Harvard University is an American private Ivy League research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States^[7] and the first corporation (officially The President and Fellows of Harvard College) chartered in the country. Harvard's history, influence, and wealth have made it one of the most prestigious universities in the world.^{[8][9][10][11]}

Harvard was named after its first benefactor, John Harvard. Although never formally affiliated with a church, the college primarily trained Congregationalist and Unitarian clergy. Harvard's curriculum and students became secular throughout the 18th century and by the 19th century had emerged as the central cultural establishment among Boston elites.^[12][13] Following the American Civil War, President Charles W. Eliot's forty year tenure (1869–1909) transformed the college and affiliated professional schools into a centralized research university, and Harvard became a founding member of the Association of American Universities in 1900.^[14] 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. The undergraduate college became coeducational after its 1977 merger with Radcliffe College. Drew Gilpin Faust was elected the 28th president in 2007 and is the first woman to lead the university. Harvard has the largest financial endowment of any academic institution in the world, standing at $32 billion as of September 2011.^[4]

The university comprises eleven separate academic units—ten faculties and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study—with campuses throughout the Boston metropolitan area.^[15] Harvard's 210-acre (85 ha) main campus is centered on Harvard Yard in Cambridge, approximately 3.4 miles (5.5 km) northwest of downtown Boston. The business school and athletics facilities, including Harvard Stadium, are located across the Charles River in Allston and the medical, dental, and public health schools are located in the Longwood Medical Area.^[6]

As of 2010, Harvard employs about 2,100 faculty to teach and advise approximately 6,700 undergraduates (Harvard College) and 14,500 graduate and professional students.^[16] Eight U.S. presidents have been graduates, and 75 Nobel Laureates have been student, faculty, or staff affiliates. Harvard is also the alma mater of sixty-two living billionaires, the most in the country.^[17] The Harvard University Library is the largest academic library in the United States, and one of the largest in the world.^[18]

The Harvard Crimson competes in 41 intercollegiate sports in the NCAA Division I Ivy League. Harvard has an intense athletic rivalry with Yale University traditionally culminating in The Game, although the Harvard–Yale Regatta predates the football game. This rivalry, though, is put aside every two years when the Harvard and Yale Track and Field teams come together to compete against a combined Oxford University and Cambridge University team, a competition that is the oldest continuous international amateur competition in the world.^[19]

History[link]

Colonial[link]

Engraving of Harvard College by Paul Revere, 1767

Harvard was founded in 1636 by vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, making it the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. Initially called "New College" or "the college at New Towne", the institution was renamed Harvard College on March 13, 1639. It was named after John Harvard, a young English clergyman from Southwark, London, an alumnus of the University of Cambridge (after which Cambridge, Massachusetts is named), who bequeathed the College his library of four hundred books and £779 pounds sterling, which was half of his estate.^[20] The charter creating the corporation of Harvard College came in 1650. In the early years, the College trained many Puritan ministers.^[21] The college offered a classic academic course based on the English university model—many leaders in the colony had attended Cambridge University—but one consistent with the prevailing Puritan philosophy. The college was never affiliated with any particular denomination, but many of its earliest graduates went on to become clergymen in Congregational and Unitarian churches throughout New England.^[22] An early brochure, published in 1643, described the founding of the college as a response to the desire "to advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity, dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches".^[23]

The leading Boston divine Increase Mather served as president from 1685 to 1701. In 1708, John Leverett became the first president who was not also a clergyman, which marked a turning of the College toward intellectual independence from Puritanism.

19th century[link]

John Harvard statue, Harvard Yard

Religion and philosophy[link]

The takeover of Harvard by the Unitarians in 1805 resulted in the secularization of the American college. By 1850 Harvard was the "Unitarian Vatican." The "liberals" (Unitarians) allied themselves with high Federalists and began to create a set of private societies and institutions meant to shore up their cultural and political authority, a movement that prefigured the emergence of the Boston Brahmin class. On the other hand, the theological conservatives used print media to argue for the maintenance of open debate and democratic governance through a diverse public sphere, seeing the liberals' movement as an attempt to create a cultural oligarchy in opposition to Congregationalist tradition and republican political principles.^[24]

In 1846, the natural history lectures of Louis Agassiz were acclaimed both in New York and on the campus at Harvard College. Agassiz's approach was distinctly idealist and posited Americans' 'participation in the Divine Nature' and the possibility of understanding 'intellectual existences.' Agassiz's perspective on science combined observation with intuition and the assumption that one can grasp the 'divine plan' in all phenomena. When it came to explaining life-forms, Agassiz resorted to matters of shape based on a presumed archetype for his evidence. This dual view of knowledge was in concert with the teachings of Common Sense Realism derived from Scottish philosophers Thomas Reid and Dugald Stewart, whose works were part of the Harvard curriculum at the time. The popularity of Agassiz's efforts to 'soar with Plato' probably also derived from other writings to which Harvard students were exposed, including Platonic treatises by Ralph Cudworth, John Norris, and, in a Romantic vein, Samuel Coleridge. The library records at Harvard reveal that the writings of Plato and his early modern and Romantic followers were almost as regularly read during the 19th century as those of the 'official philosophy' of the more empirical and more deistic Scottish school.^[25]

Charles W. Eliot, president 1869–1909, eliminated the favored position of Christianity from the curriculum while opening it to student self-direction. While Eliot was the most crucial figure in the secularization of American higher education, he was motivated not by a desire to secularize education, but by Transcendentalist Unitarian convictions. Derived from William Ellery Channing and Ralph Waldo Emerson, these convictions were focused on the dignity and worth of human nature, the right and ability of each person to perceive truth, and the indwelling God in each person.^[26]

20th century[link]

Richard Rummell's 1906 watercolor landscape view, facing northeast.^[27]

During the 20th century, Harvard's international reputation grew as a burgeoning endowment and prominent professors expanded the university's scope. Explosive growth in the student population continued with the addition of new graduate schools and the expansion of the undergraduate program. Radcliffe College, established in 1879 as sister school of Harvard College, became one of the most prominent schools for women in the United States.

Meritocracy[link]

James Bryant Conant (president, 1933–1953) reinvigorated creative scholarship to guarantee its preeminence among research institutions. He saw higher education as a vehicle of opportunity for the talented rather than an entitlement for the wealthy, so Conant devised programs to identify, recruit, and support talented youth. In 1943, he asked the faculty make a definitive statement about what general education ought to be, at the secondary as well as the college level. The resulting Report, published in 1945, was one of the most influential manifestos in the history of American education in the 20th century.^[28]

In 1945–1960 admissions policies were opened up to bring in students from a more diverse applicant pool. No longer drawing mostly from rich alumni of select New England prep schools, the undergraduate college was now open to striving middle class students from public schools; many more Jews and Catholics were admitted, but few blacks, Hispanics or Asians.^[29]

Women[link]

Women remained segregated at Radcliffe, though more and more took Harvard classes. Nonetheless, Harvard's undergraduate population remained predominantly male, with about four men attending Harvard College for every woman studying at Radcliffe. Following the merger of Harvard and Radcliffe admissions in 1977, the proportion of female undergraduates steadily increased, mirroring a trend throughout higher education in the United States. Harvard's graduate schools, which had accepted females and other groups in greater numbers even before the college, also became more diverse in the post-World War II period.

In 1999, Radcliffe College, founded in 1879 as the "Harvard Annex for Women",^[30] merged formally with Harvard University, becoming the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

Drew Gilpin Faust, the Dean at Radcliffe, became the first woman president of Harvard in 2007.

Harvard Yard as seen from the Holyoke Center

Liberalism[link]

Harvard and its affiliates, like many American universities,^[31][32] are considered by some to be politically liberal (left of center).^[33] Conservative author William F. Buckley, Jr. quipped that he would rather be governed by the first 2000 names in the Boston phone book than by the Harvard faculty,^[34] President Richard Nixon famously referred to Harvard as the "Kremlin on the Charles" around 1970,^[35] and Vice President George H.W. Bush disparaged what he saw to be Harvard's liberalism during the 1988 presidential election.^[36]

President Lawrence Summers resigned his presidency in 2006. His resignation came just one week before a second planned vote of no confidence by the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Former president Derek Bok served as interim president. Members of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, which instructs graduate students in GSAS and undergraduates in Harvard College, had passed an earlier motion of "lack of confidence" in Summers' leadership on March 15, 2005 by a 218–185 vote, with 18 abstentions. The 2005 motion was precipitated by comments about the causes of gender demographics in academia made at a closed academic conference and leaked to the press.^[37] In response, Summers convened two committees to study this issue: the Task Force on Women Faculty and the Task Force on Women in Science and Engineering. Summers had also pledged $50 million to support their recommendations and other proposed reforms. Drew Gilpin Faust is the 28th president of Harvard. An American historian, former dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and Lincoln Professor of History at Harvard University, Faust is the first female president in the university's history.^[38][39]

Organization and administration[link]

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences is primarily responsible for instruction in Harvard College, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and the Harvard Division of Continuing Education, which includes Harvard Summer School and Harvard Extension School. There is also the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

Harvard is governed by a combination^{[clarification needed]} of its Board of Overseers and the President and Fellows of Harvard College (also known as the Harvard Corporation), which in turn appoints the President of Harvard University. There are 16,000 staff and faculty.^[40]

A faculty of approximately 2,410 professors, lecturers, and instructors serve as of school year 2009–10,^[41] with 7,180 undergraduate and 13,830 graduate students.^[42] The school color is crimson, which is also the name of the Harvard sports teams and the daily newspaper, The Harvard Crimson. The color was unofficially adopted (in preference to magenta) by an 1875 vote of the student body, although the association with some form of red can be traced back to 1858, when Charles William Eliot, a young graduate student who would later become Harvard's 21st and longest-serving president (1869–1909), bought red bandanas for his crew so they could more easily be distinguished by spectators at a regatta.

Harvard has a friendly rivalry with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which dates back to 1900 when a merger of the two schools was frequently discussed and at one point officially agreed upon (ultimately canceled by Massachusetts courts). Today, the two schools cooperate as much as they compete, with many joint conferences and programs, including the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, the Broad Institute, The Observatory of Economic Complexity, the Harvard-MIT Data Center and formerly the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology. In addition, students at the two schools can cross-register in undergraduate or graduate classes without any additional fees, for credits toward their own school's degrees.

Harvard Yard in the winter, with freshman dorms in the background

Endowment[link]

Harvard has the largest university endowment in the world. As of September 2011, it had nearly regained the loss suffered during the 2008 recession. It was worth $32 billion in 2011, up from $27.6 billion in September 2010^[43] and $25.7 billion 2009. It suffered about 30% loss in 2008-2009.^[4][44] In December 2008, Harvard announced that its endowment had lost 22% (approximately $8 billion) from July to October 2008, necessitating budget cuts.^[45] Later reports^[46] suggest the loss was actually more than double that figure, a reduction of nearly 50% of its endowment in the first four months alone. Forbes in March 2009 estimated the loss to be in the range of $12 billion.^[47] One of the most visible results of Harvard's attempt to re-balance its budget was their halting^[46] of construction of the $1.2 billion Allston Science Complex that had been scheduled to be completed by 2011, resulting in protests from local residents.^[48]

Campus[link]

Harvard's 210-acre (85 ha) main campus is centered on Harvard Yard in Cambridge, approximately 3.4 miles (5.5 km) 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, academic buildings including Sever Hall and University Hall, Memorial Church, and the majority of the freshman dormitories. 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 (commonly referred to as the Quad), which formerly housed Radcliffe College students until Radcliffe merged its residential system with Harvard. The Harvard MBTA station provides public transportation via bus service and the Red Line subway.

The Harvard Business School and many of the university's athletics facilities, including Harvard Stadium, are located on a 359-acre (145 ha) campus opposite the Cambridge campus in Allston. The John W. Weeks Bridge is a pedestrian bridge over the Charles River connecting both campuses. The Harvard Medical School, Harvard School of Dental Medicine, and the Harvard School of Public Health are located on a 22-acre (8.9 ha) campus in the Longwood Medical and Academic Area approximately 3.3 miles (5.3 km) southwest of downtown Boston and 3.3 miles (5.3 km) south of the Cambridge campus.^[6] A private shuttle bus connects the Longwood campus to the Cambridge campus via Massachusetts Avenue making stops in the Back Bay and at MIT as well.^[49]

Each residential house contains rooms for undergraduates, House masters, and resident tutors, as well as a dining hall, library, and various other student facilities. The facilities were made possible by a gift from Yale University alumnus Edward Harkness.^[50]

Memorial Church in the winter

Radcliffe Yard, formerly the center of the campus of Radcliffe College (and now home of the Radcliffe Institute), is adjacent to the Graduate School of Education and the Cambridge Common.

From 2006 - 2008, Harvard University reported on-campus crime statistics that included 48 forcible sex offenses, 10 robberies, 15 aggravated assaults, 750 burglaries, and 12 cases of motor vehicle theft.^[51]

Satellite facilities[link]

Apart from its major Cambridge/Allston and Longwood campuses, Harvard owns and operates Arnold Arboretum, in the Jamaica Plain area of Boston; the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, in Washington, D.C.; the Harvard Forest in Petersham, Massachusetts; and the Villa I Tatti research center^[52] in Florence and the Harvard Shanghai Center in China.

Major campus expansion[link]

Throughout the past several years, Harvard has purchased large tracts of land in Allston, a walk across the Charles River from Cambridge, with the intent of major expansion southward.^[53] The university now owns approximately fifty percent more land in Allston than in Cambridge. Various proposals to connect the traditional Cambridge campus with the new Allston campus include new and enlarged bridges, a shuttle service and/or a tram. Ambitious plans also call for sinking part of Storrow Drive (at Harvard's expense) for replacement with park land and pedestrian access to the Charles River, as well as the construction of bike paths, and an intently planned fabric of buildings throughout the Allston campus. The institution asserts that such expansion will benefit not only the school, but surrounding community, pointing to such features as the enhanced transit infrastructure, possible shuttles open to the public, and park space which will also be publicly accessible.

One of the foremost driving forces for Harvard's pending expansion is its goal of substantially increasing the scope and strength of its science and technology programs. The university plans to construct two 500,000 square foot (50,000 m²) research complexes in Allston, which would be home to several interdisciplinary programs, including the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and an enlarged Engineering department.

In addition, Harvard intends to relocate the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Harvard School of Public Health to Allston. The university also plans to construct several new undergraduate and graduate student housing centers in Allston, and it is considering large-scale museums and performing arts complexes as well. Unfortunately the large drop in endowment has halted these plans for now.

Sustainability[link]

In 2000, Harvard hired a full-time campus sustainability professional and launched the Harvard Green Campus Initiative,^[54] since institutionalized as the Office for Sustainability (OFS).^[55] With a full-time staff of 25, dozens of student interns, and a $12 million Loan Fund for energy and water conservation projects, OFS is one of the most advanced campus sustainability programs in the country.^[56] Harvard was one of 27 schools to receive a grade of "A-" from the Sustainable Endowments Institute on its College Sustainability Report Card 2010, the highest grade awarded.^[57]

Academics[link]

Massachusetts Hall (1720) is the oldest building in the Harvard campus.^[58]

Harvard is a large, highly residential research university.^[59] The university has been accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges since 1929.^[60] The university offers 46 undergraduate concentrations (majors),^[61] 134 graduate degrees,^[62] and 32 professional degrees.^[63] For the 2008–2009 academic year, Harvard granted 1,664 baccalaureate degrees, 400 masters degrees, 512 doctoral degrees, and 4,460 professional degrees.^[63]

The four year, full-time undergraduate program comprises a minority of enrollments at the university and emphasizes instruction with an "arts & sciences focus".^[59] Between 1978 and 2008, entering students were required to complete a "Core Curriculum" of seven classes outside of their concentration.^[64] Since 2008, undergraduate students have been required to complete courses in eight General Education categories: Aesthetic and Interpretive Understanding, Culture and Belief, Empirical and Mathematical Reasoning, Ethical Reasoning, Science of Living Systems, Science of the Physical Universe, Societies of the World, and United States in the World.^[65] Harvard offers a comprehensive doctoral graduate program and there is a high level of coexistence between graduate and undergraduate degrees.^[59] The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, The New York Times, and some students have criticized Harvard for its reliance on teaching fellows for some aspects of undergraduate education; they consider this to adversely affect the quality of education.^[66][67]

Harvard's academic programs operate on a semester calendar beginning in early September and ending in mid-May.^[68] Undergraduates typically take four half-courses per term and must maintain a four-course rate average to be considered full time.^[69] In many concentrations, students can elect to pursue a basic program or a honors-eligible program requiring a senior thesis and/or advanced course work.^[70] Students graduating in the top 4-5% of the class are awarded degrees summa cum laude, students in the next 15% of the class are awarded magna cum laude, and the next 30% of the class are awarded cum laude.^[71] Harvard has chapters of academic honor societies such as Phi Beta Kappa and various committees and departments also award several hundred named prizes annually.^[72] Harvard, along with other universities, has been accused of grade inflation,^[73] although there is evidence that the quality of the student body and its motivation have also increased.^[74] Harvard College reduced the number of students who receive Latin honors from 90% in 2004 to 60% in 2005. Moreover, the honors of "John Harvard Scholar" and "Harvard College Scholar" will now be given only to the top 5 percent and the next 5 percent of each class.^{[75][76][77][78]}

Undergraduate tuition for the 2009–2010 school year was $33,696 and the total cost with fees, room, and board was $48,868.^[79] Under financial aid guidelines adopted in 2007, parents in families with incomes of less than $60,000 will no longer be expected to contribute any money to the cost of attending Harvard for their children, including room and board. Families with incomes in the $60,000 to $80,000 range contribute an amount of only a few thousand dollars a year. In December 2007, Harvard announced that families earning between $120,000 and $180,000 will only have to pay up to 10% of their annual household income towards tuition.^[80] In 2009, Harvard offered grants totaling $414.1 million across all 11 divisions; $339.5 million came from institutional funds, $35.3 million from federal support, and $39.2 million from other outside support. Grants total 87.7% of Harvard's aid for undergraduate students, with aid also provided by loans (8.4%) and work-study (3.9%).^[79]

Rankings[link]

Internationally, Harvard ranks second, behind University of Cambridge: both the QS World University Rankings and the annual World's Best Universities by U.S. News & World Report in 2011.^[88][89][90] When the QS World University Rankings and Times Higher Education World University Rankings were published in partnership as the Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings, Harvard was ranked first between 2004 and 2009.^[90][91] Harvard is tied with Stanford University for second in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings.^[92] Harvard is ranked first by the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), a position it has held since the first ARWU rankings were released in 2003.^[93] In its individual subject tables, ARWU ranked Harvard first in natural sciences and mathematics,^[94] life and agricultural sciences,^[95] clinical medicine and pharmacy,^[96] social sciences,^[97] and 42nd in engineering/technology and computer sciences.^[98] In individual fields in 2010, Harvard is ranked first in Physics and Economics/Business, second in Chemistry, third in Mathematics, and ninth in Computer Science in the world.^[99]

Harvard's undergraduate program is ranked first among "National Universities" by U.S. News & World Report^[100] and sixth by Forbes.^[101] The university is ranked sixth nationally by The Washington Monthly.^[102]

In the 2009 QS Global 200 Business Schools Report, Harvard was ranked first in North America.^[103]

In 2010, according to University Ranking by Academic Performance (URAP), Harvard is the best overall university in the world.^[104]

Research[link]

• Berkman Center for Internet & Society
• Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard
• Harvard HKS/CID-MIT Media Lab Observatory of Economic Complexity
• Harvard Clinical Research Institute
• Harvard Institute of Economic Research
• Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute
• Institute for Quantitative Social Science^[105]
• Laboratory for Nanomedicine (at the Harvard Medical School-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital)
• Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies (one of Harvard's 14 schools)
• Real Colegio Complutense at Harvard University, a Post-Doctoral Research Institute founded by Harvard University and Complutense University in 1990, jointly Chaired by the Presidents of both Universities.
• Schepens Eye Research Institute
• W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African-American Research
• Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering

Research centers attached to schools and departments

• Department of Psychology: Prosopagnosia Research Centers at Harvard University and University College London^[106]
• Graduate School of Design:^[107] Center for Alternative Futures, Joint Center for Housing Studies, Center for Technology & the Environment
• Harvard Law School:^[108] Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice, Institute for Global Law & Policy (former European Law Research Center), John M. Olin Center of Law, Economics and Business

Independent organizations affiliated to the university

• The Forsyth Institute

Libraries and museums[link]

The Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library

The Harvard University Library System is centered in Widener Library in Harvard Yard and comprises over 80 individual libraries holding some 15 million volumes.^[109] According to the American Library Association, this makes it the largest academic library in the United States, and one of the largest in the world.^[18]

Cabot Science Library, Lamont Library, and Widener Library are three of the most popular libraries for undergraduates to use, with easy access and central locations. There are rare books, manuscripts and other special collections throughout Harvard's libraries;^[110] Houghton Library, the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, and the Harvard University Archives consist principally of rare and unique materials. America's oldest collection of maps, gazetteers, and atlases both old and new is stored in Pusey Library and open to the public. The largest collection of East-Asian language material outside of East Asia is held in the Harvard-Yenching Library.

Henry Moore's sculpture Large Four Piece Reclining Figure near Lamont Library

Harvard operates several arts, cultural, and scientific museums:

• The Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, designed by Le Corbusier, is home to the University's film archive and the department of Visual and Environmental Studies.
• The Harvard Art Museums, including:
  • The Arthur M. Sackler Museum, which includes ancient, Asian, Islamic and later Indian art
  • The Busch-Reisinger Museum, formerly the Germanic Museum, covers central and northern European art.
  • The Fogg Museum of Art, with galleries featuring history of Western art from the Middle Ages to the present. Particular strengths are in Italian early Renaissance, British pre-Raphaelite, and 19th century French art
• The Harvard Museum of Natural History complex, including:
  • The Harvard Mineralogical Museum
  • The Harvard University Herbaria, which contains the famous Blaschka Glass Flowers exhibit
  • The Museum of Comparative Zoology
• The Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, specializing in the cultural history and civilizations of the Western Hemisphere
• The Semitic Museum

Students[link]

In the last six years, Harvard's student population ranged between 19,000 and 21,000, across all programs. Harvard enrolled 6,655 students in undergraduate programs, 3,738 students in graduate programs, and 10,722 students in professional programs.^[111] The undergraduate population is 51% female, the graduate population is 48% female, and the professional population is 49% female.^[111]

Undergraduate admission to Harvard is characterized by the Carnegie Foundation as "more selective, lower transfer-in".^[59] Harvard College received 27,462 applications for admission to the Class of 2013, 2,175 were admitted (7.9%), and 1,658 enrolled (76.2%).^[113] The interquartile range on the SAT was 2080–2370 and 95% of first year students graduated in the top tenth of their high school class.^[113] Harvard also enrolled 266 National Merit Scholars, the most in the nation.^[114] 88% of students graduate within 4 years and 98% graduate within 6 years.^[115]

Harvard College accepted 6.9% of applicants for the class of 2014, a record low for the school's entire history.^[116] The number of acceptances was lower for the class of 2013 partially because the university anticipated increased rates of enrollment after announcing a large increase in financial aid in 2008.^{[citation needed]} Harvard College ended its early admissions program in 2007 as the program was believed to disadvantage low-income and under-represented minority applicants applying to selective universities.^[117] However, undergraduate admissions office's preference for children of alumni policies have been the subject of scrutiny and debate as it primarily aids whites and the wealthy.^[118][119]

Athletics[link]

Harvard Stadium, home of Harvard Crimson and the Boston Cannons

Harvard men's eight crew at Henley, 2004

The Cornell–Harvard hockey rivalry match, 2006

Harvard's athletic rivalry with Yale is intense in every sport in which they meet, coming to a climax each fall in their annual football meeting, which dates back to 1875 and is usually called simply "The Game". While Harvard's football team is no longer one of the country's best as it often was a century ago during football's early days (it won the Rose Bowl in 1920), both it and Yale have influenced the way the game is played. In 1903, Harvard Stadium introduced a new era into football with the first-ever permanent reinforced concrete stadium of its kind in the country. The stadium's structure actually played a role in the evolution of the college game. Seeking to reduce the alarming number of deaths and serious injuries in the sport, the Father of Football, Walter Camp (former captain of the Yale football team), suggested widening the field to open up the game. But the state-of-the-art Harvard Stadium was too narrow to accommodate a wider playing surface. So, other steps had to be taken. Camp would instead support revolutionary new rules for the 1906 season. These included legalizing the forward pass, perhaps the most significant rule change in the sport's history.^[120][121]

Harvard has several athletic facilities, such as the Lavietes Pavilion, a multi-purpose arena and home to the Harvard basketball teams. The Malkin Athletic Center, known as the "MAC", serves both as the university's primary recreation facility and as a satellite location for several varsity sports. The five story building includes two cardio rooms, an Olympic-size swimming pool, a smaller pool for aquaerobics and other activities, a mezzanine, where all types of classes are held at all hours of the day, and an indoor cycling studio, three weight rooms, and a three-court gym floor to play basketball. The MAC also offers personal trainers and specialty classes. The MAC is also home to Harvard volleyball, fencing, and wrestling. The offices of several of the school's varsity coaches are also in the MAC.

Weld Boathouse and Newell Boathouse house the women's and men's rowing teams, respectively. The men's crew also uses the Red Top complex in Ledyard, Connecticut, as their training camp for the annual Harvard-Yale Regatta. The Bright Hockey Center hosts the Harvard hockey teams, and the Murr Center serves both as a home for Harvard's squash and tennis teams as well as a strength and conditioning center for all athletic sports.

As of 2006, there were 41 Division I intercollegiate varsity sports teams for women and men at Harvard, more than at any other NCAA Division I college in the country. As with other Ivy League universities, Harvard does not offer athletic scholarships.^[122]

Older than The Game by 23 years, the Harvard-Yale Regatta was the original source of the athletic rivalry between the two schools. It is held annually in June on the Thames River in eastern Connecticut. The Harvard crew is typically considered to be one of the top teams in the country in rowing. Today, Harvard fields top teams in several other sports, such as the Harvard Crimson men's ice hockey team (with a strong rivalry against Cornell), squash, and even recently won NCAA titles in Men's and Women's Fencing. Harvard also won the Intercollegiate Sailing Association National Championships in 2003.

Harvard's men's ice hockey team won the school's first NCAA Championship in any team sport in 1989. Harvard was also the first Ivy League institution to win a NCAA championship title in a women's sport when its women's lacrosse team won the NCAA Championship in 1990.

Harvard Undergraduate Television has footage from historical games and athletic events including the 2005 pep-rally before the Harvard-Yale Game. Harvard's official athletics website has more comprehensive information about Harvard's athletic facilities.

Song[link]

Harvard has several fight songs, the most played of which, especially at football, are "Ten Thousand Men of Harvard" and "Harvardiana." While "Fair Harvard" is actually the alma mater, "Ten Thousand Men" is better known outside the university. The Harvard University Band performs these fight songs, and other cheers, at football and hockey games. These were parodied by Harvard alumnus Tom Lehrer in his song "Fight Fiercely, Harvard," which he composed while an undergraduate.

Notable people[link]

Faculty and staff[link]

This section requires expansion.

Harvard's current faculty includes many prominent scholars such as biologist E. O. Wilson, cognitive scientist Steven Pinker, physicists Lisa Randall and Roy Glauber, chemists Elias Corey, Dudley R. Herschbach and George M. Whitesides, Shakespeare scholar Stephen Greenblatt, writer Louis Menand, critic Helen Vendler, historians Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Niall Ferguson, economists Amartya Sen, N. Gregory Mankiw, Robert Barro, Stephen A. Marglin, Don M. Wilson III and Martin Feldstein, political philosophers Harvey Mansfield, Baroness Shirley Williams and Michael Sandel, political scientists Robert Putnam, Joseph Nye, and Stanley Hoffmann, scholar/composers Robert Levin and Bernard Rands, and legal scholar Alan Dershowitz.

Past faculty members include Michael Walzer, Stephen Thernstrom and Robert Nozick.

Alumni[link]

Among the best-known people who have attended Harvard University are American political leaders John Hancock, John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Rutherford B. Hayes, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Al Gore, George W. Bush and Barack Obama; Canadian Governor General David Lloyd Johnston, Canadian Prime Ministers Mackenzie King and Pierre Trudeau, and Canadian political leader Michael Ignatieff; Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan; religious leader, businessman & philanthropist Aga Khan IV; businessman & philanthropist Bill Gates; philanthropist Huntington Hartford; Mexican Presidents Felipe Calderón,^[123] Carlos Salinas de Gortari and Miguel de la Madrid; Chilean President Sebastián Piñera; Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos; Costa Rican President José María Figueres; Businessman and Financier Scott Mead; Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou; Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Supreme Court President Aharon Barak; Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo; Albanian Prime Minister Fan S. Noli; UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon; philosopher Henry David Thoreau; authors Ralph Waldo Emerson and William S. Burroughs; educator Harlan Hanson; poets Wallace Stevens, T. S. Eliot and E. E. Cummings; conductor Leonard Bernstein; cellist Yo Yo Ma; comedian and television show host and writer Conan O'Brien; actors Fred Gwynne, Jack Lemmon, Natalie Portman, Mira Sorvino, Ashley Judd, Tatyana Ali, Elisabeth Shue, Rashida Jones, Scottie Thompson, Hill Harper, Matt Damon and Tommy Lee Jones; film directors Darren Aronofsky, Mira Nair, Whit Stillman, and Terrence Malick; television executive Brian Graden; architect Philip Johnson; musicians Rivers Cuomo, Tom Morello, and Gram Parsons; musician, producer and composer Ryan Leslie; Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg; unabomber Ted Kaczynski; programmer and activist Richard Stallman; NFL quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick; NBA player Jeremy Lin; and civil rights leader W. E. B. Du Bois, Sachin H Jain.

In fiction and popular culture[link]

The perception of Harvard as a center of either elite achievement, or elitist privilege, has made it a frequent literary backdrop.

In literature[link]

• The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich is a narrative account of Facebook's founding set partially at Harvard
• Hacking Harvard is novel by Robin Wasserman, a Harvard University alumna.
• In The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood's post-apocalyptic novel, much of the action takes place in Cambridge, with vaguely recognizable Harvard landmarks occasionally making their way into the narrator's place descriptions.
• Erich Segal's Love Story (1970), which concerns a romance between a wealthy hockey player (Ryan O'Neal) and a brilliant Radcliffe student of modest means (Ali MacGraw),^[124] is screened annually for incoming freshmen.^{[citation needed]} Segal's The Class (1985) and Doctors (1988) are also set at Harvard.
• The Paper Chase by John Jay Osborn, Jr., a 1970 novel adapted for a film and a television series.
• The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, a 2009 bestselling novel by Katherine Howe, prominently features the university and several of its buildings .
• Prozac Nation is an autobiography by Harvard College graduate Elizabeth Wurtzel
• The Second Happiest Day (1953) by "John Phillips" (John P. Marquand, Jr.) depicts the Harvard of the World War II generation.
• The Sound and the Fury, by William Faulkner, features Quentin Compson's experiences at Harvard.
• The Women's Room, by Marilyn French, largely features protagonist Mira's experiences at Harvard
• Pamela Thomas-Graham's series of mystery novels (Blue Blood, Orange Crushed, and A Darker Shade Of Crimson), protagonist Nikki Chase is an African-American Harvard economics professor.
• Cecilia Tan's romance novel series, commonly known as the "Magic University series" and including the books The Siren and the Sword and The Tower and the Tears, is set at the magical university hidden inside Harvard known as "Veritas".

Onscreen[link]

Because Harvard generally forbids filming on its property, most scenes set at Harvard (especially indoor shots, but excepting aerial footage and shots of public areas such as Harvard Square) are in fact shot elsewhere.^[125]

• The Great Debaters
• Good Will Hunting
• Harvard Man
• How High
• Ivory Tower - a student-produced Harvard Undergraduate Television show^[126] about fictional Harvard students.
• Legally Blonde
• The Paper Chase (1973 film) and The Paper Chase (1978–79, 1983–86 TV series)
• The Social Network
• Soul Man (film)
• Stealing Harvard
• With Honors

See also[link]

	Boston portal
	University portal

• Academic regalia of Harvard University
• Harvard University Police Department
• Outline of Harvard University
• Secret Court of 1920

References[link]

Further reading[link]

External links[link]

Wikisource has the text of the 1922 Encyclopædia Britannica article Harvard University.

Media related to Harvard University at Wikimedia Commons

• Official website
• Harvard mobile site

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Bill Gates
Gates at the World Economic Forum in 2007
Born	William Henry Gates III (1955-10-28) October 28, 1955 (age 56) Seattle, Washington, United States
Residence	Medina, Washington, United States
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Harvard University (dropped out)
Occupation	Chairman of Microsoft Co-Chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation CEO of Cascade Investment Chairman of Corbis
Years active	1975–present
Net worth	US$ 61 billion (2012)[1]
Board member of	Berkshire Hathaway
Religion	None (Agnostic[2][3])
Spouse	Melinda Gates (m. 1994) «start: (1994)»"Marriage: Melinda Gates to Bill Gates" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.db.wn.com/index.php/Bill_Gates)
Children	3
Parents	William H. Gates, Sr. Mary Maxwell Gates
Signature
Website
Bill Gates

William Henry "Bill" Gates III (born October 28, 1955 in Seattle, Washington)^[4] is an American business magnate, computer programmer and philanthropist. Gates is the former chief executive officer (CEO) and current chairman of Microsoft, the world’s largest personal-computer software company he co-founded with Paul Allen. He is consistently ranked among the world's wealthiest people^[5] and was the wealthiest overall from 1995 to 2009, excluding 2008, when he was ranked third;^[6] in 2011 he was the wealthiest American and the second wealthiest person.^[7][8] During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions of CEO and chief software architect, and remains the largest individual shareholder, with 6.4 percent of the common stock.^[9] He has also authored or co-authored several books.

Gates is one of the best-known entrepreneurs of the personal computer revolution. Gates has been criticized for his business tactics, which have been considered anti-competitive, an opinion which has in some cases been upheld by the courts.^[10][11] In the later stages of his career, Gates has pursued a number of philanthropic endeavors, donating large amounts of money to various charitable organizations and scientific research programs through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, established in 2000.^[12]

Gates stepped down as chief executive officer of Microsoft in January 2000. He remained as chairman and created the position of chief software architect. In June 2006, Gates announced that he would be transitioning from full-time work at Microsoft to part-time work, and full-time work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He gradually transferred his duties to Ray Ozzie, chief software architect, and Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer. Gates's last full-time day at Microsoft was June 27, 2008. He remains at Microsoft as non-executive chairman.

Early life[link]

Bill Gates was photographed by the Albuquerque, New Mexico police in 1977 after a traffic violation (details of which have been lost over time).

Gates was born in Seattle, Washington, to William H. Gates, Sr. and Mary Maxwell Gates. His parents are of English, German, and Scots-Irish descent.^[13][14] His father was a prominent lawyer, and his mother served on the board of directors for First Interstate BancSystem and the United Way. Gates's maternal grandfather was J. W. Maxwell, a national bank president. Gates has one elder sister, Kristi (Kristianne), and one younger sister, Libby. He was the fourth of his name in his family, but was known as William Gates III or "Trey" because his father had the "II" suffix.^[15] Early on in his life, Gates's parents had a law career in mind for him.^[16] When Gates was young, his family regularly attended a Congregational church.^[17][18][19]

At 13 he enrolled in the Lakeside School, an exclusive preparatory school.^[20] When he was in the eighth grade, the Mothers Club at the school used proceeds from Lakeside School's rummage sale to buy a Teletype Model 33 ASR terminal and a block of computer time on a General Electric (GE) computer for the school's students.^[21] Gates took an interest in programming the GE system in BASIC, and was excused from math classes to pursue his interest. He wrote his first computer program on this machine: an implementation of tic-tac-toe that allowed users to play games against the computer. Gates was fascinated by the machine and how it would always execute software code perfectly. When he reflected back on that moment, he said, "There was just something neat about the machine."^[22] After the Mothers Club donation was exhausted, he and other students sought time on systems including DEC PDP minicomputers. One of these systems was a PDP-10 belonging to Computer Center Corporation (CCC), which banned four Lakeside students—Gates, Paul Allen, Ric Weiland, and Kent Evans—for the summer after it caught them exploiting bugs in the operating system to obtain free computer time.^[23]

At the end of the ban, the four students offered to find bugs in CCC's software in exchange for computer time. Rather than use the system via Teletype, Gates went to CCC's offices and studied source code for various programs that ran on the system, including programs in FORTRAN, LISP, and machine language. The arrangement with CCC continued until 1970, when the company went out of business. The following year, Information Sciences, Inc. hired the four Lakeside students to write a payroll program in COBOL, providing them computer time and royalties. After his administrators became aware of his programming abilities, Gates wrote the school's computer program to schedule students in classes. He modified the code so that he was placed in classes with mostly female students. He later stated that "it was hard to tear myself away from a machine at which I could so unambiguously demonstrate success."^[22] At age 17, Gates formed a venture with Allen, called Traf-O-Data, to make traffic counters based on the Intel 8008 processor.^[24] In early 1973, Bill Gates served as a congressional page in the U.S. House of Representatives.^[25]

Gates graduated from Lakeside School in 1973. He scored 1590 out of 1600 on the SAT^[26] and enrolled at Harvard College in the autumn of 1973.^[27] While at Harvard, he met Steve Ballmer, who later succeeded Gates as CEO of Microsoft.

The Poker Room in Currier House at Harvard University, in which Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer formed Microsoft

In his sophomore year, Gates devised an algorithm for pancake sorting as a solution to one of a series of unsolved problems^[28] presented in a combinatorics class by Harry Lewis, one of his professors. Gates's solution held the record as the fastest version for over thirty years;^[28][29] its successor is faster by only one percent.^[28] His solution was later formalized in a published paper in collaboration with Harvard computer scientist Christos Papadimitriou.^[30]

Gates did not have a definite study plan while a student at Harvard^[31] and spent a lot of time using the school's computers. Gates remained in contact with Paul Allen, and he joined him at Honeywell during the summer of 1974.^[32] The following year saw the release of the MITS Altair 8800 based on the Intel 8080 CPU, and Gates and Allen saw this as the opportunity to start their own computer software company.^[33] He had talked this decision over with his parents, who were supportive of him after seeing how much Gates wanted to start a company.^[31]

Microsoft[link]

BASIC[link]

MITS Altair 8800 Computer with 8-inch (200 mm) floppy disk system

After reading the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics that demonstrated the Altair 8800, Gates contacted Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS), the creators of the new microcomputer, to inform them that he and others were working on a BASIC interpreter for the platform.^[34] In reality, Gates and Allen did not have an Altair and had not written code for it; they merely wanted to gauge MITS's interest. MITS president Ed Roberts agreed to meet them for a demo, and over the course of a few weeks they developed an Altair emulator that ran on a minicomputer, and then the BASIC interpreter. The demonstration, held at MITS's offices in Albuquerque was a success and resulted in a deal with MITS to distribute the interpreter as Altair BASIC. Paul Allen was hired into MITS,^[35] and Gates took a leave of absence from Harvard to work with Allen at MITS in Albuquerque in November 1975. They named their partnership "Micro-Soft" and had their first office located in Albuquerque.^[35] Within a year, the hyphen was dropped, and on November 26, 1976, the trade name "Microsoft" was registered with the Office of the Secretary of the State of New Mexico.^[35] Gates never returned to Harvard to complete his studies.

Microsoft's BASIC was popular with computer hobbyists, but Gates discovered that a pre-market copy had leaked into the community and was being widely copied and distributed. In February 1976, Gates wrote an Open Letter to Hobbyists in the MITS newsletter saying that MITS could not continue to produce, distribute, and maintain high-quality software without payment.^[36] This letter was unpopular with many computer hobbyists, but Gates persisted in his belief that software developers should be able to demand payment. Microsoft became independent of MITS in late 1976, and it continued to develop programming language software for various systems.^[35] The company moved from Albuquerque to its new home in Bellevue, Washington on January 1, 1979, after the former rejected his loan application.^[34]

During Microsoft's early years, all employees had broad responsibility for the company's business. Gates oversaw the business details, but continued to write code as well. In the first five years, Gates personally reviewed every line of code the company shipped, and often rewrote parts of it as he saw fit.^[37]

IBM partnership[link]

IBM approached Microsoft in July 1980 regarding its upcoming personal computer, the IBM PC.^[38] The computer company first proposed that Microsoft write the BASIC interpreter. When IBM's representatives mentioned that they needed an operating system, Gates referred them to Digital Research (DRI), makers of the widely used CP/M operating system.^[39] IBM's discussions with Digital Research went poorly, and they did not reach a licensing agreement. IBM representative Jack Sams mentioned the licensing difficulties during a subsequent meeting with Gates and told him to get an acceptable operating system. A few weeks later Gates proposed using 86-DOS (QDOS), an operating system similar to CP/M that Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer Products (SCP) had made for hardware similar to the PC. Microsoft made a deal with SCP to become the exclusive licensing agent, and later the full owner, of 86-DOS. After adapting the operating system for the PC, Microsoft delivered it to IBM as PC-DOS in exchange for a one-time fee of $50,000.^[40]

Gates did not offer to transfer the copyright on the operating system, because he believed that other hardware vendors would clone IBM's system.^[40] They did, and the sales of MS-DOS made Microsoft a major player in the industry.^[41] Despite IBM's name on the operating system the press quickly identified Microsoft as being very influential on the new computer, with PC Magazine asking if Gates were "The Man Behind The Machine?"^[38] He oversaw Microsoft's company restructuring on June 25, 1981, which re-incorporated the company in Washington state and made Gates President of Microsoft and the Chairman of the Board.^[34]

Windows[link]

Microsoft launched its first retail version of Microsoft Windows on November 20, 1985, and in August, the company struck a deal with IBM to develop a separate operating system called OS/2. Although the two companies successfully developed the first version of the new system, mounting creative differences caused the partnership to deteriorate. It ended in 1991, when Gates led Microsoft to develop a version of OS/2 independently from IBM.^[42]

Management style[link]

From Microsoft's founding in 1975 until 2006, Gates had primary responsibility for the company's product strategy. He aggressively broadened the company's range of products, and wherever Microsoft achieved a dominant position he vigorously defended it. He gained a reputation for being distant to others; as early as 1981 an industry executive complained in public that "Gates is notorious for not being reachable by phone and for not returning phone calls."^[43]

As an executive, Gates met regularly with Microsoft's senior managers and program managers. Firsthand accounts of these meetings describe him as verbally combative, berating managers for perceived holes in their business strategies or proposals that placed the company's long-term interests at risk.^[44][45] He often interrupted presentations with such comments as, "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard!"^[46] and, "Why don't you just give up your options and join the Peace Corps?"^[47] The target of his outburst then had to defend the proposal in detail until, hopefully, Gates was fully convinced.^[46] When subordinates appeared to be procrastinating, he was known to remark sarcastically, "I'll do it over the weekend."^[48][49][50]

Gates's role at Microsoft for most of its history was primarily a management and executive role. However, he was an active software developer in the early years, particularly on the company's programming language products. He has not officially been on a development team since working on the TRS-80 Model 100,^[51] but wrote code as late as 1989 that shipped in the company's products.^[49] On June 15, 2006, Gates announced that he would transition out of his day-to-day role over the next two years to dedicate more time to philanthropy. He divided his responsibilities between two successors, placing Ray Ozzie in charge of day-to-day management and Craig Mundie in charge of long-term product strategy.^[52]

Antitrust litigation[link]

Bill Gates giving his deposition at Microsoft on August 27, 1998

Many decisions that led to antitrust litigation over Microsoft's business practices have had Gates's approval. In the 1998 United States v. Microsoft case, Gates gave deposition testimony that several journalists characterized as evasive. He argued with examiner David Boies over the contextual meaning of words such as, "compete", "concerned", and "we".^[53] BusinessWeek reported:

Early rounds of his deposition show him offering obfuscatory answers and saying 'I don't recall,' so many times that even the presiding judge had to chuckle. Worse, many of the technology chief's denials and pleas of ignorance were directly refuted by prosecutors with snippets of e-mail that Gates both sent and received.^[54]

Gates later said he had simply resisted attempts by Boies to mischaracterize his words and actions. As to his demeanor during the deposition, he said, "Did I fence with Boies? ... I plead guilty. Whatever that penalty is should be levied against me: rudeness to Boies in the first degree."^[55] Despite Gates's denials, the judge ruled that Microsoft had committed monopolization and tying, and blocking competition, both in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.^[55]

Appearance in ads[link]

Gates appeared in a series of ads to promote Microsoft in 2008. The first commercial, co-starring Jerry Seinfeld, is a 90-second talk between strangers as Seinfeld walks up on a discount shoe store (Shoe Circus) in a mall and notices Gates buying shoes inside. The salesman is trying to sell Mr. Gates shoes that are a size too big. As Gates is buying the shoes, he holds up his discount card, which uses a slightly altered version of his own mugshot of his arrest in New Mexico in 1977 for a traffic violation.^[56] As they are walking out of the mall, Seinfeld asks Gates if he has melded his mind to other developers, after getting a yes, he then asks if they are working on a way to make computers edible, again getting a yes. Some say that this is an homage to Seinfeld's own show about "nothing" (Seinfeld).^[57] In a second commercial in the series, Gates and Seinfeld are at the home of an average family trying to fit in with normal people.

Post-Microsoft[link]

Since leaving day-to-day operations at Microsoft (where he remains Chairman^[58]), Gates continues his philanthropy and, among other projects, purchased the video rights to the Messenger Lectures series called The Character of Physical Law, given at Cornell University by Richard Feynman in 1964 and recorded by the BBC. The videos are available online to the public at Microsoft's Project Tuva.^[59][60]

In April 2010, Gates was invited to visit and speak at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he asked the students to take on the hard problems of the world in their futures.^[61][62]

Personal life[link]

Bill and Melinda Gates, June 2009

Gates married Melinda French on January 1, 1994. They have two daughters, Jennifer Katharine Gates (1996) and Phoebe Adele (2002), and one son, Rory John (1999).

The Gates's home is an earth-sheltered house in the side of a hill overlooking Lake Washington in Medina. According to King County public records, as of 2006 the total assessed value of the property (land and house) is $125 million, and the annual property tax is $991,000.

His 66,000 sq ft (6,100 m²) estate has a 60-foot (18 m) swimming pool with an underwater music system, as well as a 2,500 sq ft (230 m²) gym and a 1,000 sq ft (93 m²) dining room.^[63]

Also among Gates's private acquisitions is the Codex Leicester, a collection of writings by Leonardo da Vinci, which Gates bought for $30.8 million at an auction in 1994.^[64] Gates is also known as an avid reader, and the ceiling of his large home library is engraved with a quotation from The Great Gatsby.^[65] He also enjoys playing bridge, tennis, and golf.^[66][67]

Gates was number one on the Forbes 400 list from 1993 through to 2007 and number one on Forbes list of The World's Richest People from 1995 to 2007 and 2009. In 1999, Gates's wealth briefly surpassed $101 billion, causing the media to call him a "centibillionaire".^[68] Since 2000, the nominal value of his Microsoft holdings has declined due to a fall in Microsoft's stock price after the dot-com bubble burst and the multi-billion dollar donations he has made to his charitable foundations. In a May 2006 interview, Gates commented that he wished that he were not the richest man in the world because he disliked the attention it brought.^[69] Gates has several investments outside Microsoft, which in 2006 paid him a salary of $616,667 and $350,000 bonus totalling $966,667.^[70] He founded Corbis, a digital imaging company, in 1989. In 2004 he became a director of Berkshire Hathaway, the investment company headed by long-time friend Warren Buffett.^[71] In March 2010 Bill Gates was bumped down to the second wealthiest man behind Carlos Slim.

Philanthropy[link]

Gates (second from right) with Bono, Queen Rania of Jordan, Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, President Umaru Yar'Adua of Nigeria and other participants in a 'Call to Action on the Millennium Development Goals' during the Annual Meeting 2008 of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland

Gates began to appreciate the expectations others had of him when public opinion mounted suggesting that he could give more of his wealth to charity. Gates studied the work of Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, and in 1994 sold some of his Microsoft stock to create the William H. Gates Foundation. In 2000, Gates and his wife combined three family foundations into one to create the charitable Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is the largest transparently operated charitable foundation in the world.^[72] The foundation allows benefactors access to information regarding how its money is being spent, unlike other major charitable organizations such as the Wellcome Trust.^[73][74] The generosity and extensive philanthropy of David Rockefeller has been credited as a major influence. Gates and his father met with Rockefeller several times, and modeled their giving in part on the Rockefeller family's philanthropic focus, namely those global problems that are ignored by governments and other organizations.^[75] As of 2007, Bill and Melinda Gates were the second-most generous philanthropists in America, having given over $28 billion to charity.^[76] They plan to eventually give 95% of their wealth to charity.^[77]

The foundation was at the same time criticized because it invests assets that it has not yet distributed with the exclusive goal of maximizing return on investment. As a result, its investments include companies that have been charged with worsening poverty in the same developing countries where the Foundation is attempting to relieve poverty. These include companies that pollute heavily, and pharmaceutical companies that do not sell into the developing world.^[78] In response to press criticism, the foundation announced in 2007 a review of its investments, to assess social responsibility.^[79] It subsequently canceled the review and stood by its policy of investing for maximum return, while using voting rights to influence company practices.^[80] The Gates Millennium Scholars program has been criticized for its exclusion of Caucasian students.^[81][82]

Gates's wife urged people to learn a lesson from the philanthropic efforts of the Salwen family, which had sold its home and given away half of its value, as detailed in The Power of Half.^[83] Gates and his wife invited Joan Salwen to Seattle to speak about what the family had done, and on December 9, 2010, Gates, investor Warren Buffett, and Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook's CEO) signed a promise they called the "Gates-Buffet Giving Pledge", in which they promised to donate to charity at least half of their wealth over the course of time.^[84][85][86]

Recognition[link]

In 1987, Gates was officially declared a billionaire in the pages of Forbes' 400 Richest People in America issue, just days before his 32nd birthday. As the world's youngest self-made billionaire, he was worth $1.25 billion, over $900 million more than he'd been worth the year before, when he'd debuted on the list.^[87]

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs at the fifth D: All Things Digital conference (D5) in 2007

Time magazine named Gates one of the 100 people who most influenced the 20th century, as well as one of the 100 most influential people of 2004, 2005, and 2006. Time also collectively named Gates, his wife Melinda and U2's lead singer Bono as the 2005 Persons of the Year for their humanitarian efforts.^[88] In 2006, he was voted eighth in the list of "Heroes of our time".^[89] Gates was listed in the Sunday Times power list in 1999, named CEO of the year by Chief Executive Officers magazine in 1994, ranked number one in the "Top 50 Cyber Elite" by Time in 1998, ranked number two in the Upside Elite 100 in 1999 and was included in The Guardian as one of the "Top 100 influential people in media" in 2001.^[90]

In 1994, he was honoured as the twentieth Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society. Gates has received honorary doctorates from Nyenrode Business Universiteit, Breukelen, The Netherlands, in 2000;^[91] the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden, in 2002; invited in 2003 to deliver the keynote address^[92] of the Golden Jubilee of the Indian Institute of Technology,held in San Jose, California;^[93] Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan, in 2005; Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in April 2007;^[94] Harvard University in June 2007;^[95] the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, in January 2008,^[96] and Cambridge University in June 2009.^[97] He was also made an honorary trustee of Peking University in 2007.^[98] Gates was also made an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in 2005,^[99] in addition to having entomologists name the Bill Gates flower fly, Eristalis gatesi, in his honor.^[100]

In November 2006, he and his wife were awarded the Order of the Aztec Eagle for their philanthropic work around the world in the areas of health and education, particularly in Mexico, and specifically in the program "Un país de lectores".^[101] In October 2009, it was announced that Gates will be awarded the 2010 Bower Award for Business Leadership of The Franklin Institute for his achievements in business and for his philanthropic work. In 2010 he was honored with the Silver Buffalo Award by the Boy Scouts of America, its highest award for adults, for his service to youth.^[102]

In 2011, Bill Gates was ranked as the fifth most powerful person in the world, according to rankings by Forbes magazine.^[103]

Investments[link]

• Cascade Investments LLC, a private investment and holding company, incorporated in United States, is controlled by Bill Gates, and is headquartered in the city of Kirkland, Washington.
• bgC3, a new think-tank company founded by Bill Gates.
• Corbis, a digital image licensing and rights services company.
• TerraPower, a nuclear reactor design company.

Books and films[link]

To date, Bill Gates has authored two books. The Road Ahead, written with Microsoft executive Nathan Myhrvold and journalist Peter Rinearson, was published in November 1995, and it summarized the implications of the personal computing revolution and described a future profoundly changed by the arrival of a global information superhighway. Business @ the Speed of Thought was published in 1999, and discusses how business and technology are integrated, and shows how digital infrastructures and information networks can help getting an edge on the competition.

Gates has appeared in a number of documentaries, including the 2010 documentary film Waiting for "Superman",^[104] and the BBC documentary series The Virtual Revolution.

Gates was prominently featured in Pirates of Silicon Valley, a 1999 film which chronicles the rise of Apple and Microsoft from the early 1970s to 1997. He was portrayed by Anthony Michael Hall.

See also[link]

	Biography portal
	Microsoft portal

• List of billionaires (also see List of college dropout billionaires and List of wealthiest non-inflated historical figures)
• Paul Allen – Microsoft's co-founder, friend, and fellow billionaire
• Gary Kildall (October 25, 2004). "The Man Who Could Have Been Bill Gates". Bloomberg BusinessWeek. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_43/b3905109_mz063.htm. Retrieved June 9, 2010. 

Books[link]

• Fridson, Martin (2001). How to Be a Billionaire: Proven Strategies from the Titans of Wealth. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0-471-41617-7. 
• Gates, Bill (1996). The Road Ahead. Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-026040-4. 
• Lesinski, Jeanne M. (2006). Bill Gates (Biography (a & E)). A&E Television Networks. ISBN 0-8225-7027-0. 
• Manes, Stephen (1994). Gates: How Microsoft's Mogul Reinvented an Industry and Made Himself The Richest Man in America. Touchstone Pictures. ISBN 0-671-88074-8. 
• Wallace, James (1993). Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire. New York: HarperCollins Publishers. ISBN 0-471-56886-4. 

References[link]