Harvard University names first Black president

Claudine Gay has been named Harvard University’s new president. She is the university’s first Black president and only the second female to lead the school.

The daughter of Haitian immigrants, Gay earned her Ph.D. in government from Harvard in 1998.

Gay has served as the dean of Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences since 2018.

“For all her professional accomplishments, even more impressive are Claudine’s personal qualities — her quality and clarity of mind, her broad curiosity about fields beyond her own, her integrity and fair-mindedness, and her dedication to creating opportunities for others. She will be a great Harvard president in no small part because she is such a good person,” said Penny Pritzker, chair of Harvard’s presidential search committee.

Harvard has been searching for a new president since Larry Bacow announced in June that he would step down at the end of the academic year.

Gay said she’s ready to lead Harvard in a moment of “remarkable and accelerating change — socially, politically, economically, and technologically.”

Harvard was founded in 1636. Gay is the university’s 30th president.

By Scripps National.