Why everybody want to study at Harvard?, Why everybody going crazy about Harvard?~ Is it provide excellence education.. The answer is "Yes, yes it is.. Absolutely!". Harvard is the best university for decade ago. So, first I review the history and all about Harvard here..
HistoryHarvard University, which celebrated its 350th anniversary in 1986, is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. Founded 16 years after the arrival of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, the University has grown from nine students with a single master to an enrollment of more than 18,000 degree candidates, including undergraduates and students in 10 principal academic units. An additional 13,000 students are enrolled in one or more courses in the Harvard Extension School. Over 14,000 people work at Harvard, including more than 2,000 faculty. There are also 7,000 faculty appointments in affiliated teaching hospitals.
Seven presidents of the United States – John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Theodore and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Rutherford B. Hayes, John Fitzgerald Kennedy and George W. Bush – were graduates of Harvard. Its faculty have produced more than 40 Nobel laureates.
Harvard College was established in 1636 by vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and was named for its first benefactor, John Harvard of Charlestown, a young minister who, upon his death in 1638, left his library and half his estate to the new institution. Harvard's first scholarship fund was created in 1643 with a gift from Ann Radcliffe, Lady Mowlson.During its early years, the College offered a classic academic course based on the English university model but consistent with the prevailing Puritan philosophy of the first colonists. Although many of its early graduates became ministers in Puritan congregations throughout New England, the College was never formally affiliated with a specific religious denomination. An early brochure, published in 1643, justified the College's existence: "To advance Learning and perpetuate it to Posterity; dreading to leave an illiterate Ministry to the Churches."
Harvard Faculty
Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Faculty of Medicine
Harvard Business School
Graduate School of Design
Harvard Divinity School
Harvard Graduate School of Education
John F. Kennedy School of Government
Harvard Law School
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study
Harvard School of Public HealthPrize Winning Scholar : The Pulitzer Prizes are awarded annually for outstanding contributions to American journalism, letters, and music. Since 1919, Pulitzer Prizes have been awarded numerous times to faculty members - and some professors have won multiple times.
Students at Harvard University
People often ask: Who is the typical Harvard student? The answer is that there is no such person. Each student is a unique individual, and the student body is incredibly diverse.
Harvard men and women represent an array of ethnic groups, religious traditions, and political persuasions. They come from every region of the United States and more than 100 other countries. They include undergraduates and graduate, continuing education, and Summer School students. They range from pre-teens to octogenarians; in 1997, Mary Fasano became the oldest person ever to earn a Harvard degree when she graduated from the Extension School at the age of 89.
Harvard College students have a remarkable range of backgrounds and academic and extracurricular interests. Two-thirds come from public schools, and about two-thirds receive some form of financial aid.A Harvard Year Book
Leonard Bernstein '39 
Benazir Bhutto '73 
Ben Bradlee '43 
George W. Bush, MBA '75 
Stockard Channing '65
Robert Coles '50 
Archibald Cox '34
Michael Crichton '64, MD '69 
Elizabeth Dole MAT '60, JD '65
Al Gore '69 
Lisa Henson '82
Tommy Lee Jones '69
Norman Mailer '43
Mira Sorvino '89 7 Presidents of the U.S Studied at Harvard
'I read forever . . .'
John Adams, 1735-1826
President, 1797-1801
The entrance exam to Harvard in 1751 was rigorous and proved a frightening prospect to many an applicant. The young John Adams was no exception. After mounting his horse and starting the ride from nearby Braintree to Cambridge, Adams experienced sensations familiar to almost all of us. He was so "terrified at the Thought of introducing myself to such great Men as the President and fellows of a Colledge, I at first resolved to return home: but forseeing the Grief of my father . . . I aroused my self, and collected Resolution enough to proceed."
Though grueling, the experience ended happily, and Adams "was as light when I came home as I had been heavy when I went." Soon after entering the school, Adams fell in love with learning, to the point where he might today be considered not quite well-rounded: "I perceived a growing Curiosity, a Love of Books and a fondness for Study, which dissipated all my inclination for Sports, and even the Society of the Ladies. I read forever . . .''
Before 1773, the graduates of Harvard were arranged in a hierarchy not of merit but "according to the dignity of birth, or to the rank of [their] parents." By this rather undemocratic standard, Adams graduated 14th in a class of 24.
Nothing new under the sun
John Quincy Adams, 1767-1848
President, 1825-29
In Harvard's Spring Exhibition conference of 1787, the young student John Quincy Adams was given what today might be considered a difficult assignment: the defense of the practice of law. Indeed, Adams' words continue to ring remarkably familiar. He began: "At a time when the profession of the Law labours under the heavy weight of popular indignation; when it is upbraided as the original cause of all evils . . . and when the mere title of lawyer is sufficient to deprive a man of public confidence, it should seem this profession would afford a poor subject for a panegyric; but . . ." The fledgling orator went on to make a spirited defense of his future profession.
At the festive Commencement day exercises, the famously dour Adams graduated second in a class of 51, but not until he had discharged his first duty of the day, playing the flute in the college band.
'The Rudeness of a Student'
Rutherford B. Hayes, 1822-93
President, 1877-81
Not long after graduating from Kenyon College, the young Rutherford B. Hayes decided to attend Harvard Law School and soak in the "intellectual atmosphere of Boston." He entered the School in 1843, where he attended lectures by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and speeches by fellow Harvardian and former president John Quincy Adams, that "venerable but deluded old man" whose pro-abolitionist stance Hayes found "very unreasonable and unfair."
Hayes did enjoy going to temperance meetings and the theater, although upon his graduation he decided to set such frivolities aside. As the future president soberly put it, "The rudeness of a student must be laid off, and the quiet, manly deportment of a gentleman put on."
Zookeeping at Harvard
Theodore Roosevelt, 1858-1919
President, 1901-09
Theodore Roosevelt, Class of 1880, was apparently considered odd by his classmates, at least at first. The naturally ebullient, excitable young man with the high, breaking voice and the thick-lensed spectacles simply could not master the current standards of "cool" in the Harvard of the 1870s, neither the slow, lazy "Harvard drawl" nor the shuffling "Harvard swing." Undeterred, Roosevelt pursued his activities with characteristic enthusiasm - boxing, rowing, and birdwatching, as well as joining the rifle club and the Natural History Club, among others, and founding a whist club and a finance club.
He was, nevertheless, still thought of by some as "eccentric," and others went further, calling him "half-crazy." Perhaps the small zoo he kept in his room, consisting of lobsters, snakes, and a huge tortoise had something to do with it.
No doubt there were some who thought his senior thesis was crazy, as well, in which he wrote "Viewed purely in the abstract, I think there can be no question that women should have equal rights with men . . . Especially as regards the laws relating to marraige [sic] there should be the most absolute equality preserved between the sexes. I do not think the woman should assume the man's name."
Blackballed
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1882-1945
President, 1933-45
Franklin Roosevelt was an ambitious student, but not academically. Captain of the freshman football team, reporter for the student paper, The Crimson, and sporting a C average, Roosevelt's driving ambition was to attain the pinnacle of Harvard's social world.
Although when his cousin Theodore became president, the younger Roosevelt was kidded about being a member of the "royal family," he would not feel he had accomplished his social goals until he became accepted by the Porcellian, Harvard's most exclusive club.
Members were chosen by a vote of the 16 juniors and seniors in the current membership. The tally was taken with the use of white and black balls: each member held a white ball and a black ball and, after the candidate was discussed, a wooden box was passed around the room, into which everyone put one ball. At the end, if there were any black balls in the box, the candidate was rejected.
It was forever galling to Roosevelt that he was blackballed from the Porcellian, and he never was to learn who had made the deciding negative vote.
'Attractive, witty, and unpurposeful'
John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963
President, 1961-63
When John Fitzgerald Kennedy entered Harvard's freshman class, the most popular young man in the school was his brother Joe. It was difficult for Jack, already plagued with myriad physical ailments, to get out from under Joe's shadow. Too small to play intercollegiate football, he joined the swim team. He's remembered by the coach as "a fine kid, frail and not too strong, but always giving it everything he had."
At first, Kennedy was not particularly devoted to academics. One classmate recalls him as "attractive, witty, and unpurposeful." As an upperclassman, Kennedy deepened, developing a profound interest in political philosophy. In his junior year he made the Dean's List. His senior honors thesis, about Great Britain's lack of preparation for World War II, became, after his graduation, the best-selling book Why England Slept.
Hot fudge sundaes on Sundays
George W. Bush, 1946-
President, 2001-
Like his father before him, George W. Bush attended Yale as an undergraduate, earning a history degree in 1968. For further training, though, the younger Bush came to Harvard Business School, graduating with a master's degree in business administration in 1975.
Those were tough years, however, for the son of a prominent Republican because of the political atmosphere surrounding the Watergate scandal that played out in 1973-74. Cambridge was a "miserable place to be a Republican," especially considering Massachusetts' reputation as a Democratic stronghold, recalled Bush's aunt, Nancy Bush Ellis, who spoke to the Lexington, Mass., Minuteman newspaper during the 2000 presidential campaign.
Ellis lived nearby in Lincoln, Mass., however, and Bush often went to her house for Sunday dinners, which his aunt recalled as his favorite times during his graduate school years. After dinner they would enjoy their favorite dessert: vanilla ice cream with hot fudge sauce.
Religious Life at Harvard
The United Ministry at Harvard is an interfaith coalition of chaplains who are committed to mutual respect and nonproselytization, and who encourage personal freedom and choice in spiritual growth. Besides the individual organizations' activities, there are a number of interfaith opportunities. Chaplains in the United Ministry are available to meet and talk with students about spiritual concerns, as well as about ethical and personal matters, and look forward to hearing from students.A Winning Tradition Highlights Harvard's Athletic Excellence
The Harvard-Yale crew race held on Aug. 3, 1852, on Lake Winnepesaukee in New Hampshire was the first college sporting event in America. Harvard won the competition, besting the Yalies by two lengths. Ever since, Harvard athletes have distinguished themselves in international, national, and conference contests.
A Harvard athlete won the first first-place medal of the modern Olympic Games. The Class of 1898's James B. Connolly of South Boston was victorious in the hop, skip, and jump (now known as the triple jump), the first event of the 1896 Games in Athens. Overall, Harvard won five top medals at the 1896 Olympics. One hundred years later, at the 1996 Games in Atlanta, Harvard Athletic Director Bill Cleary '56 (a hockey star and two-time Olympic medal winner) was recognized as one of America's 100 greatest living gold medal winners along with athletes such as Mark Spitz and Bruce Jenner - and two other Harvard athletes/gold medal winners, Tenley Albright Blakeley '53-55, and Dick Button '52.
Harvard has had an athlete compete at every modern summer Olympic Games, and has been represented at every Olympic Winter Games, except 1964 and 1972. David Berkoff '88, the world record holder for the 100 meter backstroke, was a silver medalist in the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Figure skater Paul Wylie '91 garnered a silver medal in Albertville in 1992. With her silver medal in lightweight double sculls in Atlanta in 1996, rower Lindsay Burns '87 raised Harvard's all-time medal count to 75: 32 gold, 27 silver, and 16 bronze. In 1998, Sandra Whyte '92 and A.J. Mleczko '97-99 played on the women's hockey team in Nagano.
Besides the Olympics, high points in recent years have included the men's ice hockey squad, which won the NCAA Championship in 1988-89 and more recently ('99-00) were Ivy League champs, and the women's lacrosse team, which captured the NCAA title in 1990. The women's squash team in 1996 won its fifth straight national championship, while the men's squash squad took home its sixth consecutive national title. The fencing team has produced World Cup contenders and a 1994 NCAA champion, Kwame van Leeuwen. And in 1998 the softball team won its first-ever Ivy League title.
Women's hockey made the 1998-99 season unforgettable. The Crimson became national champs in the most successful season in the history of women's college hockey. In its run to the title, the Crimson scored an unprecedented 33-1 record, notched its first Ivy League crown in 10 years, and its first-ever ECAC Regular Season and Tournament Championship. Also in '99, the baseball team captured its third consecutive Ivy League title. In the 1999-2000 season, men's tennis came out on top of the ECAC, while men's swimming and diving won both the Ivy League and the EISL championships.Today Harvard has the largest intercollegiate athletic program in the country, with 41 varsity sports (21 men's, and 20 women's). More than 1,300 varsity letters or freshman numerals are issued annually.
Those who don't join varsity or junior varsity teams can participate in an extensive intramurals program – more than 3,000 students engage in some thousand contests every year. There are also more than two dozen club sports, from aikido to croquet to ultimate Frisbee. Harvard is a member of the Ivy League, along with Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Pennsylvania, Princeton, and Yale. Under the League's founding document, the Presidents' Agreement of 1954, there are no athletic scholarships. Financial aid to students, whether or not they are athletes, is based solely on need. Harvard's athletic programs are financed not by gate receipts, but through the overall budget of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
Thirteen Houses make up the Harvard-Radcliffe House system. Twelve are residences for sophomores, juniors, and seniors. (Undergraduates spend their first year in dormitories in or near Harvard Yard.) A 13th House is a center for graduate students, nonresident undergraduates, and undergraduates living in small cooperative Houses (in which students prepare their own meals and do household chores in exchange for reduced room and board). Within the larger University, each House functions as a more personally scaled mini-college for enhancing interaction among students, faculty, and other House affiliates. The Houses differ from simple dormitories in that each House offers instructional opportunities (tutorials and small classes); contains its own dining hall, library, and Junior Common Room; and promotes activities related to music, drama, theater, sports, public service, and other special interests.
Every House is overseen by a Master, a senior faculty member or senior administrator whose spouse or partner serves as Associate Master or Co-Master. The House office staff includes an Allston Burr Senior Tutor, who is responsible for students' academic and personal well-being. Each House also has resident and nonresident tutors as well as a superintendent. Non-undergraduate affiliates (Masters, tutors, professors, administrators, visiting scholars, community members) make up the Senior Common Room, which participates in House activities.
Inspired by the centuries-old English university model in which students and faculty live and learn together, the current House system owes its existence to Harvard President A. Lawrence Lowell (in office 1909-33), who launched the system in the early 1930s with a $13 million gift from Edward S. Harkness, an 1897 graduate of Yale. Attempts to adapt the English ideal to Harvard stretch back to the beginnings of the College. The Harvard residential Houses are Adams, Cabot (formerly South House), Currier, Dunster, Eliot, Kirkland, Leverett, Lowell, Mather, Pforzheimer (formerly North House), Quincy, and Winthrop. In addition to being the only nonresidential House, Dudley is the only part of the House system in Harvard Yard.
Residential Houses are located in two distinct areas. South of the Yard, along or near the Charles River, sit the "River Houses": Adams, Dunster, Eliot, Kirkland, Leverett, Lowell, Mather, Quincy, and Winthrop. Northwest of the Yard, around the Radcliffe Quadrangle, sit Cabot, Currier, and Pforzheimer. The original Houses – Adams, Dunster, Eliot, Kirkland, Leverett, Lowell, and Winthrop – opened in 1930 and 1931. Most of the Houses (Dunster, Eliot, Kirkland, Leverett, Lowell, Mather, and Quincy) are named for past Harvard presidents and, in some cases, other members of their families.
University Publications
The Harvard university Gazette is Harvard's official newspaper, published weekly during the academic year and periodically in the summer (about 36 times per year) by the Office of News and Public Affairs. The Gazette contains news and feature articles about current faculty, administrative staff, and students; photo essays; an extensive calendar section; and job listings. The paper does not accept advertising. The Gazette is distributed free on campus, or is available by subscription: $25 per year in the United States, or $32 for surface delivery in other countries (including Canada).
U.S Presidents and Honorary Degrees
After George Washington's Continental Army forced the British to leave Boston in March 1776, the Harvard Corporation and Overseers voted on April 3, 1776, to confer an honorary degree upon the general, who accepted it that very day (probably at his Cambridge headquarters in Craigie House). Washington next visited Harvard in 1789, as the first U.S. president. Since then, a few other men who were, or were to become U.S. presidents, have received honorary degrees.A Considerable Impact on the Economy
With an annual operating budget of approximately $2.4 billion, Harvard University has a considerable impact on the local economy. Harvard is one of the largest employers in Massachusetts and in its host communities, Cambridge and Boston. More than 15,000 people work at Harvard, including more than 2,000 faculty, as well as casual workers and 12,000 staff on the University's regular payroll. Over half of the budget is spent annually on equipment purchases, support services, building and maintenance, and student financial aid. Much of that goes to local companies and individuals.
Harvard annually spends about three-quarters of a billion dollars in Cambridge and Boston on taxes, voluntary payments in lieu of taxes, municipal fees and services, purchases of goods and services, and payroll for University employees who are Cambridge and Boston residents.
Local Payroll. In 2000, Harvard employed more than 5,800 residents of Cambridge and Boston residents at a total annual payroll of more than $255 million.
Goods and Services Purchased. In 1998-99, Harvard purchased $830.6 million in goods and services, of which about 38 percent, or $315.3 million was purchased from Boston and Cambridge businesses and individuals. Harvard's annual purchases are about $77.3 million in Cambridge and about $238 million in Boston.
Taxes and Payments. In 1999-2000, Harvard paid an annual total of about $13 million in real estate taxes, voluntary payments in lieu of taxes, and for municipal services in both Cambridge and Boston.
Harvard also assists and enhances its neighboring communities through financial aid to Cambridge and Boston residents attending Harvard College (more than $1 million annually), more than 240 public service programs, and support of local community organizations and events, open Extension School enrollment (some 570 courses offered to more than 13,000 students annually), and special access to its facilities and educational and cultural programs.
Harvard Surroundings
For over 360 years students and faculty have passed through the area now guarded by Johnston Gate (1890). The first and oldest of the nine major and several minor gates built into the fence enclosing Harvard Yard, Johnston Gate was the first University structure to use handmade and wood-burned Harvard Brick to resemble brick used in earlier buildings. Just past Johnston Gate stands the second incarnation of Harvard Hall. The first burned in 1764, amid the wind and snow of a nor'easter. A list of belongings lost in the fire includes furniture, pictures, tea sets, clothing, wigs, scientific equipment, and a "Repositerry [sic] of Curiosities."
The fire also consumed almost the entire College library, including John Harvard's book collection. One book from the collection survived, saved by a student who had taken it out earlier that night. Realizing its worth, the student promptly took the book to the President of the College who, according to legend, thanked him profusely, accepted the book, and expelled him for removing the book without permission. Today, Harvard Hall contains classrooms and several large lecture halls.
Massachusetts Hall (1720) stands as the oldest building at Harvard and the second oldest academic building in the country. Like many Harvard buildings, the Hall has served many purposes. Originally used as a dormitory, the Hall housed soldiers of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. It has also seen days as an informal observatory after Thomas Hollis donated a quadrant and a 24-foot telescope in 1722. Today the President of the University, Provost, Treasurer, and Vice Presidents have offices on the first three floors; freshmen reside on the upper floors.
In 1884 Samuel J. Bridge presented the University with a bronze statue of John Harvard as conceived by Daniel Chester French. At the unveiling, President Eliot recalled Harvard's bequest, saying, "He will teach that one disinterested deed of hope and faith may crown a brief and broken life with deathless fame." The statue is nicknamed "The Statue of Three Lies."Behind the statue, University Hall (1815), designed by Charles Bulfinch, divides the Old Yard from the New. The Hall was originally constructed to provide dining, classroom, and chapel space. Currently the building holds the offices of the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the Dean of Harvard College, and the Dean of Students in the College.
Two freshman dormitories, Hollis Hall (1763) and Stoughton Hall (1805), face the statue of John Harvard across the Old Yard. Former inhabitants include Al Gore, Tommy Lee Jones, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Charles Bulfinch.Dents and pockmarks dot the bricks in front of both halls. Legend holds that before central heating, students heated their rooms with cannon balls warmed in their fireplaces. When spring arrived, students threw their "heaters" out the windows, denting the sidewalks below.
Nearby Holden Chapel (1744) is the third-oldest building in the Yard. From 1744 to 1766 and again from 1769 to 1772 students used the space for morning and evening prayers. However, the chapel also hosted secular activities. In 1755, John Winthrop, the Hollis Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, delivered two lectures on seismology in the Chapel, explaining earthquakes as natural phenomena rather than as emblems of divine discontent. In 1783 the Medical School used the Chapel as a place to perform autopsies. Today, many of Harvard's choral groups use the space as a headquarters.
Josep Lluis Sert designed the Science Center (1972). In addition to the departments of Mathematics, Statistics, and History of Science, the Center contains numerous laboratories, lecture halls, classrooms, a café, and the Cabot Science Library.
Cathedral-like Memorial Hall (1870-78) commemorates Harvard men who died in the Civil War while fighting for the Union. Plaques along the walls of the transept dividing the hall in two list the names of 136 who fell in battle. Harvard classes donated many of the 21 Tiffany and La Farge stained-glass windows featured throughout the building.
Undergraduates dine in Annenberg Hall at one end of the building. On the opposite end of Memorial Hall, Sanders Theatre hosts concerts, lectures, and performances. In 1881, students used the Theatre for what is believed to be the first U.S. production of an ancient Classical play in its original language, Sophocles' Oidipous Tyrannos (Oedipus Rex). In Memorial Hall basement, Loker Commons serves as a gathering place for undergraduates.
Gund Hall (1972), notable for its dramatically sloped transparent roof, houses the Graduate School of Design. The design allows natural light to flood four levels of student and faculty studios. The School was built on the former site of the Harvard University Press.
The Sackler Museum (1985) houses the collections and curatorial departments of Ancient, Asian, and Islamic and later Indian art. It also contains the Art Museums' largest special exhibition gallery, the Department of Fine Arts, the Rübel Asiatic Research Library, an auditorium, and classrooms.
The Fogg Museum opened in 1895. In 1911, the Museum held the first exhibition of Degas in the United States. The Museum's current home was constructed in 1927 to house the world's largest and most comprehensive academic collection, some 150,000 works of art from around the globe, focusing on Western art from the Medieval period to the present. In addition to the collections, the Fogg contains three lecture halls, the Straus Center for Conservation, and an extensive Fine Arts Library. The Busch-Reisinger Museum, in Werner Otto Hall (1991) adjacent to the Fogg, is the only North American museum exclusively devoted to the art of Northern and Central Europe.
The Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts (1963) is the only building in North America designed by the French architect Le Corbusier. A ramp through the structure, which is the home of the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies, offers a glimpse of studio work in progress. The building also includes exhibition space and a basement auditorium where the Harvard Film Archive presents both cinema classics and works by current filmmakers, who often make guest appearances.
Originally created as a social center and later used as a freshman dining hall, the Harvard Union recently became the main part of Barker Center for the Humanities, dedicated in 1997. Barker Center now houses a dozen previously scattered academic departments and units, from Romance Languages and Literatures to Afro-American Studies. Barker Center also includes Warren House and the old Varsity Club building.
Four-Piece Reclining Figure by Henry Moore rests outside Lamont Library (1949), the main undergraduate library for the humanities and social sciences. Two alumni donated the piece in 1981.
Houghton Library (1942) houses a rare-book collection, portraits, and manuscripts as well as memorabilia and furniture from the home of Emily Dickinson. Down a set of steps from Houghton, the underground Pusey Library (1975) contains the Harvard Theatre Collection, Harvard Map Collection, a Theodore Roosevelt exhibition, and the University Archives.
Holyoke Center (1966) encompasses an entire block on a site previously occupied by several structures, including Holyoke House, a dorm dating to 1871. Designed by Josep Lluis Sert, a former dean of the Graduate School of Design, Holyoke Center houses many of the University's administrative offices as well as the University Health Services. The Events & Information Center on the ground floor serves as a gathering place for visitors and a starting point for Harvard tours.
Yellow clapboard-covered Wadsworth House was constructed in 1727 for Benjamin Wadsworth, Harvard's ninth President. In July 1775, General George Washington briefly used the House as his headquarters when he arrived in Cambridge to assume command of the Continental Army.After his troops forced the British to leave Boston in 1776, the Corporation and Board of Overseers voted to confer an honorary degree on the General. His next visit to Harvard was as the first U.S. president. The University Marshal, the Harvard Alumni Association, and the Director of the University Library have offices in Wadsworth House.
Two freshman dormitories, Matthews and Grays halls, border part of the grassy area with crisscrossing footpaths known as the Old Yard. Grays Hall opened in 1863 and became the College's first building with water taps in the basement. The residents of other Yard buildings had to haul water from pumps in the Yard.
Widener Library (1914), the hub of Harvard's library system (the world's largest academic library), contains 3.2 million volumes on over 50 miles of bookshelves. Eleanor Elkins Widener funded construction of the library in memory of her son, Harry Elkins Widener, Class of 1907, who died aboard the Titanic.In 1944, the Widener family presented Harvard with a Gutenberg Bible, one of only 10 complete or near-complete copies then known in the U.S. Consisting of two volumes of 642 pages each, the Bible is housed in the Widener Memorial Rooms with the rest of Harry Widener's personal rare-book collection.
Memorial Church (1932) borders the northern section of the New Yard. Marble inscriptions on the walls of the Church interior commemorate Harvard men who died in World Wars I and II. Tablets also bear the names of graduates who died in Korea and Vietnam. The Church's spire looms 172 feet above the Yard. In June, the South Porch facing Widener Library transforms into a stage for the Commencement Exercises.
Widener Library, Memorial Church, Sever Hall, and University Hall encircle the New Yard, a crossroads of academic life. In 1936, to honor Harvard's 300th-anniversary celebration, the New Yard was dubbed Tercentenary Theatre. Every June, graduating students, their families, friends, and other well-wishers pack Tercentenary Theatre for Commencement. The colorful tradition includes parades, costumes, speeches, music, and the conferring of degrees. p/s: The best among the best...
