In 2007, Drew Gilpin Faust became president of Harvard University, serving as the institution’s first female president. After a 10-year tenure, Ms. Faust said on Wednesday that she would step down.
Ms. Faust led the university through various changes and scandals, including shifts in how the college offered financial aid to middle-income families, the men’s soccer team’s sexually explicit ranking of the women’s soccer team, and the college’s ban on single-gender social clubs after a blistering sexual-assault report.
Her tenure also included changes in the management of Harvard’s endowment, the country’s wealthiest, checking in at $35.7 billion in 2016.
Here’s a look at some of the lasting policy changes and controversies during Ms. Faust’s leadership of Harvard University.
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Finance
What a $2-Billion Loss Really Means for Harvard and Its Endowment
Some observers dismiss a year of bad returns as of little consequence for the world’s richest university. Others see a cautionary tale over how elite institutions use and invest their endowments. -
Inequality Fighter
Rosa Ines Rivera gave voice to struggling campus service workers. -
Students
Harvard Women Take a Public Stand Against ‘Locker Room Talk’
Six athletes who were physically ranked by their male peers chose not to remain anonymous. Instead, they have positioned themselves as activists, pressing for broader change. -
News
Harvard Says Its Endowment Dropped 22% in 4 Months
President Drew Gilpin Faust said the university was preparing for the endowment, the largest of any higher-education institution, to fall 30 percent for the year. -
Students
Harvard Report Highlights Concerns About Exclusive All-Male Clubs
A university task force called out the prestigious “final clubs” for fostering a culture of “sexual entitlement.” Harvard isn’t the first institution to grapple with the challenges posed by such groups, which wield outsize influence on campuses but operate with little oversight. -
News
Harvard Will Give Middle-Income Families More Aid
Flexing its financial muscles, Harvard University announced on Monday a new plan designed to make enrollment more affordable for students from middle- and upper-middle-income families. -
News
Harvard’s New President Intends to Use ‘Bully Pulpit’ to Defend Higher Education
Cambridge, Mass. The leaks that trickled out over the last year about Harvard University’s search for a new president often centered on its reported interest in landing a prominent scientist and a woman. Harvard got its first female president, but not a scientist, with Drew Gilpin Faust, dean of… -
The Review
Dead Reckoning
Drew Gilpin Faust confronts the grisly realities of tallying, tidying, and mourning the Civil War fallen Long before she became the first female president of Harvard University in July 2007, Drew Gilpin Faust showed herself to be an inventive, energetic, and restless historian. Her first book, in…