L.A. Karnes ’28, a Crimson Editorial editor, is a double concentrator in the Comparative Study of Religion and Government in Mather House.
You probably know that the Harvard name carries a lot of weight and that the school has produced countless notable alumni. Maybe you’ve even been on a tour and have heard the “three lies” of the John Harvard statue.
Lately, though, Harvard has felt increasingly transactional. Students chase internships, consulting jobs, and the next rung on the corporate ladder. But are these opportunities truly what make Harvard so great?
While some of Harvard’s inherent prestige comes from the wealth of opportunities available to students, a large part of Crimson cachet stems from the University’s storied history. By encouraging the student body to wrestle with the weight of Harvard’s legacy, the University can both educate and inspire students to wield its name wisely.
Modern romance with careerism aside, Harvard is more than just a resume booster. It is a respected institution with a complicated legacy. Wrestling with that legacy and having a sense of how our academic powerhouse came to be might inspire students to look beyond their career paths and develop a sense of institutional belonging. By recentering Harvard’s history of alumni who sought to change the world – not just advance within it – students are encouraged to think beyond pragmatism.
It was only when I began studying to be a tour guide that I started to appreciate Harvard’s history. Suddenly, the buildings I walked past linked Harvard’s past with my own. In the classroom, history can be equally transformative. The current professor of Government 50: “Data Science for the Social Sciences,” A. Scott Cunningham, frequently draws on alumni stories to show how the research of Harvard graduates has reshaped causal inference. He explained that by simply setting foot on Harvard’s campus, students become part of the story of the best school in the world, and engaging with successful alumni can help give students purpose.
As Harvard’s ability to sponsor life-altering research is under attack, understanding our background and investments in scientific inquiry can also help students understand what is at stake.
At the same time, Harvard’s past challenges us. Its policies have displaced and oppressed marginalized communities. As some have pointed out, the history of Radcliffe is complicated, and not known by many of Harvard’s own students. The history of Native Americans on campus dates back to around Harvard’s founding. The university profited off the labor of enslaved people, and many of its early donors accumulated their wealth through slave trading.
Our culture hasn’t always been inclusive. Confronting this history doesn’t just make us more informed; it cultivates empathy and critical thinking — qualities desperately needed when Harvard is under scrutiny in the public eye and elsewhere. It also forces students to confront a difficult yet important question: What parts of our legacy do we hope to carry forward, and what can we learn from and leave behind?
Understanding Harvard’s history further offers a chance to reconnect with the traditions that make our community unique. From older rituals in the Yard, like Commencement, to the newer additions to Harvard’s culture, such as Housing Day, knowing our past links students across generations. While learning doesn’t necessarily create community, it does offer a sense of greater purpose and connection to our mission.
A time or labor-intensive Harvard history course would be ineffective. Many students might not take the course seriously or might view Harvard’s history as a source of stress rather than one of exploration. Instead, Harvard could implement a seminar that meets bi-weekly or even monthly to give freshmen a taste of Harvard’s history and what this history may mean for their own Harvard experiences. There could even be integration of alumni stories to bring life to otherwise far-away experiences. The goal of the seminar should not be mastery, but instead for students to become well-informed members of their community.
Harvard students enjoy immense privileges and are able to wield the Harvard name as a tool to launch into their careers. That privilege is not inherent — it is built on generations of intellectual and civic work. If we want Harvard to remain a respected institution, we must steward that legacy, not merely exploit it.
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