I write to report on Harvard Univer

I write to report on Harvard University’s financial
results for fiscal 2014.
The close of our fiscal year marked the anniversary
of the public launch of The Harvard Campaign, which
has energized and engaged Harvard alumni around
the world, with more than 100,000 people participating
to date. It has also demonstrated the vision and generosity
of our alumni and donors, who see in Harvard’s
remarkable students, faculty, and staff the potential to
open new frontiers of knowledge and understanding, and
to tackle some of the world’s most intractable problems.
A transformative gift from Kenneth Griffin primarily
in support of Harvard’s financial aid program for
undergraduates highlights this generosity and will
ensure that Harvard College remains affordable for the
most talented students, regardless of their economic
circumstances, now and for generations to come. More
recently, an extraordinary gift from the Morningside
Foundation, in memory of the late T.H. Chan, to the
School of Public Health will propel efforts to address the
most critical global health challenges and to translate
rigorous research into action and policy worldwide.
In the past year, Harvard scientists and engineers made
meaningful advances in developing renewable sources
of energy and groundbreaking discoveries in areas such
as Alzheimer’s, cancer treatment and diabetes. At the
same time, we continue to integrate arts practice and
performance into the undergraduate curriculum. To
that end, we watched as the new home of the Harvard
Art Museums facility neared completion and look forward
to its opening. The museums will increase access to
Harvard’s vast collections for pedagogy and research,
while serving as a cornerstone of our collective and
ongoing commitment to the study of the humanities.
That commitment was highlighted again this year with
the launch of three new introductory undergraduate
courses in the arts and humanities: “The Art of Looking,”
“The Art of Listening,” and “The Art of Reading.”
Demand for knowledge is ever increasing. The number
of applicants to Harvard College approached record
highs, and our online learning platform, HarvardX,
continued to thrive, supporting more than 80 faculty
from 10 Harvard Schools and more than 40 online
learning opportunities. Harvard Business School
also launched its online learning portal, HBX, and
HarvardX for Alumni was created to serve our unique
community of continuing learners around the globe.
We also continued to build a deeper understanding of
how students learn and how we can better integrate new
forms of teaching into the classroom experience.
Significant progress has been made in House renewal
with the completion of Leverett House’s McKinlock Hall
and the start of construction on Dunster House, the first
full House to undergo renewal. The Harvard Kennedy
School has received approval for ambitious construction
and reconfiguration plans which will begin to be realized
this spring. And across the river, our vision for a dynamic
future in Allston has begun to take root with the approval
of the University’s ten year institutional master plan,
and with academic and space planning for the move
of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences to
Allston well underway. Looking ahead, plans for the
Richard A. and Susan F. Smith Campus Center are
beginning to take shape, with the goal of creating a
welcoming common space for the Harvard community.
All of these things happen against a backdrop of
transformation in American higher education. The
financial headwinds facing Harvard – among them
pressures on federal research funding – continue to
challenge all of us to prioritize and adapt, and to act
creatively, thoughtfully and decisively as a community.
With the support of alumni and donors, and the
remarkable work of our faculty, students and staff, we
have made great progress together toward the formation
of a financially sustainable model that will better
support our shared aspirations for Harvard’s future