Harvard has a Woman President

Harvard has a woman president. Quite ironic, considering ex President Larry Summers statements.

Catharine Drew Gilpin was born on Sept. 18, 1947, and grew up in Clarke County, Va., in the Shenandoah Valley. She was always known as Drew. Her father, McGhee Tyson Gilpin, bred thoroughbred horses.

Dr. Faust has written frankly of the “community of rigid racial segregation” that she and her three brothers grew up in and how it formed her as “a rebellious daughter” who would go on to march in the civil rights protests in the 1960s and to become a historian of the region. “She was raised to be a rich man’s wife,” said a friend, Elizabeth Warren, a law professor at Harvard. “Instead she becomes the president of the most powerful university in the world.”

The Financial Times writes about her appointment here.

When she took over Radcliffe, which is the smallest of Harvard’s 10 schools, with no full-time faculty or students, the institute faced a budget shortfall of more than $3m. Ms Faust laid off staff members and transferred training programmes to other institutional homes, while closing down others.

Ms Faust has also undertaken considerable fundraising. Radcliffe’s endowment for the 2002 fiscal year totalled $49.3m, and it is now worth over $473m. While some of that growth is attributable to Harvard’s money managers, it is also a clear testament to her fundraising ability.

Mr Houghton on Sunday highlighted Ms Faust’s reputation as a “collaborative” and “open-minded” leader. This could be viewed as a not-so-subtle reference to the approach of her predecessor, Lawrence Summers, whose outspoken views and sometimes overly direct manner made it difficult for him to connect with a substantial portion of Harvard’s faculty. Mr Summers stepped down a year ago to pre-empt a second consecutive vote of no confidence by the faculty.