Tag: Harvard History

  • Nation & World

    Fight fiercely, Harvard

    Boxing has longstanding roots at the University. A required sport in the halcyon days of Theodore Roosevelt, today the Harvard Boxing Club is keeping tradition alive, but with a modern twist — its inclusion of women.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    A look inside: Eliot House

    Named in honor of Charles William Eliot, president of Harvard from 1869 to 1909, Eliot House was opened in 1931. It was one of the original seven Houses at the College following the plan by Eliot’s successor, Abbot Lawrence Lowell, to “revitalize education and revive egalitarianism at Harvard College.”

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    On summer break, a poem

    An undergraduate on summer break is inspired to write a poem celebrating Harvard’s 375th anniversary.

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    How Harvard celebrated

    A look at how Harvard has celebrated some previous anniversaries.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    A party starts 375th celebrations

    Entertainment, food, festivities highlight October gathering.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Bells mark Commencement

    For 23 years, they have rung out across Cambridge in Harvard’s honor, marking the conclusion of Morning Exercises.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Harvard’s historic mark

    As Elena Kagan becomes the 112th Supreme Court justice, she adds to an impressive list of now 23 justices who have one thing in common: Not only have they shaped the law in influential and historical ways — they all hail from Harvard.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Commence wonderment

    Harvard’s foundation is built on years of traditions and Commencement offers a collection of the some of the most intriguing. Here’s the back story on today’s events.

    10 minutes
  • Nation & World

    The gym unlocker

    Ed Kelley, who has worked at Harvard since 1959, is still going strong at age 78, opening the Malkin and Hemenway gyms most mornings, greeting all who arrive.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Digitizing Dunster

    To celebrate Dunster’s 400th year, the Harvard University Archives, with generous support from the Sidney Verba Fund, has digitized the Dunster family papers and made them available on the Internet.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Freshman Parents Weekend

    In October, Freshman Parents Weekend fills campus with mothers and fathers eager to and experience all aspects of Harvard life.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Weld Boathouse

    Harvard’s Weld Boathouse has been enchanting rowers and residents for more than 100 years.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    After 100+ years, a first: homecoming at Harvard

    The nation’s oldest university, which has been handing out homework since 1636 and handing off footballs since 1874, will host its first homecoming this fall, a potential new tradition designed to attract alumni to campus in years that The Game is played at Yale.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Wednesday Tea

    Tea time at Harvard is a longstanding tradition. The Rev. Professor Peter J. Gomes remarks on drinking tea at Harvard in 1968 while drinking tea today.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Around the Schools: Radcliffe Institute

    The Radcliffe Institute’s first decade is being celebrated this fall, starting with a two-day symposium Oct. 8 and 9 — a star-power taste of the institute’s signature interdisciplinary exchanges.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    What a set of pipes

    Over the next few years two new organs will take the place of the iconic C.B. Fisk organ in Appleton Chapel. The solution will help the church solve a long-standing musical dilemma.

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Practice, education, activism

    The Graduate School of Design at Harvard celebrates one of its own, the late J. Max Bond Jr., a pioneering architect.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Hasty Pudding Club Forms at Harvard: September 8, 1795

    On this day in 1795, 21 Harvard students gathered in a dorm room and formed a secret social club to cultivate “friendship and patriotism.” Members agreed to take turns providing a pot of hasty pudding for the meetings. Thus did the Hasty Pudding Club, the nation’s oldest dramatic institution, get its name…

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Welcoming Gen Ed

    In a celebratory forum in Lowell Lecture Hall Sept. 3, Harvard President Drew Faust and others explain and extol Harvard’s new General Education requirements, which take effect this year with the Class of 2013.

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Around the Schools: Harvard University Extension School

    The Harvard University Extension School will celebrate its centennial anniversary this fall. A private convocation will be held Sept. 25, and a public panel on the future of technology is slated for Nov. 18.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Faust delivers first Morning Prayers of academic year

    Harvard President Drew Faust, following long tradition by leading the academic year’s first Morning Prayers service at Appleton Chapel, praised the sense of common purpose brought by a coordinated School calendar. “We have chosen a common calendar for the common good,” she said.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    This month in Harvard history

    June 21, 1776 — The College reassembles in Cambridge after its eight-month stay in Concord.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Green reunions: Groundwork set

    As of June 4, Harvard has celebrated 358 commencements. Add to that the simultaneous celebration of untold thousands of reunions.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Highlights from a memorable Commencement

    On June 4, administrators sighed with relief at the weather, speakers went over their notes, and graduates congregated in black-tasseled flocks alongside a rainbow of professors in their own caps and gowns. Meanwhile, the Harvard Gazette staff fanned out across the campus on Commencement day to pick a rainbow of their own — colorful accounts…

    15 minutes
  • Nation & World

    This month in Harvard history

    June 1913 — Having proved itself during a five-year experimental period, the Business School emerges from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences to become an independent graduate school.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    2008-09: A look back

    As Commencement closes another chapter of the Harvard story, here is a brief backward glance at highlights of the year that was.

    15 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Janitor’s granddaughter fulfills Harvard dream

    Harvard is in my blood, though not in the traditional sense. I was born and brought up in Cambridge, Mass., as were my mother and her siblings. My grandparents struggled to raise seven children during tough financial times, and a college education was not an option.

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    For the 20th straight year, the peal of bells will mark Commencement

    A joyous peal of bells will ring throughout Cambridge today (June 4). In celebration of the city of Cambridge and of the country’s oldest university — and of our earlier history when bells of varying tones summoned us from sleep to prayer, work, or study — this ancient yet new sound will fill Harvard Square…

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Dean Tosteson dies at age 84

    Daniel C. Tosteson, the Caroline Shields Walker Distinguished Professor of Cell Biology, who served an extraordinary two decades as dean of Harvard Medical School, from 1977 to 1997, died peacefully on May 27 after a long illness. He was 84 years old.

    7 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Class of 1984 takes giant step in reducing carbon footprint

    For its fifth reunion, the Class of 1984 added community service to the celebration — a novel feature that other reuniting classes have since copied.

    7 minutes