Harvard History and Campus

History  

 

Harvard's foundation in 1636 came in the form of an act of the colony's Great and General Court. By all accounts the chief impetus was to allow the training of home-grown clergy so the Puritan colony would not need to rely on immigrating graduates of England's Oxford and Cambridge Universities for well-educated pastors, "dreading," as a 1643 brochure put it, "to leave an illiterate Ministry to the Churches." In its first year, seven of the original nine students left to fight in the English Civil War.

The connection to the Puritans can be seen in the fact that, for its first few centuries of existence, the Harvard Board of Overseers included, along with certain commonwealth officials, the ministers of six local congregations (Boston, Cambridge, Charlestown, Dorchester, Roxbury and Watertown), who today, although no longer so empowered, are still by custom allowed seats on the dais at commencement exercises.

However, despite the Puritan atmosphere, from the beginning the intent was to provide a full liberal education such as that studied at European universities, including the rudiments of mathematics and science ('natural philosophy') as well as classical literature and philosophy.

Campus  

 

The main campus is located next to Harvard Square in central Cambridge, approximately two miles (3.2 km) from the MIT campus. Virtually all undergraduates live on campus. First-year students live in dormitories in or near Harvard Yard. Upperclass students live in twelve residential Houses, which serve as administrative units of the College as well as dormitories.

Nine of the Houses are situated along or close to the northern banks of the Charles River and so are known colloquially as the River Houses. These are:

Adams House  , named for several alumni of that name, including U. S. President John Adams;

Dunster House, named for Harvard's first President, Henry Dunster;

Eliot House  , named for Harvard President Charles William Eliot;

Kirkland House, named for Harvard President John Thornton Kirkland;

Leverett House  , named for Harvard President John Leverett;

Lowell House  , said to be named for the Harvard-affiliated Lowell family in general (but the most obvious reference is to Abbott Lawrence Lowell, Harvard's President at the time of its construction);

Mather House  , named for Harvard President Increase Mather;

Quincy House  , named for Harvard President (and sometime mayor of Boston) Josiah Quincy III;

Winthrop House  , more officially called John Winthrop House, named for two famous men of that name: Massachusetts Bay Colony founder John Winthrop and his great-great-great-grandson John Winthrop, 2nd Hollis Professor of Mathematicks (sic ) and Natural Philosophy

The remainder of the residential Houses are located around Radcliffe Quadrangle (or "the Quad"), half a mile (800 m) northwest of Harvard Yard. These housed Radcliffe College students until Radcliffe merged its residential system with Harvard. They are:

Cabot House  , previously called South House, renamed in 1983 for Harvard donors Thomas Dudley Cabot and Virginia Cabot;

Currier House  , named for Radcliffe alumna Audrey Bruce Currier;

Pforzheimer House  , often called PfoHo for short, previously called North House, renamed in 1995 for Harvard donors Carl and Carol Pforzheimer

There is a thirteenth House, Dudley House , 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.

Harvard's residential houses are paired with Yale's residential colleges in sister relationships; see the Harvard-Yale sister colleges article for more information.

The Medical School, the Business School, and the university stadium and some other athletic facilities are located across the Charles River in Boston. Harvard has recently acquired more land in the Allston neighborhood of Boston and is planning to move more of its facilities there.