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Opinion
 

Staff Editorial

                        Robyn Morrow             Chris Elliott                        Mark Suarez
                                               John Arterbury       Caitlin Cuppernull

Questions arise around new Harvard president 

Harvard University named its first female president Sunday. The Board of Overseers appointed historian Drew Gilpin Faust to the position, the New York Times reported.

The 371-year-old university has taken a long time to put a woman in charge. While Faust may certainly be qualified for the job, her appointment comes at an interesting time.

Faust's predecessor Lawrence Summers may best be remembered for his controversial comments that the low number of females high up in the fields of math and science may be due to genetic differences.

Hiring a woman who has written about her feminist ideals and former civil rights activism in her memoir has raised some suspicion.

The New York Times reported that Faust is also the first president who did not receive an undergraduate or graduate degree from Harvard. 

For Faust to be all of these firsts after 27 presidents says something about Harvard's selection process. Either the university is finally catching up with the times and realizing that women are just as capable as men to hold any type of position, or they are trying to make up for the comments made by their former, not so modern, president.

Faust stated that she does not wish to be known as the "Woman President" of Harvard, but simply the "President of Harvard." Unfortunately, because of her predecessor she may not be able to escape that stigma. 

One must hope that what is considered one of the top educational institutes in the nation has simply hired a president it feels can best serve the students and university, regardless of sex or former presidents' actions. 

Although, after numerous others stated they would not accept the position, including a Nobel Prize winner and the presidents of other Ivy League universities, perhaps Faust wasn't even the top choice.