About Harvard

Those who join our community—to learn, research, teach, work, and grow—join nearly four centuries of students and scholars in the pursuit of truth, knowledge, and a better world.

About Harvard

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The people of Harvard

Our people are what make Harvard special. Through continued efforts in inclusion and belonging, Harvard has built a community comprising many backgrounds, cultures, races, identities, life experiences, perspectives, beliefs, and values.

undergraduate and graduate students
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faculty and staff
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alumni worldwide
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learners through Harvard Online
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Harvard leadership and governance is composed of four components:

President

Alan M. Garber leads Harvard University as its 31st President.

Deans and Officers

Leading Harvard’s Schools and many offices

Harvard Corporation

The oldest corporation in the Western Hemisphere

Board of Overseers

Alumni committed to Harvard’s missions and interests

The history of Harvard

Explore the history of our founding, our Nobel Prize winners, the honorary degrees we’ve awarded, and how our iconic shield was created.

On October 28, 1636, Harvard, the first college in the American colonies, was founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Harvard University was officially founded by a vote by the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Harvard’s endowment started with John Harvard’s initial donation of 400 books and half his estate, but in 1721, Thomas Hollis began the now standard practice of requiring that a donation be used for a specific purpose when he donated money for “a Divinity Professor, to read lectures in the Halls to the students.”

Women’s history at Harvard

As staff members, then as students and faculty, the women of Harvard paved the way for the next generation, and continue to carve new paths today.

Women’s history at Harvard

As staff members, then as students and faculty, the women of Harvard paved the way for the next generation, and continue to carve new paths today.

Women’s history at Harvard

As staff members, then as students and faculty, the women of Harvard paved the way for the next generation, and continue to carve new paths today.

For more than 100 years the Harvard
Gazette has covered campus life,
University issues, innovations in science
and scholarship, and broader global
concerns.

The greater Harvard community

Harvard is dedicated to being a good neighbor to the communities we reside within, whether in Massachusetts our at our locations abroad.

for improvements to public parks and open spaces, neighborhood beautification, streetscape enhancements, public safety initiatives, and public art.
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visitors to Harvard museums each year
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locations abroad that link Harvard faculty and students to local academic institutions, government organizations, businesses, and communities
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Reassessing social media’s

Reassessing social media’s