As Deming Leaves Kirkland Post for New Job as College Dean, Students Say the Moment Is ‘Bittersweet’

Updated May 14, 2025, at 11:40 a.m.

David J. Deming was met with a standing ovation as he entered the Kirkland House dining hall Tuesday evening, hours after Faculty of Arts and Science Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra announced he would leave his current role as faculty dean to serve as the next dean of Harvard College.

For 30 minutes, Deming hugged students and walked from table to table, snapping selfies, accepting flowers, and exchanging his navy blazer for a Kirkland House crewneck before delivering a short address to chants of “speech, speech!” from his audience.

Standing on a table in the center of the dhall, Deming — a Harvard Kennedy School professor — told students and House staff that he was “incredibly grateful” for his time at Kirkland.

“Thinking about all the good times we’ve had here, we’ve raised our children here, we’ve met so many great people — people in this room, people who have graduated — and it’s just been such an incredible opportunity,” Deming said. “We’ll love Kirkland House forever.”

Deming’s appointment caps off a search process that began nearly nine months ago, when current College Dean Rakesh Khurana announced in August that he would step down at the end of the academic year.

Deming and his wife, Boston Children’s Hospital administrator Janine M. Santimauro, will leave their faculty dean roles on June 30. In an email to Kirkland residents, Khurana wrote that a search for interim faculty deans would begin “immediately” and that a search for permanent replacements would take place in the fall.

The Crimson spoke with 18 Kirkland House students Tuesday evening who said they were excited about the future of the College under Deming’s leadership, but sad to be losing him as their faculty dean.

“It’s definitely bittersweet,” said Joanna Nunez ’27, a Kirkland House resident.

Kirkland is known among undergraduates for its cramped dorms and frequent pest issues — and for its history as Mark Zuckerberg’s college dorm. But in recent years, Kirkland has also gained a reputation for quirky and tight-knit House spirit.

Every Sunday at midnight, students flock to the Kirkland dining hall to participate in the “Choosening,” a ritual where students draw a word from an animal cracker jar as a punny theme for the week. Kirklanders organize an elaborate annual Secret Santa gift exchange — which can escalate to uproarious pranks. And the House clinched three back-to-back championships in intramural sports under Deming and Santimauro, winning the Straus Cup in 2022, 2023, and 2024.

Deming thanked Kirkland staff and residents in a Tuesday afternoon email.

“Our decision to step down has been a difficult one, but we felt we owed it to this community to have a leader who can give you their full, undivided attention,” he wrote. “You deserve nothing less.”

Standing on the dhall chair that evening, Deming encouraged students not to fret about his departure.

“I do want you to know that it’s not any one person or people that make this place special — it is the community,” he said. “All of you guys are going to be fine. You’re going to be like, ‘who are those guys?’ after a couple of years, I promise. This is such a special place.”

Andrew Lobo ’25 said before the speech that he has developed a friendship with Deming through dining hall conversations, bi-weekly open houses, and Kirkland Boat Club cookie-eating socials, which he said Deming regularly attends.

“We have Boat Club every week, where we just eat cookies and he’ll chat with you for like an hour and a half, literally just eating cookies and sipping on milk in the senior common room,” Lobo said. “I hang around with them in the dining hall all the time, just chat, talk about life. They come to my volleyball games.”

Several students said that Deming takes up singing roles in annual Kirkland Drama Society productions with wholehearted enthusiasm.

Harry J. Cotter ’25-’26 recalled one such occasion during the society’s spring 2024 performance.

“He was willing to get up in front of everyone for the Kirkland Drama Society show and perform the song that he had originally performed to get Janine to go on a date with him,” Cotter said. “It just showed his openness and willingness to send it for the House.”

The song? Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On.”

“They’re just not afraid to be silly,” Kritika Nagappa ’26 said. “They’re always in the shows, they’re always dressing up. They’re really buying in, and I think that’s the reason why all the students buy in the way that we do.”

Despite their ambivalence about Deming’s departure, Kirkland students expressed excitement for his new responsibilities and confidence that he would be able to fill the shoes of Khurana.

“Especially given the types of things that’s going on at Harvard right now, there’s no one better for the job,” Lobo said. “His research is very relevant to college education, different labor markets.”

Deming will enter the deanship at a particularly precarious time for Harvard. With the University facing nearly $3 billion in federal funding cuts and threats to international students’ status that have kept undergraduates on edge, Deming will have his work cut out for him.

“Nobody’s perfectly suited to address everything that’s going on, but he’s one of the more well-positioned,” Cotter said.

Deming told a group of students in the Kirkland courtyard before dinner on Tuesday evening that, as dean, he would not have a similar social media presence to Khurana, who posts regular selfies with students on his Instagram page, which students have dubbed the “Khuranagram.”

But several students said they were not worried about Deming’s ability to maintain an approachable attitude.

“I have no doubt that David Deming will be able to be similar in that way,” Michael J. Moorman ’25 said.

“Anyone that’s had even one conversation with David can tell how brilliant and joyful he is, which I think are two qualities that the dean needs to have,” Cotter added.

—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.