Howard Anderson, a former venture capitalist who has lectured at Harvard, says the university needs to install a technologist as its next president. The university needs someone who will help Cambridge build an insurmountable lead in the life sciences, he says, uniting the Harvard campus against the common enemy — the new Number One — Stanford.
Private industry played a big role in that failure. But the big universities share in the blame. Harvard, and even MIT, kept a bookish distance from industry — precluding the sort of borderless collaboration that made Stanford and Silicon Valley king.
The tally of Internet Age goliaths that sprouted from Stanford’s campus over the last few decades is staggering: not just Google, Instagram, and Snapchat, but Cisco Systems, Sun Microsystems, Netflix, eBay, Electronic Arts, Intuit, LinkedIn, and E*Trade. Harvard’s one bona fide star, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, dropped out during his sophomore year and decamped for Palo Alto.
Massachusetts’s loss during this period, in capital and prestige, is almost incalculable. Preventing another setback of that magnitude will be a challenge. Because it’s not just about Harvard or MIT; it’s about the buttoned-up, stove-piped culture of the entire region.
“You’re not just trying to change the culture of Harvard, you’re trying to change the culture of Massachusetts and Boston, and that’s hard to do,” says Bradley, the author of “Harvard Rules.” “Boston doesn’t change for anyone, really. It’s kind of the point of Boston — that it doesn’t change.”
The university, to its credit, is eyeing a significant challenge to that culture down the road. It’s got long-range plans for an “enterprise research campus” in Allston that would house biotech companies and try to emulate the Silicon Valley ecosystem.
At this point, it’s hard to imagine Harvard — or the rest of the region — building something quite so open and dynamic. But perhaps the Stanford of Massachusetts can at least get close.
Should a university education become an exercise at a high falutin vocational school in quest
of filthy lucre?
Uhh…there’s also a tiny company called Microsoft.
Thank you for sharing this. I realize the article and survey results are focused on undergraduate education, but I still find it relevant for my younger daughter’s grad school choices.
Putting academic aside, there’s no comparison in my book. Sure, Harvard’s got boating on the Charles, Harvard Square and Harvard Yard, but have you seen Stanford? Palm tree lined streets, Hoover Tower, and those fabulous arches, and the weather, sprawling campus. The list goes on.
Finally got around to touring the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. I was struck by how much of the tech boom and history DID NOT COME FROM STANFORD…I had always assumed it was a given but as the many sub-exhibits indicated critical research was being done throughout the country.
There is a great use of heuristic with poetic prose in some comments. Hey y’all Harvard and Stanford still ain’t beating Princeton for Undergraduate education. Stanford has really good sport recruits, because they can pay for them. I’m just a kind of successful non college degreed average poster. What do I know?
The battle is not really to establish which of the two provides the best undergraduate education, it is simply for which school will occupy the #1 spot in the zetgeist. This by default determines which school is also considered the most desirable for undergraduates. @1Tiger21 Princeton sure is more undergraduate focused, but it definitely isn’t seen as more desirable than Stanford and Harvard by prospective undergraduate applicants.
@Penn95 I agree completely. Currently Harvard and Stanford have a higher name recognition for college undergraduate admit prospects. If the prospective admits were to do research they would realize that Harvard and Stanford would be the places to aspire to attend graduate school. Princeton will continue to use the dollars payed for by Alumni and full pay parents to achieve the absolute best undergraduate education for all of their students including non pay, full pay, and those in the middle. Yale should be # 2.
I agree with you that undergrads choose mostly based on brand name while they probably shouldn’t. But I dont necessarily agree with the statement that Harvard or Stanford provide lower quality undergraduate education, it is just different from the more liberal arts approach places like Princeton or Yale take. It depends on what people want out of their undergraduate experience. There are benefits for either approach. People should just focus more on what kind of environment they want.
Your point is understood and I agree somewhat. Harvard and Stanford are also focused on a liberal arts education in undergraduate studies. It is much easier to get the classes you want as an undergraduate at Princeton and Yale if you aren’t competing with the high number of graduate students at Stanford and Harvard. There are only so many Professors they can hire. There is a better professor to a Student ratio, Additionally, the under 21 year olds aren’t surrounded by a massive quantity of more educated 22-27 year olds. It’s a closer to a peer oriented, undergraduate educational experience at Yale and Princeton.
"When the new president of Harvard takes the helm next summer, she’ll have to worry about the usual stuff — padding the university’s enormous endowment and corraling all those Cambridge-sized egos.
But she’ll also face a more fundamental challenge and, perhaps, a more important one: getting Harvard’s groove back.
Not so long ago, Harvard was considered, almost by acclamation, the Best University in the World. Not anymore. Just this week, US News & World Report issued its annual college rankings. For the seventh straight year, Princeton topped the list.
The New Jersey school isn’t even Harvard’s most formidable rival. Far more important than US News is what parents and students think. This spring, for the fifth year in a row, a representative sample identified Stanford as their “dream school” in a Princeton Review survey — once again elevating the sunny engine of Silicon Valley over the wintry gatekeeper of the old economy." …
http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2017/09/16/harvard-stanford-east/sThrju3otKOpUiSllah3JO/story.html
http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2017/09/16/harvard-stanford-east/sThrju3otKOpUiSllah3JO/story.html
“Not so long ago, Harvard was considered, almost by acclamation, the Best University in the World. Not anymore. Just this week, US News & World Report issued its annual college rankings. For the seventh straight year, Princeton topped the list.
The New Jersey school isn’t even Harvard’s most formidable rival. Far more important than US News is what parents and students think. This spring, for the fifth year in a row, a representative sample identified Stanford as their “dream school” in a Princeton Review survey — once again elevating the sunny engine of Silicon Valley over the wintry gatekeeper of the old economy.
The gap is reflected in admission numbers: The California school is now the nation’s most selective college, a distinction Harvard long enjoyed.
For good reasons, university administrators hate simplistic data points and arbitrary magazine rankings. But universities are brands, whether they like it or not — built on prestige and pop culture cachet and shaped by tectonic shifts in global affairs.”
While it is true that Leland Stanford Junior University is quite a good trade school, Harvard remains the center for training innovative scientists. Let’s look at Nobel Prizes awarded to alumni:
In Physics, only 3 Stanford graduates have won the Nobel Prize EVER… and 2 of them won it together.
Harvard graduates have won 14 Nobel prizes in Physics, including 5 since 2004… that’s right, Harvard graduates have more Nobel Prizes in Physics in the past 12 years than Stanford’s entire history.
19 Harvard graduates have won Chemistry Nobel Prizes vs. Stanford’s 4.
6 of Harvard alumni Nobel Prizes were awarded since 2001… so more Harvard alumni have won Nobel Prizes in Chemistry just in the past 15 years than all of Stanford’s entire history.
In medicine, 19 Harvard alumni have won Nobel Prizes vs. only 1 (ONE!!) Stanford alumnus, ever!
4 were awarded in the past 15 years… so Harvard alumni have won 4 times more Medicine Nobel Prizes in the past 15 years than Stanford alumni ever.
In economics, 13 Harvard alumni have won Nobel Prizes vs. only 3 Stanford alumni.
8 of them in the past 15 years, nearly 3 times more than Stanford alumni ever.
It sure seems to me that Harvard alumni win far more Nobel Prizes in the past 15 years than Stanford alumni over its entire history.
@harvardandberkeley Pretty sure Stanford is the school with the most nobel wins in the 21st century. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/student/news/stanford-beats-harvard-and-oxbridge-most-nobel-prizes-21st-century
Harvard has the history, but the momentum is with Stanford. What counts is the future, and Stanford is just better positioned to dominate in the future as things stand now. This kind of hubristic attitude is what will eventually cost Harvard the number 1 stop, if it hasn’t already. Harvard has a lot of work to do if it wants to secure its top spot in the future.
@Penn95, you can easily verify my data above with Wikipedia.
The Times Higher Ed study was deeply flawed. Contrary to the way it was being portrayed, it was not a simple count of Nobel Prizes. Read the methodology.
First, it only credits a university for a given Nobel Prize if the faculty member was a professor at the time of the award, even if the research was done earlier at another institution or university. It is common for research to be done at one institution, but the prize is awarded much later when the researcher is at another institution. That institution thats supported the scientist and work gets no credit, which is ridiculous. Second, it does not credit universities for Nobel Prizes awarded to its alumni. You can go to Stanford’s own website, and they include alumni in their own count of Nobel Prizes. Third, it discounts Nobel Prizes awarded to 3 people versus those awarded to only 2 people (which there really is no justification for doing… it’s not like the quality of work is less).
If a researcher did research at institution A as a PhD student, and said research continued at institution B as a postdoc that resulted in a Nobel Prize winning breakthrough, and yet received the award years later when the researcher was at institution C, you think that it is “fair” that only institution C gets credit for that award, but not institution A and B??
Nobel Prizes are not awarded for “lifetime achievement”… they are awarded for specific breakthroughs and scientific discoveries. There is no reason to not credit the institutions that trained the scientist or the institution that supported the award-winning work.
Harvard alumni far surpass Stanford alumni not only in number of Nobel Prizes historically, but even with Nobel Prizes awarded in the new millennium.
@harvardandberkeley it might not be fair but it shows something. if the professor has switched universities then this says something about the ability of their current university to attract top talent. If a professor decides to leave Harvard and go to Stanford then that says something. Also Harvard is notorious for inviting nobel winners who have not done any of their research at Harvard, to be Harvard fellows in order to establish affiliation.
The alumni metric per se also doesn’t really matter that much. it matters more where they did their research and even more so which university they decided to stay at eventually. Point is, it is not clear cut.
Regardless of that though, Harvard is very much threatened by Stanford at this point. It definitely still has the most prestigious and recognizable name out of all higher ed institutions but it has some catching up to do to ensure it will be viewed as the indisputable top school in the future as well.
^Contradictory. You claim it as a negative that Harvard tries to attract top talent (“Harvard is notorious for inviting nobel winners…”), then turn around and claim it as a positive that Stanford does the same thing.
And the count of Nobel Prize winners by alumni isn’t even close. So I understand why Stanford fanboys/girls want to dismiss it as not “really matter[ing] that much.” Yet, I think it shows both the quality of the students Harvard attracts as well as the value-added in rigorous training (though, it is hard to say how much value added vs. future Nobel Prize winners choose to go there in the first place… yet, that also says something).