Since Harvard University President Lawrence S. Bacow announced his decision to step down from his five-year post next June, community members have advocated for a leader that will not only maintain Harvard’s role as a global leader, but also ignite change on campus.
President Bacow’s announcement accompanied the official departure of three other University board members, all of whom served Harvard for more than a decade. Bacow’s presidency only lasted five years, marking him one of Harvard’s shortest serving presidents, and his successor has yet to be found.
A month after Mr. Bacow’s email announcement, Penny Pritzker, who assumed Mr. Lee’s role just days before, invited Harvard community members to send their “thoughts on the search for the next president of Harvard University.”
Pritzker requested community input on the selection of their next president as the search gathers steam. A survey sent to students and faculty inquired about priorities for the future of Harvard’s leadership, in order to “develop an increasingly robust and nuanced picture of Harvard, its current trajectory, and its future aspirations.”
Officially governed by the Harvard Corporation since 1650, University leadership has depended heavily on the values and management of seven individuals: the president, the treasurer, and five other fellows. Recent history of Harvard’s presidential search includes the transition between Harvard’s first female president, Drew Gilpin Faust, and Larry Bacow in 2017. Not only did this shift coincide with the Harvard Campaign’s scheduled conclusion, but it also gave the Corporation adequate time to prepare for their next presidential nominee.
In contrast, Bacow’s announcement came as a “big shock” to faculty members, said Harvard Divinity School Professor Jacob K. Oupona, also referencing a number of nationwide higher education leaders who recently announced their departures. While the seven month search to find Bacow narrowed over 700 candidates down to one, it is expected that finding Bacow’s forerunner will take at least a year.
“It’s a really difficult job because you’re taking a leadership position not just with the University, but with higher education as a whole. It’s important to give plenty of time for a smooth transition,” said James H. Stock, the Harold Hitchings Burbank Professor of Political Economy and Vice Provost for Climate and Sustainability. “I would imagine that’s one of the considerations he took into account.”
The process to find the next University President includes deliberations from members of the Harvard Corporation, Board of Overseers, and faculty, students, and staff that form three advisory committees. All members of the Presidential Search committee refused to comment.
Lylena Estabine ’24, Co-President of the Undergraduate Association, fears that the current presidential search will exclude student sentiment.
“Travis [Allen Johnson] and I have been working in our capacity as HUA Co-Presidents with the DSO to try and secure student representation within this process,” she noted. “Though we understand the need for the Harvard Corporation to make the final decisions, students are key stakeholders in the academic mission of the College, and should be treated as such.”
Michael Cheng ’22, president of the former Harvard Undergraduate Council (UC) before it was replaced by HUA, has worked with President Bacow on a variety of matters, including COVID-19 policies, undergraduate social life, and free speech. In Harvard’s next president, Cheng wants a figure more eager to enact change.
“Overall, Bacow was honorable and competent, and faced a once in a century pandemic that no one could’ve planned for,” Cheng remarked. “But given Bacow’s institutional experience and the crisis of purpose at modern universities, I wonder whether Bacow could’ve done more to launch a bold vision for Harvard’s future.”
This “crisis of purpose” Cheng alluded to has plagued the field of higher education for years. Magnified by a divisive pandemic, universities have faced intensifying inequality in the range and quality of employment for graduate students, continued public divestment, augmenting student debt, and countless other sources of external pressure. Harvard specifically suffers from issues of financial and socioeconomic division.
“One thing at Harvard College that I was really disappointed by was how you have a community that is more diverse than ever but also more segregated than ever,” Cheng noted, “where people from different backgrounds or points of youth don’t really talk or engage with each other at a genuine level.”
To combat institutionalized segregation, Harvard has consistently pushed to protect its affirmative action policies, an issue under fire from Student for Fair Admissions (SFFA). In regard to Bacow’s oversight of the lawsuit, Michael Cheng noted “the Supreme Court is likely to rule Harvard’s current admissions process unconstitutional next year. That will be disappointing for many, but it is also an opportunity to reevaluate what our values are, and I’m not sure Bacow has publicly engaged our community in a conversation about that.”
Universities’ role as trusted intermediaries between academia, research, and the general public heightens pressure on institutions and their students from the public.
“Right now, more than any other time, there’s so much skepticism about the value of our education,” Professor Stock noted, in regard to the “substantial internal management challenges” that Harvard as an institution has faced in recent years. He alluded to the difficulties of the pandemic, the lawsuit against SFFA, issues regarding enrollment eligibility for international students, Harvard’s recent slavery report, and several examples of student dissent against the University’s policies.
“Despite these various external challenges,” Stock continued, “President Bacow was still able to keep an eye on what really matters in terms of moving the University forward.”
As Harvard enters its second year back from the pandemic, several other matters of contention still abound. With a little over ten months to find his replacement, maybe President Bacow will use his remaining time to do more than maintain a conservative response to these issues and more.
Marbella Marlo ’24 (mmarlo@college.harvard.edu) wants President Bacow to read the Independent.