Also known as HU according to AbbreviationFinder.org, the Harvard University is a private university located in the outskirts of Boston (Massachusetts). It is part of the Ivy League and is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States.

History

Founded in 1636 as New College or The College at New Towne, 5.5 km west of downtown Boston.

He renamed Harvard College on 13 of March of 1639, in memory of his benefactor John Harvard, a young cleric who donated to the institution its library of 400 books and 779 pounds sterling (which was half of his estate).

In the new Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 is the first time the name change of Harvard College at Harvard University.

During his 40-year tenure as president of Harvard (1869 – 1909), Charles William Eliot radically transformed the model of the university at Harvard, turning it into a modern research center; these reforms included elective courses, small

Educational centers

classes, and the entry into force of the exams.

This model has influenced education throughout the United States, both in college and high school.

Eliot was also responsible for the publication of the now famous Harvard Classics, a collection of great books from multiple disciplines (published beginning in 1909), offering a college education “in fifteen minutes of reading a day.”

During his influential presidency, Eliot became so widely recognized as a public figure that at his death in 1926, his name and that of Harvard became synonymous with the universal aspirations of American higher education.

In 1999 Radcliffe College, founded in 1879 as the Harvard Annex for Women, was formally merged with Harvard University, becoming the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

Educational centers

Faculties and schools

Harvard has 9 colleges and schools:

• Faculty of Arts and Sciences (which includes the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences). Harvard College, which is the undergraduate school, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and the Harvard School of Continuing Education (which includes the Harvard Summer School and the Harvard University Extension School) depend on it.
• Harvard Medical School
• Harvard Dental School
• Harvard Divinity School
• Law School.
• Faculty of Business
• Graduate School of Design
• Graduate School of Education
• School of Public Health

Other centers

• Kennedy School of Government
• Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study
• Real Colegio Complutense de Harvard

Library

The library contains more than 15 million volumes, making it the largest academic library in the United States, and the fourth among the world’s five “mega-libraries” (after the Library of Congress, the British Library, and the British Library National of France, and ahead of the New York Public Library).

Sports

The Harvard Crimsons are the sports team that represents the university in competitions of its category, organized by the NCAA, and is also part of the Ivy League.

The teams have the Harvard Stadium (which is the stadium for American football, and which can accommodate 30,898 spectators), the Lavietes Pavilion (which is the basketball stadium that accommodates 2,195 spectators) and the Bright Hockey Center (which is the palace for ice sports which can accommodate 2,850 spectators).

We also have to mention that the university’s mascot is named John Harvard. But even though it has 41 different programs, the university does not offer a scholarship program.

Famous alumni

Many famous students have passed through Harvard. Among the best known are:

• Former presidents or presidents: John Hancock, John Adams, Theodore Roosevelt, Arnulfo Arias Madrid, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Pierre Trudeau, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Álvaro Uribe Vélez, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, Miguel de la Madrid, Ivana Rivera, Sebastián Piñera, Andrés Pastrana Arango, Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, Juan Manuel Santos, Alejandro Toledo andVictor Jair Martinez Bravo.
• Princes: Aga Khan IV.
• Writers: TS Eliot, Royall Tyler, EE Cummings, Stephen Greenblatt, Louis Menand and Helen Vendler, Leonard Bernstein, Yo Yo Ma, Tom Morello, Rivers Cuomo, Mateo Blanco, Rubén Blades, Robert Levin, Edward Taylor and Bernard Rands.
• Actors: Jack Lemmon, Natalie Portman, Mira Sorvino, Tommy Lee Jones and Martin Bront.
• Architects: Philip Johnson.
• Scientists: James D. Watson, Bruce Alberts, Steven Pinker, Lisa Randall, Humberto Maturana, and Roy J. Glauber.
• Economists: Amartya Sen, Gregory Mankiw, Robert Barro, Domingo Felipe Cavallo, Martin Redrado, Martin Feldstein, Gabriela Olmos, Ifigenia Martínez.
• Philosophers: Ted Kaczynski, WEB DuBois, Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson, Harvey Mansfield, Michael Sandel, Robert Putnam, Joseph Nye, Samuel P. Huntington, Stanley Hoffman, Humberto Maturana and Torben Iversen.
• Entrepreneurs: William Gates III, Francisco Naranjo, Aaron Greenspan.
• Psychologists: Howard Gardner.
• Programmers: Mark Zuckerberg.

Currently

Today Harvard has, on average, a student population of about 6,650 undergraduate students and about 13,000 graduate students. It is considered the best university in the world according to the following university rankings:

• World Academic Ranking of Universities (ARWU) of the Institute of Higher Education of Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Ahead of Stanfordand Berkeley. ^[1]
• Ranking of the Laboratory of Cibermetría of the Superior Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) of Spain. Ahead of MIT, Stanford and Berkeley.