Harris University was founded in 1962 by Dr. Edgar Wiliam Henry Hine a British MD, born in London, UK. Dr. Hine came to Latin America to practice medicine in third world countries and help those in need.
By assisting the less fortunate, Dr. Hine realized that the best way to help young adults was by giving them access to education through programs that could reach communities where there were no opportunities to study. To achieve this, Dr. Hine started a long-distance correspondence educational program.
The first programs given were technical skills that helped communities and families with their immediate needs. The University started as a school that taught simple careers such as Public Health, Accounting, Agricultural Best Practices, and Community Planning amongst others. This idea was shared by Dr. Hine with several colleagues and with time they were able to setup a head office in Florida and from there work with other institutions around the world.
Unfortunately, Dr. Hine passed away on January 9, 1999 of Alzheimer’s disease but his legacy is continued by many other people who shared his vision to help others grow through education. His wife and life companion Vera was the original inspiration to Dr. Hine given that she came from a low income family in Latin America that could not afford a formal education and throughout their time together not only helped him with his medical practice but also his vision to give opportunities to everyone to study. Vera passed away on April 28th, 2008 but the Hines’ dedication to education continues on today.
Beside the University’s general goals, Harris University was born with two main purposes:
- Academic excellence
- Respectful and cordial relationship between professors and students.
One of the most important reasons the University was founded was the need to offer opportunities to students around the world to have access to an education no matter where the student was located and still give them the ability to obtain their professional degree at a lesser cost. The classes originally began through mail and phone correspondence between the student and professor. The student would study through a syllabus and textbook self-studying with full coursework and testing designed for each course. With the boom of the Internet and many people learning how to use technology, Harris University understood it was time to set all the paper work and studies into an online eLearning format available to everyone who sought personal and professional improvement.
Harris University’s best presentation and testimony to education are the thousands of students who have studied and graduated with us throughout the years and are now successfully working in different fields throughout the world. Those students who have become professionals and earned their degree in what was originally thought of as a non-traditional way are the reason why this academic institution was founded and they are our best product and reason why we still offer this type of coursework today.
Harris University has an office in Florida to coordinate all the students’ needs and logistics as well as the needs of the professors. All documents are legal and can be validated by the State Department of the United States of America.
Harris University is against any form of discrimination by race, nationality, gender, or social status.
Social Awareness
Harris University is starting a program in which former and current students have begun to visit several countries in order to help children and women in urban marginal communities through construction projects or child sponsorship in third world countries. Since this is a new program, legal procedures are still in process so all the sponsorships or donations can be deducted from the tax payers in USA. In the meantime, Harris University is working in alliance with local sponsorship programs to use the existing platform and work as a network with duplicating efforts.