Faust Restates Goals in TV Appearance

Just a few hours after teaching her Civil War conference course, President-elect Drew Gilpin Faust appeared on Jim Lehrer’s “Newshour” last night to discuss her vision for the university she will head in just five months.

Faust, who was confirmed on Sunday as Harvard’s 28th president, reiterated many of the points she made at a news conference on Sunday. She emphasized her desire to lead Harvard’s expansion into Allston and to improve undergraduate education.

While Faust—currently the dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study—stressed that she was not picked because of her gender, she did acknowledge the significance of her selection as Harvard’s first female president.

“It symbolizes important changes in the place of women in higher education,” she said. “I’m the symbol, but the reality that lies behind me is much broader than Harvard, or me, or even higher education.”

Faust also discussed the influence her 1996 book—“Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War”—has had on her work as an administrator. She said that the book influenced the way she thought about ways to bring about reform at Radcliffe.

As the interview came to a close, Faust took the opportunity to mention the factors which, in her opinion, make Harvard one of the nation’s leading and most influential universities.

Faust said that Harvard allows students to realize “how extraordinary people can be,” adding that students who graduate from Harvard know that “there are no limits to what humans can do.”

MEDIA BUZZ

Though Harvard may be used to being at the center of media attention, the buzz created by Faust’s selection has been particularly pervasive: in the past few days, she has been featured prominently in national newspapers as well as television news shows.

“It’s an earthquake in a way in American higher education,” said Paul S. Grogran, Harvard’s former vice president for government, community and public affairs. Faust’s selection is “going to get a lot of coverage, as it should,” he said.

When Lawrence H. Summers, a former Secretary of the Treasury, was picked to serve as university president in 2001, The New York Times ran a story on page 32. Last Saturday, the news that the search committee had selected Faust made the front page.

In addition to the national media attention Faust’s selection has attracted, her promotion created a buzz around Radcliffe Yard.

Yesterday, balloons lined the staircase leading up to Fay House, where Faust currently maintains an office. The balloons spelled out “3-7-1,” the number of years Harvard University has existed with a man in the president’s office.

Faust was set to eat breakfast yesterday with James R. Houghton ’58, the senior fellow of the Harvard Corporation. She also had meetings scheduled with Interim President Derek C. Bok and her Radcliffe staff members.

—Staff writer Claire M. Guehenno can be reached at guehenno@fas.harvard.edu.