What Does Harvard Look For in a College Dean?

A familiar face. An effective fundraiser. A faculty member with a first-rate curriculum vitae — and an easy rapport with undergraduates.

As Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra looks to select a new College dean this spring, she has a long list of credentials she could look for and three decades of precedent to consider.

Harvard has historically chosen College deans from within its own ranks, favoring tenured faculty with either administrative experience or extensive familiarity with undergraduate life.

All six College deans who have held the post since it took its current form in the 1990s have been internal appointments. Two, including outgoing College Dean Rakesh Khurana, previously served as faculty deans in undergraduate Houses.

When Khurana sought the position, he had sat on multiple committees related to student life, including the Academic Integrity Committee and the College’s alcohol policy committee, in addition to serving as Cabot House faculty dean.

Similar characteristics might give a boost to his successor.

“It’s extremely, in my view, important for the Dean of the College to have a detailed understanding of the culture of the college community — the structures that support that community,” said Eliot House faculty dean David F. Elmer ’98.

Khurana went on to model a vision of the College dean as a ubiquitous presence in undergraduate life. He snapped selfies with undergraduates, moderated dinner table discussions, and handed out snacks to students relaxing after studying and staging protests alike.

Former Dean of Freshmen Thomas A. Dingman ’67 said he thought Harvard may want a College dean who is “very comfortable amongst undergraduates.”

The next College dean is almost certain to be a tenured professor with strong credentials as an academic. In the 1990s, Harvard switched to tapping faculty, rather than career administrators, for the deanship.

Dingman said Khurana’s scholarship — on organizational behavior at Harvard Business School and in the Sociology department — gave him “credibility with his peers.”

Having a tenured professor at the helm of the College might encourage other faculty to become involved in undergraduate life and help with the recruiting of faculty deans, Dingman said.

Once appointed, the next College dean will inevitably have to make careful decisions about which parts of Khurana’s legacy they want to continue. But, as Hoekstra considers the internal Harvard politics, she will also have to consider pressure from outside Harvard’s gates.

The next Dean of the College will have to grapple with continued uncertainty from Washington. Following his inauguration in January, President Donald Trump issued an array of sweeping executive orders targeting higher education.

The policies included directives to scale down university diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, as well as threats to deport international students who broke the law while participating in pro-Palestine demonstrations.

Dingman said he thought the ability to navigate changing tides in Washington should be a priority in the search.

“Higher ed in general is under assault,” Dingman said. “You have to keep figuring out how best to stand up for the things that matter to you and withstand some of the outside pressures.”

As Harvard fine-tunes its messaging to the second Trump administration, the next College dean may have to balance two roles: serving as a spokesperson to Washington and the public, while addressing fear and discontent among undergraduates.

Past College deans — including Khurana, who served during Trump’s first presidential term — have spoken out on policies affecting College students. In response to moves from the White House to limit the rights of undocumented and transgender individuals, Khurana affirmed the College’s commitment to educating all students.

Though the College dean is not traditionally a leader of Harvard’s fundraising campaigns, Hoekstra may choose to select a candidate who can appeal to donors and alumni — especially after a year when Harvard doubled down on its fundraising efforts amid donor backlash.

In his first sit-down interview as dean with The Crimson, Khurana said he planned to be “present” at the College, not to focus on fundraising. But Dingman said Khurana has been instrumental in fundraising for the College.

“Beyond all of his on-campus presence with Instagram,” Dingman said, “he was really good on the road in inspiring donors to dig deep and support some of the causes that he cared a lot about,” Dingman said.

Khurana has become the public face of the College’s Intellectual Vitality Initiative, which aims to support free speech and respectful dialogue among undergraduates — confronting public perceptions that have haunted Harvard for years.

The next College dean will also be tasked with overseeing efforts to change the academic culture among College students, addressing grade inflation and concerns over course attendance.

A report recently released by an FAS committee found that many students at the College frequently prioritize their extracurriculars over academics. The committee recommended strengthening course attendance requirements, discouraging phone use in class, and standardizing course grading.

Its recommendations lend fuel to an ongoing push to make Harvard courses more rigorous and keep students in classrooms — which has been championed by Dean of Undergraduate Education Amanda Claybaugh, widely seen as a frontrunner to succeed Khurana.

Eric Beerbohm, the faculty dean of Quincy House and director of the Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics, and Anne Harrington ’82, the former faculty dean of Pforzheimer House, have also emerged as possible candidates for the role.

Claybaugh and Beerbohm did not respond to inquiries from The Crimson, and Harrington declined to comment. No one at Harvard has publicly indicated interest in the deanship.

Elmer, who began serving as faculty dean of Eliot House last summer, said he is not interested in serving as dean of the College.

“I truly love being a faculty dean — it’s the best job I’ve had in my 17 years on the faculty at this University. I don’t want to leave that job,” Elmer said.

Originally, History 10 professor Maya R. Jasanoff ’96 and Economics professor David I. Laibson ’88 were also thought to be frontrunners for the deanship. But both told The Crimson they were not interested in the position.

—Staff writer Samuel A. Church can be reached at samuel.church@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @samuelachurch.

—Staff writer Cam N. Srivastava can be reached at cam.srivastava@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @camsrivastava.