History of Harvard University History of Harvard University Harvard College, around which Harvard University eventually grew, was founded in 1636 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, making it the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. For centuries, its graduates dominated Massachusetts' clerical and civil ranks and beginning in the 19th century its stature became national, then international, as a dozen graduate and professional schools were formed alongside the nucleus undergraduate College. Historically influential in national roles are the schools of medicine (1782), law (1817) and business (1908) as well as the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (1890). Since the late 19th century
Harvard University has been responsible for essentially all aspects of admission, instruction, and undergraduate life for women, and Radcliffe was formally merged into Harvard in 1999. Drew Gilpin Faust, previously the dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, became Harvard's president on July 1, 2007. In February 2018, Lawrence Seldon Bacow was designated to take office as its 29th president on July 1, 2018. Harvard's main campus is centered on Harvard Yard in Cambridge, about west-northwest of downtown Boston, and extends into the surrounding Harvard Square neighborhood. Harvard Yard itself contains the central administrative offices and main libraries of the university,