Facts about Harvard

The first Bible to be printed in the entire North American continent was printed at Harvard in an Indian language, Massachusett.

The institution was named Harvard College on March 13, 1639, after its first principal donor, a young clergyman named John Harvard.

By 1870, the "magistrates and ministers" on the Board of Overseers had been completely "replaced by Harvard alumni drawn primarily from the ranks of Boston's upper-class business and professional community" and funded by private endowment.

Following student demands for greater autonomy in the 1960s, Harvard, like most institutions of higher learning, largely abandoning any oversight of the private lives of its young undergraduates.

Harvard's Charter of 1650 calls for "the education of the English and Indian youth of this Country in knowledge and godliness.

The Harvard Business School and many of the university's athletics facilities, including Harvard Stadium, are located in Allston, on the other side of the Charles River from Harvard Square.

Harvard was established under church sponsorship, with the intention of training clergy so that the Puritan colony would not have to rely on immigrant pastors, but it was not formally affiliated with any denomination.

A member of the Ivy League, Harvard maintains an outstanding reputation for academic excellence, with numerous notable graduates and faculty.

By 1908, Catholics made up nine percent of the freshman class, and between 1906 and 1922, Jewish enrollment at Harvard increased from six to twenty percent.

Derek Bok, who had served as President of Harvard from 1971–1991, returned to serve as an interim president until a permanent replacement could be found.

Harvard University (incorporated as The President and Fellows of Harvard College) is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The earliest known official reference to Harvard as a "university" rather than a "college" occurred in the new Massachusetts Constitution of 1780.

In 1870, one year into Eliot's term, Richard Theodore Greener became the first African-American to graduate from Harvard College.

Harvard is often held as the standard against which many other American universities are measured.

Termed the Eliot Bible since it was translated by John Eliot, this book was used to facilitate conversion of Indians, ideally by Harvard-educated Indians themselves.

The Harvard model influenced American education nationally, at both college and secondary levels.

In 1999, Radcliffe College merged formally with Harvard University, becoming the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

The largest collection of East-Asian language material outside of East Asia is held in the Harvard-Yenching Library.

Older than The Game by 23 years, the Harvard-Yale Regatta was the original source of the athletic rivalry between the two schools.

Sophomore, junior, and senior undergraduates live in twelve residential Houses, nine of which are south of Harvard Yard along or near the Charles River.

The men's crew also uses the Red Top complex in Ledyard CT, as their training camp for the annual Harvard-Yale Regatta.

Time also published an article about the perceived diminishing importance of Harvard in American education due to the emergence of quality alternative institutions.

Radcliffe Yard, formerly the center of the campus of Radcliffe College (and now home of the Radcliffe Institute), is halfway between Harvard Yard and the Quadrangle, adjacent to the Graduate School of Education.

On June 30, 2006, then-President of Harvard Lawrence H. Summers resigned after a whirlwind of controversies (stemming partially from comments he made on a possible correlation between gender and success in certain academic fields).

The University has an enrollment of more than 18,000 degree candidates, with an additional 13,000 students enrolled in one or more courses in the Harvard Extension School.

Nevertheless, Harvard became the bastion of a distinctly Protestant elite—the so-called Boston Brahmin class—and continued to be so well into the twentieth century.

Harvard has several athletic facilities, such as the Lavietes Pavilion, a multi-purpose arena and home to the Harvard basketball teams.

The school also has a number of a cappella singing groups, the oldest of which is the Harvard Krokodiloes.

Not without criticism, Harvard has weathered the storms of social change, opening its doors to minorities and women.

The other three are located in a residential neighborhood half a mile northwest of the Yard at the Quadrangle, which formerly housed Radcliffe College students until Radcliffe merged its residential system with Harvard.

Between 1800 and 1870, a transformation of Harvard occurred, which E. Digby Baltzell called "privatization.

Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health are located in the Longwood Medical and Academic Area in Boston.

Harvard was also founded as a school to educate American Indians in order to train them as ministers among their tribes.

Harvard's first American Indian graduate, Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck from the Wampanoag tribe, was a member of the class of 1665.

The Harvard Law School, Harvard Business School, and Kennedy School of Government are considered at the top of their respective fields.

The Harvard University Library System, centered on Widener Library in Harvard Yard and comprising over 90 individual libraries and over 15.3 million volumes, is one of the largest library collections in the world.

The main campus is centered around Harvard Yard in central Cambridge, and extends into the surrounding Harvard Square neighborhood.

Harvard is governed by two boards, the President and Fellows of Harvard College, also known as the Harvard Corporation and founded in 1650, and the Harvard Board of Overseers.

Eight presidents of the United States—John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Rutherford B. Hayes, John F. Kennedy, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama—graduated from Harvard.

Harvard continues its rivalry with Yale and a cooperative, complementary relationship with the neighboring Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The Harvard Crew is considered to be one of the top teams in the country in rowing.

Harvard's founding, in 1636, came in the form of an act of the Massachusetts Bay colony's Great and General Court.

Harvard was also an early leader in admitting ethnic and religious minorities.

Harvard Yard itself contains the central administrative offices and main libraries of the university, several academic buildings, Memorial Church, and the majority of the freshman dormitories.

Today, a plaque on the SE side of Matthews Hall in Harvard Yard, the approximate site of the Indian College, commemorates the first American Indian students who lived and studied at Harvard University.

Over its history, Harvard has graduated many famous alumni, along with a few infamous ones.

Founded in 1636, Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning still operating in the United States.

The MAC is also home to Harvard volleyball, fencing, and wrestling.

Houghton Library is the primary repository for Harvard's rare books and manuscripts.

During this period, Harvard experienced unparalleled growth that put it into a different category from other colleges.

Seven years later, Louis Brandeis, the first Jewish justice on the Supreme Court, graduated from Harvard Law School.

Harvard's graduate schools, which had accepted females and other groups in greater numbers even before the college, also became more diverse in the post-war period.

In 1903, Harvard Stadium introduced a new era into football with the first-ever permanent reinforced concrete stadium of its kind in the country.

The Harvard Glee Club is the oldest college chorus in America, and the University Choir, the choir of Harvard's Memorial Church, is the oldest choir in America affiliated with a university.

On February 8, 2007, The Harvard Crimson announced that Drew Gilpin Faust had been selected as the next president, the first woman to serve in the position.

Harvard was also an early leader in admitting ethnic and religious minorities.

During the twentieth century, Harvard's international reputation grew as a burgeoning endowment and prominent professors expanded the university's scope.

Over 14,000 people work at Harvard, including more than 2,000 faculty.

Founded in 1636, Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning still operating in the United States.