institution of higher learning, the oldest in the U.S., in Cambridge, Mass.

History and Administration.

In 1636 a college was founded in Cambridge by the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. It was opened for instruction two years later and named in 1639 for the English clergyman John Harvard, its earliest benefactor. The college at first lacked any substantial endowment and depended upon individual gifts and grants from the General Court. Harvard gradually acquired considerable autonomy and private financial support. It became a chartered university in 1780 and fully autonomous in 1865. At the beginning of 2007 it had an endowment of almost $30 billion, the largest of any university in the world.

Harvard steadily developed under the leadership of a series of well-known presidents. During the presidency (1869–1909) of Charles William Eliot, Harvard established an elective system for undergraduates, allowing them to choose most of their courses. Under Abbott Lawrence Lowell, who was president from 1909 to 1933, the undergraduate house systems of residence and instruction were introduced. Academic growth and physical expansion continued under James Bryant Conant (1933-53), who enlarged the general education curriculum for undergraduates and, in 1943, oversaw the admission of women from Radcliffe College to Harvard classes. Under Nathan M. Pusey (serving 1953-71) and Derek Bok (1930–    ; serving 1971-91), Harvard raised record sums of money to enhance its offerings. Also under Bok, a new core curriculum was introduced, along with writing, mathematics, and foreign language competency requirements, and renewed emphasis was placed on the quality of teaching. Neil Rudenstein (1935–    ), who served from 1991 to 2001, set in motion a process of university-wide planning, expanded research, and promoted admission of qualified students across the economic spectrum. During his presidency, in 1999,RADCLIFFE COLLEGE, the affiliated undergraduate institution for women, became fully absorbed into Harvard.

Lawrence H. Summers (1954–    ), who served from 2001 to 2006, focused also on growth of faculties and internationalization of the Harvard experience, among other priorities. After his departure, amid controversy especially over opposition to remarks he made questioning women's abilities in science, Derek Bok returned briefly as interim president, and in 2007 Drew G. Faust (1947- ), a Civil war scholar and founding dean of Harvard's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, was named as the first-ever woman president of the university.

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, Sr., Robert Frost, T. S. Eliot, Norman Mailer, and John Updike. Distinguished alumni in other fields include musicians such as Leonard Bernstein, scientists such as James D. Watson, journalists such as Benjamin Bradlee (1921- ), activists such as W. E. B. du Bois, and politicians such as Al Gore and Barack Obama. Five U.S. presidents were Harvard undergraduates, John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy. A sixth president, 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. A seventh, George W. Bush, earned an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. Harvard's faculty members include more than 40 Nobel laureates.

Harvard University is governed by a self-perpetuating corporation (the oldest corporation, in fact, in the U.S.) known as the President and Fellows of Harvard College. The corporation consults with a 30-member Board of Overseers elected by the alumni.

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. receive Harvard University degrees also. With admission criteria ranking among the most selective in the U.S., Harvard accepts only about one in ten applicants each year.

During their freshman year, students live in halls within Harvard Yard, a walled enclosure containing several structures from the early 18th century now used, along with other buildings, 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; social and intellectual exchange between students and teachers is thus fostered. In addition to offering living and dining arrangements, each house has a library and sponsors cultural activities and intramural athletics. Undergraduate life has the additional attraction of proximity to the cosmopolitan city of Boston.

Graduate and Professional Facilities.

Harvard's graduate and professional facilities, founded over the last 200 years, include schools of arts and sciences, medicine, public health, dental medicine, divinity, law, business, public administration (now the John Fitzgerald Kennedy School of Government), design, and education. Also included is the interdisciplinary Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, a school focusing on women's and gender studies, created upon the absorption of Radcliffe College into Harvard in 2000.

Special studies programs are also provided at the Harvard-Yenching Institute; the John K. Fairbank Center for East Asian Research; the Russian Research Center; the centers for Middle Eastern Studies, International Affairs, International Legal Studies, Energy and Environmental Policy, and Health Policy and Management, among others. Harvard also maintains close ties with nearby schools such as the Boston University School of Theology, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Special Facilities.

In addition to the facilities in Harvard Yard and the residential houses, the Harvard campus is the site of several renowned museums and collections, among them the Fogg Museum, distinguished for its European and American paintings, sculpture, and prints; the Sackler Museum, known for ancient Asian, Islamic, and Indian arts; the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology; and the Museum of Natural History.

The Harvard library is the oldest in the U.S. 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 and Hilles libraries, and other libraries and collections connected to various schools and departments, the complex forms the world's largest university library system; it contains more than 15 million books, along with periodicals, manuscripts, microfilms, photographs. and other materials.

Off campus, Harvard University maintains the Arnold Arboretum, in Boston; the Harvard College Observatory; 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 the 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.

Publications.

Undergraduate publications include the Harvard Crimson, founded in 1873, a daily newspaper; the Harvard Advocate, a literary review; and a well-known humor magazine, the Harvard Lampoon. Among prestigious 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.

For further information on this topic, see the Bibliography, section 322. Higher education.