Harvard University

Harvard University is a private institution of higher learning located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, near Boston. It is the oldest university in the United States, and is known as one of the most prestigious schools in the world. Originally designed as a Christian-oriented university intended to educate aspiring church leaders, Harvard evolved into a well-rounded research institution. It has a wide range of academic programs that are typically ranked among the best in the world by various organizations. These include natural and agricultural sciences, math, physics, and business. Several US presidents attended Harvard, and it is renowned for the research it has conducted and the academic resources available on campus.

Despite the prestige and accolades Harvard has gained, it has also been criticized for its exclusive nature and lack of diversity. It developed a reputation for appealing only to the elites of the New England area. Harvard's student diversity has continually expanded over the years, but critics say it has done so slowly Its efforts were dealt a blow when the US Supreme Court rejected affirmative action programs in 2023.

Brief History

Harvard was founded in 1636 when Massachusetts, which was still a British colony, approved the establishment of a university. The school was intended to ensure that future generations of church leaders would maintain high standards of intelligence and education, to help guide the masses. The school was named for John Harvard, a clergyman who willed half of his estate and his library to the school upon his death.

The school gradually shifted away from its Christian origins. It began adopting the structure of liberal arts institutes in Britain, with a curriculum that included literature, philosophy, math, and sciences. This shift was most prominent under Charles Eliot. Eliot became university president in 1869, and he oversaw dramatic changes. As the first and one of the most prestigious universities of the young United States, Harvard's transformation into a secular institution that offered a wide variety of courses was extremely influential on the entire nation's higher education.

Since its inception, Harvard had only admitted male students. By the late nineteenth century, women had been making increasing efforts to gain the right to enroll. Higher education for women was a controversial idea at the time, with Eliot expressing worry that men and women living and studying together would lead to inappropriate interactions. Despite objections, Radcliffe College, otherwise known as the Harvard Annex, was established in 1879. This women's college was a sister school to Harvard, neighboring it and employing many of the same professors. The professors were paid additional wages to repeat their lectures to the students at Radcliffe.

During the second half of the nineteenth century, Harvard fielded its first football team, becoming one of the first colleges to play American football in an official capacity. Harvard was one of the premier programs in the earliest days of college football. It remained one of the strongest programs in the sport until the early 1920s. Harvard's rival, Yale, also fielded one of the best programs of that era, and the meetings between the two schools formed one of the oldest and best-known rivalries in sports.

Overview

Harvard was a founding member of the Association of American Universities (AAU). The AAU is a prestigious network of universities that uses its combined resources to help maintain a high academic standard. The members also work together to attempt to influence national policy in favor of higher education.

Beyond its role in football history, Harvard has also traditionally fielded highly competitive rowing and track-and-field teams. It is a founding member of the Ivy League, which primarily consists of colonial, prestigious universities. On a regular basis, Harvard and Yale have combined track-and-field teams to engage in an international competition with a combined team from Oxford and Cambridge Universities, two of the United Kingdom's most prestigious schools.

Along with other Ivy League schools, Harvard became the subject of increasing criticism over the centuries. Detractors argued that Harvard's exclusive admission policies were not based on applicants' academic ability or merit, but instead on finances and connections. It was also known for a significant lack of diversity. It was attended primarily by white Protestant men in the New England area.

Partially in response to this line of thinking, university president James Bryant Conant worked to change Harvard's admission policies. Following World War II (1939–1945), Harvard officials worked to make the school more accessible to applicants who were not part of the upper class. Applicants of other religions and denominations became more common, although racial diversity was slower to arrive.

Following years of lobbying by women's rights activists, Radcliffe College merged with Harvard in 1977, officially making Harvard a co-ed school. Harvard agreed to admit women at a ratio of one for every four men. They eventually reached a one-to-one ratio in 2007. That was also the year that saw Harvard's first female president, Drew Gilpin Faust.

In the twenty-first century, Harvard drew controversy for hosting an all-Black commencement ceremony. Supporters said this was in celebration of the unprecedented number of Black students in the graduating class, and how Black Americans had overcome discrimination and oppression to succeed at a university that was known as one of the best in the world. Critics argued that the practice was functionally very similar to the segregated schools and other institutions that generations of civil rights activists had worked to overcome.

A lawsuit seeking to end affirmative action in higher education was brought by the organization Students for Fair Admissions. Harvard won in federal trials court and federal appeals court before it was heard by the US Supreme Court. In June 2023, the court ruled 6 to 3 that affirmative action admissions programs were unlawful. The ruling was expected to reverse diversity efforts in admissions, with the possible outcome that student bodies would become more White and Asian.

Two days after the Supreme Court rule on race-conscious admissions practices, Harvard inaugurated Claudine Gay as the university's thirtieth president. Gay, the second woman and first Black person to helm the institution, was expected to focus on admissions due to the recent ruling. However, global events unexpectedly turned the spotlight on Harvard and allegations of antisemitism. On October 7, the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas attacked Israel, killing more than 1,200 Israelis and taking more than 250 hostages. Harvard did not initially condemn Hamas. University officials also did not address a statement in support of Palestine that was signed by members of more than thirty student groups. Later, she gave controversial testimony before Congress about antisemitism on college campuses and was around the same time also accused of plagiarism. Outsiders, including a major Harvard donor, called for her to be removed or step down. In January 2024, after slightly more than six months leading Harvard, Gay resigned.

Harvard has the largest endowment—the annual total of financial donations received—of all universities worldwide. Its library is the largest academic one in America, and one of the largest globally. The university consists of about a dozen specialized colleges. These include a school of medicine, law, business, education, and engineering and applied sciences. Publications and organizations that rank universities and university programs typically rank Harvard as a whole, as well as many of its colleges, in the top ten globally.

Harvard has numerous famous alumni, including several former US presidents. They include John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. Harvard has produced more Nobel Prize laureates than any university after the UK's Cambridge and has educated more than one hundred and twenty Pulitzer Prize winners.

Bibliography

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Liptak, Adam. "Supreme Court Rejects Affirmative Action Programs at Harvard and U.N.C." The New York Times, 29 June 2023, www.nytimes.com/2023/06/29/us/politics/supreme-court-admissions-affirmative-action-harvard-unc.html. Accessed 2 May 2024.

McIntyre, Niamh. "Harvard University Will Hold First Ever Black Only Graduation Ceremony," Independent, 11 May 2017, www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/harvard-university-black-only-graduation-ceremony-graduates-may-2017-ivy-league-a7730686.html. Accessed 14 May 2017.

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