1912
Mrs. George D. Widener reveals plans to build a library at Harvard in memory of her son, Harry Elkins Widener ’07, who perished with his father on the Titanic.
1932
The observance of Class Day is moved out of the Yard to the quadrangle formed by newly built Kirkland, Eliot, and Winthrop because “the heart of the College is, as it should be, in the Houses.”
1937
Former Law School dean Roscoe Pound is named Harvard’s first University Professor, free to teach in any faculty and to make his own schedule for lecturing, teaching, and research.
1942
“Lest a liberal education be lost sight of in wartime curriculum,” faculty members prepare a series of “Great Authors” lectures to be offered in the Houses in the fall.
1952
Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Cornell, Brown, Dartmouth, Columbia, and the University of Pennsylvania sign an intercollegiate agreement that officially proclaims them the “Ivy League.” Undergraduate admissions for athletes, football eligibility, and allowable scholarships are among the features to be standardized.
1957
The Metropolitan District Commission completes a footbridge across Soldiers Field Road (on the Boston side of the Charles River), near the Weeks Bridge, gratifying harried motorists as well as the Business School.
1967
New twists to Commencement include dropping the traditional Harvard-Yale baseball game and moving Class Day festivities from Sever Quadrangle to Tercentenary Theatre.
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Harvard Medical School and MIT plan to collaborate and pool resources “to facilitate the evolution of the physical and engineering sciences and mathematics…to achieve a closer and more productive interrelationship with biology and medicine.”
1977
The Freshman Dean’s Office scans questionnaires returned by the incoming class of ’81 and reveals that only 27 in a class of 1,624 say they smoke cigarettes.
1982
Mother Teresa of Calcutta is the featured speaker of the graduating seniors on Class Day. The editors report that the Nobel Peace Prize winner “spoke out strongly against abortion and premarital sex and in favor of prayer.”
