Harvard Forest Trustees of Reservations, state forest land, and the Massachusetts Audubon Society's Rutland Brook Sanctuary. Harvard Forest Harvard Forest is an ecological research area of owned and managed by Harvard University and located in Petersham, Massachusetts. The property, in operation since 1907, includes one of North America's oldest managed forests, educational and research facilities, a museum, and recreation trails. Harvard Forest is open to the public. Harvard University conducts forest biology and conservation research on the property, including two major programs: the Long Term Ecological Research LTER program, funded by the National Science Foundation and established in 1988 to investigate New
Harvard University by the 19th century, Harvard had emerged as the central cultural establishment among Boston elites. Following the American Civil War, President Charles W. Eliot's long tenure (1869–1909) transformed the college and affiliated professional schools into a modern research university; Harvard was a founding member of the Association of American Universities in 1900. A. Lawrence Lowell, who followed Eliot, further reformed the undergraduate curriculum and undertook aggressive expansion of Harvard's land holdings and physical plant. James Bryant Conant led the university through the Great Depression and World War II and began to reform the curriculum and liberalize admissions after the war.