2 Harvard Kennedy School Insiders Emerge as Finalists in Dean Search

Harvard Kennedy School professor David J. Deming has stepped down from the HKS dean search advisory committee to become a candidate, according to two people familiar with the process.

The search for a successor to longtime HKS Dean Douglas W. Elmendorf has narrowed to two internal finalists — Deming and Archon Fung, director of the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation — and several outside candidates, according to the two people.

HKS professor Iris Bohnet, a former academic dean at the school, was also an internal finalist for the role but withdrew her name from consideration.

Bohnet did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday, but her decision to pull out as a finalist for the position leaves two men as the internal candidates for the role.

While at least one of the external finalists is said to be a woman, the development raised concerns among some HKS affiliates about the level of diversity in the process.

Harvard spokesperson Jonathan L. Swain did not deny that Deming and Fung are the internal finalists for the deanship in a statement on Thursday.

“The HKS Dean search is ongoing, and beyond that the University is not going to comment on speculation around potential candidates,” Swain wrote.

The dean search entered its final stages amid growing calls for HKS to end an 88-year streak of white, male deans dating back to the school’s founding.

The search for the next leader of HKS began in September 2023 when Elmendorf announced he intended to step down in June 2024, after serving eight years in the role.

In the months since, the University has been consumed by controversy. But the turmoil at Harvard is not expected to delay the timeline for selecting Elmendorf’s successor.

A source familiar with the process said the search is “fully on track.”

The next HKS dean will inherit the Kennedy School at a particularly tumultuous time as it seeks to mend frayed relations with donors and ease tensions among students and faculty over the fighting in Israel and Palestine.

Interviews with more than 20 HKS professors and lecturers revealed a faculty that was deeply divided over its two internal finalists for dean.

HKS public policy lecturer Francis X. Hartmann applauded Fung’s decisiveness as acting dean, a role he briefly held in 2015. Fung also served as academic dean from 2014 to 2018.

“One of the downsides of being an interim dean is that you’re going to sort of tiptoe around and be afraid to make decisions,” Hartmann said. “He didn’t do that.”

HKS public policy professor Maya Sen also praised Fung’s leadership of the Ash Center — one of the largest centers at the Kennedy School.

“Archon, in particular, I think, brings a really deep well of administrative experience,” Sen said.

Fung wrote in an emailed statement that he was looking “forward to working with the next Dean of HKS whomever they are.”

Deming, who joined HKS in 2016, is newer than Fung to the school but has quickly risen through the ranks, and was appointed academic dean in 2021. He also serves as Kirkland House faculty dean.

HKS public policy lecturer John D. Donahue called Deming a “fantastic academic dean.”

“He took his job seriously,” he said.

HKS professor Mathias Risse, however, said he would not back Deming for the deanship.

“I feel very strongly that Harvard would send a bad message if we appointed the third white male economist with a Harvard Ph.D. in a row,” Risse said. “And let me just add that I have found David Deming difficult to work with as academic dean.”

“My specific concerns are known to the people who need to know, including himself,” Risse added.

Deming did not respond to a request for comment.

In particular, some faculty members said it is time for a non-economist to serve as dean. While Deming is an economist, Fung studies government and democracy.

Soroush Saghafian, a professor of public policy, said that “having a mixed balance of faculty members across different disciplines, different areas would help.”

Donahue called for the school to “double down” on its founding mission of public policy and government. Professor Khalil Gibran Muhammad also said that having another economist as a dean “is a concern.”

“We’ve seen the limits of economics as a discipline in terms of addressing some of the cultural issues that are animating international affairs,” he said. “Economists don’t often have good solutions to such problems.”

Sen said “someone like Archon who’s a political scientist and has a really interesting background in normative political theory would be a very interesting choice.”

“He would bring sort of a different intellectual viewpoint to the school,” she added.

Still, Hartmann said Deming was “much broader than an economist.”

“It felt to me as if he never used exclusively the prism of economics,” he said.

“Some economists I think of as narrow,” Hartmann added. “David was not narrow.”

—Staff writer William C. Mao can be reached at william.mao@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @williamcmao.

—Staff writer Dhruv T. Patel can be reached at dhruv.patel@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @dhruvtkpatel.