accredited Accreditation is the independent, third-party evaluation of a conformity assessment body (such as certification body, inspection body or laboratory) against recognised standards, conveying formal demonstration of its impartiality and competence to ...

by the

New England Commission of Higher Education The New England Commission of Higher Education (NECHE) is a voluntary, peer-based, non-profit membership organization that performs peer evaluation and accreditation of public and private universities and colleges in the United States and other ...

. Among rankings of specific indicators, Harvard topped both the

University Ranking by Academic Performance The University Ranking by Academic Performance (URAP) is a College and university rankings, university ranking developed by the Informatics Institute of Middle East Technical University. Since 2010, it has been publishing annual national and glob ...

(2019–2020) and '' Mines ParisTech: Professional Ranking of World Universities'' (2011), which measured universities' numbers of alumni holding CEO positions in ''Fortune'' Global 500 companies. According to annual polls done by

The Princeton Review The Princeton Review is an education services company providing tutoring, test preparation and admission resources for students. It was founded in 1981. and since that time has worked with over 400 million students. Services are delivered by 4 ...

, Harvard is consistently among the top two most commonly named "dream colleges" in the United States, both for students and parents. Additionally, having made significant investments in its engineering school in recent years, Harvard was ranked third worldwide for Engineering and Technology in 2019 by ''

''.

School rankings

Student life

Student life and activities are generally organized within each school.

Student government

The Undergraduate Council represents College students. The Graduate Council represents students at all twelve graduate and professional schools, most of which also have their own student government.

Athletics

Both the undergraduate College and the graduate schools have

intramural sports Intramural sports are recreational sports organized within a particular institution, usually an educational institution, or a set geographic region. The term, which is chiefly North American, derives from the Latin words ''intra muros'' meaning " ...

programs. Harvard College competes in the

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges ...

Division I

conference. The school fields 42 intercollegiate sports teams, more than any other college in the country. Every two years, the Harvard and Yale track and field teams come together to compete against a combined

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

and

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

team in the oldest continuous international amateur competition in the world. As with other Ivy League universities, Harvard does not offer

athletic scholarship An athletic scholarship is a form of scholarship to attend a college or university or a private high school awarded to an individual based predominantly on his or her ability to play in a sport. Athletic scholarships are common in the United ...

s. The school color is crimson. Harvard's athletic rivalry with

Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...

is intense in every sport in which they meet, coming to a climax each fall in the annual football meeting, which dates back to 1875.

''Harvard University Gazette''

The Harvard Gazette, also called the ''Harvard University Gazette'', is the official press organ of

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...

. Formerly a print publication, it is now a web site. It publicizes research, faculty, teaching and events at the university. Initiated in 1906, it was originally a weekly calendar of news and events. In 1968 it became a weekly newspaper. When the ''Gazette'' was a print publication, it was considered a good way of keeping up with Harvard news: "If weekly reading suits you best, the most comprehensive and authoritative medium is the ''Harvard University Gazette''". In 2010, the ''Gazette'' "shifted from a print-first to a digital-first and mobile-first" publication, and reduced its publication calendar to biweekly, while keeping the same number of reporters, including some who had previously worked for the ''

Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Gl ...

'', ''

Miami Herald The ''Miami Herald'' is an American daily newspaper owned by the McClatchy Company and headquartered in Doral, Florida, a city in western Miami-Dade County and the Miami metropolitan area, several miles west of Downtown Miami.Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. new ...

Notable people

Alumni

Over more than three and a half centuries, Harvard alumni have contributed creatively and significantly to society, the arts and sciences, business, and national and international affairs. Harvard's alumni include eight U.S. presidents, 188 living billionaires, 79 Nobel laureates, 7 Fields Medal winners, 9 Turing Award laureates, 369

, 252

, and 13 Mitchell Scholars. Harvard students and alumni have won 10

, 48

s, and 108 Olympic medals (including 46 gold medals), and they have founded many notable companies worldwide. File:US Navy 031029-N-6236G-001 A painting of President John Adams (1735-1826), 2nd president of the United States, by Asher B. Durand (1767-1845)-crop.jpg, 2nd President of the United States

John Adams John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Befor ...

(AB, 1755; AM, 1758) File:John Quincy Adams.jpg, 6th President of the United States

John Quincy Adams John Quincy Adams (; July 11, 1767 – February 23, 1848) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, and diarist who served as the sixth president of the United States, from 1825 to 1829. He previously served as the eighth United States ...

(AB, 1787; AM, 1790) File:Ralph Waldo Emerson ca1857 retouched.jpg, Essayist, lecturer, philosopher, and poet

(AB, 1821) File:Benjamin D. Maxham - Henry David Thoreau - Restored - greyscale - straightened.jpg, Naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher

Henry David Thoreau Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817May 6, 1862) was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading transcendentalist, he is best known for his book ''Walden'', a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and h ...

(AB, 1837) File:President Rutherford Hayes 1870 - 1880 Restored.jpg, 19th President of the United States

Rutherford B. Hayes Rutherford Birchard Hayes (; October 4, 1822 – January 17, 1893) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 19th president of the United States from 1877 to 1881, after serving in the U.S. House of Representatives and as governo ...

(LLB, 1845) File:Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr circa 1930-edit.jpg, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (AB, 1861, LLB) File:Charles Sanders Peirce.jpg, Philosopher, logician, and mathematician

Charles Sanders Peirce Charles Sanders Peirce ( ; September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was an American philosopher, logician, mathematician and scientist who is sometimes known as "the father of pragmatism". Educated as a chemist and employed as a scientist for ...

(AB, 1862, SB 1863) File:President Theodore Roosevelt, 1904.jpg, 26th President of the United States and Nobel Peace Prize laureate

Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...

(AB, 1880) File:WEB DuBois 1918.jpg, Sociologist and civil rights activist

W. E. B. Du Bois William Edward Burghardt Du Bois ( ; February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American-Ghanaian sociologist, socialist, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up i ...

(PhD, 1895) File:FRoosevelt.png, 32nd President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt (AB, 1903) File:Helen Keller circa 1920 - restored.jpg, Author, political activist, and lecturer Helen Keller (AB, 1904, Radcliffe College) File:Thomas Stearns Eliot by Lady Ottoline Morrell (1934).jpg, Poet and Nobel laureate in literature T. S. Eliot (AB, 1909; AM, 1910) File:JROppenheimer-LosAlamos.jpg, Physicist and leader of the

Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...

J. Robert Oppenheimer J. Robert Oppenheimer (; April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physicist. A professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, Oppenheimer was the wartime head of the Los Alamos Laboratory and is oft ...

(AB, 1925) File:Paul Samuelson.jpg, Economist and Nobel laureate in economics

Paul Samuelson Paul Anthony Samuelson (May 15, 1915 – December 13, 2009) was an American economist who was the first American to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. When awarding the prize in 1970, the Swedish Royal Academies stated that he " ...

(AM, 1936; PhD, 1941) File:Leonard Bernstein by Jack Mitchell.jpg, Musician and composer

Leonard Bernstein Leonard Bernstein ( ; August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, pianist, music educator, author, and humanitarian. Considered to be one of the most important conductors of his time, he was the first America ...

(AB, 1939) File:John F. Kennedy, White House color photo portrait.jpg, 35th President of the United States John F. Kennedy (AB, 1940) File:Mary Robinson (2014).jpg, 7th President of Ireland and United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

Mary Robinson Mary Therese Winifred Robinson ( ga, Máire Mhic Róibín; ; born 21 May 1944) is an Irish politician who was the 7th president of Ireland, serving from December 1990 to September 1997, the first woman to hold this office. Prior to her electi ...

(LLM, 1968) File:Al Gore, Vice President of the United States, official portrait 1994.jpg, 45th Vice President of the United States and Nobel Peace Prize laureate

Al Gore Albert Arnold Gore Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American politician, businessman, and environmentalist who served as the 45th vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. Gore was the Democratic ...

(AB, 1969) File:Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, April 2010.jpg, 24th President of Liberia and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (MPA, 1971) File:Chuck Schumer official photo.jpg, Senate Majority Leader

Chuck Schumer Charles Ellis Schumer ( ; born November 23, 1950) is an American politician serving as Senate Majority Leader since January 20, 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, Schumer is in his fourth Senate term, having held his seat since 1999, an ...

(AB, 1971; JD, 1975) File:Benazir Bhutto.jpg, 11th Prime Minister of Pakistan

Benazir Bhutto Benazir Bhutto ( ur, بینظیر بُھٹو; sd, بينظير ڀُٽو; Urdu ; 21 June 1953 – 27 December 2007) was a Pakistani politician who served as the 11th and 13th prime minister of Pakistan from 1988 to 1990 and again from 1993 t ...

(AB, 1973, Radcliffe College) File:Ben Bernanke official portrait.jpg, 14th Chair of the Federal Reserve and Nobel laureate in economics

Ben Bernanke Ben Shalom Bernanke ( ; born December 13, 1953) is an American economist who served as the 14th chairman of the Federal Reserve from 2006 to 2014. After leaving the Fed, he was appointed a distinguished fellow at the Brookings Institution. Duri ...

(AB, 1975; AM, 1975) File:George-W-Bush.jpeg, 43rd President of the United States George W. Bush (MBA, 1975) File:Official roberts CJ.jpg, 17th Chief Justice of the United States

John Roberts John Glover Roberts Jr. (born January 27, 1955) is an American lawyer and jurist who has served as the 17th chief justice of the United States since 2005. Roberts has authored the majority opinion in several landmark cases, including '' Nat ...

(AB, 1976; JD, 1979) File:Bill Gates June 2015.jpg, Founder of Microsoft and philanthropist

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 ...

(College, 1977;Nominal Harvard College class year: did not graduate LLD hc, 2007) File:Ban Ki-Moon Davos 2011 Cropped.jpg, 8th Secretary-General of the United Nations

Ban Ki-moon Ban Ki-moon (; ; born 13 June 1944) is a South Korean politician and diplomat who served as the eighth secretary-general of the United Nations between 2007 and 2016. Prior to his appointment as secretary-general, Ban was his country's Ministe ...

(MPA, 1984) File:Elena Kagan Official SCOTUS Portrait (2013).jpg, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Elena Kagan Elena Kagan ( ; born April 28, 1960) is an American lawyer who serves as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. She was Elena Kagan Supreme Court nomination ...

(JD, 1986) File:Michelle Obama 2013 official portrait.jpg, Former First Lady of the United States

Michelle Obama Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama (born January 17, 1964) is an American attorney and author who served as first lady of the United States from 2009 to 2017. She was the first African-American woman to serve in this position. She is married t ...

(JD, 1988) File:Professor Jennifer Doudna ForMemRS.jpg, Biochemist and Nobel laureate in chemistry

Jennifer Doudna Jennifer Anne Doudna (; born February 19, 1964) is an American biochemist who has done pioneering work in CRISPR gene editing, and made other fundamental contributions in biochemistry and genetics. Doudna was one of the first women to share a ...

(PhD, 1989) File:Official portrait of Barack Obama.jpg, 44th President of the United States and Nobel Peace Prize laureate

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...

(JD, 1991) File:KBJackson.jpg, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Ketanji Brown Jackson Ketanji Onyika Brown Jackson ( ; born September 14, 1970) is an American jurist who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Jackson was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Joe Biden on February 25, 202 ...

(AB, 1992; JD, 1996) File:Mark Zuckerberg F8 2019 Keynote (32830578717) (cropped).jpg, Founder of Facebook

Mark Zuckerberg Mark Elliot Zuckerberg (; born ) is an American business magnate, internet entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He is known for co-founding the social media website Facebook and its parent company Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook, Inc.), of ...

(College, 2004; LLD hc, 2017)

Faculty

File:Louis Agassiz H6.jpg,

Louis Agassiz Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz ( ; ) FRS (For) FRSE (May 28, 1807 – December 14, 1873) was a Swiss-born American biologist and geologist who is recognized as a scholar of Earth's natural history. Spending his early life in Switzerland, he rec ...

File:Danielle Allen 2017.jpg,

Danielle Allen Danielle Susan Allen (born November 3, 1971) is the James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University. She is also the Director of the Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics. Prior to joining the faculty at Harvard in 2015, Allen ...

File:Alan dershowitz 2009 retouched cropped.jpg,

Alan Dershowitz Alan Morton Dershowitz ( ; born September 1, 1938) is an American lawyer and former law professor known for his work in U.S. constitutional law and American criminal law. From 1964 to 2013, he taught at Harvard Law School, where he was appoin ...

File:Paul_Farmer_2011.jpg,

Paul Farmer Paul Edward Farmer (October 26, 1959 – February 21, 2022) was an American medical anthropologist and physician. Farmer held an MD and PhD from Harvard University, where he was a University Professor and the chair of the Department of Glob ...

File:Jason Furman official portrait.jpg,

Jason Furman Jason Furman (born August 18, 1970) is an American economist and professor at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. On June 10, 2013, Furman was named ...

File:John Kenneth Galbraith 1982.jpg,

John Kenneth Galbraith John Kenneth Galbraith (October 15, 1908 – April 29, 2006), also known as Ken Galbraith, was a Canadian-American economist, diplomat, public official, and intellectual. His books on economic topics were bestsellers from the 1950s through t ...

File:Henry Louis Gates 2014 (cropped).jpg,

Henry Louis Gates Jr. Henry Louis "Skip" Gates Jr. (born September 16, 1950) is an American literary critic, professor, historian, and filmmaker, who serves as the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African Amer ...

File:Asa Gray 1870s.jpg,

Asa Gray Asa Gray (November 18, 1810 – January 30, 1888) is considered the most important American botanist of the 19th century. His ''Darwiniana'' was considered an important explanation of how religion and science were not necessarily mutually excl ...

File:Seamus Heaney Photograph Edit.jpg,

Seamus Heaney Seamus Justin Heaney (; 13 April 1939 – 30 August 2013) was an Irish poet, playwright and translator. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature.

File:Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr c1879.jpg, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. File:William James b1842c.jpg,

William James William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher, historian, and psychologist, and the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States. James is considered to be a leading thinker of the lat ...

File:Timothy-Leary-Los-Angeles-1989.jpg,

Timothy Leary Timothy Francis Leary (October 22, 1920 – May 31, 1996) was an American psychologist and author known for his strong advocacy of psychedelic drugs. Evaluations of Leary are polarized, ranging from bold oracle to publicity hound. He was "a her ...

File:Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, photographed by Julia Margaret Cameron in 1868.jpg,

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882) was an American poet and educator. His original works include "Paul Revere's Ride", ''The Song of Hiawatha'', and '' Evangeline''. He was the first American to completely trans ...

File:James Russell Lowell - 1855.jpg,

James Russell Lowell James Russell Lowell (; February 22, 1819 – August 12, 1891) was an American Romantic poet, critic, editor, and diplomat. He is associated with the fireside poets, a group of New England writers who were among the first American poets that r ...

File:GregoryMankiw.jpg,

Greg Mankiw Nicholas Gregory Mankiw (; born February 3, 1958) is an American macroeconomist who is currently the Robert M. Beren Professor of Economics at Harvard University. Mankiw is best known in academia for his work on New Keynesian economics. Mankiw ...

File:102111 Pinker 344.jpg,

Steven Pinker Steven Arthur Pinker (born September 18, 1954) is a Canadian-American cognitive psychologist, psycholinguist, popular science author, and public intellectual. He is an advocate of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind. ...

File:Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. 1961.jpg, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. File:Amartya Sen.jpg,

Amartya Sen Amartya Kumar Sen (; born 3 November 1933) is an Indian economist and philosopher, who since 1972 has taught and worked in the United Kingdom and the United States. Sen has made contributions to welfare economics, social choice theory, economi ...

File:B.F. Skinner at Harvard circa 1950 (cropped).jpg,

B. F. Skinner Burrhus Frederic Skinner (March 20, 1904 – August 18, 1990) was an American psychologist, behaviorist, author, inventor, and social philosopher. He was a professor of psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until his retirement in 1974. C ...

File:Lawrence Summers 2012.jpg,

Lawrence Summers Lawrence Henry Summers (born November 30, 1954) is an American economist who served as the 71st United States secretary of the treasury from 1999 to 2001 and as director of the National Economic Council from 2009 to 2010. He also served as pres ...

File:Cass Sunstein (2008).jpg,

Cass Sunstein Cass Robert Sunstein (born September 21, 1954) is an American legal scholar known for his studies of constitutional law, administrative law, environmental law, law and behavioral economics. He is also ''The New York Times'' best-selling author ...

File:Elizabeth Warren 2016.jpg,

Elizabeth Warren Elizabeth Ann Warren ( née Herring; born June 22, 1949) is an American politician and former law professor who is the senior United States senator from Massachusetts, serving since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party and regarded as ...

File:Cornel West by Gage Skidmore.jpg,

Cornel West Cornel Ronald West (born June 2, 1953) is an American philosopher, political activist, social critic, actor, and public intellectual. The grandson of a Baptist minister, West focuses on the role of race, gender, and class in American society an ...

File:Plos wilson.jpg, E. O. Wilson File:Shing-Tung Yau Screenshot (cropped).png,

Shing-Tung Yau Shing-Tung Yau (; ; born April 4, 1949) is a Chinese-American mathematician and the William Caspar Graustein Professor of Mathematics at Harvard University. In April 2022, Yau announced retirement from Harvard to become Chair Professor of mathem ...

File:Sec. Robert Reich.jpg,

Robert Reich Robert Bernard Reich (; born June 24, 1946) is an American professor, author, lawyer, and political commentator. He worked in the administrations of Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, and served as Secretary of Labor from 1993 to 1997 in ...

Literature and popular culture

Clock Tower University of Puerto Rico-San Marcos-Harvard

The perception of Harvard as a center of either 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 has said.

Literature

* ''

The Sound and the Fury ''The Sound and the Fury'' is a novel by the American author William Faulkner. It employs several narrative styles, including stream of consciousness. Published in 1929, ''The Sound and the Fury'' was Faulkner's fourth novel, and was not immedi ...

'' (1929) and ''

Absalom, Absalom! ''Absalom, Absalom!'' is a novel by the American author William Faulkner, first published in 1936. Taking place before, during, and after the American Civil War, it is a story about three families of the American South, with a focus on the life o ...

'' (1936) by

William Faulkner William Cuthbert Faulkner (; September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, based on Lafayette County, Mississippi, where Faulkner spent most of ...

both depict Harvard student life. * ''

Of Time and the River ''Of Time and the River'' (subtitled ''A Legend of Man's Hunger in his Youth'') is a 1935 novel by American author Thomas Wolfe. It is a fictionalized autobiography, using the name Eugene Gant for Wolfe's, detailing the protagonist's early and ...

'' (1935) by

Thomas Wolfe Thomas Clayton Wolfe (October 3, 1900 – September 15, 1938) was an American novelist of the early 20th century. Wolfe wrote four lengthy novels as well as many short stories, dramatic works, and novellas. He is known for mixing highly origin ...

is a fictionalized autobiography that includes his alter ego's time at Harvard. * ''

The Late George Apley ''The Late George Apley'' is a 1937 novel by John Phillips Marquand. It is a satire of Boston Brahmin, Boston's upper class in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The title character is a Harvard-educated White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, WASP ...

'' (1937) by

John P. Marquand John Phillips Marquand (November 10, 1893 – July 16, 1960) was an American writer. Originally best known for his Mr. Moto spy stories, he achieved popular success and critical respect for his satirical novels, winning a Pulitzer Prize for '' ...

parodies Harvard men at the opening of the 20th century; it won the

. * ''The Second Happiest Day'' (1953) by John P. Marquand Jr. portrays the Harvard of the World War II generation.

Film

Harvard permits filming on its property only rarely, so most scenes set at Harvard (especially indoor shots, but excepting aerial footage and shots of public areas such as Harvard Square) are in fact shot elsewhere. * '' Love Story'' (1970) concerns a romance between a wealthy Harvard hockey player (

Ryan O'Neal Ryan O'Neal (born April 20, 1941) is an American actor and former boxer. He trained as an amateur boxer before beginning his career in acting in 1960. In 1964, he landed the role of Rodney Harrington on the ABC nighttime soap opera '' Peyton Place ...

) and a brilliant Radcliffe student of modest means (

Ali MacGraw Elizabeth Alice MacGraw (born April 1, 1939) is an American actress and activist. She gained attention with her role in the film ''Goodbye, Columbus'' (1969), for which she won the Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer. She gained an ...

): it is screened annually for incoming freshmen. * '' The Paper Chase'' (1973) * '' A Small Circle of Friends'' (1980) * ''

Prozac Nation ''Prozac Nation'' is a memoir by Elizabeth Wurtzel published in 1994. The book describes the author's experiences with atypical depression, her own character failings and how she managed to live through particularly difficult periods while compl ...

'' (2001) is a

psychological drama Psychological drama or psychodrama is a sub-genre of drama that places emphasis on psychological elements. It often overlaps with other genres such as crime, fantasy, black comedy, and science fiction, and it is closely related with the psychologi ...

about a 19-year-old Harvard student with

atypical depression Atypical depression is defined in the ''DSM IV'' as depression that shares many of the typical symptoms of major depressive disorder or dysthymia but is characterized by improved mood in response to positive events. In contrast to those with at ...

Notes

References

Bibliography

* Abelmann, Walter H., ed. ''The Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology: The First 25 Years, 1970–1995'' (2004). 346 pp. * Beecher, Henry K. and Altschule, Mark D. ''Medicine at Harvard: The First 300 Years'' (1977). 569 pp. * Bentinck-Smith, William, ed. ''The Harvard Book: Selections from Three Centuries'' (2d ed.1982). 499 pp. * Bethell, John T.; Hunt, Richard M.; and Shenton, Robert. ''Harvard A to Z'' (2004). 396 pp
excerpt and text search
* Bethell, John T. ''Harvard Observed: An Illustrated History of the University in the Twentieth Century'', Harvard University Press, 1998, * Bunting, Bainbridge. ''Harvard: An Architectural History'' (1985). 350 pp. * Carpenter, Kenneth E. ''The First 350 Years of the Harvard University Library: Description of an Exhibition'' (1986). 216 pp. * Cuno, James et al. ''Harvard's Art Museums: 100 Years of Collecting'' (1996). 364 pp. * Elliott, Clark A. and Rossiter, Margaret W., eds. ''Science at Harvard University: Historical Perspectives'' (1992). 380 pp. * Hall, Max. ''Harvard University Press: A History'' (1986). 257 pp. * Hay, Ida. ''Science in the Pleasure Ground: A History of the Arnold Arboretum'' (1995). 349 pp. * Hoerr, John, ''We Can't Eat Prestige: The Women Who Organized Harvard;''

Temple University Press Temple University Press is a university press founded in 1969 that is part of Temple University (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania). It is one of thirteen publishers to participate in the Knowledge Unlatched pilot, a global library consortium approach t ...

, 1997, * 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 200
online edition
* Lewis, Harry R. ''Excellence Without a Soul: How a Great University Forgot Education'' (2006) * 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, * Ulrich, Laurel Thatcher, ed.,
Yards and Gates: Gender in Harvard and Radcliffe History
', New York:

Palgrave Macmillan Palgrave Macmillan is a British academic and trade publishing company headquartered in the London Borough of Camden. Its programme includes textbooks, journals, monographs, professional and reference works in print and online. It maintains off ...

, 2004. 337 pp. * Winsor, Mary P. ''Reading the Shape of Nature: Comparative Zoology at the Agassiz Museum'' (1991). 324 pp. * Wright, Conrad Edick. ''Revolutionary Generation: Harvard Men and the Consequences of Independence'' (2005). 298 pp.

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