A Look Inside: Lowell House
Constructed in 1930, Lowell House was named for the Lowell family, closely identified with Harvard since John Lowell graduated in 1721. Harvard President Abbott Lawrence Lowell (1909-33) instituted the House system, tutorials, subject concentrations, and reading periods. His bust and that of poet James Russell Lowell are in the House’s main courtyard. In the dining hall are portraits of President Lowell and his wife; his sister Amy Lowell, the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet; and his brother Percival Lowell, the astronomer who spearheaded the search for the planet Pluto. The House community contains 400 undergraduates, approximately 25 resident tutors and scholars drawn from Harvard’s graduate and professional Schools, and more than 75 affiliated faculty members and visiting scholars. House Masters Diana Eck, the Fredric Wertham Professor of Law and Psychiatry in Society and a member of the Faculty of Divinity, and Dorothy Austin, Sedgwick Associate Minister in the Memorial Church and University chaplain,...