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Harvard College |
Harvard College is the undergraduate section and oldest school of Harvard University, a private university in the United States founded in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. The College is instructed by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, which also instructs the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. In 2006 The New York Times wrote that "the most prestigious college in the world, of course, is Harvard, and the gap between it and every other university is often underestimated. ... colleges that emphasize teaching may well offer a better education than Harvard. But it still exerts a pull on teenagers that is unmatched."1
The name Harvard College dates to 1636. In that year the New College, voted into theoretical existence two years earlier by the General Court of the colony, but still without a single building, teacher, or student, was named in honor of the deceased John Harvard, a minister from nearby Charlestown, who in his will had bequeathed to it his library and a sum of money. In the understanding of its members at the time, the name "Harvard College" probably referred to the first (as they foresaw it) of a number of colleges which would someday make up a university along the lines of Oxford or Cambridge. The American usage of the word college had not yet developed: to the founders of Harvard, a college was an association of teachers and scholars for education, room, and board. Only a university could examine for and grant degrees; nonetheless, unhampered by this technicality, Harvard graduated its first students in 1642. Twenty-three years later, in 1665, Caleb Cheeshahteaumauk, "from the Wampanoag...did graduate from Harvard, the first Indian to do so in the colonial period" (Monaghan, E. J., 2005, p.55, 59).
But no further colleges were founded beside it; and as Harvard began to grant higher degrees in the late eighteenth century, people started to call it "Harvard University." "Harvard College" survived, nonetheless; in accordance with the newly-emerging American usage of the words, it was the undergraduate division of the university—which was not a collection of similar colleges, but a collection of unique schools, each teaching a different subject.
Harvard's principal governing board, the oldest continuous corporation in The Americas, still goes by its original name of "The President and Fellows of Harvard College" even though it has charge of the entire university and the "fellows" today are simply external trustees such as those who govern most American educational bodies—not residential educators like the fellows of an Oxbridge college. In current Harvard parlance, this governing board is frequently referred to simply as The Harvard Corporation.
Harvard College is considered to be one of the top undergraduate colleges in the United States, and admission to it is highly desired. For the class of 2010, the College admitted 2,109 students out of 22,753 applicants for an overall admittance rate of 9.3%. The 2012 admissions pool was a record-setting 27,278 vying for admission into the pool of roughly 2,100 students, from which 1,948, or 7.1%, ultimately were accepted.2
Many traditions around the College exist, including the superstitious belief that a person who touches the foot of the John Harvard statue during his campus visit is likely to be granted admission. Tour guides estimate that more than a thousand high school students touch the statue each year, the most popular location being the left foot. A few enterprising students kiss the statue, but this is generally not recommended since a popular undergraduate game is to urinate on that foot while drunk.3
In March 2008, Harvard announced that no transfer applicants would be admitted for the next two academic years, in an effort to reduce overcrowding in the undergraduate residential House system. This controversial decision was announced after the academic year 2008-2009 transfer applications had already been submitted. Winthrop House Co-Master Mandana Sassanfar said that the House Masters had been discussing the issue of overcrowding since late 2007 and "decided it was more important to have enough housing for our own students first." This decision has been called by "rash," “outrageous,” and “heartbreaking” by transfer applicants and others at Harvard.4567
Nearly all students at Harvard College live on campus. First-year students live in dormitories in or near Harvard Yard (see List of Harvard dormitories). Upperclass students live mainly in a system of twelve residential "Houses," which serve as administrative units of the College as well as dormitories. Each house is presided over by a "Master"—a senior faculty member who is responsible for guiding the social life and community of the House—and a "Resident Dean," who acts as dean of the students in the House in its administrative role.
The House system was instituted by Harvard president Abbott Lawrence Lowell in the 1930s, although the number of Houses, their demographics, and the methods by which students are assigned to particular Houses have all changed drastically since the founding of the system. Funds for the Houses were donated, after much debate and controversy over the reforms, by Edward Harkness, a Yale graduate, who thus became the greatest benefactor to the university in Harvard history. At the same time, Harkness funded the development of Yale's very similar residential college system. (Harkness also donated funds to Phillips Exeter Academy, creating the Harkness plan of teaching around oval wooden tables.) Lowell modeled it on the system of constituent colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, and the Houses borrow terminology from Oxford and Cambridge such as Junior Common Room (the set of undergraduates affiliated with a House) and Senior Common Room (the Master, Resident Dean, and other faculty members, advisors, and graduate students associated with the House). Non-faculty members of the Senior Common Room of a House are given the title "Tutor" and aid the students with day-to-day questions and concerns.8
Nine of the Houses are situated south of Harvard Yard, near the busy commercial district of Harvard Square, along or close to the northern banks of the Charles River, and so are known colloquially as the River Houses. These are:
The remainder of the residential Houses are located around Harvard's Quadrangle (or "the Quad," formerly the "Radcliffe Quadrangle"), in a more suburban residential neighborhood half a mile (800 m) northwest of Harvard Yard. These housed Radcliffe College students until Radcliffe merged its residential system with Harvard. They are:
There is a thirteenth House, Dudley House [1], which is nonresidential but fulfills, for some graduate students and off-campus undergraduates (including members of the Dudley Co-op) the same administrative and social functions as the residential Houses do for undergraduates who live on campus. It is named after Thomas Dudley, who signed the charter of Harvard College when he was Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Tentative plans have been proposed for expanding the House system using land owned by Harvard in Allston, Massachusetts, across the Charles River from the River Houses.9 Suggestions include moving the Quadrangle Houses to Allston and building up to eight new Houses there. It has not yet been decided whether any of these proposals will be adopted.
Harvard's residential houses are paired with Yale's residential colleges in sister relationships.
Harvard requires all undergraduates to fulfill "the core," which requires students to take courses in 7 of 11 academic areas (such as Moral Reasoning and Social Analysis); each concentration exempts students from four. In 2006, Harvard announced it would change this policy, making the academic areas broader, although it is unclear how and when the system will change.citation needed
Majors at Harvard College are known as concentrations. As of 2008, Harvard College offered 46 different concentrations. Joint concentrations with a primary and secondary departmental focus are allowed by many departments provided the student can demonstrate how he/she intends to combine the subjects meaningfully. In April 2006, as part of a curricular review plan for College students, a Harvard faculty meeting approved for the first time the institution of secondary fields, known as minors at most other schools.
Other special concentrations include the Mind/Brain/Behavior Interfaculty Initiative, a certification program in Neurosciences run jointly by the departments of Anthropology, Biochemical Sciences, Biology, Computer Science, History of Science, Linguistics, Philosophy, and Psychology. In 2005, Harvard College and the New England Conservatory began offering a joint 5-year program for a combined Harvard Undergraduate degree and NEC Master of Arts.
The College confers two undergraduate degrees, both Latin-named. The one is the Artium Baccalaureus, abbreviated A.B.; the other, the Scientium Baccalaureus, abbreviated S.B. Until the merger, these were also the degrees conferred by Radcliffe College. With the creation of the new engineering undergraduate school, a third undergraduate degree designation will be established.
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Harvard has hundreds of student organizations.citation needed Every spring there is an "Arts First week," founded by John Lithgow during which arts and culture organizations show off performances, cook meals, or present other work; in 2005 over 40% of students participated in at least one Arts First event. Notable organizations include the student-run business organization Harvard Student Agencies, the daily newspaper The Harvard Crimson, the humor magazine the Harvard Lampoon, the a cappella groups the Din & Tonics and the Krokodiloes, and the public service umbrella organization the Phillips Brooks House Association (PBHA).
According to the university, Harvard is home to the largest Division I intercollegiate athletics program in the U.S., with 41 varsity teams and over 1,500 student-athletes.[2] Harvard is one of eight members of the Ivy League, along with Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Princeton University, The University of Pennsylvania, and Yale University.[3]
Harvard and Yale enjoy the oldest intercollegiate athletic rivalry in the United States, the Harvard-Yale Regatta, dating back to 1852, when rowing crews from each institution first met on Lake Winnipesaukee, New Hampshire. Harvard won that contest by two boat lengths. Since 1859, the crews have met nearly every year (except during major wars). The race is typically held in early June in New London, Connecticut.
Better known is the annual Harvard-Yale football game, known to insiders of both institutions as simply, "The Game." It was first played in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1875. Harvard won the initial contest 4-0. In recent years, The Game is always played on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, making it one of many significant games played on "Rivalry Day."
Harvard College has been subject to a great deal of controversy largely surrounding its student identification cards. In 2008, the administration responded with new technology to an incident described in The Harvard Crimson as a "security breach" caused by a Harvard College student caught making fake identification cards.10 The student was found making the fake identification cards, some of which gained unlawful access to individuals' Crimson Cash accounts, in addition to state driving licenses.11 The new cards reportedly hold "multiple credentials," and boast encryption technology, making it much more difficult to fake.12 Additionally, there have been previous incidents in which the secure entryways of Harvard College dorms have been circumvented. In one case, a woman pretending to be a Harvard College student was able to sit in on classes and convince other Harvard College students to swipe their card so that she might have access to dorms and other buildings.13 The new "smart" cards aim to end this controversial problem.
Architecture
Art
Baseball
Business
Journalism
Literature
Performance arts - music, theater and film
Philosophy
Politics
Religion
Spies
Terrorists
For more information, see List of Harvard University people.
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