Harvard Society of Fellows

History

You will practice the virtues, and avoid the snares, of the scholar. You will be courteous to your elders who have explored to the point from which you may advance; and helpful to your juniors who will progress farther by reason of your labors. Your aim will be knowledge and wisdom, not the reflected glamour of fame. You will not accept credit that is due to another, or harbor jealousy of an explorer who is more fortunate.

You will seek not a near but a distant objective, and you will not be satisfied with what you may have done. All that you may achieve or discover you will regard as a fragment of a larger pattern of the truth which from the separate approaches every true scholar is striving to descry.

To these things, in joining the Society of Fellows, you dedicate yourself.

They soon found an ally in then-Harvard-president Abbott Lawrence Lowell who appointed a committee in 1926, with Henderson as chairman, to study the nature of an institution that might improve the quality of graduate education. The committee recommended the establishment of a Society of Fellows at Harvard, modeled particularly on the Prize Fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge, and partly on those at Fondation Thiers in Paris and All Souls' College, Oxford, with the hope that such a society would produce not only "isolated geniuses, but men who will do the work of the world".

After years of trying to attract outside donations, Lowell funded the Society himselfhis last major institutional act before his resignation in November 1932. "There being no visible source of necessary funds," he later wrote, "I gave it myself, in a kind of desperation, although it took nearly all I had." Though it was an open secret that Lowell was the source of the anonymous donation, this was never acknowledged in his presence. After Lowell's death in 1943, the donation was officially made public; it is known as the Anna Parker Lowell Fund in memory of Lowell's wife.

The society was officially inaugurated as an alternative to the Ph.D. system with the beginning of the 193334 academic year, granting fellows freedom to pursue lines of inquiry that transcended traditional academic disciplinary boundaries. Because of the core belief in the importance of informal discussions between scholars in different academic fields, both senior and junior fellows have met for dinner every Monday night during term-time. They are frequently joined by visiting scholars and Fellows are encouraged to bring guests.

Originally headquartered in a two-room suite at Eliot House, one of the university's twelve residential colleges, the society was closed to women until 1972, when Martha Nussbaum was selected as the first female junior fellow.

Current senior fellows

These are the Society's current senior fellows, who elect the incoming junior fellows:

References

References

1. "About the Society of Fellows".
2. Homans, George Caspar. (1984). "Coming to My Senses: The Autobiography of a Sociologist". Transaction Publishers.
3. Bloom, Samuel William. (2002). "The Word as Scalpel: A History of Medical Sociology". Oxford University Press.
4. Henderson, Lawrence Joseph. (1970). "L. J. Henderson on the Social System: Selected Writings". University of Chicago Press.
5. (January 1949). "THE SOCIETY OF FELLOWS AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY". American Scientist.
6. (1959). "The Society of Fellows". Harvard University Press.
7. "Harvard University Society of Fellows".
8. Homans, George C.. (1949). "The Society of Fellows at Harvard University". American Scientist.
9. Nussbaum, Martha C. ''Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education.'' Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1997. pp. 6–7.
10. "Current Senior Fellows".