The University Daily, Est. 1873 | Volume CXLV, No. 18 | Cambridge, Massachusetts | Monday, February 12, 2018
The Harvard Crimson Harvard’s 29th President
it’s bacoW By the crimson news staff
H
arvard Corporation member Lawrence S. Bacow will serve as the University’s 29th president, members of the presidential search committee announced Sunday afternoon, ending a seven month-long search he initially helped conduct. Bacow, 66, formerly served as the president of Tufts University and the chancellor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has also held roles at the Kennedy School, the Graduate School of Education, the Law School—and, most recently, on Harvard’s own search committee. Bacow will assume Harvard’s top post at a precarious time for higher education and for the University. He will face a presidency and Congress in Washington, D.C. that has proposed and enacted policies directly at odds with the University’s goals, including a new tax on large university endowments that will likely cost Harvard tens of millions of dollars per year. Bacow must also grapple with a chronically underperforming endowment, oversee Harvard’s expansion into Allston, and finalize the roll-out of a controversial College policy penalizing membership in single-gender social groups. Marking an unusual selection from within its own ranks, the committee approached Bacow to see if he would stop seeking the University’s next leader and interview for the job himself. He agreed to quit the committee in mid-December, months into a search that started over the summer. Senior Fellow of the Corporation William F. Lee ’72 said that, as the committee solicited nominations, many within and outside of Harvard recommended Bacow for the job. “He went through the same processes our other candidates but in the end he emerged as the person who we unanimously and enthusiastically believed was the best choice to lead Harvard forward. He is one of the most respectful, insightful, and experienced leaders in American higher education,” Lee said at the official press conference announcing Bacow’s selection Feb. 11. “He knows universities like few others, and he knows Harvard.” An economist and lawyer whose research focuses on environmental policy, Bacow led Tufts from 2001 to 2011. While at Tufts, he spearheaded that university’s largest-ever capital campaign to date, expanded financial aid and diversity initiatives, and created a new partnership with Tufts Medical Center. He holds three Harvard degrees—a J.D from the Law School as well as an M.P.P. and Ph.D. from the Kennedy School of Government—and attended MIT as an undergraduate. He joined COURTESY OF STEPHANIE MITCHELL—Harvard staff photographer
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The pick
The DAY
The ISSUES
From Medford to Cambridge
Bacow Hiding in Plain Sight
The Beginning of an Era
During Bacow’s tenure as the president of Tufts University, he faced a number of challenges similar to those he will likely encounter as Harvard’s president.
Harvard’s soon-to-be 29th president strolled into Loeb House the morning of his confirmation unnoticed and under the radar.
Lawrence S. Bacow will take Harvard’s helm at a time when higher education is under siege. In his first public appearance, the president-elect hinted at his priorities.
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