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130-544: Harvard professors Alan Dershowitz and Ruth Wisse were co-chairs of ISGAP's international board. The executive committee of its International Academic Board of Advisors included former Canadian Minister of Justice Irwin Cotler and historian Irving Abella . ISGAP's chairman is Natan Sharansky . Its managing director is Sima Vaknin-Gil , lieutenant colonel and former chief censor of the Israeli Defense Forces . ISGAP

260-669: A Q clearance , granting him access to atomic secrets. By September 1948, the Red Scare began to take hold, and Conant called for a ban on hiring teachers who were communists, although not for the dismissal of those who had already been hired. A debate ensued over whether communist educators could teach apolitical subjects. Conant was a member of the Educational Policies Commission (EPC), a body to which he had been appointed in 1941. When it next met in March 1949, Conant's push for

390-415: A copolymer called Buna-N and a related product, Buna-S . None had been manufactured on the scale now required, and there was pressure from agricultural interests to choose a process which involved making raw materials from farm products. The Rubber Survey Committee made a series of recommendations, including the appointment of a rubber director, and the construction and operation of 51 factories to supply

520-467: A 15 percent quota on Jewish students in 1922, something Conant had voted to support. This quota was replaced with geographic distribution preferences, which had the same effect of limiting Jewish admission. Conant's cool response to the plight of the Jewish academic refugees from Hitler suggest that he shared the anti-semitism common to his social group and time. When DuPont asked him for an appraisal of

650-675: A 21-acre (8.5 ha) campus in the Longwood Medical and Academic Area in Boston , about 3.3 miles (5.3 km) south of the Cambridge campus. Several Harvard-affiliated hospitals and research institutes are also in Longwood, including Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center , Boston Children's Hospital , Brigham and Women's Hospital , Dana–Farber Cancer Institute , Joslin Diabetes Center , and

780-656: A 300% increase in antisemitism on campuses . In 2024, ISGAP met regularly with leaders of the Democratic and Republican parties to urge investigations of pro-Palestinian demonstrations in American universities . In 2019, the ISGAP received a grant of US$ 1.3 million, to be distributed over three years, from the Israeli government. In 2020, The Forward reported that almost 80% of the ISGAP's funding in 2018, totaling $ 445,000, had come from

910-735: A 358-acre (145 ha) campus in the Allston section of Boston across the John W. Weeks Bridge , which crosses the Charles River and connects the Allston and Cambridge campuses. The university is actively expanding into Allston, where it now owns more land than in Cambridge. Plans include new construction and renovation for the Business School, a hotel and conference center, graduate student housing, Harvard Stadium, and other athletics facilities. In 2021,

1040-548: A Free Society , was published by Harvard faculty, which remains one of the most important works in curriculum studies , and women were first admitted to the medical school . Between 1945 and 1960, admissions were standardized to open the university to a more diverse group of students. Following the end of World War II , for example, special exams were developed so veterans could be considered for admission. No longer drawing mostly from prestigious prep schools in New England ,

1170-689: A ban was supported by the president of Columbia University, General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower . The two found common ground in their belief in ideology-based education, which Conant called "democratic education". He did not see public education as a side effect of American democracy, but as one of its principal driving forces, and he disapproved of the public funding of denominational schools that he observed in Australia during his visit there in 1951. He called for increased federal spending on education, and higher taxes to redistribute wealth. His thinking

1300-523: A business partnership with two other Harvard chemistry graduates, Stanley Pennock and Chauncey Loomis, to form the LPC Laboratories. They opened a plant in a one-story building in Queens , New York City, where they manufactured chemicals used by the pharmaceutical industry like benzoic acid that were selling at high prices on account of the interruption of imports from Germany due to World War I . In 1916,

1430-565: A check for 2,500  ℛ︁ℳ︁ (equivalent to $ 240,000 in 2023) to Conant for a scholarship to enable an outstanding Harvard student to study for a year in Germany. At the next meeting of the Corporation in October, Conant persuaded it to reject the offer due to Hanfstaengl's Nazi associations. When the issue of Hanfstaengl's scholarship came up again in 1936, Conant turned the money down

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1560-570: A diversified student body, and he promoted the adoption of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and co-educational classes. During his presidency, women were admitted to Harvard Medical School and Harvard Law School for the first time. Conant was appointed to the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC) in 1940, becoming its chairman in 1941. In this capacity, he oversaw vital wartime research projects, including

1690-653: A failure of foresight, but also a failure of compassion and political sensitivity", but added that "Conant was one of the more outspoken anti-Nazis in the United States from 1933 to the outbreak of war in Europe in 1939. Stephen H. Norwood , writing in 2004, observed that "This, however, was hardly the case." Norwood noted that while Conant was not an apologist for the Nazi regime, he repeatedly failed to speak out. In 1934, Harvard-educated German businessman Ernst Hanfstaengl attended

1820-641: A means of social mobility did not escape notice. Conant recognized that education in America contributed to social stratification rather than breaking it down, and that educational opportunity needed to be extended to areas where it was deficient, such as rural areas, small towns and inner cities. He advocated for federal interventions, since these areas were often poor and lacking in the funds needed to improve education, and that they were economically and socially stratified with political and taxation structures that reinforced social stratification. Conant sought to enhance

1950-476: A minor miracle, France's actions cleared the way for West Germany to become part of NATO with its own army. At noon on May 6, 1955, Conant, along with the high commissioners from Britain and France, signed the documents ending Allied control of West Germany, admitting it to NATO, and allowing it to rearm. The office of the United States High Commissioner was abolished and Conant became instead

2080-648: A neutral and reunited Germany, the Eisenhower administration sought to reduce its defense spending by rearming Germany and replacing American troops with Germans. Meanwhile, the House Un-American Activities Committee slammed Conant's staff as communist sympathizers and called for books by communist authors held in United States Information Agency (USIA) libraries in Germany to be burned. The first crisis to occur on Conant's watch

2210-483: A nuclear battlefield, a prospect raised by the arrival of American tactical nuclear weapons in 1953 as part of the Eisenhower administration's New Look policy . Conant lobbied for the European Defense Community , which would have established a pan-European military . This seemed to be the only way that German rearmament would be accepted, but opposition from France killed the plan. In what Conant considered

2340-650: A number of reforms, including the consolidation of high schools into larger bodies that could offer a broader range of curriculum choices. Although it was slammed by critics of the American system, who hoped for a system of education based on the European model, it did lead to a wave of reforms across the country. His subsequent Slums and Suburbs in 1961 was far more controversial in its treatment of racial issues. Regarding busing as impractical, Conant urged Americans "to accept de facto segregated schools". This did not go over well with civil rights groups, and by 1964 Conant

2470-604: A revised edition in 1946. The text proved a popular one; it was adopted by 75 universities, and Conant received thousands of dollars in royalties . For his accomplishments in chemistry, he was awarded the American Chemical Society 's Nichols Medal in 1932, Columbia University 's Chandler Medal in 1932, and the American Chemical Society's highest honor, the Priestley Medal , in 1944. He also received

2600-713: A second time. Hanfstaengl's presence on campus prompted a series of anti-Nazi demonstrations, in which a number of Harvard and MIT students were arrested. Conant made a personal plea for clemency that resulted in two women being acquitted, but six men and a woman were sentenced to six months in jail. They were later pardoned by the Governor of Massachusetts , Joseph B. Ely . When the University of Berlin awarded an honorary degree in 1934 to American legal scholar and Dean of Harvard Law School Roscoe Pound , who had toured Germany earlier that year and made no secret of his admiration for

2730-667: A series of strokes in 1977, and died in a nursing home in Hanover, New Hampshire , the following year. Conant was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts , on March 26, 1893, the third child and only son of James Scott Conant, a photoengraver , and his wife Jennett Orr (née Bryant). In 1904, Conant was one of 35 boys who passed the competitive admission exam for the Roxbury Latin School in West Roxbury, Massachusetts , and he graduated near

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2860-551: A series of strokes in 1977. He died in a nursing home in Hanover, New Hampshire , on February 11, 1978. His body was cremated and his ashes interred in the Thayer-Richards family plot at Mount Auburn Cemetery . He was survived by his wife and sons. His papers are in the Harvard University Archives. Among them was a sealed brown Manila envelope that Conant had given the archives in 1951, with instructions that it

2990-595: A ten-year campaign for the consolidation of testing services, which resulted in the creation of the Educational Testing Service in 1946, with Chauncey as its director. Theodore H. White , a Boston Jewish "meatball" who received a personal letter of introduction from Conant so that he could report on the Chinese Civil War , noted that "Conant was the first president to recognize that meatballs were Harvard men too." Lowell, Conant's predecessor, had imposed

3120-572: A union. Bacow retired in June 2023, and on July 1 Claudine Gay , a Harvard professor in the Government and African American Studies departments and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences , became Harvard's 30th president. In January 2024, just six months into her presidency, Gay resigned following allegations of antisemitism and plagiarism . Gay was succeeded by Alan Garber , the university's provost, who

3250-477: Is the world's largest academic library . Harvard alumni, faculty, and researchers include 188 living billionaires , eight U.S. presidents , 24 heads of state and 31 heads of government , founders of notable companies, Nobel laureates , Fields Medalists , members of Congress , MacArthur Fellows , Rhodes Scholars , Marshall Scholars , Turing Award Recipients , Pulitzer Prize recipients, and Fulbright Scholars ; by most metrics, Harvard University ranks among

3380-516: The American Revolution . In the 19th century, Harvard was influenced by Enlightenment Age ideas, including reason and free will, which were widespread among Congregational ministers and which placed these ministers and their congregations at odds with more traditionalist, Calvinist pastors and clergies. Following the death of Hollis Professor of Divinity David Tappan in 1803 and that of Joseph Willard , Harvard's eleventh president,

3510-745: The Appleton Chapel at Harvard on April 17, 1920, and had two sons, James Richards Conant, born in May 1923, and Theodore Richards Conant, born in July 1928. Conant became an associate professor in 1924. In 1925, he visited Germany, then the heart of chemical research, for eight months. He toured the major universities and laboratories there and met many of the leading chemists, including Theodor Curtius , Kazimierz Fajans , Hans Fischer , Arthur Hantzsch , Hans Meerwein , Jakob Meisenheimer , Hermann Staudinger , Adolf Windaus and Karl Ziegler . After Conant returned to

3640-523: The Carnegie Classification . The medical school consistently ranks first among medical schools for research, and biomedical research is an area of particular strength for the university. More than 11,000 faculty and 1,600 graduate students conduct research at the medical school and its 15 affiliated hospitals and research institutes. In 2019, the medical school and its affiliates attracted $ 1.65 billion in competitive research grants from

3770-490: The Darfur genocide , and tobacco , fossil fuel , and private prison industries. In the late 1980s, during the disinvestment from South Africa movement, student activists erected a symbolic shanty town on Harvard Yard and blockaded a speech by South African Vice Consul Duke Kent-Brown. The university eventually reduced its South African holdings by $ 230 million , out of a total of $ 400 million , in response to

3900-452: The Faculty of Arts and Sciences , including Sever Hall , Harvard Hall , and freshman dormitories . Upperclassmen live in the twelve residential houses , located south of Harvard Yard near the Charles River and on Radcliffe Quadrangle , which formerly housed Radcliffe College students. Each house is a community of undergraduates, faculty deans, and resident tutors, with its own dining hall, library, and recreational facilities. Also on

4030-692: The George Floyd protests . ISGAP's flagship program is a two-week conference of more than 80 scholars of antisemitism, approximately 80% of whom are not Jewish. In 2019, the conference was held at Oxford University . In November 2023, ISGAP and the Network Contagion Research Institute published a study entitled "The Corruption of the American Mind." The study alleged $ 13 billion in undisclosed foreign funding from Qatar and other authoritarian countries to over 100 American universities to

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4160-646: The German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina . After some months of lobbying and discussion, Harvard's ruling body, the Harvard Corporation , announced on May 8, 1933, that it had elected Conant as the next President of Harvard. Alfred North Whitehead , Harvard's eminent professor of philosophy disagreed with the decision, declaring, "The Corporation should not have elected a chemist to the Presidency." "But," Corporation member Grenville Clark reminded him, " Eliot

4290-591: The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences , the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) , and the Division of Continuing Education , which includes Harvard Summer School and Harvard Extension School . There are nine other graduate and professional faculties and a faculty attacked to the Harvard Radcliffe Institute . There are four Harvard joint programs with MIT , which include

4420-631: The Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences expanded into the new Allston-based Science and Engineering Complex (SEC), which is more than 500,000 square feet in size. SEC is adjacent to the Enterprise Research Campus, the Business School, and Harvard Innovation Labs, and designed to encourage technology- and life science-focused startups and collaborations with mature companies. The university's schools of Medicine , Dental Medicine , and Public Health are located on

4550-677: The Harvard–MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology , the Broad Institute , The Observatory of Economic Complexity , and edX . The university maintains 12 schools, which include: Harvard is a founding member of the Association of American Universities and a preeminent research university with "very high" research activity (R1) and comprehensive doctoral programs across the arts, sciences, engineering, and medicine, according to

4680-591: The Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies , cut off 90 percent of the supply of natural rubber, the rubber shortage became a national scandal, and the development of synthetic substitutes, an urgent priority. Baruch dealt with the difficult political issues; Conant concerned himself with the technical ones. There were a number of different synthetic rubber products to choose from. In addition to DuPont 's neoprene , Standard Oil had licensed German patents for

4810-646: The National Institutes of Health , more than twice that of any other university. Harvard Library , the largest academic library in the world with 20.4 million holdings, is centered in Widener Library in Harvard Yard . It includes 25 individual Harvard libraries around the world with a combined staff of more than 800 librarians and personnel. Houghton Library , the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on

4940-664: The Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), with Bush as its director. Conant succeeded Bush as chairman of the NDRC, which was subsumed into the OSRD. Roger Adams , a contemporary of Conant's at Harvard in the 1910s, succeeded him as head of Division B. Conant became the driving force of the NDRC on personnel and policy matters. The NDRC would work hand in hand with the Army and Navy's research efforts, supplementing rather than supplanting them. It

5070-585: The United States declaration of war on Germany that launched U.S. involvement in World War I , Conant was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Sanitary Corps on September 22, 1917. He went to the Camp American University , where he worked on the development of poison gases . Initially, his work concentrated on mustard gas , but in May 1918, Conant took charge of a unit concerned with

5200-787: The Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering . Additional affiliates, including Massachusetts General Hospital , are located throughout Greater Boston . Harvard owns Dumbarton Oaks , a research library in Washington, D.C., Harvard Forest in Petersham, Massachusetts , Concord Field Station in Estabrook Woods in Concord, Massachusetts , the Villa I Tatti research center in Florence , Italy, and

5330-436: The ferrous (Fe ) centre found in normal hemoglobin, and this difference in oxidation state is the cause of methemoglobinemia , a medical condition which causes tissue hypoxia . Conant wrote a chemistry textbook with his former science teacher Black, entitled Practical Chemistry , which was published in 1920, with a revised edition in 1929. This was superseded in 1937 by their New Practical Chemistry , which in turn had

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5460-540: The kinetics of these systems is sometimes straightforward and simple, yet quite complex in other cases. Conant studied the effect of haloalkane structure on the rate of substitution with inorganic iodide salts which, together with earlier work, led to what is now known as either the Conant-Finkelstein reaction or more commonly simply the Finkelstein reaction . A recent application of this reaction involved

5590-415: The liberal education of Harvard students. He toyed with the notion of requiring PhD candidates to study an area outside their speciality. One obstacle was the organization of faculty into specialized departments that had little contact with each other. In 1935, he attempted to break down the specialization of academic by creating non-departmental university professorships for scholars whose research crossed

5720-429: The polymerisation of isoprene to prepare synthetic rubber . Another line of research involved the biochemistry of the hemoglobin-oxyhemoglobin system. Conant ran a series of experiments with electrochemical oxidation and reduction, following in the footsteps of the famous German chemist and Nobel laureate Fritz Haber . He determined that the iron centre in methemoglobin is a ferric (Fe ) centre, unlike

5850-738: The scientific method to laymen. In 1953, he retired as president of Harvard University and became the United States High Commissioner for Germany, overseeing the restoration of German sovereignty after World War II , and then was Ambassador to West Germany until 1957. On returning to the United States, Conant criticized the education system in The American High School Today (1959), Slums and Suburbs (1961), and The Education of American Teachers (1963). Between 1965 and 1969, Conant authored his autobiography, My Several Lives (1970). He became increasingly infirm, had

5980-510: The 1941 gesture and presented Churchill with an honorary Doctor of Laws degree. After the United States entered the war in December 1941, the OSRD handed the atomic bomb project, better known as the Manhattan Project , over to the Army, with Brigadier General Leslie R. Groves as project director. A meeting that included Conant decided Groves should be answerable to a small committee called the Military Policy Committee, chaired by Bush, with Conant as his alternate. Thus, Conant remained involved in

6110-413: The 20th century, as its endowment burgeoned and prominent intellectuals and professors affiliated with it, Harvard University's reputation as one of the world's most prestigious universities grew notably. The university's enrollment also underwent substantial growth, a product of both the founding of new graduate academic programs and an expansion of the undergraduate college . Radcliffe College emerged as

6240-409: The 25th anniversary reunion of his class of 1909, and gave a number of speeches. In his inaugural commencement address in 1934, Conant spoke out against the Nazi threat to academic freedom in Germany. His speech was interrupted by two female students who had chained themselves to the stands near the speaker's platform and chanted "Down with Hitler!" and "Down with Hanfstaengl!" Hanfstaengl wrote out

6370-407: The American Chemical Society about chlorophyll and its structure. Though the complete structure eluded him, his work did support and contribute to Nobel laureate Hans Fischer 's ultimate determination of the structure in 1939. Conant's work on chlorophyll was recognised when he was inducted as a foreign Fellow of the Royal Society on May 2, 1941. He also published three papers describing

6500-402: The Atomic Bomb". Written by former Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson with the help of McGeorge Bundy , the article stressed that the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were used to avoid the possibility of "over a million casualties", from a figure found in the estimates given to the Joint Chiefs of Staff by its Joint Planning Staff in 1945. The Atomic Energy Act of 1946 replaced

6630-548: The Center for Hellenic Studies in Greece. https://greece.chs.harvard.edu the Harvard Shanghai Center in Shanghai , China, and Arnold Arboretum in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston. Harvard is governed by a combination of its Board of Overseers and the President and Fellows of Harvard College , which is also known as the Harvard Corporation. These two bodies, in turn, appoint the President of Harvard University . There are 16,000 staff and faculty, including 2,400 professors, lecturers, and instructors. Harvard has

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6760-426: The GAC of its two best-known members. Conant was appointed to the National Science Board, which administered the new National Science Foundation , and was elected its chairman, but this body had little financial or political clout. In April 1951, Truman appointed Conant to the Science Advisory Committee , but it would not develop into an influential body until the Eisenhower administration. Conant's experience with

6890-695: The German chemist Max Bergmann , Conant wrote back that Bergmann was "definitely of the Jewish type—rather heavy" with "none of the earmarks of genius". Harvard awarded honorary degrees to two notable displaced scholars, Thomas Mann and Albert Einstein , in 1935, but Conant declined to participate in the Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced German Scholars. His vision of building Harvard's faculty involved hiring promising American scholars rather than helping refugees. The two most prominent refugee scholars at Harvard, Walter Gropius and Robert Ulich, were not Jewish. Writing in 1979, historian William M. Tuttle Jr. concluded that "Conant's position reflected not only

7020-460: The Harvard Library system include Baker Library/Bloomberg Center at Harvard Business School , Cabot Science Library at Harvard Science Center , Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C. , Gutman Library at the Harvard Graduate School of Education , Harvard Film Archive at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts , Houghton Library , and Lamont Library . James B. Conant James Bryant Conant (March 26, 1893 – February 11, 1978)

7150-403: The History of Women in America, and the Harvard University Archives consist principally of rare and unique materials. The nation's oldest collection of maps, gazetteers, and atlases is stored in Pusey Library on Harvard Yard , which is open to the public. The largest collection of East-Asian language material outside of East Asia is held in Harvard-Yenching Library . Other major libraries in

7280-460: The Joint Research and Development Board (JRDC) that was established to coordinate burgeoning defense research, and on the influential General Advisory Committee (GAC) of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC); in the latter capacity he advised the president against starting a development program for the hydrogen bomb . In his later years at Harvard, Conant taught undergraduate courses on the history and philosophy of science , and wrote books explaining

7410-511: The Manhattan Project convinced him that the public needed a better understanding of science, and he moved to revitalize the history and philosophy of science program at Harvard. He took the lead personally by teaching a new undergraduate course, Natural Science 4, "On Understanding Science". His course notes became the basis for a book of the same name, published in 1948. In 1952, he began teaching another undergraduate course, Philosophy 150, "A Philosophy of Science". In his teachings and writing on

7540-405: The Nazi regime, Conant refused to order Pound not to accept it, and attended the informal award ceremony at Harvard where Pound was presented with the degree by Hans Luther , the German ambassador to the United States. What Conant feared most was disruption to Harvard's tercentennial celebrations in 1936, but there was no trouble despite the presence of Franklin D. Roosevelt , the President of

7670-498: The Omicron chapter of Alpha Chi Sigma in 1912. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa with his Bachelor of Arts in June 1913. He then went to work on his doctorate, which was an unusual double dissertation. The first part, supervised by Richards, concerned "The Electrochemical Behavior of Liquid Sodium Amalgams"; the second, supervised by Kohler, was "A Study of Certain Cyclopropane Derivatives". Harvard awarded Conant his Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1916. In 1915, Conant entered into

7800-429: The Order of the British Empire by Britain in 1948, and he was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1957. He was also awarded over 50 honorary degrees, and was posthumously inducted into the Alpha Chi Sigma Hall of Fame in 2000. Between 1965 and 1969, Conant, living with a heart condition, worked on his biography, My Several Lives . He became increasingly infirm, and had

7930-421: The Sheldon Emery Professor of Organic Chemistry in 1929. He researched the physical structures of natural products , particularly chlorophyll , and he was one of the first to explore the sometimes complex relationship between chemical equilibrium and the reaction rate of chemical processes. He studied the biochemistry of oxyhemoglobin providing insight into the disease methemoglobinemia , helped to explain

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8060-400: The Sheldon Emery Professor of Organic Chemistry, and then, in 1931, the chairman of the chemistry department. Between 1928 and 1933, Conant published 55 papers. Much of his research, like his double thesis, combined natural product chemistry with physical organic chemistry . Based on his exploration of reaction rates in chemical equilibria , Conant was one of the first to recognise that

8190-565: The United States , and a Harvard graduate of the class of 1904, whom many fellow Harvard graduates regarded as a socialist and a class traitor . Privately, Conant approved of the New Deal and expressed admiration for Roosevelt's goals. He invited Roosevelt to speak at the tercentennial celebrations. This did not sit well with Lowell, and it was only with difficulty that Lowell was persuaded to be presiding officer at an event at which Roosevelt spoke. The parallels between Roosevelt's New Deal and Conant's advocacy of meritocracy and of education as

8320-476: The United States in February 1957, where he leased an apartment on the Upper East Side in New York City . Between 1957 and 1965, the Carnegie Corporation of New York gave him over a million dollars to write studies of education. In 1959 he published The American High School Today , better known as the Conant Report. This became a best seller, resulting in Conant's appearance on the cover of Time magazine on September 14, 1959. In it, Conant called for

8450-404: The United States, Arthur Amos Noyes made him an attractive offer to move to Caltech . The president of Harvard, Abbott Lawrence Lowell , made a counter offer: immediate promotion to professor, effective September 1, 1927, with a salary of $ 7,000 (roughly equivalent to US$ 122,782 as of 2024 ) and a grant of $ 9,000 per annum for research. Conant accepted and stayed at Harvard. In 1929, he became

8580-432: The abolition of class rankings and athletic scholarships . Conant added new graduate degrees in education, history of science and public policy, and he introduced the Nieman Fellowship for journalists to study at Harvard, the first of which was awarded in 1939. He supported the "meatballs", as lower class students were called. He instituted the Harvard national scholarships for underprivileged students. Dudley House

8710-454: The administration of the Manhattan Project at its highest levels. In August 1942, Roosevelt appointed Conant to the Rubber Survey Committee. Chaired by Bernard M. Baruch , a trusted adviser and confidant of Roosevelt, the committee was tasked with reviewing the synthetic rubber program. Corporations used patent laws to restrict competition and stifle innovation. When the Japanese occupation of Malaya, North Borneo and Sarawak , followed by

8840-657: The atomic bomb should be used against an industrial target in Japan as soon as possible and without warning. On July 16, 1945, Conant was among the dignitaries present at the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range for the Trinity nuclear test , the first detonation of an atomic bomb. After the war, Conant became concerned about growing criticism in the United States of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by figures like Norman Cousins and Reinhold Niebuhr . He played an important behind-the-scenes role in shaping public opinion by instigating and then editing an influential February 1947 Harper's article entitled "The Decision to Use

8970-572: The boundaries of multiple disciplines. Undergraduates were required to take general education courses, of which a proportion had to be outside their area of concentration. He took a particular interest in establishing a history of science graduate program and a history of science course for nonscientists. Although he had no daughters and little interest in the education of women, the exigencies of World War II meant reduced numbers of male students, and this propelled Conant in that direction. In June 1943, he concluded an agreement with Radcliffe College ,

9100-473: The charter and seal presented to John Leverett the Younger in 1707, but dropped a number of other customs, including the singing of Gloria Patri and the Latin Oration. While, unlike some other universities, Harvard did not require Greek or Latin for entrance, they were worth double credits towards admission, and students like Conant who had studied Latin were awarded an A.B. degree while those who had not, received an S.B . One of his first efforts at reform

9230-472: The churches when our present ministers shall lie in the dust." In its early years, the college trained many Puritan ministers and offered a classical curriculum based on the English university model many colonial-era Massachusetts leaders experienced at the University of Cambridge , where many of them studied prior to immigrating to British America . Harvard never formally affiliated with any particular Protestant denomination, but its curriculum conformed to

9360-504: The college years. I know that a man cannot be a research chemist without a reading knowledge of German. It is hard to acquire it as the first language in college. As a first step to improving the faculty, Conant established a mandatory retirement age of sixty-six, with exceptional faculty members able to remain until age seventy-six. The latter affected two of the university's most eminent scholars, Frank Taussig and George Kittredge , who were persuaded to retire voluntarily rather than under

9490-464: The departure of organic chemist Roger Adams created a vacancy at Harvard that was offered to Conant. Since he aspired to an academic career, Conant accepted the offer and returned to Harvard. On November 27, 1916, an explosion killed Pennock and two others and completely destroyed a subsequent and newly opened plant in Newark, New Jersey. A contributing cause was Conant's faulty test procedures. Following

9620-458: The development of lewisite . He was promoted to major on July 20, 1918. A pilot plant was built, and then a full-scale production plant in Cleveland , but the war ended before lewisite could be used in battle. Conant was appointed an assistant professor of chemistry at Harvard in 1919. The following year he became engaged to Richards's daughter, Grace (Patty) Thayer Richards. They were married in

9750-646: The development of synthetic rubber and the Manhattan Project , which developed the first atomic bombs . On July 16, 1945, he was among the dignitaries present at the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range for the Trinity nuclear test , the first detonation of an atomic bomb, and was part of the Interim Committee that advised President Harry S. Truman to use atomic bombs on Japan. After the war, he served on

9880-465: The director of the Carnegie Institution of Washington , recruited Conant to the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC), although he remained president of Harvard. Bush envisaged the NDRC as bringing scientists together to "conduct research for the creation and improvement of instrumentalities, methods and materials of warfare." Although the United States had not yet entered the war, Conant

10010-409: The female counterpart of Harvard College, becoming one of the most prominent schools in the nation for women. In 1923, a year after the percentage of Jewish students at Harvard reached 20%, A. Lawrence Lowell , the university's 22nd president, unsuccessfully proposed capping the admission of Jewish students to 15% of the undergraduate population. Lowell also refused to mandate forced desegregation in

10140-510: The first United States Ambassador to West Germany . His role was now to encourage West Germany to build up its forces, while reassuring the Germans that doing so would not result in a United States withdrawal. Being fluent in German, Conant was able to give speeches to German audiences. He paid numerous visits to German educational and scientific organizations. While high commissioner, Conant approved

10270-716: The first atomic bombs. At the same time, the Joint Research and Development Board (JRDC) was established to coordinate defense research, and Bush asked Conant to head its atomic energy subcommittee, on which Oppenheimer also served. When the new AEC chairman David E. Lilienthal raised security concerns about Oppenheimer's relationships with communists , including Oppenheimer's brother Frank Oppenheimer , his wife Kitty and his former girlfriend Jean Tatlock , Bush and Conant reassured Lilienthal that they had known about it when they had placed Oppenheimer in charge at Los Alamos in 1942. With such expressions of support, AEC issued Oppenheimer

10400-455: The following year, a struggle broke out over their replacements. In 1805, Henry Ware was elected to replace Tappan as Hollis chair. Two years later, in 1807, liberal Samuel Webber was appointed as Harvard's 13th president, representing a shift from traditional ideas at Harvard to more liberal and Arminian ideas. In 1816, Harvard University launched new language programs in the study of French and Spanish , and appointed George Ticknor

10530-507: The following year. In 1638, the university acquired British North America 's first known printing press . The same year, on his deathbed, John Harvard , a Puritan clergyman who emigrated to the colony from England, bequeathed the emerging college £780 and his library of some 320 volumes; the following year, it was named Harvard College . In 1643, a Harvard publication defined the college's purpose: "advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity, dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to

10660-549: The government of Israel, income which the think tank did not divulge. Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts , United States. Founded October 28, 1636, and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard , it is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. Its influence, wealth, and rankings have made it one of

10790-552: The largest university endowment in the world, valued at about $ 50.7 billion as of 2023. During the recession of 2007–2009 , it suffered significant losses that forced large budget cuts, in particular temporarily halting construction on the Allston Science Complex. The endowment has since recovered. About $ 2 billion of investment income is annually distributed to fund operations. Harvard's ability to fund its degree and financial aid programs depends on

10920-506: The late 19th century, Harvard University's graduate schools began admitting women in small numbers. In 1900, Harvard became a founding member of the Association of American Universities . For the first few decades of the 20th century, the Harvard student body was predominantly "old-stock, high-status Protestants , especially Episcopalians , Congregationalists , and Presbyterians ," according to sociologist and author Jerome Karabel . Over

11050-543: The main campus in Cambridge are the Law , Divinity (theology), Engineering and Applied Science , Design (architecture), Education , Kennedy (public policy), and Extension schools, and Harvard Radcliffe Institute in Radcliffe Yard. Harvard also has commercial real estate holdings in Cambridge. Harvard Business School , Harvard Innovation Labs , and many athletics facilities, including Harvard Stadium , are located on

11180-461: The main campus, a 209-acre (85 ha) in Cambridge centered on Harvard Yard ; an adjoining campus immediately across Charles River in the Allston neighborhood of Boston ; and the medical campus in Boston's Longwood Medical Area . Harvard's endowment , valued at $ 50.7 billion , makes it the wealthiest academic institution in the world. Harvard Library , with more than 20 million volumes,

11310-403: The materials needed for synthetic rubber production. Technical problems dogged the program through 1943, but by late 1944 plants were in operation with an annual capacity of over a million tons, most of which was Buna-S. In May 1945, Conant became part of the Interim Committee that was formed to advise the new president, Harry S. Truman on nuclear weapons. The Interim Committee decided that

11440-490: The most prestigious universities in the world. Harvard was founded and authorized by the Massachusetts General Court , the governing legislature of colonial -era Massachusetts Bay Colony . While never formally affiliated with any denomination , Harvard trained Congregational clergy until its curriculum and student body were gradually secularized in the 18th century. By the 19th century, Harvard emerged as

11570-461: The most prominent academic and cultural institution among the Boston elite . Following the American Civil War , under Harvard president Charles William Eliot 's long tenure from 1869 to 1909, Harvard developed multiple professional schools, which transformed it into a modern research university . In 1900, Harvard co-founded the Association of American Universities . James B. Conant led

11700-529: The new rule. His longest and most bitter battle was over tenure reform, shifting to an " up or out " policy, under which scholars who were not promoted were terminated. A small number of extra-departmental positions was set aside for outstanding scholars. This policy led junior faculty to revolt, and nearly resulted in Conant's dismissal in 1938. Conant was fond of saying: "Behold the turtle. It makes progress only when it sticks its neck out." Other reforms included

11830-496: The pension age of sixty. In Germany, there were major issues to be decided. Germany was still occupied by the Soviet Union, the United States, Great Britain and France. Dealing with the wartime allies was a major task for the high commissioner. West Germany, made up of the zones occupied by the three western powers, had been granted control of its own affairs, except for defense and foreign policy, in 1949. While most Germans wanted

11960-530: The performance of its endowment; a poor performance in fiscal year 2016 forced a 4.4% cut in the number of graduate students funded by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences . Endowment income is critical, as only 22% of revenue is from students' tuition, fees, room, and board. Since the 1970s, several student-led campaigns have advocated divesting Harvard's endowment from controversial holdings, including investments in South Africa during apartheid , Sudan during

12090-735: The philosophy of science, he drew heavily on those of his Harvard colleague Willard Van Orman Quine . Conant contributed four chapters to the 1957 Harvard Case Histories in Experimental Science , including an account of the overthrow of the phlogiston theory . In 1951, he published Science and Common Sense , in which he attempted to explain the ways of scientists to laymen. Conant's ideas about scientific progress would come under attack by his own protégés, notably Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions . Conant commented on Kuhn's manuscript in draft form. In April 1951, Conant

12220-427: The preparation of an iodinated polyvinyl chloride from regular PVC. A combination of Conant's work on the kinetics of hydrogenation and George Kistiakowsky 's work on the enthalpy changes of these reactions supported the later development of the theory of hyperconjugation . Conant's investigations helped in the development of a more comprehensive understanding of the nature of acids and bases. He investigated

12350-430: The president of Johns Hopkins University , after a "revolt" by scientists unhappy with Conant. The GAC was enormously influential throughout the late 1940s, but the opposition of Oppenheimer and Conant to the development of the hydrogen bomb , only to be overridden by Truman in 1950, diminished its stature. It was reduced further when Oppenheimer and Conant were not reappointed when their terms expired in 1952, depriving

12480-432: The pressure. Harvard is a large, highly residential research university offering 50 undergraduate majors, 134 graduate degrees, and 32 professional degrees. During the 2018–2019 academic year, Harvard granted 1,665 baccalaureate degrees, 1,013 graduate degrees, and 5,695 professional degrees. Harvard College , the four-year, full-time undergraduate program, has a liberal arts and sciences focus. To graduate in

12610-509: The properties of hydrocarbons as very weak acids, including acetophenone , phenylacetylene , fluorene and diphenylmethane . Conant can be considered alongside Brønsted , Lowry , Lewis , and Hammett as a developer of modern understanding of acids and bases. Between 1929 and his retirement from chemical research in 1933, Conant published papers in Science , Nature , and the Journal of

12740-653: The properties of certain acids which were many times stronger than mineral acid solutions in water. Conant christened them " superacids " and laid the foundation for the development of the Hammett acidity function . These investigations used acetic acid as the solvent and demonstrated that sodium acetate behaves as a base under these conditions. This observation is consistent with Brønsted–Lowry acid–base theory published in 1923, but cannot be explained under older Arrhenius theory approaches . Later work with George Wheland and extended by William Kirk McEwen looked at

12870-468: The release of many major and other German war criminals after serving only a fraction of their sentences, against protests from American political leaders and veterans' organizations (some of those sentenced had murdered American prisoners), accusing him of "moral amnesia". Such criticism continued when as ambassador he supported the West German government's leniency toward former Nazis. Conant returned to

13000-577: The representative of Tube Alloys , the British atomic project. Conant's tough stance, under which the British were excluded except where their assistance was vital, resulted in British retaliation, and a complete breakdown of cooperation. His objections were swept aside by Roosevelt, who brokered the 1943 Quebec Agreement with Churchill, that restored full cooperation. After the Quebec Conference , Churchill visited Conant at Harvard, where Conant returned

13130-614: The society's Charles Lathrop Parsons Award in 1955, for public service. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1924, a Member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1929, and a Member of the American Philosophical Society in 1935. Notable students of Conant's included Paul Doughty Bartlett , George Wheland, and Frank Westheimer . In 1932 he was also honored by membership of

13260-514: The structure of chlorophyll , and contributed important insights that underlie modern theories of acid-base chemistry . In 1933, Conant became the president of Harvard University with a reformist agenda that involved dispensing with a number of customs, including class rankings and the requirement for Latin classes. He abolished athletic scholarships , and instituted an " up or out " policy, under which untenured faculty who were not promoted were terminated. His egalitarian vision of education required

13390-423: The surrounding Harvard Square neighborhood. The Yard houses several Harvard buildings, including four of the university's libraries, Houghton , Lamont , Pusey , and Widener . Also on Harvard Yard are Massachusetts Hall , built between 1718 and 1720 and the university's oldest still standing building, Memorial Church , and University Hall Harvard Yard and adjacent areas include the main academic buildings of

13520-455: The tenets of Puritanism. In 1650, the charter for Harvard Corporation , the college's governing body, was granted. From 1681 to 1701, Increase Mather , a Puritan clergyman, served as Harvard's sixth president . In 1708, John Leverett became Harvard's seventh president and the first president who was not also a clergyman. Harvard faculty and students largely supported the Patriot cause during

13650-519: The top of his class from the school in 1910. Encouraged by his science teacher, Newton H. Black, in September of that year he entered Harvard College , where he studied physical chemistry under Theodore W. Richards and organic chemistry under Elmer P. Kohler . He was also an editor of The Harvard Crimson . He joined the Signet Society and Delta Upsilon , and was initiated as a brother of

13780-494: The top universities in the world in each of these categories. Harvard students and alumni have also collectively won 10 Academy Awards and 110 Olympic medals , including 46 gold. Harvard was founded in 1636 during the colonial , pre- Revolutionary era by vote of the Great and General Court of Massachusetts Bay Colony , one of the original Thirteen Colonies of British America . Its first headmaster, Nathaniel Eaton , took office

13910-498: The undergraduate college became accessible to striving middle class students from public schools; many more Jews and Catholics were admitted, but still few Blacks, Hispanics, or Asians versus the representation of these groups in the general U.S. population. Over the second half of the 20th century, however, the university became incrementally more diverse. Between 1971 and 1999, Harvard controlled undergraduate admission, instruction, and housing for Radcliffe's women; in 1999, Radcliffe

14040-488: The university through the Great Depression and World War II , and liberalized admissions after the war. The university has ten academic faculties and a faculty attached to Harvard Radcliffe Institute . The Faculty of Arts and Sciences offers study in a wide range of undergraduate and graduate academic disciplines , and other faculties offer graduate degrees, including professional degrees. Harvard has three campuses:

14170-400: The university's freshman dormitories , writing that, "We owe to the colored man the same opportunities for education that we do to the white man, but we do not owe to him to force him and the white into social relations that are not, or may not be, mutually congenial." Between 1933 and 1953, Harvard University was led by James B. Conant , the university's 23rd president, who reinvigorated

14300-428: The university's creative scholarship in an effort to guarantee Harvard's preeminence among the nation and world's emerging research institutions. Conant viewed higher education as a vehicle of opportunity for the talented rather than an entitlement for the wealthy, and devised programs to identify, recruit, and support talented youth. In 1945, under Conant's leadership, an influential 268-page report, General Education in

14430-531: The university's first professor for these language programs. From 1869 to 1909, Charles William Eliot , Harvard University's 21st president, decreased the historically favored position of Christianity in the curriculum, opening it to student self-direction. Though Eliot was an influential figure in the secularization of U.S. higher education, he was motivated primarily by Transcendentalist and Unitarian convictions influenced by William Ellery Channing , Ralph Waldo Emerson , and others, rather than secularism. In

14560-500: The usual four years, undergraduates normally take four courses per semester. In most majors, an honors degree requires advanced coursework and a senior thesis. Though some introductory courses have large enrollments, the median class size is 12 students. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences , with an academic staff of 1,211 as of 2019, is the largest Harvard faculty, and has primary responsibility for instruction in Harvard College ,

14690-717: The wartime Manhattan Project with the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) on January 1, 1947. The Act also established the General Advisory Committee (GAC) within the AEC to provide it with scientific and technical advice. It was widely expected that Conant would chair the GAC, but the position went to Robert Oppenheimer , the wartime director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory that had designed and developed

14820-527: The women's college associated with Harvard, for Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences to assume responsibility for the instruction of Radcliffe students. Initially there were separate but identical undergraduate courses for Harvard and Radcliffe students, but this gave way to coeducational classes. It was during his presidency that the first class of women were admitted to Harvard Medical School in 1945, and Harvard Law School in 1950. In June 1940, with World War II already raging in Europe, Vannevar Bush ,

14950-533: Was a chemist, and our best president too." "I know," replied Whitehead, "but Eliot was a bad chemist." Clark was very much responsible for Conant's election. On October 9, 1933, Conant became the President of Harvard University with a low-key installation ceremony in the Faculty Room of University Hall . This set the tone for Conant's presidency as one of informality and reform. At his inauguration, he accepted

15080-598: Was ahead of the American one raised the possibility in Conant's mind that the German nuclear energy project might be even further ahead, as Germany was generally acknowledged to be a world leader in nuclear physics. Later that year, Churchill, as Chancellor of the University of Bristol , conferred an honorary Doctor of Laws degree on Conant in absentia . Conant subsequently moved to restrict cooperation with Britain on nuclear energy, particularly its post-war aspects, and became involved in heated negotiations with Wallace Akers ,

15210-402: Was an American chemist , a transformative President of Harvard University , and the first U.S. Ambassador to West Germany . Conant obtained a Ph.D. in chemistry from Harvard in 1916. During World War I , he served in the U.S. Army , where he worked on the development of poison gases , especially Lewisite . He became an assistant professor of chemistry at Harvard University in 1919 and

15340-460: Was appointed interim president. In August 2024, the university announced that Garber would be appointed Harvard's 31st president through the end of the 2026–27 academic year. The 209-acre (85 ha) main campus of Harvard University is centered on Harvard Yard , colloquially known as "the Yard," in Cambridge, Massachusetts , about 3 miles (5 km) west-northwest of downtown Boston , and extending to

15470-560: Was approached by U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson about replacing John J. McCloy as United States High Commissioner for Germany, but he declined. However, after Dwight Eisenhower was elected president in 1952, Conant was again offered the job by the new Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles , and this time he accepted. At the Harvard Board of Overseers meeting on January 12, 1952, Conant announced that he would retire in September 1953 after twenty years at Harvard, having reached

15600-406: Was eagerly sought. Conant had lunch with Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Frederick Lindemann , his leading scientific adviser, and an audience with King George VI at Buckingham Palace . At a subsequent meeting, Lindemann told Conant about British progress towards developing an atomic bomb . What most impressed Conant was the British conviction that it was feasible. That the British program

15730-507: Was forced to admit that he had been wrong. In The Education of American Teachers in 1963, Conant found much to criticize about the training of teachers. Most controversial was his defense of the arrangement by which teachers were certified by independent bodies rather than the teacher training colleges. On December 6, 1963, President Lyndon Johnson presented Conant with the Presidential Medal of Freedom , with special distinction. He

15860-454: Was formally merged into Harvard University. On July 1, 2007, Drew Gilpin Faust , dean of Harvard Radcliffe Institute , was appointed Harvard's 28th and the university's first female president. On July 1, 2018, Faust retired and joined the board of Goldman Sachs , and Lawrence Bacow became Harvard's 29th president . In February 2023, approximately 6,000 Harvard workers attempted to organize

15990-708: Was founded in 2004 by Charles Asher Small from Tel Aviv University as a non-profit organization to produce and support academic research, seminars, and conferences to study antisemitism. In 2006, Small and ISGAP founded the Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism (YIISA), the first university-based institute dedicated to the study of antisemitism in North America, at Yale University . In August 2020, ISGAP suspended its operations for 48 hours in solidarity with African Americans during

16120-416: Was not alone in his conviction that Nazi Germany had to be stopped, and that the United States would inevitably become embroiled in the conflict. The immediate task, as Conant saw it, was therefore to organize American science for war. He became head of the NDRC's Division B, the division responsible for bombs, fuels, gases and chemicals. On June 28, 1941, Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8807, which created

16250-436: Was opened to provide non-resident students with increased opportunities for socialization (opportunities provided to resident undergraduates by the twelve Harvard College residential houses ). Conant asked two of his assistant deans, Henry Chauncey and William Bender, to determine whether the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) was a good measure of academic potential. When they reported that it was, Conant adopted it. He waged

16380-620: Was outlined in his books Education in a Divided World in 1948, and Education and Liberty in 1951. In 1952, he went further and endorsed the dismissal of academics who invoked the Fifth under questioning by the House Un-American Activities Committee . A sign of Conant's declining influence occurred in 1950, when he was passed over for the post of President of the National Academy of Sciences in favor of Detlev Bronk ,

16510-546: Was selected for the award by President John F. Kennedy , but the ceremony was delayed prior to Kennedy's assassination . In February 1970, President Richard Nixon presented Conant with the Atomic Pioneers Award from the Atomic Energy Commission. Other awards that Conant received during his long career included being made a Commander of Légion d'honneur by France in 1936 and an Honorary Commander of

16640-477: Was specifically charged with investigating nuclear fission . In February 1941, Roosevelt sent Conant to Britain as head of a mission that also included Frederick L. Hovde from Purdue University and Carroll L. Wilson from MIT, to evaluate the research being carried out there and the prospects for cooperation. The 1940 Tizard Mission had revealed that American technology was some years behind that of Britain in many fields, most notably radar , and cooperation

16770-484: Was the uprising of 1953 in East Germany . This brought the reunification issue to the fore. Konrad Adenauer 's deft handling of the issue enabled him to handily win re-election as Chancellor of West Germany in September, but this also strengthened his hand in negotiations with Conant. Adenauer did not want his country to become a bargaining chip between the United States and the Soviet Union, nor did he want it to become

16900-441: Was to attempt to abolish this distinction. But in 1937 he wrote: I do not see how one can make very much headway as a student ... of history and literature without a reading knowledge of Latin. I do not see how a person can go very far in any branch of science without a thorough understanding of mathematics, and if the underpinning was bad in school, probably the necessary calculus and so forth would not have been taken during

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