3 Earn Harvard Medals for ‘Extraordinary Service’ to the University

The Harvard Alumni Association will award three longtime affiliates with Harvard Medals for their “extraordinary service” to University, the association announced in an April 23 press release.

Former Board of Overseers President Scott A. Abell ’72, former University Executive Vice President Katherine N. Lapp, and Boston Foundation CEO M. Lee Pelton will receive the medals during the Harvard Alumni Day festivities on May 31.

Since 1981, the Harvard Medal has been awarded annually to University affiliates who have served Harvard in their capacity as a teacher, administrator, fundraiser, donor, or volunteer. Alumni, former members of Harvard’s governing boards, former faculty and staff, and members of affiliated organizations like the HAA are eligible for consideration.

Abell, the retired chair and CEO of financial services holding company Abell & Associates, has held positions in Harvard’s governing ranks off and on since 2000, when he was first elected president of the HAA. While he was in the running for the Board of Overseers in 2004, he instead chose to begin fundraising for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences as its dean for development.

He served on the Board of Overseers from 2012 to 2018, becoming president of the board during the 2017-2018 academic year. He also served on the 2018 Harvard presidential search committee that eventually selected Lawrence S. Bacow.

The Harvard Gazette, a University-run publication, wrote that Abell was “one of the University’s most dynamic and valued alumni leaders.” He is also a 2003 recipient of the HAA award for alumni service.

Lapp worked in Harvard’s administration for 13 years, managing the University’s response to the Great Recession and the Covid-19 pandemic. She oversaw Harvard’s expansion into the neighboring Allston and the construction of the Science and Engineering Complex.

Lapp also co-chaired the Presidential Committee on Sustainability and she helped the University meet its 30 percent reduction target in greenhouse gas emissions by 2016.

When Lapp retired in 2022, Bacow wrote that “there is not a part of Harvard untouched by her outstanding service.”

“Our community would not be in as good a shape as we are now without her steady hand and constant effort, by which I mean an unfailing and unflinching dedication to everything in her purview,” Bacow wrote.

She had previously served as the executive director and chief executive officer of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in New York City and commissioner of New York State’s Division of Criminal Justice Services.

Pelton, who earned his Ph.D. in English and American Literature and Language at Harvard in 1984, is also a career university administrator, holding positions at five different institutions.

In addition to a six-year term on the Board of Overseers, Pelton has served as the president of Willamette University from 1998 to 2011 and Emerson College from 2011 to 2021. He was college dean at Dartmouth College and dean of students at Colgate University.

At Harvard, Pelton was an English lecturer and senior tutor of Winthrop House while completing his Ph.D. He also served on the Graduate School Alumni Association Council for nine years. During his final year on the Board of Overseers, he took on the role of executive committee vice chair.

Abell, Lapp, and Pelton follow in a long line of former University administrators to win the award. Last year, Bacow himself was among the Harvard Medal recipients last year and former members of the Board of Overseers are regularly honored.

—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.