With dozens of tents filling the lawn in front of his office in Massachusetts Hall, Alan M. Garber ’76 huddled with his closest advisers late on May 13 to go over their options if student protesters rejected his offer to end the 20-day pro-Palestine encampment in Harvard Yard.

If they made any further concessions to the demonstrators, it would stir uproar among donors and alumni. If they called in the police to forcibly remove the protesters, it would ignite a student and faculty rebellion as had just occurred at Columbia and Dartmouth.

Either scenario also would have almost certainly dashed any hopes of Garber elevating to the presidency permanently, according to two people familiar with the deliberations within the Harvard Corporation, the University’s highest governing body.

So when members of Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine quietly packed up their tents and sleeping bags the next morning, Garber had not only achieved a peaceful end to the occupation of Harvard Yard but effectively secured his grip on the presidency.

Not quite two-and-a-half months later, in late July, the Corporation gave Garber everything he had asked for: a full appointment as president of Harvard, a finite tenure, and the ability to serve alongside John F. Manning ’82, his handpicked deputy.

“Sometimes in crises there are people who are right for the moment and people who aren’t right for the moment,” said one longtime Harvard insider. “He just happens to be right for the moment.”

This account of how the Corporation decided to permanently keep Garber at the helm of Harvard — and delay a potentially destabilizing presidential search — is based on interviews with members of the governing boards, faculty members familiar with the decision-making, and prominent donors.

Success in the Interim

On Jan. 2, former Harvard President Claudine Gay resigned, and Garber suddenly found himself as Harvard’s emergency leader — interim in name but without a term limit.

At the time, Garber was eyeing retirement — not a promotion. But suddenly, the longtime Harvard provost had a second chance to make his own mark at the helm of the country’s oldest institution of higher education after he was passed over for the job in 2017.

Initially, the plan was to conduct a formal search and relieve Garber of his interim duties as soon as a successor was chosen.

But if Garber ever believed that his position at the helm of Harvard was precarious, he never acted like it.

On Jan. 19, Garber announced the formation of twin presidential task forces to combat campus antisemitism and anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bias. Later that afternoon, he clarified Harvard’s guidelines surrounding campus protests in an effort to demonstrate to campus activists that he intended to strictly enforce the University’s policies.

The announcements addressed two of Harvard’s most pressing concerns, a resurgence of the fall’s pro-Palestine protests and a feeling shared by Jewish, Muslim, Israeli and Palestinian affiliates that the University had ignored their concerns.

Just days later, Garber faced his first major crisis as some Jewish affiliates at Harvard criticized the decision to appoint History professor Derek J. Penslar as co-chair of the antisemitism task force because Penslar had previously suggested that claims of antisemitism at Harvard were exaggerated.

The internal criticism snowballed into intense external pressure as federal lawmakers and the editorial board of at least one national newspaper called on Garber to remove Penslar from the task force. Garber, however, resisted the pressure.

Just over one month later, Garber made another controversial decision when he tapped John F. Manning ’82 — the longtime Harvard Law School dean and conservative law professor — to be his interim provost. At Harvard, where the faculty is overwhelmingly liberal, some affiliates grumbled at Manning’s appointment.

Though both decisions sparked some backlash, Garber managed to craft an image as a resolute president who was willing to make bold appointments, resist pressure, and do what is in the University’s best interest — even if doing so was unpopular.

President Alan M. Garber welcomes first-years on move-in day. By J. Sellers Hill

“There was a feeling among the fellows that he was really doing a wonderful job,” said Carolyn A. “Biddy” Martin, a former president of Amherst College who has served on the Corporation since 2018.

“I think his temperament, his intelligence, his love of the place, his knowledge of it, all of those things served him well,” she added.

Shortly after Garber returned to campus from a spring break trip that allowed him to meet with donors in London and Miami, the Corporation began to consider whether they should try to keep Garber as president for longer.

“I’d say sometime mid-semester, March-April, given the trust in him that seemed to exist on campus among faculty, students, and off campus among alumni — given the knowledge he has of the University and how good he’d be not just at keeping things going, but actually promoting the key objectives for the University — we started to talk about what might make sense,” Martin said.

Sealing the Deal

Those conversations, however, were paused when dozens of pro-Palestine activists flooded the Yard on the last day of classes and began pitching tents in front of the John Harvard Statue.

Garber and his advisers were also watching fellow higher education leaders struggle to end the protests without controversy.

The Harvard encampment was one of well over 100 such protests at colleges and universities across the country. While many were short-lived, others had a profound impact on their University administration.

Columbia President Nemat T. “Minouche” Shafik asked New York Police Department officers to clear the encampment on her university’s campus, a decision that prompted faculty members to censure her and call a vote of no confidence. She would resign in August, having never regained the trust of her faculty.

Meanwhile, university officials at Brown, Rutgers, and Northwestern negotiated with protesters to secure peaceful resolutions to their encampments. But those decisions drew a different form of backlash — this time from major donors and federal lawmakers.

Garber attempted a different strategy: patience.

Initially, Harvard’s top administration attempted to ignore the encampment, but the situation became less tenable for Garber as the days went on and Commencement drew closer.

The prolonged protest, though largely peaceful, forced the University to shut its gates, relocate several final exams, and maintain a costly round-the-clock security presence. It also prevented maintenance workers from preparing the Yard ahead of the graduation ceremonies later that month.

On May 10, Garber turned up the pressure on protesters as he placed more than 20 participants on involuntary leaves of absence from the University. But they did not leave voluntarily.

The pro-Palestine encampment began April 24 and ended May 14, 2024. By Julian J. Giordano

In a last ditch effort to secure a peaceful end to the encampment, Garber presented the protesters on May 13 with his final offer: reinstatement from involuntary leaves of absence and a conversation with members of the University’s governing bodies to discuss divestment.

Despite the offer, Garber reiterated that the University would not accede to the protesters’ demands – divestment was off the table. School-level administrative boards had also opened disciplinary proceedings against more than 60 students for their participation in the encampment.

The encampment ended the next day, with protesters saying that “the utility of this tactic has passed.”

As far as the Corporation was concerned, Garber could not have handled the encampment any better.

When members of the governing boards arrived on campus later that month, they had some of their first in-person conversations about removing Garber’s interim tag. To some people involved in the deliberations, the informal talks about keeping Garber indicated that his appointment as the University’s 31st president would only be a matter of time.

“The inevitability became inevitable after Commencement,” one person said.

The Next Search

Garber’s success at managing the encampment cleared a path for the Corporation to move forward with removing his interim title, allowing the University to forgo an official search for several years.

In the immediate aftermath of Gay’s resignation, the Corporation’s Senior Fellow Penny S. Pritzker ’81 wrote that the “search for a new president of the university will begin in due course.” But just weeks into the spring semester, she realized that would not be feasible.

Faculty members remained angry that Gay was not better prepared for her congressional testimony, wealthy alumni pledged to withhold donations from the University over concerns of antisemitism, and — even amid deep divisions on campus — almost everybody seemed to blame the Corporation for Harvard’s leadership crisis.

Paul Reville, a professor of education policy and administration at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, said the Corporation “was looking at the University in a very turbulent period of time and with a significant probability of times getting even more turbulent in short order, depending on how the election would turn out.”

But perhaps the biggest obstacle to launching a search was just that not too many people were interested in becoming president when the University was still trying to emerge from a period of intense controversy.

“This would not be an ideal time to try and recruit a new president,” former Harvard President Lawrence S. Bacow said.

Former President Claudine Gay resigned amid controversy over her testimony before Congress. By Miles J. Herszenhorn

The Corporation also knew that no matter who they selected to serve as the University’s president, their pick would be viewed through the prism of identity politics. Critics would inevitably raise questions about their appointee’s legitimacy.

When Gay resigned, some conservative activists claimed without evidence that the plagiarism allegations against her were evidence that the Corporation had settled on a less qualified candidate in order to appoint the first person of color to serve at the helm of Harvard.

If the Corporation ultimately decided to select another person of color to succeed Gay, their credibility would have immediately been questioned by these same critics. And if they were to appoint a white man, they faced being portrayed as having caved to right-wing reactionaries.

That consideration was a significant factor that deterred the Corporation from immediately launching another search, according to one person familiar with the decision-making process.

Garber’s early success as interim president presented them with an out. By appointing him, the Corporation could permanently fill the post without the perception that they had selected Garber over other candidates.

Another concern for the Corporation was selecting a candidate whose academic credentials could withstand the scrutiny of external critics. Garber’s academic background, which includes a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard and an M.D. from Stanford University, eased any lingering concerns from Corporation members.

“His academic credibility was never in doubt and that ended up being a tremendous positive for him,” said a person close to the governing boards.

‘On Our Own’

As campus cleared for the summer, there was only one hurdle remaining for the Corporation before it could officially name Garber as president: Pritzker and the other Corporation fellows had to avoid the appearance that they were making a unilateral decision.

Earlier in the spring, Pritzker told faculty members at a town hall in April that the Corporation could not make presidential appointments without consulting a broader group of Harvard affiliates.

“One of the things the Corporation cannot do is appoint the president of Harvard on our own,” Pritkzer said, according to transcribed meeting notes from an attendee. “It’s a process.”

To gather input from more faculty members without officially conducting a search, Corporation members began to quietly meet with preexisting groups of affiliates.

The fellows met with a number of University Professors in July as well as the faculty advisory committees that counseled the Corporation during its 2017 and 2022 presidential searches, according to Biddy Martin.

Pritzker also confirmed in a statement that the group also privately consulted alumni, school deans, members of the Board of Overseers, vice presidents, and “other leaders” among faculty and alumni.

“Many of these conversations were one-on-one or in smaller groups with the Fellows,” Pritzker wrote. “These conversations were immensely important to our considerations in reinforcing that what we were observing — a high level of trust and confidence in Alan’s leadership — was in fact felt by others in the community.”

At a meeting with University Professors a week before the decision, the Corporation fellows also solicited opinions about the search process and when it should be conducted. The faculty agreed against conducting a search in the fall and expressed approval of Garber’s performance, a person with knowledge of the meeting said.

When the idea of extending Garber’s tenure was discussed, the faculty attendees also expressed widespread agreement.

Harvard Divinity School professor Catherine A. Brekus ’85, a member of the 2017 search faculty advisory group, wrote in an emailed statement that “the appreciation for Alan Garber’s leadership was unanimous” during the discussion with the Corporation.

“This kind of unanimity is rare at Harvard, but faculty are immensely grateful for President Garber’s wisdom, his fairness, and his ethic of service to the university,” Brekus added.

Penny S. Pritzker is the Senior Fellow of the Harvard Corporation. By J. Sellers Hill

Meanwhile, Pritzker and a small group of other fellows were conferring with a trusted circle of alumni and donors to gauge their thoughts on the appointment.

Peter J. Solomon ’60, a former member of the Board of Overseers, said Pritzker had called him before the decision to ask his opinion. The two also discussed the potential length of Garber’s tenure.

“I thought it was an excellent appointment and it would make no sense for Harvard to have looked elsewhere,” Solomon — a former chair of the Friends of the Center for Jewish Studies — said.

“I said, ‘The sooner the better,’” he added.

From there, it all happened rather quickly.

In late July, Pritzker spoke with Garber and told him that the governing boards would meet on Aug. 2 to vote on his appointment as Harvard’s 31st president.

On the morning of Aug. 2, the Corporation convened for an official vote. A few hours later, the Board of Overseers rubber-stamped the decision. And by that afternoon, Pritzker announced the news publicly.

“Alan has done an outstanding job leading Harvard through extraordinary challenges since taking on his interim presidential duties seven months ago,” she wrote in an email to Harvard affiliates on Aug. 2.

“We have asked him to hold the title of president, not just interim president, both to recognize his distinguished service to the University and to underscore our belief that this is a time not merely for steady stewardship but for active, engaged leadership,” Pritzker added.

Similarly to Garber’s own bold appointments as interim president, the Corporation decision to elevate him without a search caused some faculty and alumni groups to grumble — especially those who were not consulted over the summer.

Several elected directors of the Harvard Alumni Association, which oversees nominations for the Harvard Board of Overseers, also said that they had hoped to see the Corporation commit to a full search process.

And the Coalition for a Diverse Harvard, an influential alumni group with 2,400 members, wrote in a statement that they were “deeply distressed that Alan Garber was installed without any search process whatsoever.”

“We are especially shocked that President Garber was unilaterally installed given that an open search process has long been a pillar of equitable hiring practices, which Harvard professes to be committed to,” the Coalition added.

But for Derek C. Bok, the last person to serve as the University’s interim leader, the decision to keep Garber at the helm permanently was simply the best move for Harvard.

“It’s an unusual procedure because these are unusual times,” Bok said. “And Alan is exactly the right person to appoint.”

—Staff writer Emma H. Haidar can be reached at emma.haidar@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @HaidarEmma.

—Staff writer Cam E. Kettles can be reached at cam.kettles@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @cam_kettles or on Threads @camkettles.

—Staff writer Tilly R. Robinson can be reached at tilly.robinson@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @tillyrobin.

—Staff writer Neil H. Shah can be reached at neil.shah@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @neilhshah15.