Harvard University

"Harvard" redirects here. For other uses, see Harvard (disambiguation).

Harvard University
Coat of arms
Latin: Universitas Harvardiana[1][2]
Former names
Harvard College
MottoVeritas (Latin)[3]
Motto in English
"Truth"
TypePrivate research university
Established1636; 388 years ago (1636)[4]
FounderMassachusetts General Court
AccreditationNECHE
Academic affiliations
Endowment$50.7 billion (2023)[5][6]
PresidentAlan Garber
ProvostJohn F. Manning[7]
Academic staff
~2,400 faculty members (and >10,400 academic appointments in affiliated teaching hospitals)[8]
Students21,613 (fall 2022)[9]
Undergraduates7,240 (fall 2022)[9]
Postgraduates14,373 (fall 2022)[9]
Location
Cambridge
,
Massachusetts
,
United States

42°22′28″N 71°07′01″W / 42.37444°N 71.11694°W / 42.37444; -71.11694
CampusMidsize city[10], 209 acres (85 ha)
NewspaperThe Harvard Crimson
ColorsCrimson, white, and black[11]
     
NicknameCrimson
Sporting affiliations
MascotJohn Harvard
Websiteharvard.edu Edit this at Wikidata
Logotype of Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded October 28, 1636, and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John 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]

Harvard was founded and authorized by the Massachusetts General Court, the governing legislature of colonial-era Massachusetts Bay Colony.[13] While never formally affiliated with any denomination, Harvard trained Congregational clergy until its curriculum and student body were gradually secularized in the 18th century.

By the 19th century, Harvard emerged as the most prominent academic and cultural institution among the Boston elite.[14][15] Following the American Civil War, under Harvard president Charles William Eliot's long tenure from 1869 to 1909, Harvard developed multiple professional schools, which transformed it into a modern research university. In 1900, Harvard co-founded the Association of American Universities.[16] James B. Conant led the university through the Great Depression and World War II, and liberalized admissions after the war.

The university has ten academic faculties and a faculty attached to Harvard Radcliffe Institute. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences offers study in a wide range of undergraduate and graduate academic disciplines, and other faculties offer graduate degrees, including professional degrees. Harvard has three campuses:[17] the main campus, a 209-acre (85 ha) in Cambridge centered on Harvard Yard; an adjoining campus immediately across Charles River in the Allston neighborhood of Boston; and the medical campus in Boston's Longwood Medical Area.[18] Harvard's endowment, valued at $50.7 billion, makes it the wealthiest academic institution in the world.[5][6] Harvard Library, with more than 20 million volumes, is the world's largest academic library.

Harvard alumni, faculty, and researchers include 188 living billionaires, eight U.S. presidents, 24 heads of state and 31 heads of government, founders of notable companies, Nobel laureates, Fields Medalists, members of Congress, MacArthur Fellows, Rhodes Scholars, Marshall Scholars, Turing Award Recipients, Pulitzer Prize recipients, and Fulbright Scholars; by most metrics, Harvard University ranks among the top universities in the world in each of these categories.[Notes 1] Harvard students and alumni have also collectively won 10 Academy Awards and 110 Olympic medals, including 46 gold.

  1. ^ Records of The Tercentenary Festival of Dublin University. Dublin, Ireland: Hodges, Figgis & Co. 1894. ISBN 9781355361602.
  2. ^ Anderson, Peter John (1907). Record of the Celebration of the Quatercentenary of the University of Aberdeen: From 25th to 28th September, 1906. Aberdeen, United Kingdom: Aberdeen University Press (University of Aberdeen). ASIN B001PK7B5G. ISBN 9781363625079.
  3. ^ Samuel Eliot Morison (1968). The Founding of Harvard College. Harvard University Press. p. 329. ISBN 978-0-674-31450-4. Archived from the original on April 14, 2021. Retrieved October 17, 2020.
  4. ^ 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. ISBN 978-0-405-10016-1. Archived from the 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 from the original on December 5, 2012. Retrieved September 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 the Massachusetts Bay Colony." Bicentennial date: Marvin Hightower (September 2, 2003). "Harvard Gazette: This Month in Harvard History". Harvard University. Archived from the original on September 8, 2006. Retrieved September 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."
  5. ^ a b "Harvard posts investment gain in fiscal 2023, endowment stands at $50.7 billion". Reuters.com. October 20, 2023. Archived from the original on October 20, 2023. Retrieved October 20, 2023.
  6. ^ a b Financial Report Fiscal Year 2023 (PDF) (Report). Harvard University. October 19, 2023. p. 7. Archived (PDF) from the original on October 23, 2023. Retrieved October 23, 2023.
  7. ^ Haidar, Emma H.; Kettles, Cam E. (March 1, 2024). "Harvard Law School Dean John Manning '82 Named Interim Provost by Garber". The Harvard Crimson. Retrieved March 2, 2024.
  8. ^ "Harvard University Graphic Identity Standards Manual" (PDF). July 14, 2017. Archived (PDF) from the original on July 19, 2022. Retrieved June 25, 2022.
  9. ^ a b c "Common Data Set 2022–2023" (PDF). Office of Institutional Research. Harvard University. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 20, 2023. Retrieved September 7, 2023.
  10. ^ "IPEDS – Harvard University". Archived from the original on October 28, 2022. Retrieved October 28, 2022.
  11. ^ "Color Scheme" (PDF). Harvard Athletics Brand Identity Guide. July 27, 2021. Retrieved October 31, 2021.
  12. ^ Examples include:
    1. Keller, Morton; Keller, Phyllis (2001). Making Harvard Modern: The Rise of America's University. Oxford University Press. pp. 463–481. ISBN 0-19-514457-0. 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.
    2. Spaulding, Christina (1989). "Sexual Shakedown". In Trumpbour, John (ed.). How Harvard Rules: Reason in the Service of Empire. South End Press. pp. 326–336. ISBN 0-89608-284-9. ... [Harvard's] tremendous institutional power and prestige [...] Within the nation's (arguably) most prestigious institution of higher learning ...
    3. David Altaner (March 9, 2011). "Harvard, MIT Ranked Most Prestigious Universities, Study Reports". Bloomberg. Archived from the original on March 14, 2011. Retrieved March 1, 2012.
    4. 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.
    5. Newport, Frank (August 26, 2003). "Harvard Number One University in Eyes of Public Stanford and Yale in second place". Gallup. Archived from the original on September 25, 2013. Retrieved October 9, 2013.
    6. Leonhardt, David (September 17, 2006). "Ending Early Admissions: Guess Who Wins?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on March 27, 2020. Retrieved March 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.
    7. Hoerr, John (1997). We Can't Eat Prestige: The Women Who Organized Harvard. Temple University Press. p. 3. ISBN 978-1-56639-535-9.
    8. Wong, Alia (September 11, 2018). "At Private Colleges, Students Pay for Prestige". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on February 26, 2021. Retrieved May 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.
  13. ^ "Harvard Charter of 1650", Harvard Library
  14. ^ 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. ISSN 0022-4529. S2CID 147208647.
  15. ^ Farrell, Betty G. (1993). Elite Families: Class and Power in Nineteenth-Century Boston. State University of New York Press. ISBN 0-7914-1593-7.
  16. ^ "Member Institutions and years of Admission". aau.edu. Association of American Universities. Archived from the original on May 21, 2012. Retrieved August 28, 2010.
  17. ^ "Faculties and Allied Institutions" (PDF). harvard.edu. Office of the Provost, Harvard University. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 11, 2010. Retrieved August 27, 2010.
  18. ^ "Faculties and Allied Institutions" (PDF). Office of the Provost, Harvard University. 2012. Archived from the original (PDF) on May 23, 2013. Retrieved June 15, 2013.


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