After Claudine Gay’s deep-sixing as Harvard’s President, Alan Garber, trained as a physician, was asked to serve as interim President until the Harvard Corporation could find a replacement. He took office on January 2 of this year, and has been holding down the fort. I had assumed the search would be fairly rapid, but alumni just got this message from a Corporation member, Penny Pritzker (she’s also the sister of Illinois’ governor, J. B. Pritzker, touted as one candidate for Democratic VP).
It notes that Garber is staying on for another three years, ending his tenure in the summer of 2027. I’m not sure what this means other than that an obvious candidate didn’t present themselves or that selected people turned down the position. (The salary and prestige are high, but so are the risks.) At any rate, Here are the beginning and end of Pritzker’s email. Note that he is now called the President and not Interim President, though in effect he is interim as they say the search is proceeding. What’s strange is that the search isn’t going to begin for two years.
Dear Members of the Harvard Community,
Following a meeting of the governing boards earlier today, my colleagues and I are very pleased to let you know that Alan Garber, our interim president since January, will serve as president of the University through the end of the 2026-27 academic year. We plan to launch a full-scale search for his eventual successor in the late spring or summer of 2026.
After serving with distinction as Harvard’s provost for more than twelve years, Alan has done an outstanding job leading Harvard through extraordinary challenges since taking on his interim presidential duties seven months ago. We have asked him to hold the title of president, not just interim president, both to recognize his distinguished service to the University and to underscore our belief that this is a time not merely for steady stewardship but for active, engaged leadership.
. . . . Alan’s talents and experience position him well to guide us in this vital work. Along with my colleagues on the governing boards, I hope you will offer him your concerted support, and I thank all of you—faculty, students, staff, alumni, and friends—for all you do for Harvard.
Sincerely,
Penny Pritzker
Senior Fellow, Harvard Corporation
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Lazy Corp! Or waiting for membership to turn over. In any case, unless they come to some agreement on mission issues including how behaviors we saw in the Spring will be handled, my prediction is a repeat of the chaos when school starts in the Fall. Given that uncertainty, I am not sure whether I would accept admission as a freshman, even if they would have me. And that is one hell of a pitiful situation.
Hard to say what this means, really. Maybe the Board has decided that it wants to end its DEI experiment and go a different direction, under the view that choosing a more traditional president—perhaps even Garber—will be better received in a couple of years. They seem to be seeking stability at the moment.
That sounds quite likely.
Yes, it sounds to me as if they’re hoping for a change of zeitgeist over the next three years so that the new hiring doesn’t have to be so obviously DEI-driven an appointment as the last one. Or perhaps that’s just wishful thinking.
I’d imagine they’re also hoping that in three years time people will have forgotten the Gay debacle and they’ll be able to make an appointment without such intense public scrutiny.