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On February 11, 2007, Harvard University (Harvard) announced that Drew Gilpin Faust (Faust), the dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and the Lincoln Professor of History at Harvard, would be the university's 28th President, with effect from July 01, 2007.
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Harvard, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, is one of the oldest institutions of higher education in the US. It is one of the most prestigious institutions in the world with reputed schools (or faculties) such as Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard Law School, Harvard Business School (well-known for the general management focus of its MBA program and having pioneered the case study method), Harvard School of Public Health, etc. Harvard also had the largest financial endowment for any academic institution in the world, which was around US$29.2 billion (as of 2006).
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Faust was the first woman president in the 371 year old history of Harvard. James Houghton, the chairman of the search committee, said, "This is a great day, and a historic day, for Harvard. Drew Faust is an inspiring and accomplished leader, a superb scholar, a dedicated teacher, and a wonderful human being."
Several academicians welcomed the appointment of Faust as Harvard's next president. Claire Van Ummersen (Ummersen), director of the office of Women in Higher Education at the American Council on Education, said, "Harvard is making a statement at a critical time when we are seeing student bodies [at many schools] that are well over 50 percent women." Ummersen further added, "We see women faculty increasing in number, and the place where we have lagged most is in research institutions having women at the executive level. . . . Hopefully, this will have some influence on boards of trustees or overseers of other institutions."
Margaret Miller, a professor of higher education at the University of Virginia, said, "This is a crack in the glass ceiling, in the sense that to have as prestigious an institution as Harvard expand their notion of suitability for the presidency, sets an example for the rest of academia that's hard to ignore." Carol Christ, president, Massachusetts-based Smith College, "It's a little like having a woman president of the United States. It's a very public symbol of the progress women have made in being seen as equal."
Faust also said that her appointment was an indication of the changed times where women had greater opportunities to pursue their careers and rise to the top, when compared to the previous generation. She said, "I hope that my own appointment can be one symbol of an opening of opportunities that would have been inconceivable even a generation ago."
1] "Harvard Makes Faust its First Female President," http://www.bizjournals.com, February 12, 2007.
2] Andrew Buncombe, "After 370 Years, Harvard Gets First Female President," http://news.independent.co.uk, February 12, 2007.
3] Valerie Strauss and Susan Kinzie, "Woman Chosen to Lead Harvard," http://www.washingtonpost.com, February 10, 2007.
4] Valerie Strauss and Susan Kinzie, "Woman Chosen to Lead Harvard," http://www.washingtonpost.com, February 10, 2007.
5] Ben Arnoldy, Cristian Lupsa and Stacy Teicher, "In a Historic First, Harvard Chooses Woman President,"
http://www.csmonitor.com, February 12, 2007.
6] Andrew Buncombe, "After 370 Years, Harvard Gets First Female President," http://news.independent.co.uk, February 12, 2007.
7] Jesse Harlan Alderman, "Woman Will Lead Harvard," http://www.concordmonitor.com, February 12, 2007.
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