Editing Harvard University (section)

=== 20th century ===
{{See also|A. Lawrence Lowell|James B. Conant}}
[[File:Rummell, Richard Harvard University.jpg|thumb|A 1906 aerial watercolor portrait of Harvard University<ref>{{Cite web|title=An Iconic College View: Harvard University, circa 1900. Richard Rummell (1848–1924)|url=http://grahamarader.blogspot.com/2011/07/iconic-college-view-harvard-university.html|access-date=January 24, 2022|website=An Iconic College View|archive-date=April 25, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120425163107/http://grahamarader.blogspot.com/2011/07/iconic-college-view-harvard-university.html|url-status=live}}</ref>]]
In 1900, Harvard became a founding member of the [[Association of American Universities]].<ref name="AAU" /> For the first few decades of the 20th century, the Harvard student body was predominantly "old-stock, high-status [[Protestantism|Protestants]], especially [[Episcopal Church (United States)|Episcopalians]], [[Congregational church|Congregationalists]], and [[Presbyterianism|Presbyterians]]," according to sociologist and author [[Jerome Karabel]].<ref>{{cite book|author=Jerome Karabel|title=The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zwf-Ofc--toC&pg=PA23|year=2006|page=23|publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt |isbn=978-0-618-77355-8|access-date=November 5, 2015|archive-date=January 24, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160124132732/https://books.google.com/books?id=zwf-Ofc--toC&pg=PA23|url-status=live}}</ref>

Over the 20th century, as its endowment burgeoned and prominent intellectuals and professors affiliated with it, Harvard University's reputation as one of the world's most prestigious universities grew notably. The university's enrollment also underwent substantial growth, a product of both the founding of new graduate academic programs and an expansion of the [[Harvard College|undergraduate college]]. [[Radcliffe College]] emerged as the female counterpart of Harvard College, becoming one of the most prominent schools in the nation for women.

In 1923, a year after the percentage of [[Jews|Jewish]] students at Harvard reached 20%, [[A. Lawrence Lowell]], the university's 22nd president, unsuccessfully proposed capping the admission of Jewish students to 15% of the undergraduate population. Lowell also refused to mandate forced desegregation in the university's [[List of Harvard College freshman dormitories|freshman dormitories]], writing that, "We owe to the colored man the same opportunities for education that we do to the white man, but we do not owe to him to force him and the white into social relations that are not, or may not be, mutually congenial."<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2021/11/4/housing-desegregation/ |title=Compelled to coexist: A history of the desegregation of Harvard's freshman housing|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220928084627/https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2021/11/4/housing-desegregation/ |archive-date=September 28, 2022 |newspaper=Harvard Crimson|date=November 4, 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last1=Steinberg|first1=Stephen|title=How Jewish Quotas Began|journal=Commentary|date=September 1, 1971|url=https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/how-jewish-quotas-began/|access-date=September 10, 2017|archive-date=September 11, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170911071351/https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/how-jewish-quotas-began/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last1=Johnson|first1=Dirk|title=Yale's Limit on Jewish Enrollment Lasted Until Early 1960's Book Says|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1986/03/04/nyregion/yale-s-limit-on-jewish-enrollment-lasted-until-early-1960-s-book-says.html|newspaper=The New York Times|date=March 4, 1986|access-date=December 3, 2017|archive-date=September 23, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210923074453/https://www.nytimes.com/1986/03/04/nyregion/yale-s-limit-on-jewish-enrollment-lasted-until-early-1960-s-book-says.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=Lowell Tells Jews Limits at Colleges Might Help Them|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1922/06/17/109843455.html|newspaper=The New York Times|date=June 17, 1922|access-date=September 10, 2017|archive-date=March 23, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190323102413/https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1922/06/17/109843455.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

Between 1933 and 1953, Harvard University was led by [[James B. Conant]], the university's 23rd president, who reinvigorated the university's creative scholarship in an effort to guarantee Harvard's preeminence among the nation and world's emerging research institutions. Conant viewed higher education as a vehicle of opportunity for the talented rather than an entitlement for the wealthy, and devised programs to identify, recruit, and support talented youth. In 1945, under Conant's leadership, an influential 268-page report, ''[[General Education in a Free Society]]'', was published by Harvard faculty, which remains one of the most important works in [[curriculum studies]],<ref>{{Cite book |editor-last1=Kridel |editor-first1=Craig |chapter=General Education in a Free Society (Harvard Redbook) |pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=GgMyFqxsXWoC&pg=PA400 400]–402 |title=Encyclopedia of Curriculum Studies |date=2010 |volume=1 |language=en |isbn=978-1-4129-5883-7 |publisher=SAGE  }}</ref> and women were first admitted to the [[Harvard Medical School|medical school]].<ref>{{cite report |title=First class of women admitted to Harvard Medical School, 1945 |publisher=Countway Repository, Harvard University Library |url=http://repository.countway.harvard.edu/xmlui/handle/10473/1782 |access-date=May 2, 2016 |date= |archive-date=June 23, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160623235357/http://repository.countway.harvard.edu/xmlui/handle/10473/1782 }}</ref>

Between 1945 and 1960, admissions were standardized to open the university to a more diverse group of students. Following the end of [[World War II]], for example, special exams were developed so veterans could be considered for admission.<ref>{{Cite news |title=The Class of 1950 |newspaper=The Harvard Crimson |url=https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2000/6/5/the-class-of-1950-pin-a/ |access-date=August 2, 2022 |archive-date=March 29, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230329172148/https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2000/6/5/the-class-of-1950-pin-a/ |url-status=live }}</ref> No longer drawing mostly from prestigious [[College-preparatory school|prep schools]] in [[New England]], the undergraduate college became accessible to striving middle class students from public schools; many more Jews and Catholics were admitted, but Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians remained underrepresented.<ref>{{cite news|first=Malka A. |last=Older |url=http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=217911 |title=Preparatory schools and the admissions process |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090911160531/http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=217911 |archive-date=September 11, 2009 |newspaper=[[The Harvard Crimson]]|date=January 24, 1996}}</ref> Over the second half of the 20th century, however, the university became incrementally more diverse.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Powell|first1=Alvin|title=An update on Harvard's diversity, inclusion efforts|url=https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2018/10/an-update-on-harvards-diversity-and-inclusion-efforts/|newspaper=The Harvard Gazette|date=October 1, 2018|access-date=December 14, 2019|archive-date=August 14, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210814075610/https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2018/10/an-update-on-harvards-diversity-and-inclusion-efforts/|url-status=live}}</ref>

Between 1971 and 1999, Harvard controlled undergraduate admission, instruction, and housing for Radcliffe's women; in 1999, Radcliffe was formally merged into Harvard University.<ref>{{cite report |title=Radcliffe Enters Historic Merger With Harvard |url=http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1999/4/21/radcliffe-enters-historic-merger-with-harvard |access-date=May 6, 2016 |date= |archive-date=October 11, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171011031437/http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1999/4/21/radcliffe-enters-historic-merger-with-harvard/ |url-status=live }}</ref>