As you may or may not know, Harvard was modeled largely on Cambridge University in England, and that modeling extends all the way down to student housing.  According to the Harvard Gazette, the Harvard house system was “Inspired by the centuries-old English university model in which students and faculty live and learn together, the current House system owes its existence to Harvard President A. Lawrence Lowell (in office 1909-33), who launched the system in the early 1930s with a $13 million gift from Edward S. Harkness, an 1897 graduate of Yale. Attempts to adapt the English ideal to Harvard stretch back to the beginnings of the College.”

This system is seen as a way to build community, foster relationships and also introduce people to others that they might not otherwise meet.  Being that Harvard Extension School is a “commuter” school and there is no on-campus residence, one of the chief concerns over the years is that HES lacks that type of community building.  While there are events on campus, many students live outside the Boston area and indeed around the world – making it impossible for them to attend.  So, we will be building a virtual house for the HES community that accomplishes many of the same things as the non-virtual houses.  While we cannot eat and study together in a traditional sense, we can interact quite a bit online – we take classes that way after all!

New for this year, we have a Distance Student Liason who will be spearheading this effort along with their team.  We are excited to have a dedicated and talented team working to create an environment for all of us to get together.  To that end, this page will be updated throughout the year as they build our virtual house.