Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States, celebrated its 350th anniversary in 1986. Founded only sixteen years after the arrival of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, the University has grown from nine students with a single master to more than 18,000 degree candidates (including undergraduates) and students in ten graduate and professional schools. An additional 13,000 students are enrolled in the Harvard Extension School. Over 14,000 people work at Harvard, including more than 2,000 faculty. There are more than 7,000 faculty appointments in affiliated teaching hospitals.

Harvard College was established in 1636 by vote of the Great and General Court of Massachusetts Bay Colony. It was named for its first benefactor, John Harvard of Charlestown, a young minister who, upon his death in 1638, left his library and half his estate to the new institution. Charles W. Eliot, who served as president from 1869 to 1909, modernized the relatively small provincial college. During his tenure, the Law and Medical Schools were revitalized, and the Graduate Schools of Business, Dental Medicine, and Arts and Sciences were established. Enrollment grew from 1,000 to 3,000 students, the faculty grew from 49 to 278, and the endowment increased from $2.3 million to $22.5 million.

The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) is under the direction of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), which includes Harvard College and the Harvard Extension School. It is the responsibility of that faculty to: set the conditions of admission to the school; provide courses of instruction for its students; direct their studies and examine them in their fields; establish and maintain the requirements for its degrees and make recommendations for those degrees to the Governing Boards; regulate the governance of the school; and, exercise general supervision over all its affairs.

The GSAS home page is found at http://www.gsas.harvard.edu/.