Harvard Doesn’t Need a President, Yet

Updated February 21, 2024, at 1:22 p.m.

Harvard has no permanent president. Let’s keep it that way — for now.

Not for a lack of urgency but out of a sense of responsibility. A university president is the face, voice, and navigator of his or her institution — the captain. When that person fails, whatever the cause, it has consequences.

Right now, Harvard is still reeling from its last administration; observers on the right and left, opponents and allies alike, carry on their tongues the bitter aftertaste of disappointment, of a tenure turned sour. As Harvard prepares for its next presidency, we should all take notice.

Our moment reminds us of the power this one person wields and of the necessity of vesting that power wisely. University presidents assume a superhuman array of responsibilities: That person must administer a vast bureaucracy, broker the interests of students and faculty, fundraise and strategize, embody an institutional character, and articulate a vision for the future.

For a university like Harvard, the position’s stakes are magnified immensely. The University’s peculiar global stature and national legacy demand a president capable of mediating the institution’s role in American discourse.

So Harvard is a vessel like no other; it is creaky and cumbersome, but critical to the academic project in the United States. The hand on the tiller matters.

Our last president could command neither her campus nor her image, neither her donors nor her fate. She was weak in ways that made Harvard weak. I will not rehash former University President Claudine Gay’s tenure, but her selection and appointment still bear one lesson: We need not rush.

The search process that chose Gay as our president was the shortest in Harvard’s modern history. The next should be our longest.

In selecting Gay, the Corporation failed to vet sufficiently; they seemingly did not anticipate the level of scrutiny their appointee would later attract. The Corporation rushed a candidate with academic liabilities in the form of undiscovered plagiarism, and it is because of that oversight that outside political actors were able to swiftly and successfully leverage the weakness of her record to service a broader campaign against Harvard.

What’s more, the speed with which President Gay’s selection was made, coupled with the catastrophic outcome of her tenure, emboldened heinous sexist and racist narratives. The very appearance of a “rushed job” equipped the president’s detractors with ample ammunition to erroneously brand her a meritless diversity hire.

Needless to say,these characterizations were demonstrably false: The swiftness of Gay’s appointment is, if anything, a testament to her outstanding qualification for the position. But the Corporation’s brevity in her selection made criticisms of Gay’s qualifications all too believable in the public sphere.

Now we have a chance to begin anew. The brunt of Harvard’s controversy has, I hope, passed. Barring any calamitous escalation in the ongoing congressional investigations, the University may have reached smooth seas.

Interim President Alan M. Garber ’76 is by no means perfect — but he is proving himself sufficient for this moment. Today, Harvard needs a captain who is unburdened by his past, who carries no clear vision to rail against, who is publicly unknown and perfectly predictable. By being unremarkable, Garber stands poised to silently patch the remains of a tempest-tossed University while the world turns its gaze elsewhere.

Roughly eight months passed between former Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust’s resignation statement and the announcement of her successor, President Lawrence S. Bacow. That same selection period for the preceding presidential transition spanned nearly a year. We’ve done long leadership searches before; Harvard can and must exercise that patience once again.

The stakes for Harvard are infinitely higher than they were on the eve of Gay’s appointment. Our next president must be outstanding — a truly exceptional figure capable of reigniting the University’s morale, charting an ambitious course forward, and braving whatever storms may yet lie ahead with certainty, experience, and dexterity.

We need someone exciting. Not just someone who can stave off controversy, but a leader who can engender real change.

No, such a person will not be easily found, but the world is vast and the hour demands it. A proper search — the sort that will uncover our next impactful and durable leader — would leave no stone unturned and spare no expense of money or time in the process.

Garber has us covered today, but the challenges and opportunities of tomorrow call for an unimpeachable, aggressive, zealous, visionary leader at the helm.

So let us take a deep breath and recall: Every great journey begins in calm waters.

Lorenzo Z. Ruiz ’27, a Crimson Editorial editor, lives in Greenough Hall. His column, “Searching for Harvard,” runs bi-weekly on Mondays.