Harvard Yard

John Harvard is a sculpture in bronze by Daniel Chester French in Harvard Yard, Cambridge, Massachu­setts honoring clergyman John Harvard (1607–1638), whose deathbed bequest to the "schoale or Colledge" recently undertaken by the Massachu­setts Bay Colony was so gratefully received that it was consequently ordered "that the Colledge agreed upon formerly to bee built at Cambridg shalbee called Harvard Colledge."  There being nothing to indicate what John Harvard had looked like, French used a Harvard student collaterally descended from an early Harvard president as inspiration. The statue's inscription‍—‌JOHN HARVARD •   FOUNDER • 1638‍—‌is the subject of an arch polemic, traditionally recited for visitors, questioning whether John Harvard justly merits the honorific founder. According to a Harvard official, the founding of the college was not the act of one but the work of many, and John Harvard is therefore considered not the founder, but rather a founder, of the school, though the timeliness and generosity of his contribution have made him the most honored of these. Tourists often rub the toe of John Harvard's left shoe for luck.

University Hall is a white granite building designed by the great early American architect Charles Bulfinch and built by the noted early engineer Loammi Baldwin, Jr. It is located in Harvard Yard on the campus of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1970 for its architectural significance.The hall was designed by Bulfinch, class of 1781, and built between 1813–1815 of white Chelmsford granite, probably using rock cut to size at the Charlestown Prison. It consists of a partial basement story, plus three full stories raised above ground as well as an additional story set within the roofline. The long east and west facades are very similar, and symmetrically arranged with two entrances per facade, each flanked by pilasters; smaller north and south facades present rows of windows. Total construction cost was $65,000 of which $53,000 was paid by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. University Hall's first floor contained the College Commons (dining room) until 1849. The building also contained a library and philosophical (scientific) apparatus, as well as a chapel within the second and third floors. A massive portico with stone pillars was added to the western facade soon after completion, but removed in 1842. In 1849 the first floor was partitioned into classrooms; in 1867 the chapel was partitioned as well. In 1896 the chapel was restored and used for meetings of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. In 1924 Daniel Chester French's bronze statue of John Harvard was moved to the western façade from its original location near Memorial Hall.

Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and among the most prestigious in the world.The Massachusetts colonial legislature authorized Harvard's founding, "dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches, when our present ministers shall lie in the dust"; though never formally affiliated with any denomination, in its early years Harvard College primarily trained Congregational clergy. Its curriculum and student body were gradually secularized during the 18th century, and by the 19th century, it had emerged as the central cultural establishment among the Boston elite. Following the American Civil War, President Charles William Eliot's long tenure (1869–1909) transformed the college and affiliated professional schools into a modern research university; Harvard became a founding member of the Association of American Universities in 1900. James B. Conant led the university through the Great Depression and World War II, and liberalized admissions after the war. The university is composed of ten academic faculties plus the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Arts and Sciences offers study in a wide range of academic disciplines for undergraduates and for graduates, while the other faculties offer only graduate degrees, mostly professional. Harvard has three main campuses: the 209-acre (85 ha) Cambridge campus centered on Harvard Yard; an adjoining campus immediately across the Charles River in the Allston neighborhood of Boston; and the medical campus in Boston's Longwood Medical Area. Harvard's endowment is valued at $53.2 billion, making it the largest of any academic institution. Endowment income helps enable the undergraduate college to admit students regardless of financial need and provide generous financial aid with no loans. The Harvard Library is the world's largest academic library system, comprising 79 individual libraries holding about 20.4 million items.Harvard alumni, faculty, and researchers have included numerous Nobel laureates, Fields Medalists, members of the U.S. Congress, MacArthur Fellows, Rhodes Scholars, Marshall Scholars, and Fulbright Scholars, all of which are arguably the most among all higher education institutions over the globe, depending upon the metrics a list adopts. Its alumni include eight U.S. presidents and 188 living billionaires, the most of any university. Fourteen Turing Award laureates have been Harvard affiliates. Students and alumni have won 10 Academy Awards, 48 Pulitzer Prizes, and 110 Olympic medals (46 gold), and they have founded many notable companies.

Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and among the most prestigious in the world.Part of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard College is Harvard University's traditional undergraduate program, offering AB and SB degrees. It is highly selective, with fewer than five percent of applicants being offered admission in recent years. Harvard College students participate in more than 450 extracurricular organizations and nearly all live on campus—first-year students in or near Harvard Yard, and upperclass students in community-oriented "houses". The college has produced many distinguished alumni, including prominent politicians, scholars, and business leaders.

The Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) is the largest of the ten faculties that constitute Harvard University. Headquartered principally in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and centered in the historic Harvard Yard, FAS is the only faculty responsible for both undergraduate and graduate education. FAS administers the courses offered at Harvard College, the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, The John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), and the Harvard Division of Continuing Education. It is headed by Dean Claudine Gay.As of Fall 2019, FAS comprised 1221 total faculty, including 719 tenured and tenure-track professors as well as 502 other professors, lecturers, preceptors, and visiting faculty in some 30 academic departments in the arts and humanities, the social sciences, the natural sciences, and the engineering and applied sciences. There are approximately 6,800 undergraduates (Harvard College) and 4,500 graduate students (Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences). The Harvard Division of Continuing Education welcomes more than 30,000 students annually in its open enrollment courses. In 2019, FAS had a budget of $1.6 billion and a revenue of $1.6 billion.As of 2019, the FAS endowment had a market value of $17.5 billion. Harvard's total endowment stands at $40.9 billion.

The Harvard Bixi is a 17-foot high, 27 ton Chinese marble stele with a turtle pedestal located at Harvard University, north of Boylston Hall and west of Widener Library in Harvard Yard, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The stele was presented to the university by the Chinese Harvard Alumni for its Tercentenary in September 1936.

Holworthy Hall, in Harvard Yard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, is a historic dormitory for first-year students at Harvard College.

Gore Hall was a historic building on the Harvard University campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, designed by Richard Bond. Harvard's first dedicated library building, a Gothic structure built in 1838 of Quincy granite, it was named in honor of Harvard graduate and Massachusetts Governor Christopher Gore. When, in 1846, Harvard President Edward Everett was asked to design a seal for the newly incorporated City of Cambridge, he made Gore one of two icons (the other being the Washington Elm) encircled by the motto Literis Antiquis Novis Institutis Decora. "It can be translated as: 'Distinguished for Classical Learning and New Institutions.'"When the original Gore Hall was demolished in 1913 to make way for Widener Library, its name was transferred to a new Gore Hall, a freshman dormitory then under construction and now part of Winthrop House.

Harvard Hall is a Harvard University classroom building in Harvard Yard, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Massachusetts Hall is the oldest surviving building at Harvard College, the first institution of higher learning in the British colonies in America, and second oldest academic building in the United States after the Wren Building at the College of William & Mary. As such, it possesses great significance not only in the history of American education but also in the story of the developing English Colonies of the 18th century. Massachusetts Hall was designed by Harvard Presidents John Leverett and his successor Benjamin Wadsworth. It was erected between 1718 and 1720 in Harvard Yard. It was originally a dormitory containing 32 chambers and 64 small private studies for the 64 students it was designed to house. During the siege of Boston, 640 American soldiers took quarters in the hall. Much of the interior woodwork and hardware, including brass doorknobs, disappeared at this time. While designed as a residence for students, the building has served many purposes through the years. After Thomas Hollis donated a quadrant and a 24-foot telescope in 1722, for example, the building housed an informal observatory. Currently, the President of the University, Provost, Treasurer, and Vice Presidents have offices that occupy the first two floors and half of the third. Freshmen reside in the fourth floor. Massachusetts Hall, as Harvard's oldest extant dormitory, has housed many influential people. Founding fathers who lived in Massachusetts Hall include John Adams, John Hancock, Samuel Adams, Elbridge Gerry, and James Otis. Members of the Wigglesworth, Weld, Thayer, Eliot, and Lowell families (among others), whose names now grace other dormitories, also lived in Massachusetts Hall. More recent notable residents of Massachusetts Hall include Alan Jay Lerner, Elliot Richardson, John Harbison, and Jeff Schaffer.

Holden Chapel is a small building in Harvard Yard on the campus of Harvard University. Completed in 1744, it is the third oldest building at Harvard and one of the oldest college buildings in America.

Boylston Hall is a Harvard University classroom and academic office building lecture hall near the southwest corner of Harvard Yard, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Ward Nicholas Boylston had left a bequest to Harvard for the building in 1828. It was built in 1858 to designs by Paul Schulze of Schulze and Schoen. It was clad in stone, as specified by the donor, specifically Rockport granite, and had a hip roof. In 1871, Peabody and Stearns replaced the roof with a mansarded third floor.It has been speculated that it is on the homesite of the Rev. Thomas Hooker, first minister to the first church in Cambridge, but this is not well established.It originally served as a chemistry building, with a laboratory and classrooms, and later housed the anatomical museum of Jeffries Wyman, Professor of Comparative Anatomy, who in 1866 became the first curator of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, as well as a mineralogical collection. In the 20th century, it became the first home of the Harvard-Yenching Institute.Boylston Hall was gut renovated in 1959 by the architectural firm of Benjamin Thompson and Associates, and is considered an early example of the reuse of sound old buildings ("adaptive reconstruction"), "juxtaposing glass and steel with historic details". It functioned as the university language center. It houses the offices of the Harvard Classics Department. Its Fong Lecture Hall seats 144.