President of Harvard University

The president of Harvard University is the chief administrator of Harvard University and the ex officio president of the Harvard Corporation.^[1] Each is appointed by and is responsible to the other members of that body, who delegate to the president the day-to-day running of the university.

President of Harvard University
Incumbent Alan Garber since January 2, 2024 (2024-01-02)
Appointer	Harvard Corporation
Formation	1640 (1640)
First holder	Henry Dunster
Website	harvard.edu/president/

Harvard's current president is Alan Garber, who took office on January 2, 2024, following the resignation of Claudine Gay. In August 2024, the Harvard Corporation announced he would be in the position until mid-2027.^[2]

Role

The president plays an important part in university-wide planning and strategy. Each names a faculty's dean (and, since the foundation of the office in 1994, the university's provost), and grants tenure to recommended professors. However, the president is expected to make such decisions after extensive consultation with faculty members.

Recently, however, the job has become increasingly administrative, especially as fund-raising campaigns have taken on central importance in large institutions such as Harvard. Some have criticized this trend to the extent it has prevented the president from focusing on substantive issues in higher education.^[3]

Each president is professor in some department of the university and teaches from time to time.

The university maintains an official residence for the president's use, which from 1912 until 1971, was President's House, and since then has been Elmwood.^[4]

Influence

Five Harvard University presidents, sitting in order of when they served. Left-to-right: Josiah Quincy III, Edward Everett, Jared Sparks, James Walker and Cornelius Conway Felton.

Harvard presidents have traditionally influenced educational practices nationwide. Charles W. Eliot, for example, originated America's familiar system of a smorgasbord of elective courses available to each student; James B. Conant worked to introduce standardized testing; Derek Bok and Neil L. Rudenstine argued for the continued importance of diversity in higher education.

History

At Harvard's founding it was headed by a "schoolmaster", Nathaniel Eaton. In 1640, when Henry Dunster was brought in, he adopted the title of president. Since Harvard was founded for the training of Puritan clergy, and even though its mission was soon broadened, nearly all presidents through the end of the 18th century were in holy orders.

All presidents from Leonard Hoar in 1672 through Nathan Pusey in 1971 were graduates of Harvard College. Of the presidents since Pusey, nearly all earned a graduate degree at Harvard. The only exception has been Drew Gilpin Faust, who was the first president since the seventeenth century with no earned Harvard degree.

Presidents of Harvard

No.	Image	Presidents	Term of office	Length	Notes
–		Nathaniel Eaton	1637–1639	2 years	Referred to as "schoolmaster" of Harvard College Fired for "embezzlement and beating students"[5]
1		Henry Dunster	1640–1654	14 years, 1 month and 27 days	Forced to resign for speaking out against and interrupting infant baptisms[6]
2		Charles Chauncy	1654–1672	17 years, 3 months and 17 days	Died in office[7]
3		Leonard Hoar	1672–1675	2 years, 3 months and 5 days	Forced to resign[8]
4		Urian Oakes	1675–1680 (acting); 1680–1681	6 years, 3 months and 18 days (total); 4 years, 9 months and 26 days (acting); 1 year, 5 months and 23 days	Died in office[9][7]
5		John Rogers	1682–1684	2 years, 3 months and 2 days	Died in office[10][11][7]
6		Increase Mather	1685–1686 (acting); 1686–1692 (rector); 1692–1701	16 years and 18 days (total); 1 year and 12 days (acting); 6 years and 4 days (rector); 9 years and 2 days	Forced to resign for refusing to reside in Cambridge.[12][7]
–		Samuel Willard	1701–1707 (acting)	6 years and 6 days	Resigned due to illness[13]
7		John Leverett	1708–1724	16 years, 3 months and 19 days	First lawyer to serve as president. Died in office.[7][14]
8		Benjamin Wadsworth	1725–1737	11 years, 8 months and 9 days	Died in office[11][7]
9		Edward Holyoke	1737–1769	32 years	At 79, the oldest president; died in office.[11][7]
–		John Winthrop	1769 (acting)		Declined presidency on a permanent basis on grounds of old age[15]
10		Samuel Locke	1770–1773	3 years, 6 months and 10 days	Resigned after fathering a child out of wedlock[16]
–		John Winthrop	1773–1774 (acting)		Declined presidency again on a permanent basis on grounds of old age
11		Samuel Langdon	1774–1780	6 years, 1 month and 12 days	Students petitioned the Corporation to dismiss him and he resigned.[7][17]
–		Edward Wigglesworth	1780–1781 (acting)
12		Joseph Willard	1781–1804	23 years and 20 days	Died in office[18]
–		Eliphalet Pearson	1804–1806 (acting)		Acting president after death of Willard
13		Samuel Webber	1806–1810	4 years, 2 months and 11 days	Died in office[19]
–		Henry Ware	1810 (acting)		Served as acting president after Webber's death.
14		John Thornton Kirkland	1810–1828	17 years, 4 months and 19 days	Suffered a stroke, was accused of financial mismanagement by the Harvard Corporation, and resigned
–		Henry Ware	1828-1829 (acting)		Served as acting president after the resignation of Kirkland
15		Josiah Quincy III	1829–1845	16 years, 6 months and 29 days	Retired[20]
16		Edward Everett	1846–1848	2 years, 11 months and 27 days	Resigned due to dissatisfaction with the job.[21] Later became United States Secretary of State and United States Senator.
17		Jared Sparks	1849–1853	4 years and 9 days	Resigned due to dissatisfaction with the job[22]
18		James Walker	1853–1860	6 years, 11 months and 16 days	Resigned due to arthritis[23]
19		Cornelius Conway Felton	1860–1862	2 years and 10 days	Died from a disease of the heart en route to Washington, D.C. for a meeting at the Smithsonian Institution[24]
–		Andrew Preston Peabody	1862 (acting)		Served as acting president after the death of Felton
20		Thomas Hill	1862–1868	5 years, 11 months and 24 days	Resigned due to poor health[25]
–		Andrew Preston Peabody	1868-1869 (acting)		Served as acting president after the resignation of Hill due to illness[26]
21		Charles William Eliot	1869–1909	40 years, 2 months and 7 days[27]	At 35, the youngest president.[28] Longest term of office.[29][30] For a portion of 1900-1901[31] and 1905, Henry Pickering Walcott served as acting president while Eliot was on vacation.
22		A. Lawrence Lowell	1909–1933	24 years, 1 month and 2 days	Retired[32][33]
23		James B. Conant	1933–1953	19 years, 6 months and 22 days	Retired to become Allied High Commissioner for Occupied Germany and later U.S. ambassador to Germany[34]
24		Nathan Pusey	1953–1971	18 years and 29 days	"Pusey called in the Cambridge police to end a student sit-in" in 1969. "Sharply criticized for his handling of the situation, he announced in 1970 that he would retire the following year".[35][36]
25		Derek Bok	1971–1991	19 years, 11 months and 29 days[37]	Henry Rosovsky served as acting president in 1984 and 1987 when Bok traveled and took brief sabbaticals.[38][39]
26		Neil Rudenstine	1991–2001[40]	9 years, 11 months and 29 days	Provost Albert Carnesale served as acting president for three months, from November 1994 to February 1995, during Rudenstine's medical leave of absence.[41]
27		Lawrence Summers	2001–2006	4 years, 11 months and 29 days	First Jewish president[42][43][44][45][46] Shortest tenure since Civil War. Resigned following several clashes with faculty resulting in a no-confidence vote.[47][48][49][50]
–		Derek Bok	2006–2007 (interim)	11 months and 29 days	Served as acting president after the resignation of Summers[51][7]
28		Drew Gilpin Faust	2007–2018	10 years, 11 months and 29 days	First female president[7][52]
29		Lawrence Bacow	2018–2023	4 years, 11 months and 29 days	Retired[7][53]
30		Claudine Gay	2023–2024	6 months and 1 day	First black president.[54] Shortest serving president; resigned following congressional hearings into antisemitism on campus and multiple allegations of plagiarism.[55]
31		Alan Garber	2024–Present	1 year, 7 months and 2 days	Appointed as interim president after Gay's resignation[56][57] Appointed permanently in August 2024 as 31st president until 2027, when Harvard will appoint a successor.[58]

Timeline of Harvard University presidential terms

Presidents of Harvard University v t e