Presidential Search Committee Should Include Grad Students

To the editors:



The Crimson staff recently reacted to the University’s announcement of its presidential search committee by saying that students “have too small a role in the upcoming presidential search” (“In Search of Input,” editorial, Apr. 7). This is most certainly true. Particularly, the voices of the nearly 13,000 students attending Harvard’s eleven graduate and professional schools of Harvard need to be fully represented in the coming presidential search. This is the unanimous declaration by the presidents of the eleven graduate and professional school student governments and the Harvard Graduate Council.

Previous presidential searches at Harvard have been informed by consulting students in the graduate and professional schools. These efforts are commendable, and there is much to cheer about in looking forward to wide consultation of the student body by the coming presidential search committee, in addition to specific student involvement in the search’s student advisory board.

However, the search process can be further strengthened by the presence of at least one graduate or professional student on the search committee itself. Graduate and professional students from Harvard go on to become world leaders in many areas. Their education and the strength of their experience at Harvard should be a central concern for the University.

Including students on the presidential search committee would not be without precedent among leading American universities. In 1999, Stanford had one undergraduate and one graduate student on its 15-member presidential search committee. Princeton University, with a considerably smaller graduate student population than Harvard, had one graduate student and two undergraduates on its 18-member search committee in 2000.

Finding a new president is an important task at any university. Finding a new president for Harvard, at this time in its history, will be a widely scrutinized process that should be as open as possible. I urge the Harvard Corporation to broadly include the Harvard community in the presidential search, and to not neglect the voices of graduate and professional students.



JOHN W. KALIS

Cambridge, Mass.

April 6, 2006



The writer is president of the Harvard Graduate Council.