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History of Harvard Extension School
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History of Harvard Extension School
The history of the Harvard Extension School dates back to its founding in 1910 by Abbott Lawrence Lowell. From the beginning, the Harvard Extension School was designed to serve the educational interests and needs of the greater Boston community, but has since extended its academic resources to the public, locally, nationally, and internationally.
Growing out of the Lowell Institute, it first became the Commission on University Extension in cooperation with other Boston-area universities, and then eventually became a Harvard-only institution. Early students were able to earn an Associate in Arts degree, which was the equivalent of a bachelor's degree but which did have a residency requirement. That was later renamed an Adjunct in Arts before finally settling on a bachelor's degree. The first graduate degree was awarded in 1980.
The Harvard Extension School has been a leader in distance education, offering courses on the radio and television, and even on board Navy ships. Online education began in the mid-1980s, and in 2012 the school partnered with EdX to expand its reach. After 100 years, an estimated 500,000 students have taken courses at the Extension School.
John Lowell, Jr., a wealthy Boston businessman, became gravely ill during a camel trip across the Egyptian desert and wrote his will on the banks of the Nile River in Cairo. He died on March 4, 1836, shortly after arriving in Bombay, India, and his will was executed back in Boston. In it, he set aside half his fortune to be used for "the maintenance and support of Public Lectures to be delivered in said Boston upon philosophy, natural history, and the arts and sciences...for the promotion of the moral and intellectual and physical instruction or education of the citizens of the said city of Boston. Lowell also directed that lectures be given "on the natural religion showing its conformity to that of our Savior," "on the historical and internal evidences in favor of Christianity," and "avoiding all disputed points of faith and ceremony" by directing the lecturers "to the moral doctrines of the Gospel."
The lectures were supposed to be free for those of limited means, and for those who could afford to attend more "abstruse" or "erudite" lectures, the maximum charge was to be no more than the value of two bushels of wheat. In an equally egalitarian measure, the lectures were specifically open to women as well as to men. Some of the "most notable intellectual figures of America and Europe" lectured as part of the program.
When the Lowell Institute, the foundation formed to sponsor the lectures, opened in 1839 the initial value of the fund was $250,000, or $5,309,180 in 2012 dollars. Annual interest on corpus of $18,000, or $382,260.96 in 2012 dollars. By 1897 the fund had more than $1 million in it, with an annual income of more than $50,000. The Institute was to be headed by a single trustee, and one preferably a male descendant of Lowell's grandfather. The first trustee, John Amory Lowell, administered the trust for more than forty years. According to the terms of the will, each year 10% of the earnings must be turned into non-expendable capital.
The lack of an endowment was one reason why Harvard President Charles William Eliot declined to begin a continuing education program in 1902. "I would strongly disapprove of starting the proposed institute without an endowment," Eliot said. "It should not be dependent on other institutions." At a meeting of the Boston City Club in 1909, A. Lawrence Lowell said that John Lowell, Jr. had wanted to found a "popular university" and that in order to fulfill that vision it had to be connected to an already existing educational institution.
When A. Lawrence Lowell succeeded his father as trustee of the Lowell Institute in 1900, he was already a trustee at both Harvard and MIT. He reorganized the lectures first as the School for Industrial Foremen at MIT, and then later renamed it the Lowell Institute School "under the auspices of MIT." The first year of the School had courses in "the higher branches" of mathematics, and the second year was devoted to theory and practice. Between 30 and 50 men graduated from the program each year.
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History of Harvard Extension School
The history of the Harvard Extension School dates back to its founding in 1910 by Abbott Lawrence Lowell. From the beginning, the Harvard Extension School was designed to serve the educational interests and needs of the greater Boston community, but has since extended its academic resources to the public, locally, nationally, and internationally.
Growing out of the Lowell Institute, it first became the Commission on University Extension in cooperation with other Boston-area universities, and then eventually became a Harvard-only institution. Early students were able to earn an Associate in Arts degree, which was the equivalent of a bachelor's degree but which did have a residency requirement. That was later renamed an Adjunct in Arts before finally settling on a bachelor's degree. The first graduate degree was awarded in 1980.
The Harvard Extension School has been a leader in distance education, offering courses on the radio and television, and even on board Navy ships. Online education began in the mid-1980s, and in 2012 the school partnered with EdX to expand its reach. After 100 years, an estimated 500,000 students have taken courses at the Extension School.
John Lowell, Jr., a wealthy Boston businessman, became gravely ill during a camel trip across the Egyptian desert and wrote his will on the banks of the Nile River in Cairo. He died on March 4, 1836, shortly after arriving in Bombay, India, and his will was executed back in Boston. In it, he set aside half his fortune to be used for "the maintenance and support of Public Lectures to be delivered in said Boston upon philosophy, natural history, and the arts and sciences...for the promotion of the moral and intellectual and physical instruction or education of the citizens of the said city of Boston. Lowell also directed that lectures be given "on the natural religion showing its conformity to that of our Savior," "on the historical and internal evidences in favor of Christianity," and "avoiding all disputed points of faith and ceremony" by directing the lecturers "to the moral doctrines of the Gospel."
The lectures were supposed to be free for those of limited means, and for those who could afford to attend more "abstruse" or "erudite" lectures, the maximum charge was to be no more than the value of two bushels of wheat. In an equally egalitarian measure, the lectures were specifically open to women as well as to men. Some of the "most notable intellectual figures of America and Europe" lectured as part of the program.
When the Lowell Institute, the foundation formed to sponsor the lectures, opened in 1839 the initial value of the fund was $250,000, or $5,309,180 in 2012 dollars. Annual interest on corpus of $18,000, or $382,260.96 in 2012 dollars. By 1897 the fund had more than $1 million in it, with an annual income of more than $50,000. The Institute was to be headed by a single trustee, and one preferably a male descendant of Lowell's grandfather. The first trustee, John Amory Lowell, administered the trust for more than forty years. According to the terms of the will, each year 10% of the earnings must be turned into non-expendable capital.
The lack of an endowment was one reason why Harvard President Charles William Eliot declined to begin a continuing education program in 1902. "I would strongly disapprove of starting the proposed institute without an endowment," Eliot said. "It should not be dependent on other institutions." At a meeting of the Boston City Club in 1909, A. Lawrence Lowell said that John Lowell, Jr. had wanted to found a "popular university" and that in order to fulfill that vision it had to be connected to an already existing educational institution.
When A. Lawrence Lowell succeeded his father as trustee of the Lowell Institute in 1900, he was already a trustee at both Harvard and MIT. He reorganized the lectures first as the School for Industrial Foremen at MIT, and then later renamed it the Lowell Institute School "under the auspices of MIT." The first year of the School had courses in "the higher branches" of mathematics, and the second year was devoted to theory and practice. Between 30 and 50 men graduated from the program each year.