Shih Hu, who was invited to take part in the Tercentenary Celebration to receive an honorary doctoral degree from Harvard, was believed to be the calligrapher of the inscription.

However, it was unclear why the English translation provided by Dr. Liu did not contain a part in the inscription in which the Harvard Chinese alumni expressed hope for a brighter and more prosperous China.

[5] Following is part of the English translation provided by Dr. J. Heng Liu in 1936:[7] The strength of a nation necessarily depends upon the progress of civilization, which in turn is contingent upon the growth of intellectual knowledge of its people.

Imbued with the spirit of education, John Harvard left England over 300 years ago for the new colony in North America to become a teacher in Boston.

[5] Plans were also underway to relocate the stele to the Center for Government and International Studies (CGIS) buildings on Cambridge Street and Sumner Road.

In 2012, a project was started to create a 3-D scan of the monument, using the same digitizing technique (structured light scanner) that had been used in the Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions program at Harvard's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.