Get up to speed here. Pete Williamson is the team leader for InterVarsity’s Graduate and Faculty Ministries at Harvard and a Harvard Chaplain. Here is a taste of his recent piece at Christianity Today: For seven years, I have worked […]
Harvard
Harvard’s new chief chaplain is an atheist
Harvard recently chose Greg Epstein, an atheist, as its new chief chaplain. Here is Emma Goldberg at The New York Times; The Puritan colonists who settled in New England in the 1630s had a nagging concern about the churches they […]
Cornel West is threatening to leave Harvard
Harvard offered the 67-year-old public intellectual an endowed chair, a ten year contract, and a pay raise, but Cornel West is holding out for tenure. I can’t read the Boston Globe story because I don’t have subscription, but here is […]
What John Quincy Adams Thought About His Pastors and Schoolmates
This is a great post from J.L. Bell at Boston 1775. A taste: I promised more cattiness from John Quincy Adams as a college student. In his diary for the year 1787, Adams inserted several profiles of his classmates and other people he met […]
Moving Into the Dorms, Circa 1785
My youngest daughter went to her first college class yesterday morning (Spanish I). She moved into the dorms last week and has managed to survive four full days of new student orientation. I think I will send her J.L. Bell’s […]
The Latest from the Randall Stephens Collection: Historian Baseball Card Series
Check out the entire collection here.
Drew Gilpin Faust
She is the outgoing president of Harvard and one of the best Civil War historians working today. Here is Colleen Walsh’s Harvard Gazette interview with Drew Gilpin Faust: Q: You wrote a letter to President Eisenhower when you were 9 urging him to […]
“Till the stock of the Puritans die”
Harvard University has changed the lyrics of the school’s alma mater. Goodbye Puritans. Read about it at The Boston Globe. Here is a taste: The lyrics “Till the stock of the Puritans die,” the last verse in the 181-year-old song, will […]
Ghost Dissertation Advisers
I am thankful that I had an excellent dissertation adviser who cared about my work. Katrin Schultheiss, the current chair of the Department of History at George Washington University, did not have the same experience. She described her experience (at […]
Drew Gilpin Faust on Free Speech: We live in a “highly polarized political and social environment, perhaps the most divisive since the era of the Civil War”
Here is the Harvard president’s commencement address: [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anZrIGqFAw4&w=560&h=315]
Slavery at Harvard
I just came across this article Lydialyle Gibson’s essay in Harvard Magazine titled “A Vast Slave Society.” It is a report on a one-day conference at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute on slavery at America’s first institution of higher education and other […]
Did John Quincy Adams Pass the Harvard Entrance Exam?
He took the exam in 1786. Over at Boston 1775, J.L. Bell tells us what happened. Here is a taste: Here’s John Quincy’s description of the test from his diary: Between 9 and 10 in the morning, I went to the […]
Harvard Law School Removes Crest Linked to Slavery. Annette Gordon Reed Dissents
Harvard Law School has decided to abandon the crest of the Isaac Royal family, a slaveholder who helped endow the school because it does not represent “Harvard values.” Not everyone at Harvard Law School agrees with the decision. One of […]
Digital Archive of Massachusetts Anti-Slavery and Anti-Segregation Petitions
Another great digital history project just went live last week. Harvard just made accessible a searchable online database of close to 3500 antislavery and antisegregation petitions sent to the Massachusetts colonial and state legislatures from the 1600s to 1870. […]
Can You Pass This Literacy Test?
It was used in 1964 by the state of Louisiana to prevent Blacks from voting. Watch some Harvard students take the test: [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L44aX-pUTGE] Read more about the test here.
Why Harvard Hates You
Jonathan Rees is on fire. Using Springsteen’s version of “John Henry” as a lead in, he explains how Harvard University is using MOOCs to kill off as many academic jobs as possible. Here is a taste: Exhibit A: After the […]
De-Disciplinizing the Humanities
Chris Buczinsky of Calumet College of St. Joseph (Whiting, IN) and Robert Frodeman of the University of North Texas think that the humanities have been held captive for too long by the so-called “Harvard model.” This model confines the humanities […]
Did the British Plan to Burn Harvard in 1775?
J.L. Bell has a great post at Boston 1775 on a 1775 Thanksgiving sermon accusing the British of plotting to burn Harvard College. The sermon was preached by Rev. Isaac Mansfield Jr., a Continental Army chaplain. When it was published […]
Tweet of the Day
Not Bill Walton @NotBillWalton 25m The snooty Harvard elite are attempting to disenfranchise the common man once again by ripping their brackets to shreds. For shame!
Harvard Gets On Board With Digital History
More here.