The first session of the second annual Harvard Alumni College began yesterday.

The University started the Alumni College last year to give University alumni and their spouses an opportunity to use the academic resources of Harvard after graduation.

Yesterday's opening was the beginning of the first of two week-long sessions. About 80 alumni will attend each session. Each session is divided into two courses. The first session, which runs through Friday, offers a course given by Walter Kaiser, professor of English and Comparative Literature, called "Shakespeare the Historian" and a course given by Richard J. Light, associate professor of Education, called "Inequalities of Education."

In the second session, Doris H. Kearns, associate professor of Government and member of the platform committee for the Democratic Party will give a course on "The American Presidency", similar to a course she teaches during the regular academic year. Kearns will have just returned from the Democratic Convention in Miami.

The second course will be "The Art of Architecture", given by Oleg Graber, professor of Fine Arts.

Members of the Alumni College will be staying at Lowell House. Aside from their scholarly activities, the alumni will join in a clambake at Crane's Beach and a cocktail party at Kaiser's Cambridge home.

The participants began arriving Sunday afternoon. John Shoemaker '35, was pleased to return to Lowell House, where he lived while attending Harvard. He said he came because he missed his reunion and wanted to experience the University life again. Shoemaker's daughter, Andley, a student at Randolph-Macon College, accompanied her father to the sessions to "enjoy the Harvard atmosphere and the activities of the University." Elenore Johnson '44, came for the "fun and intellectual stimilation" of the session.

The College grew out of a 1970 recommendation of the Committee of Continued Education of the Associated Harvard Alumni.