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Harvard – Veritas

Veritas the motto of Harvard bluntly means “Truth”.

Harvard is the longest existing institution of higher learning in the United States. John Harvard, whom bequeathed four hundred, books in his will to form the basis of the college library collection, along with half of his personal wealth worth several hundred pounds. A young clergyman and graduate of Emmanuel College, in England the institution was named Harvard College on March 13, 1639 after their mascot John Harvard. The earliest reference to Harvard as a “university” occurred in the new Massachusetts Constitution of 1780.

The main campus is centered on Harvard yard in central Cambridge and extends into the surrounding Harvard Square Neighborhood. The Business School and many of the university’s athletics facilities, including Harvard Stadium, are located in Allston on the other side of the Charles River from Harvard Square. Harvard Medical School, Harvard School of Dental Medicine and the Harvard School of Public Health are located in the Longwood Medical and Academic area in Boston. Harvard yard contains the central administrative offices and libraries and Sever and University Halls. Sophomore, junior and senior undergraduates live in twelve residential Houses, nine of which are south of Harvard Yard along or near the Charles River. The other three are located in a residential neighborhood half a mile northwest of the Yard at the Quadrangle, which formerly housed Radcliffe College students until Radcliffe merged its residential system with Harvard.

Catharine Drew Gilpin Faust is an American historian and the first female president of Harvard University. Catharine, the former Dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, is also Harvard’s first president since 1672 without an undergraduate or graduate degree from Harvard.