Howard University

Howard University, private, coeducational institution in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1867, the university was named for a founder and president, General Oliver Otis Howard, commissioner of the Freedmen’s Bureau. Although a private institution, it receives a federal appropriation each year from the Department of Education.

The university confers bachelor’s, master’s, doctoral, and professional degrees in a wide range of fields. It offers courses of study in the fine arts, architecture, performing arts, business administration and management, communications, computer science, theology, education, engineering, nursing, and pharmaceutical studies, as well as the full range of arts and sciences. It also offers 23 doctoral programs and grants professional degrees in dentistry, law, and medicine.

The library houses the Moorland-Spingarn and Channing Pollock collections of works that date from the 16th century by and about people of African descent. Other research facilities include the Afro-American Studies Resource Center, the Computational Science and Engineering Research Center, the Center for the Study of Terrestrial and Extraterrestrial Atmospheres, the Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed at Risk, the Materials Science Research Center of Excellence, and the Speech and Hearing Clinic.

Notable alumni of Howard University include civil rights leader Thurgood Marshall, opera singer Jessye Norman, diplomat and civil rights activist Andrew Young, and Toni Morrison, winner of the 1988 Pulitzer Prize and the 1993 Nobel Prize in literature.