Harvard University, private, coeducational institution of higher education, the oldest in the United
States,
in
Cambridge,
Massachusetts.
II
HISTORY
AND
ADMINISTRATION
In 1636 a college was founded in Cambridge by the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts
Bay Colony. It was opened for instruction two years later and named in 1639 for English
clergyman John Harvard, its first benefactor. The college at first lacked substantial endowments
and existed on gifts from individuals and the General Court. Harvard gradually acquired
considerable autonomy and private financial support, becoming a chartered university in 1780.
Today it has the largest private endowment of any university in the world.
Harvard has steadily developed under the great American educators who have successively served
as its presidents. During the presidency of Charles W. Eliot (1869-1909), Harvard established an
elective system for undergraduates, by which they could choose most of their courses themselves.
Under Abbott L. Lowell, who was president from 1909 to 1933, the undergraduate house systems
of residence and instruction were introduced. Academic growth and physical expansion continued
during the tenures of James B. Conant (1933-1953), Nathan M. Pusey (1953-1971), and Derek C.
Bok (1971-1991). Neil L. Rudenstine was appointed president in 1991.
Sponsored by Henry Rosovsky, former dean of the faculty of arts and sciences (1973-1984), the
undergraduate elective system, or General Education Program, was replaced in 1979 by a Core
Curriculum intended to prepare well-educated men and women for the challenges of modern life.
Students are now required to take courses for the equivalent of an academic year in each of five
areas: literature and arts, history, social analysis and moral reasoning, science, and foreign
cultures. In addition to the new curriculum, students must spend roughly the equivalent of two
years on courses in a field of concentration and one year on elective courses. Students must also
demonstrate competence in writing, mathematics, and a foreign language.
From its earliest days Harvard established and maintained a tradition of academic excellence and
the training of citizens for national public service. Among many notable alumni are the religious
leaders Increase Mather and Cotton Mather; the philosopher and psychologist William James; and
men of letters such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, James Russell Lowell, Oliver
Wendell Holmes, Robert Frost, and T. S. Eliot. More U.S. presidents have attended Harvard than
any other college: John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt,
and John F. Kennedy. A sixth, Rutherford B. Hayes, was a graduate of Harvard Law School, which
also counts the jurists Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., and Felix Frankfurter among its alumni.
Harvard University is governed by a corporation (the oldest corporation in the United States)
known as the President and Fellows of Harvard College. The corporation consults with a 30member
Board
of
Overseers
elected
by
the
alumni.
III
UNDERGRADUATE
ACTIVITIES
Harvard College, the university’s oldest division, offers undergraduate courses for men and
women, leading to a bachelor of arts degree granted by the university. Beginning in 1963,
graduates of Radcliffe College, the affiliated undergraduate institution for women, received
Harvard degrees with the Radcliffe seal and countersigned by the president of Radcliffe. In the
1970s, Harvard abolished the quota limiting the number of women students, and a joint Harvard
and Radcliffe Admissions Office began selecting students on an equal basis. In 1999 Harvard fully
absorbed Radcliffe and created the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, which focuses on the
study of women and gender. With admission criteria ranking among the most selective in the
United States, Harvard accepts less than 20 percent of all applicants; three-fourths of those
accepted
actually
enroll.
During their freshman year, students live in halls within Harvard Yard, a walled enclosure
containing several structures from the early 18th century now used as dormitories, dining
facilities, libraries, and classrooms. Sophomores, juniors, and seniors live in the 12 residences
known as houses. Named in honor of a distinguished alumnus or administrator, each house
accommodates approximately 350 students and a group of faculty members who provide
individual instruction as tutors, fostering social and intellectual exchange between students and
teachers. Each house also has a library and sponsors cultural activities and intramural athletics.
Undergraduate life has the additional attraction of proximity to Boston.
IV
GRADUATE
AND
PROFESSIONAL
FACILITIES
Harvard’s graduate and professional facilities, founded over the last 200 years, include schools of
arts and sciences, business administration, dental medicine, design, divinity, education, law,
medicine, public administration (now the John Fitzgerald Kennedy School of Government), and
public health. Special studies programs are also provided at the Harvard-Yenching Institute; the
John K. Fairbank Center for East Asian Research; the Kathryn W. and Shelby Cullom Davis
Center for Russian Studies; and at the centers for Middle Eastern Studies, International Affairs,
International Legal Studies, Energy and International Policy, and Health Policy Management.
V
SPECIAL
FACILITIES
The Harvard campus is also the site of several renowned museums and collections, among them
the Fogg Museum, distinguished for its European and American paintings, sculptures, and prints;
the Botanical Museum; and the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.
Harvard’s library system is the oldest in the United States. The central library collection, used for
advanced scholarly research, is housed in the Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library. Augmented
by the Houghton Library of rare books and manuscripts, the undergraduate Lamont, Cabot, and
Hilles libraries, and the separate house and departmental libraries, as well as by the graduate
schools’ collections, the Harvard library complex forms the world’s largest university library
system. It currently contains more than 13 million volumes, manuscripts, and microfilms.
Harvard University also maintains the Arnold Arboretum, in Boston; the Harvard College
Observatory, based in Cambridge; the research center for Byzantine and Early Christian studies at
Dumbarton Oaks, in Washington, D.C.; and Villa I Tatti in Settignano, Italy, formerly the home
and library of art critic Bernard Berenson and now a center for art history research.
Home games of the Harvard Crimson football team and other athletic events take place at Harvard
Stadium, which has a seating capacity of more than 38,000. Yale University is Harvard’s
traditional
rival
in
sports.
VI
PUBLICATIONS
Undergraduate publications include the Harvard Crimson, a daily newspaper founded in 1873; the
Harvard Advocate, a literary review; and a nationally known humor magazine, the Harvard
Lampoon. Among journals issued by Harvard’s graduate schools and affiliated groups are the
Harvard Business Review,Harvard Educational Review, and Harvard Law Review. Harvard
University Press, founded in 1913, publishes books of scholarly as well as general interest and
medical and scientific works.
官方历史陈述
The Early History of Harvard University
Harvard University, which celebrated its 350th anniversary in 1986,
is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States.
Founded 16 years after the arrival of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, the
University has grown from nine students with a single master to an
enrollment of more than 18,000 degree candidates, including
undergraduates and students in 10 principal academic units. An
additional 13,000 students are enrolled in one or more courses in the
Harvard Extension School. Over 14,000 people work at Harvard,
including more than 2,000 faculty. There are also 7,000 faculty
appointments in affiliated teaching hospitals.
Seven presidents of the United States – John Adams, John Quincy
Adams, Theodore and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Rutherford B. Hayes,
John Fitzgerald Kennedy and George W. Bush – were graduates of
Harvard. Its faculty have produced more than 40 Nobel laureates.
Harvard College was established in 1636 by
vote of the Great and General Court of the
Massachusetts Bay Colony and was named for
its first benefactor, John Harvard of
Charlestown, a young minister who, upon his
death in 1638, left his library and half
On June 9, 1650, the Great
his estate to the new institution.
and General Court of
Harvard's first scholarship fund was
Massachusetts approved
Harvard President Henry
created in 1643 with a gift from Ann
Dunster's charter of
Radcliffe, Lady Mowlson.
incorporation. The Charter of
1650 established the
President and Fellows of
Harvard College (a.k.a the
Harvard Corporation), a
seven-member board that is
the oldest corporation in the
Western Hemisphere.
During its early years, the College offered
a classic academic course based on the
English university model but consistent
with the prevailing Puritan philosophy of
the first colonists. Although many of its
early graduates became ministers in Puritan
congregations throughout New England, the College was never formally
affiliated with a specific religious
denomination. An early brochure, published
in 1643, justified the College's existence:
"To advance Learning and perpetuate it to
Posterity; dreading to leave an illiterate
Ministry to the Churches."
On Sept. 8, 1836, at
Harvard's Bicentennial
celebration, it was
announced that President
Josiah Quincy had found the
first rough sketch of the
College arms - a shield with
the Latin motto "VERITAS"
("Verity" or "Truth") on three
books - while researching his
History of Harvard University
in the College Archives.
During the Bicentennial, a
white banner atop a large
tent in the Yard publicly
displayed this design for the
first time. Until Quincy's
discovery, the hand-drawn
sketch (from records of an
Overseers meeting on Jan. 6,
1644) had been filed away
and forgotten. It became the
basis of the seal officially
adopted by the Corporation
in 1843 and still informs the
version used today.
New Schools and New Houses
The 1708 election of John Leverett, the
first president who was not also a
clergyman, marked a turning of the College
toward intellectual independence from
Puritanism. As the College grew in the 18th
and 19th centuries, the curriculum was
broadened, particularly in the sciences,
and the College produced or attracted a
long list of famous scholars, including
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell
Lowell, William James, the elder Oliver
Wendell Holmes, Louis Agassiz, and Gertrude
Stein.
Charles W. Eliot, who served as president from 1869 to 1909,
transformed the relatively small provincial institution into a modern
university.
During his tenure, the Law and Medical schools were revitalized, and
the graduate schools of Business, Dental Medicine, and Arts and
Sciences were established. Enrollment rose from 1,000 to 3,000
students, the faculty grew from 49 to 278, and the endowment
increased from $2.3 million to $22.5 million. It was under Eliot's
watch that Radcliffe College was established. In the 1870s a group of
women closely linked to Harvard faculty were exploring ways to make
higher education more accessible to women.
One of this group, Stella S. Gilman, was married to historian and
educator Arthur Gilman. In 1878, at the urging of his wife, Gilman
proposed the foundation of a college for women to President Eliot.
Eliot approved, and seven women were chosen to design the new
institution. Among them were Stella Gilman, Alice Mary "Grave Alice"
Longfellow, a daughter of the famous poet, and Elizabeth Cary
Agassiz, the widow of renowned naturalist Louis Agassiz. In 1879, the
"Harvard Annex" for women's instruction by Harvard faculty began
operations. And in 1894 the Annex was chartered by the Commonwealth
of Massachusetts as Radcliffe College, with Elizabeth Cary Agassiz as
its first president.
Under Harvard President A. Lawrence Lowell (1909-33), the
undergraduate course of study was redesigned to ensure students a
liberal education through concentration in a single field with
distribution of course requirements among other disciplines. Today,
51 fields of concentration are offered to Harvard College students.
The tutorial system, also introduced by Lowell and still a
distinctive feature of a Harvard education, offers undergraduates
informal specialized instruction in their fields.
One of Lowell's most significant accomplishments was the House Plan,
which provides undergraduates with a small-college atmosphere within
the larger university. After being housed in or near Harvard Yard
during freshman year, students go to one of 12 Houses in which to
live for the remainder of their undergraduate careers. (A 13th House
is designed for nonresident students.) Each House has a resident
master and a staff of tutors, as well as a dining hall and library,
and maintains an active schedule of athletic, social, and cultural
events.
Recent History
Recent presidents James Bryant Conant, Nathan M. Pusey, Derek Bok,
Neil L. Rudenstine and Lawrence H. Summers each made significant
contributions toward strengthening the quality of undergraduate and
graduate education at Harvard while, at the same time, maintaining
the University's role as a preeminent research institution.
Conant (1933-53) introduced a system of ad hoc committees from
outside the University to evaluate tenure candidates being considered
for faculty positions. Conant also initiated the General Education
Program to give undergraduates breadth in fields outside their major
study. And it was under Conant, in 1943, that Harvard and Radcliffe
signed an agreement allowing women students into Harvard classrooms
for the first time.
Under Pusey (1953-71), Harvard undertook what was then the largest
fundraising campaign in the history of American higher education, the
$82.5 million Program for Harvard College.
The Program strengthened faculty salaries, broadened student aid,
created new professorships, and expanded Harvard's physical
facilities. A similar but greatly expanded fundraising effort, the
Harvard Campaign (1979-84), was conducted under the leadership of
Derek Bok (1971-91) and raised $356 million by the end of 1984. Some
of the important educational initiatives Bok undertook include:
reform of the undergraduate course of study through the innovative
Core Curriculum, the introduction of graduate programs crossing
traditional borders of professional disciplines, new approaches to
the training of lawyers and doctors, and a renewed emphasis on the
quality of teaching and learning at all levels. A 1977 agreement
delegated responsibility for the education of undergraduate women to
the College.
Rudenstine, Harvard's 26th president, served from 1991-2001. As part
of an overall effort to achieve greater coordination among the
University's schools and faculties, Rudenstine set in motion an
intensive process of University-wide academic planning, intended to
identify some of Harvard's main intellectual and programmatic
priorities.
In 1999, he announced the launch of a major new venture in
interdisciplinary learning, the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced
Study, created through the merger of Radcliffe College with Harvard.
During his tenure Rudenstine worked to sustain and build federal
support for university-based research. Under his leadership,
Harvard's federally sponsored research grew to a projected $320
million in 2000, up from $200 million in 1991. Rudenstine also
stressed the University's commitment to excellence in undergraduate
education, the importance of keeping Harvard's doors open to students
from across the economic spectrum, the task of adapting the research
university to an era of rapid information growth, and the challenge
of living together in a diverse community committed to freedom of
expression. Summers served as Harvard's 27th president from 20012006. He is now the Charles W. Eliot University Professor. An eminent
scholar and admired public servant, Summers served in a series of
senior public policy positions, most notably as secretary of the
treasury of the United States.
During his presidency, Summers focused on
laying the foundations for renewal that will be
necessary to sustain Harvard's excellence into
the 21st century and beyond. Under his
leadership, the University made numerous
changes directed at providing the best
educational experience for students across the
University. His ambitious plans also
encompassed significant growth in the
Interim President
faculties, the further internationalization of
Derek Bok
the Harvard experience, expanded efforts in and
enhanced commitment to the sciences, and support for the humanities
and the arts. Summers also spearheaded the effort to ensure that
Harvard attract the strongest students regardless of financial
circumstances.
Derek Bok returned to the president's office as interim president in
July 2006. To learn more about Bok, visit the webpage at
http://www.president.harvard.edu/