"Crossing Boundaries"

Historian Drew Gilpin Faust, founding dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, will become Harvard’s twenty-eighth president on July 1. She was elected by the Corporation, Harvard’s senior governing board, with the consent of the Board of Overseers, during a joint meeting at Loeb House in Cambridge on Sunday, February 11. Their decision concludes a search begun last March, following the resignation of President Lawrence H. Summers. When Faust moves from Radcliffe Yard to the president’s office in Massachusetts Hall, she will succeed Derek Bok, who returned to service to lead the University on an interim basis.

Photograph by Stu Rosner

President-elect Drew Gilpin Faust at the February 11 news conference announcing her appointment. The Crimson scored a coup on line on February 8, and in print the next day (see below).

James R. Houghton ’58, M.B.A. ’62, Senior Fellow of the Corporation and chair of the search committee, began a news conference at 4:10 p.m. in Barker Center by hailing “a great and a historic day for Harvard.” He characterized Faust as “an inspiring and accomplished leader, a superb scholar, a dedicated teacher, and a wonderful human being.” Faust “combines a powerful, broad-ranging intellect with a demonstrated capacity for strong leadership and a talent for stimulating people to do their best work.” He stressed that “She knows Harvard. She knows higher education. She has interests that extend to the whole of the University, across the arts and sciences and the professions.” As dean, Houghton continued, Faust proved capable of articulating a “creative, forward-looking agenda of institutional change—and then making it happen.” Houghton closed by saluting Bok for having “totally unselfishly” led Harvard during the transition period.

Bok in turn saluted the search committee for their careful work. Returning to Massachusetts Hall after 15 years as president emeritus, he said, had reminded him of how special Harvard is. The president’s task, he asserted, is to create an environment where all members of the community can achieve up to the “fullness” of their capabilities. Faust, he said, approached that responsibility with a “very special array of qualities,” including her “intuitive” sense of how to “inspirit” people indirectly in an institution where ordering them around is not productive—and her values, moral fiber, and character.

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