By John Ikani
In a historic move, Claudine Gay has been selected as Harvard University’s 30th president, making her the first Black person and the second woman to lead the Ivy League school.
Gay, who is currently a dean at the university and a democracy scholar, was elected to the presidency by the Harvard Corporation, the university’s principal governing board.
She will become president on 1 July, replacing Lawrence Bacow, who is stepping down to spend more time with his family.
The daughter of Haitian immigrants, Gay graduated from Stanford and then earned her Ph.D. in government at Harvard in 1998, winning the Toppan Prize for best dissertation in political science, according to the university’s Harvard Gazette.
Gay is regarded as a leading voice on the issue of American political participation. In 2006, she joined Harvard as a professor of government and of African and African American studies and has since explored a variety of issues, including how a range of social and economic factors shape political views and voting.
She is also is the founding chair of Harvard’s inequality in America initiative, which studies issues like the effects of child poverty and deprivation on educational opportunity and American inequality from a global perspective.
In a video posted by the university, Gay said she was “humbled” to be elected, and thanked Bacow for his guidance.
“It has been a privilege to work with Larry over the last five years,” Gay said. “He has shown me that leadership isn’t about one person. It’s about all of us, moving forward together. And that’s a lesson I take with me into this next journey.”
“As I start my tenure, there’s so much more for me to discover about this institution that I love. And I’m looking forward to doing just that, with our whole community,” Gay added.
She called for greater collaboration among schools at Harvard and said there was an urgency for the university to be more engaged with the world and to “bring bold, brave and pioneering thinking to our greatest challenges”.
“The idea of the ‘ivory tower’ – that is the past, not the future of academia. We don’t exist outside of society, but as part of it,” she said. “That means that Harvard has a duty to lean in, engage and to be of service to the world.”
Bascow said the university’s future is “very bright” with Gay at the helm.
“Claudine is a person of bedrock integrity,” Bacow said in a statement. “She will provide Harvard with the strong moral compass necessary to lead this great university. The search committee has made an inspired choice for our 30th president. Under Claudine Gay’s leadership, Harvard’s future is very bright.”
