Report: Harvard To Name First Woman President

FOX ^ | 02/09/07 | Unknown

[Froufrou]

Harvard University could be about to name its first female president, as the governing board charged with vetting candidates has narrowed its search to a single one, historian Drew Gilpin Faust, according to published reports.

The Harvard Corporation was expected to recommend Faust to the school's Board of Overseers, an alumni group that has final say, at a meeting on Sunday, multiple sources told The Boston Globe and The Harvard Crimson in Friday's editions.

Both newspapers said Faust was the only remaining candidate.

"We don't comment on the search process," Harvard spokesman John Longbrake told The Associated Press early Friday.

Faust, an expert on the Civil War and the American South, has been dean of Harvard's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study since 2001 and also teaches in the history department. She has never run a major institution and did not attend Harvard, which the university usually prefers.

Faust would succeed Lawrence Summers, a former Treasury Secretary under President Clinton, who resigned in June after a five-year tenure marked by conflicts with faculty. Summers' comments two years ago that genetic differences between the genders may explain the dearth of women in top science jobs drew sharp criticism and sparked calls from some alumni for the school to name a female president.

[linda_22003]

Thank you. And that poster obviously missed the ":)" at the end of my post. It's too bad it's so predictable, so I was hoping I could head it off.

[krb]

She's not that bad looking:

I am not sure what your issue is. It's kind of funny, given the Spanish meaning of your name :-)

[Froufrou]

"The president of Harvard University, Lawrence H. Summers, sparked an uproar at an academic conference Friday when he said that innate differences between men and women might be one reason fewer women succeed in science and math careers."

Boston Globe. 01/17/05. You're right. He did NOT specifically say "stupid." My apologies.

[PBRSTREETGANG]

"That's a MAN, baby!!"

[BenLurkin]

[linda_22003]

Guess I've just been around FR too long. ;-D

[righteousindignation]

I too attended Bryn Mawr but in those days women were not as sensitized I guess and in my environment men could think anything they wished and we were pretty secure and oblivious on beyond the romantic aspect of course. In between the Rosie the Riveters and the Gloria Steinemites were some of the good old days!! {Thanks for listening!}

[Froufrou]

I honestly can't tell her gender by looking unless I see her in a skirt/dress.

[mrmargaritaville]

Here's hoping it's Rosie O'Doughnut-she'd be perfect for it. And they probably have benefits for same sex couples.

[Malesherbes]

She's an Arts & Sciences type (history) and will fit right into the mold. It was the A & S faculty that forced Summers out. Summers fit like a fist in the eye. ("Faust" is German for fist but this lady will do nothing to disturb the smothering Harvard status quo.)

[linda_22003]

The dangly earrings don't help even a little? :)

[BenLurkin]

I'm sure her husband thinks she is beautiful.

[BenLurkin]

"Faust, an expert on the Civil War and the American South,"

Hmmm...

[Froufrou]

~guffaw!~ I don't like dangly earrings so maybe that's why I didn't notice them!

As you know, mine is a Liberal Arts degree.

You want fries with that?

[jmcenanly]

The name could go either way.

Drew Carey

Drew Barrymore

It is this tendency for some families to use someone else's last name as a first name, so that a newborn baby comes out with a name that sounds like a law firm.

[Froufrou]

I'm no beauty and I really shouldn't be so catty. Some females are 'girly-girls' and some aren't.

[Antoninus]

All right! We have the first post pointing out that she is not beautiful, the ultimate sin for a woman as far as Freepers are concerned. I knew it would make the top ten posts, I just didn't know where! :)

Good heavens what a defensive post! Does just posting a photo of someone automatically mean that her looks are being mocked? Please! Besides, she's not all that unattractive--but then again, I like the studious look.

Personally, I'm glad that Harvard is set to appoint a woman. After the phony uproar they had with their last president, it's a good reminder that the school is no longer a meritocracy but deeply PC and quota-oriented institution--just like most of academia.

American higher ed is running on stored-up capital at this point. Any institution that subordinates excellence to politics won't be able to retain its reputation for long...

[linda_22003]

Another person who missed the ":)" at the end of my post.

[riverdawg]

"Lawrence Summers ... said - in math and science - ... women are stoopid."

Summers did not say that. He hypothesized, at a session of an academic conference devoted to understanding why there are so few women Ph.D.s in math and *some* sciences, that women and men may have the same *average* aptitude for these subjects but that the *variance* in aptitudes is larger for men than for women. This hypothesis implies that there are fewer women in both the upper tail of the science/math aptitude distribution (presumably, where most professional mathematicians and scientists are located) and in the lower tail of the distribution, where the "stoopid" (in a math/science sense) people are. So, Summers was really saying that males, not females, are disproportionately "stoopid" in these subjects.

[Antoninus]

Another person who missed the ":)" at the end of my post.

Come on, Linda. I know your posts too well at this point not to understand that the :) is just a cop out. It's like if OJ changed the title of his book to:

If I Did It :)