Harvard University

:Harvard redirects here. For information about undergraduate education at Harvard University, see Harvard College. For other uses of the name Harvard, see Harvard (disambiguation).

Related Topics:
Harvard College - Harvard (disambiguation)

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Harvard University is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, and a member of the Ivy League. It was founded on September 8, 1636, by a vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, making it the oldest institution of higher education in the United States. Originally referred to simply as the New College, it was named Harvard College on March 13, 1639, after its first principal donor, a young clergyman named John Harvard. A young graduate of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, John Harvard bequeathed a few hundred books in his will to form the basis of the college library collection, along with several hundred pounds.

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University - Cambridge - Massachusetts - USA - Ivy League - September 8 - 1636 - Massachusetts Bay Colony - Oldest - Higher education - March 13 - 1639 - John Harvard - Emmanuel College, Cambridge - Pounds

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The earliest known official reference to Harvard as a "university" rather than a "college" occurred in the new Massachusetts constitution of 1780. Since 1974, nineteen Nobel Prize winners and fifteen Pulitzer Prize winners have served on the Harvard faculty. Currently, the university has the largest library collection and financial endowment of any academic institution in the world.

Related Topics:
University - College - Massachusetts constitution - 1974 - Nobel Prize - Pulitzer Prize - Library - Financial endowment

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