Harvard University is one of the world’s best-known elite institutions of higher education. Its total student body numbers over 25,000, with over 400,000 alumni. Harvard has almost 14,500 staff and about 5,000 faculty. It has an operating budget of $6 billion and, despite falling for two consecutive years, the largest endowment of any university in the world at $51 billion.

Harvard University was founded in 1636. In 1650, at the request of Harvard’s first president, Henry Dunster, the Great and General Court of Massachusetts issued the university a charter, which established the Harvard Corporation (the Corporation) as the governing board of the university. Its first members were the president, five fellows, and the treasurer. The Corporation has the ultimate oversight of Harvard, which today is characterized as “the fiduciary responsibility” concerning the “University’s academic, financial, and physical resources and overall well-being”. The Corporation, formally called the President and Fellows of Harvard College, is the legal entity that owns Harvard every building, logo, trademark, copyright, document, and report that the university owns or issues.