Waxman To Lead Board of Overseers

Former U.S. solicitor general Seth P. Waxman ’73 is set to lead Harvard’s Board of Overseers, the University’s second-highest governing board, for the 2010-2011 academic year, the University announced Wednesday.

Waxman will step into his new role as president following this year’s Commencement, and Mitchell L. Adams ’66, who is the executive director of the independent public agency Mass. Technology Collaborative, was elected vice chair of the Board’s executive committee by their fellow overseers at their February meeting.

“The past few years have been challenging ones for Harvard, no less than other institutions of higher education, but these challenges present real opportunities for innovation, collaboration, and leadership,” Waxman told the Harvard Gazette. In an interview with The Crimson, he added that he plans on taking his new position “very seriously.”

Both Waxman and Adams have held leadership positions on the Board of Overseers—Waxman currently chairs the board’s social sciences committee and previously led the committee on institutional policy. Adams is presently vice chair of the committee on schools, the College, and continuing education. Both have also been directors of the Harvard Alumni Association.

Waxman, who graduated summa cum laude from Havard before attending Yale Law School, is now a partner with the law firm WilmerHale in Washington, D.C., and a faculty member at Georgetown. He has argued more than 50 cases before the Supreme Court, according to an online biography, and was mentioned as a candidate to replace Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter before Sonia M. Sotomayor was appointed.

Vice chair-elect Adams, who received an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1969, will bring financial experience to the post just a year after Harvard’s endowment lost $11 billion. Adams has served as a financial administrator for Harvard Medical School and the University of Massachusetts Medical Center.

University President Drew G. Faust praised the dedication Waxman and Adams have shown on the board in a statement.

“I look forward to their leadership and to working even more closely with them next year,” she said.

—Staff writer William N. White can be reached at wwhite@fas.harvard.edu.