Richard ‘Unequivocal’: She’s Staying in the U.K.

With a report out today that University of Cambridge chief Alison F. Richard is among the leading candidates for Harvard's next president, the anthropologist and former Yale leader said she is "unequivocal" in her commitment to remain in the United Kingdom.

Richard—who is now the vice-chancellor of Cambridge, the highest non-ceremonial post at the school—is one of the four names being most seriously considered by the presidential search committee, according to two individuals familiar with the committee's activities.

But Richard's office, in a statement released today, said: "In the wake of media speculation, the Vice Chancellor reaffirms her deep and unequivocal commitment to the University of Cambridge and to completing the full term of her appointment, which ends in 2010."

Richard is currently in Singapore, where she is advising the Asian nation's Ministry of Education as it seeks to strengthen its university system.

A graduate of University of Cambridge and the University of London, the English-born Richard joined the faculty of Yale University in 1972. In 1994, she rose to the position of provost, the school's Yale's chief academic and administrative officer—a post she held for nearly nine years.

Unlike every president since 1672, Richard does not hold a degree from Harvard. She is tied to the University by her daughter, Elizabeth N. Dewar, who graduated from the College in 2002.

The presidential search committee has seriously considered non-Harvard grads in the past. In the 2000-2001 search, Lee C. Bollinger—now president of Columbia University—was a finalist without a Harvard degree who also was tied to the University by a daughter who had been an undergraduate. Carrie J. Bollinger graduated from the College in 1998.

In 2003, Richard signed on to a seven-year term as vice-chancellor of Cambridge, the second-oldest university in the English-speaking world and one with a student body that is more than 5,000 larger than Harvard's. Cambridge's ceremonial chancellorship is held by Prince Philip, the husband of Queen Elizabeth II.

An expert on lemurs who conducts field research in Madagascar and who often sports cowboy boots, Richard has been praised by former colleagues and friends for her energy, leadership, and humor. ['Will These Cowboy Boots March West?' Jan. 8, 2007.] 

Today's statement marks a break from a more ambiguous denial of interest that Richard released last month. In December, the vice-chancellor's office said that Richard "remains deeply committed to Cambridge and does not consider herself a candidate for the Presidency of Harvard."

Of the three other candidates at the front of the pack at this point in the search, only one—Stanford Provost John Etchemendy—has issued a similarly strong denial.

Etchemendy wrote in an e-mail in September that he had "no intention or desire to leave my current position, which I believe is the best position in higher education." He told The Stanford Daily last weekend, "My feelings haven't changed," adding, "I'm sure there are equally qualified and much more appropriate candidates for the position."

Two other leading candidates, Radcliffe Institute Dean Drew Gilpin Faust and Law School Dean Elena Kagan, have declined to comment on the matter. Law School spokesman Michael A. Armini said recently that Kagan is "focused like a laser beam on being dean of the Law School."