Five New Members To Join Harvard’s Board of Overseers

A former U.S. Solicitor General, a top fund manager, and a British philanthropist are among the five new members of the Board of Overseers, Harvard’s second highest governing body.

The five new members, Mitchell L. Adams ’66, Gerald R. Jordan ’61, Lisbet Rausing, Susan S. Wallach ’68, and Seth P. Waxman ’73, will all serve six year terms on the thirty-member board.

Their election was announced at the Commencement afternoon exercises on June 9.

The Board of Overseers, which predates the 1650 charter of the Harvard Corporation—Harvard’s seven-member highest governing body—advises Corporation members and provides formal approval to many of their decisions.

Although a prestigious post, overseers have little policy-making power.

“The Corporation makes all the big decisions in the University,” Overseer Bruce M. Alberts ’60 told The Crimson last February. “The Overseers are a great group, but we don’t have any power in official terms.”

Overseers now elected by alumni form a pool of nominees selected by the Harvard Alumni Association. This year, 31,341 alums, or about 14.4 percent, voted among eight candidates.

Members of the Board, who serve on a voluntary basis, meet five times a year, participate actively in the more-than-50 visitation committees to the different parts of the university, and formally approve honorary degrees as well as the election of Harvard presidents and Corporation members.

The overseers also serve on other committees related to University governance based on their interest and expertise. For example, three overseers joined six Corporation members to form the Presidential Selection Committee that chose Lawrence H. Summers in 2001.

“I really genuinely feel that Harvard is at a critical crossroads right now on a variety of fronts,” said Waxman, echoing sentiments expressed by the other new overseers. He said he is excited to “do what I can to advise Harvard and help it continue to strive through a period of unprecedented challenge.”

From 1997 to 2001, Waxman served as the 41st Solicitor General of the U.S. A partner at Wilmer, Cutler, Pickering, Hale, and Dorr, he has argued more than 45 cases before the Supreme Court.

Jordan, who holds both an A.B. and an M.B.A. from Harvard, said he will make financial aid one of his top priorities as an overseer.

“Harvard has opened the world to me,” said Jordan, who was the first member of his family to attend college and benefited from Harvard’s financial aid program.

He is currently President of Hellman, Jordan Management Co., a Boston-based investment management firm.

Wallach, who graduated from Radcliffe College in 1968 and Harvard Law School in 1971, said she is particularly interested in addressing gender issues.

“I am very interested in the issues of equality of women and appointment of women as professors,” she said, “at this point there seems to be a lot of goodwill and I would like to see continued progress.”

She is currently a special counsel at Schulte, Roth, and Zabel, a law firm in New York City.

Adams, a graduate of the College and of Harvard Business School, is a former Dean for Finance and Business at the Harvard Medical School. He also served as the Commissioner of Revenue of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts from 1991 to 1998.

He is currently the Executive Director of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative.

Rausing, who received and A.M. from Harvard in 1986 and a Ph.D. in 1993, is a senior research fellow in history at Imperial College, London. She is also a philanthropist, and has donated millions of dollars to various causes around the world, including Harvard’s Scholars at Risk Program and the Harvard University Library Open Collection Program.

—Staff writer Adam M. Guren can be reached at guren@fas.harvard.edu.