Harvard President Lawrence Bacow Awarded Prairie View A&M University President’s Medal

Harvard President Lawrence S. Bacow was awarded the Prairie View A&M University President’s Medal by the university’s outgoing president Ruth J. Simmons at a Monday afternoon ceremony.

Harvard announced hours before the Prairie View event that Simmons will be appointed senior adviser to the president of Harvard on engagement with historically Black colleges and universities. Simmons will step down from her role as president at the end of the month.

Sara N. Bleich — who was recently appointed Harvard’s vice provost for special projects — opened the event with an overview of the University’s work on implementing recommendations from its April 2022 Legacy of Slavery report.

Bleich announced that Harvard intends to assemble HBCU presidents at a conference this fall, a next step in implementing the report’s third recommendation — establishing stronger relationships with HBCUs.

“We hope to convene a group of HBCU presidents to explore how we can deepen and expand our connections and partnerships and how we can assist those leaders in addressing their goals and challenges,” Bleich said.

Bleich called Harvard’s landmark Legacy of Slavery initiative both “sobering” and “exciting.”

“We very much look forward to working and learning from others and advancing this initiative in a way that is worthy of those lives that were so constrained by slavery and its legacies,” she said.

The event, held on Simmons’ penultimate day in office as president, offered an opportunity for the two outgoing university presidents to reflect on their careers in higher education and to shower praise on each other.

Simmons commended Bacow for leading Harvard with a “warm heart and a generous mind,” citing his leadership as the University defended affirmative action and supported students in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

“As 29th president of Harvard University, you have led that remarkable institution with enviable distinction,” Simmons said to Bacow. “You have led with the conviction that truth and transparency must be essential elements of university leadership.”

In his remarks, Bacow told the audience that “there is no one — and I mean no one — who has accomplished more or is respected more greatly than your Ruth Simmons.”

Bacow also discussed the challenges currently facing universities, emphasizing a decrease in public support for higher education, taxes on endowments, and concerns over the ability to teach freely in the classroom.

“People are asking whether or not institutions like ours are actually good for society,” Bacow said.

“I don’t think we can take any of these things for granted. I think we have to fight to retain them,” he added. “In some cases, we have to go down fighting.”

Simmons concluded the event by saying she looks forward to working with President-elect Claudine Gay to foster stronger connections with HBCUs in her advisory role.

“This is the moment for HBCUs to receive their fair share,” Simmons said. “And I’m so happy that Harvard is going to be leading that process of thinking through what can be done.”

“We don’t need to worry about what we haven’t gotten in the past,” she added. “We just need to worry about what we get now — and we have to be more insistent about how deserving HBCUs are of additional support.”

—Staff writer Miles J. Herszenhorn can be reached at miles.herszenhorn@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @MHerszenhorn.

—Staff writer Claire Yuan can be reached at claire.yuan@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @claireyuan33.