Harvard names new president, first Black woman to hold top job

BOSTON (Reuters) – Harvard University on Thursday named Claudine Gay, the school’s dean of Faculty Arts and Sciences, as its 30th president, making her the first Black person and only second woman to hold the job.

Gay, who joined Harvard as a professor of government in 2006, succeeds Lawrence Bacow as president of the prestigious Ivy League university. She will take over in July 2023.

“Claudine is a remarkable leader who is profoundly devoted to sustaining and enhancing Harvard’s academic excellence” Penny Pritzker, secretary of the U.S. Commerce Department under President Barack Obama and chair of the search committee, said in a written statement.

Gay will step into the job in Cambridge, Massachusetts at a time of declining enrollment for many U.S. colleges and universities as applicants increasingly weigh the benefits of higher education against high tuition fees.

According to Harvard’s website, tuition for full-time students is $54,768 per year.

“With the strength of this extraordinary institution behind us, we enter a moment of possibility, one that calls for deeper collaboration across the University, across all of our remarkable Schools,” Gay said in a written statement.

“There is an urgency for Harvard to be engaged with the world and to bring bold, brave, pioneering thinking to our greatest challenges,” she said.

Harvard, with an endowment for 2022 fiscal year of $50.9 billion made up of 14,000 different funds, was founded in 1636 and is the oldest higher learning institution in the United States.

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