College President, Concert Violinist Named New Leaders of Board of Overseers

Pomona College president David W. Oxtoby ’72 will take the helm of Harvard’s Board of Overseers for the 2013-2014 academic year as the governing body's new president, the University announced in a press release Monday.

Oxtoby will be joined at the head of the Board by celebrated concert violinist Lynn W. Chang ’75, who has been named vice chair of the Board's executive committee.

The Board of Overseers is the second highest of Harvard’s two governing bodies, below the Harvard Corporation. It comprises 30 members elected by alumni to advise University leaders, conduct reviews of schools and departments, and weigh in on certain actions of the Corporation.

Both Oxtoby and Chang will assume their roles as they enter the final year of their six-year terms on the Board following Commencement.

“David Oxtoby and Lynn Chang are two distinguished educators who bring invaluable and complementary perspectives to the work of the Overseers,” University President Drew G. Faust said in the press release. “We will be fortunate to have them leading the board next year and to continue benefiting from their insight and guidance.”

As an Overseer, Oxtoby sits on several committees, including the institutional policy committee and the committee on natural and applied sciences. He named House renewal, the upcoming launch of the capital campaign, and the impact of sequestration on University funding as a few of the many issues that the Board will have to tackle in the coming year.

“It’s a great honor to be invited to serve,” said Oxtoby, who served as a divisional dean at the University of Chicago before becoming president of Pomona in 2003, where he is also a chemistry professor.

Chang, who teaches at several institutions including the New England Conservatory and Boston University, also called the position an honor.

Noting that it is not typical for an Overseer to be a musician, he said he hopes to use his new role to raise interest in the arts as a field of study and potential career path at Harvard.

“My hope—which is a dream—is that there will actually be a performing arts component to Gen Ed,” he said.

Chang has performed all over the world as a member of the Boston Chamber Music Society and is known for his collaborations with his old college friends Yo-Yo Ma ’76 and Richard J. Kogan ’77.

Both of the incoming leaders cited collaboration among Harvard’s schools as a priority for the Board, and by extension, the University.

“Harvard is a huge institution.... It’s just humongously spread out,” Chang said, calling interdisciplinary collaboration across Harvard’s schools a goal of many of its affiliates.

Oxtoby and Chang will succeed the Board’s current president and executive committee vice-chair, Carnegie Institution for Science president Richard A. Meserve and film producer Lucy Fisher ’71, respectively.

—Staff writer Nikita Kansra can be reached at nikitakansra@college.harvard.edu. Follow her on Twitter @NikitaKansra.