Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

Academic programs offered by the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences have consistently ranked at the top of graduate programs in the United States.^[3] The School's graduates include a diverse set of prominent public figures and academics. The vast majority of Harvard's Nobel Prize-winning alumni earned a degree at GSAS. In addition to scholars and scientists, GSAS graduates have become U.S. Cabinet Secretaries, Supreme Court Justices, foreign heads of state, and heads of government.

History and organization[edit]

GSAS was formally created as the Graduate Department of Harvard University in 1872 and was renamed the Graduate School of Harvard University in 1890. Women were not allowed to enroll in GSAS until 1962.^[4] In 2023, the GSAS was renamed after a $300 million donation from philanthropist Kenneth C. Griffin to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.^[5][6]


The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences forms part of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), along with Harvard College, the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and the Harvard Division of Continuing Education. The dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, who reports to the dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, is charged with the responsibility of implementing and supervising the policies of the faculty in the area of graduate education. In the administration of academic policy, the dean is guided by the Administrative Board and the Committee on Graduate Education. The dean is assisted by an administrative dean of GSAS, who has day-to-day responsibility for the operations of the school, a dean for admissions and financial aid, and a dean for student affairs. While the GSAS office oversees the processing of applications, financial aid and fellowships, thesis guidelines, and graduate student affairs, the individual departments in FAS retain considerable autonomy in the administration of their respective graduate programs.


The Faculty of Arts and Sciences oversees GSAS and is responsible for setting the conditions of admission, for providing courses of instruction for students, for directing their studies and examining them in their fields of study, for establishing and maintaining the requirements for its degrees and for making recommendations for those degrees to Harvard's Governing Boards, for laying down regulations for the governance of the school, and for supervising all its affairs. The dean of GSAS is responsible for implementing and supervising the policies of the faculty in the area of graduate education.


In addition to its own master's and PhD programs, GSAS nominally oversees the PhD programs in Harvard's professional schools: Harvard Business School, Harvard Divinity School, the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard Medical School, the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and the John F. Kennedy School of Government.

42°22′25.1″N 71°7′6.3″W / 42.373639°N 71.118417°W / 42.373639; -71.118417