On Saturday, July 1st, 2023, Claudine Gay took office as the 30th President of Harvard University becoming the first person of color in the University's 386-year history and the second woman to leadthe oldest institution of higher education in the country (after Drew Faust, 2007 - 2018).

Gay, 52, assumed the university's top job more than six months after being selected by Harvard's presidential search committee and confirmed by the Board of Supervisors, the university's second governing body, to succeed President Lawrence S. Bacow.

She had several busy months as President-elect, making key appointments as she prepared to take office.

n May, Gay appointed University Marshal Katherine G. O'Dair as Chief of Staff. She also announced the acting deans of the Harvard School of Public Health and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and extended the term of the dean of the Harvard Divinity Schoo, David N. Hempton, then that the University continued to search for his successor.

Last week, Claudine Gay chose Hopi E. Hoekstra, Harvard Professor in the Departments of Organismal and Evolutionary Biology and Molecular and Cellular Biology, her most important appointment to date, to succeed her in as the next Dean of the University's Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

Born in New York to Haitian immigrant parents, Claudine Gay became the second woman to lead the university where she earned her doctorate 25 years ago. The Presidential Search Committee selected Claudine Gay after just five months, Harvard's shortest search process in nearly 70 years.

While Claudine Gay officially began her Presidency on July 1st, 2023, she will have to wait until her investiture on September 29, 2023 to receive, during a ceremony, the keys, seals and charter of the University before sitting down briefly in the sadly uncomfortable Holyoke chair.

See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-25086-haiti-diaspora-a-haitian-american-dean-of-fas-harvard-university.html

SL/ HaitiLibre