Claudine Gay's Historic Appointment as Harvard's 30th President
Harvard University has announced that Claudine Gay, an esteemed leader in higher education and a distinguished scholar of democracy and political participation, will become its 30th president on July 1.
Gay has been the Edgerley Family Dean of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) since 2018 and has made numerous efforts to increase student access and opportunity, improve teaching and research excellence and innovation, and emphasize important topics such as quantum science and engineering, climate change, ethnicity, indigeneity, and migration, and the humanities. In spite of the challenges posed by the COVID pandemic, Gay has successfully managed the health and academic continuity of the FAS community while also leading an ambitious and inclusive strategic planning process to enhance academic excellence in the future.
Claudine Gay, the Wilbur A. Cowett Professor of Government at Harvard and Edgerley Family Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), has been appointed the next president of Harvard University.
Gay is a daughter of Haitian immigrants and a distinguished quantitative social scientist. She received her bachelor's degree in economics from Stanford University in 1992, where she was awarded the Anna Laura Myers Prize for best undergraduate thesis. In 1998, she received her Ph.D. from Harvard, and received the Toppan Prize for the best political science dissertation.
Before being recruited to Harvard in 2006 as a professor of government, she served as an assistant professor and tenured associate professor at Stanford. She was also appointed a professor of African and African American Studies in 2007, and in 2015 was named the Wilbur A. Cowett Professor of Government and dean of social science at FAS.
Penny Pritzker, senior fellow of the Harvard Corporation and chair of Harvard’s presidential search committee, praised Gay for her leadership and commitment to higher education. “In her role as a Harvard leader, Claudianine is deeply committed to preserving and enhancing Harvard's academic excellence, defending higher education as a valuable, valuing, expanding, and strengthening Harvard's standing as a world-renowned institution for thought and goodness,” Pritzker said. “Since 2018, Claudine has served as Edgerley Family Dean of Arts and Sciences, and prior to that she served as dean of social science. Her roles have a rare combination of incisiveness, inclusion, intellectual range, and strategic shrewdness, institutional ambition, personal humility, a respect for enduring ideals, and a knack for catalyzing change. A deep appreciation for the diverse voices and views that are the lifeblood of a university community, as well as a bedrock commitment to free inquiry and expression, are both held by her.”
Claudine Gay, a trailblazer in the academic world, has been appointed the next president of Harvard University. She has a long-standing record of achievement, from her bachelor's degree in economics from Stanford University to her Ph.D. in government from Harvard, and from her positions as an assistant professor and then tenured associate professor at Stanford to her roles as professor of government and professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard. Her varied experience and commitment to higher education, free inquiry and expression, and diverse voices and views make her an ideal choice to lead Harvard University.
