Harvard Board of Overseers Candidates Question Lack of Transparency in Selection Process

When Tim S. Ritchie got a call from the Harvard Alumni Association last fall asking him to accept their nomination to run for the Board of Overseers, he had one question: “Why me?”

Then he had another: “How did you get my name?” recalled Ritchie, a Harvard Kennedy School graduate and president of the Museum of Science in Boston.

Ritchie is one of the candidates tapped this year by a little-known, 13-person HAA committee tasked with selecting eight Harvard alumni each year to become candidates in an election to fill the five open seats on the Board of Overseers, the University’s second highest governing body.

The Overseers are tasked with approving some of Harvard’s most important personnel appointments — like the selection of presidents — and advising leadership on the direction of the University, but many HAA-nominated candidates, like Ritchie, had never considered the position before receiving the call.

While Overseer elections are largely ignored by Harvard alumni — voter turnout in last year’s election fell below 10 percent — the board suddenly found itself in the national spotlight as Harvard faced its worst leadership crisis in decades.

In response to Harvard’s handling of antisemitism on campus and allegations of plagiarism against former President Claudine Gay, several outsider candidates staged high-profile campaigns to appear on the ballot with the HAA’s handpicked candidates.

But all the outsider candidates were ultimately unsuccessful, failing to reach the University’s high threshold to appear on the ballot by petition – 1 percent of eligible voters or 3,238 signatures this year.

In interviews with The Crimson’s Editorial Board, five of the eight candidates said the process which led to their nominations might need to be reevaluated in light of the criticisms.

“The process, I think, is inscrutable,” Ritchie said in an March 27 interview with The Crimson’s Editorial Board, which operates independently of The Crimson’s newsroom. “I won’t say it’s unfair, but I was selected to stand for election completely without my breathing a word.”

According to a HAA spokesperson, the process is led by the HAA’s 13-member nominating committee and starts early in the fall.

Between February and May, the HAA repeatedly solicits nominations from the entire alumni population before settling in to review the candidates.

While Ritchie said he was called after Oct. 7, Ming Min Hui said she was called and asked to accept the nomination in September, four months before the HAA nominations were announced.

Members of the nominating committee sift through hundreds of nominations submitted by alumni over the course of the year to narrow down the pool to a final eight.

George H. Yeadon III ’75, who has served on the committee for two years, compared the task of choosing candidates to the role of admission officers in the college process, as committee members make a pitch for each potential candidate.

“I always liken it to how we choose the incoming freshman class from the number of applicants that come in,” Yeadon said.

But unlike the college process, applicants do not apply and they are never interviewed. Only once decisions have been finalized will the nominating committee then inform chosen candidates of the decision.

Former Harvard Alumni Association executive director Philip W. Lovejoy said in a 2020 interview with the Harvard Magazine that the committee’s slate is carefully curated.

They pick a group that is “very collegial and collaborative — but not unwilling to challenge,” he said.

While a few outside candidates, including four current board members, have been successfully elected to the board without the HAA’s endorsement, it is a rare phenomenon. In most years, like the current election, alumni have just eight choices to pick from for five seats — all prescreened by the HAA.

It is the process of careful selection by the HAA that has been the focus of growing criticism from vocal alumni about the board’s ability to reflect the range of alumni voices.

Sam W. Lessin ’05, an outsider candidate who failed to qualify for the ballot, said the process “it really is not designed” to screen for “the best potential Overseers.”

Lessin said many “treat it much more like an honorary thing” than a serious obligation.

Lessin plans to run again next year and insisted that the main problem with his campaign was starting too late in the year. He has already begun to campaign for the next election, launching a newsletter called the “1636 Forum” which, according to Lessin, has more than 10,000 subscribers.

In response to criticism around the process, Yeadon said there are misconceptions in the general public’s understanding of the Overseers’ role in Harvard governance. Yeadon said “bulk of the responsibility” for the board is reviewing curriculum and sitting on visiting committees.

“The goal has been confused because of the petition candidates and the petition agendas that have come forth, as if we will put somebody on the board like a corporate board, where they bring a specific opinion, they have a specific thing that they want to do,” Yeadon said.

“That’s not a request of the Overseers when they in fact get elected,” he added.

Ritchie said the current selection process might be appropriate exactly because the board “is not intended to be a representative body.”

He said the process should be reevaluated as part of a broader look at the board’s role in University governance.

“What does the University need going forward?” Ritchie asked. “What sort of transparency does it need going forward? What sort of visibility does it need going forward?”

Corrections: April 26, 2024

A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that less than 8.2 percent of eligible voters participated in the 2023 Board of Overseers election. In fact, sightly less than 10 percent of voters participated in the election.

A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that three current Overseers won election to the board as petition candidates. In fact, four of the current Overseers won election to the board as petition candidates.

—Staff writer Emma H. Haidar can be reached at emma.haidar@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @HaidarEmma.

—Staff writer Cam E. Kettles can be reached at cam.kettles@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @cam_kettles or on Threads @camkettles.