Sunday, February 11, 2007

Harvard First: A Female President

I've got mixed feelings about this news.

I'd feel better about it if I didn't worry it was mostly a response to this.

She's got her work cut out for her:
Faust pivots from managing Radcliffe, a think-tank with 87 employees and a $17 million budget, to presiding over Harvard’s 11 schools and colleges, 24,000 employees and a budget of $3 billion. The Harvard presidency is perhaps the most prestigious job in higher education, offering a pulpit where remarks resonate throughout academic circles and unparalleled resources, including a university endowment valued at nearly $30 billion.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thought provoking post!

Reading Ms. Faust's quote in the New York Times, I can't help worrying a little more...

“One of the things that I think characterizes my generation — that characterizes me, anyway, and others of my generation — is that I’ve always been surprised by how my life turned out,” Dr. Faust said in an interview Sunday at Loeb House just after the university announced that she would become its 28th president, effective July 1. “I’ve always done more than I ever thought I would. Becoming a professor — I never would have imagined that. Writing books — I never would have imagined that. Getting a Ph.D. — I’m not sure I would even have imagined that. I’ve lived my life a step at a time. Things sort of happened.”

Education section 2/11/07. Woman in the News Drew Gilpin Faust: Coming of Age in a Changed World