Harvard inaugurates Faust as president

Seated in plastic chairs under a large tent that covered Harvard Yard and kept out sporadic raindrops, a crowd of more than 8,000 gathered Friday to watch Drew Gilpin Faust's inauguration as Harvard's 28th president.

The two-day ceremony marked the first time the university will be led by a woman in its 371-year history.

"The essence of a university is that it is uniquely accountable to the past and to the future — not simply or even primarily to the present," Faust told a crowd that included more than 220 administrators and scholars representing universities and colleges from around the world.

"A university is not about results in the next quarter," she added. "It is not even about who a student has become by graduation. It is about learning that molds a lifetime, learning that transmits the heritage of millennia, learning that shapes the future."

President Tilghman, who attended the inauguration, said the rain and cold did not dampen the day's significance. "It was a joyous occasion for Harvard, with students, faculty, staff and alumni all gathering to welcome their new president with gusto," she said in an email. "I came away with the strong sense that she has the full support and enthusiasm of the university."

The event was marked with much pomp and circumstance and included the symbolic transfer to Faust of ceremonial keys, Harvard's original charter and the book containing the first sketches of the university's seal.

While much has been made of Faust's role as Harvard's first female president, Tilghman — who drew similar attention in 2001 when she became the first woman to lead Princeton — said she felt focusing on gender detracts from broader questions about how a university president plans to lead his or her institution.

"At the end of the day I will be judged as all Princeton presidents are judged — by the quality of the University and how my colleagues and I went about trying to improve upon an institution that is already very, very good," she said.

Faust did not outline any specific goals for her own administration during the speech, saying inaugural addresses are "pronouncements by individuals who don't yet know what they are talking about."

"Lists seem too constraining when I think of what today should mean," she said. "They seem a way of limiting rather than unleashing our most ambitious imaginings, our profoundest commitments."

But Faust was quick to oppose federal intervention in higher education, including a proposal that would require public universities to measure learning through standardized testing. She also argued that some of the contributions colleges and universities make to society cannot be easily seen at first.

"A university looks both backwards and forwards in ways that must — that even ought to — conflict with a public's immediate concerns or demands," said Faust, a historian of the Civil War and the American South. "Universities make commitments to the timeless, and these investments have yields we cannot predict and often cannot measure."

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In taking up her current post, the 60-year-old Faust succeeds former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, who was forced to resign in February 2006 after a turbulent five-year tenure.

The tipping point came in January 2005, when Summers suggested women obtained fewer high-level positions in the sciences and engineering because of a possible lack of "intrinsic" aptitude. Summers had also stirred up anger over a high-profile argument with Cornel West GS '80, who left Harvard for Princeton in 2002.

Faust's inauguration brings the total number of female Ivy League presidents to four — or half the Ivy League — with all of the women holding close ties to Princeton.

Brown President Ruth Simmons served as an associate provost at the University, while Penn President Amy Gutmann was provost.

While Faust has never served on the Princeton faculty, she hails from a long line of Princeton alumni, including her father, Tyson Gilpin '42, and two brothers, Tyson Gilpin, Jr. '65 and Donald Gilpin '73. Her uncle, Kenneth Gilpin, Jr. '44, and cousin, Thomas Gilpin '75, also graduated from the University. Faust is also the descendent of two past presidents of Princeton, including the University's second president, Aaron Burr, Sr., and Jonathan Edwards, the University's third president.

"I LOVE the fact that all four Ivy women presidents have ties to Princeton," Tilghman said. "I think Princeton should be very proud of the fact that it continues to produce women who lead in all areas, including higher education."

"There were a number of Princeton Gilpins at the event [Friday], and I told them that I claim Drew for Princeton because of them," Tilghman added. "And in my heart I believe that had Princeton been coeducational at the time Drew matriculated at Bryn Mawr, there was a good chance she would also have Princeton numerals after her name."

On the afternoon before the ceremony, former Princeton humanities professor and noted novelist Toni Morrison took part in one of two pre-inaugural events. Speaking in her trademark whisper, the Nobel laureate for literature gave a reading that touched on themes of gender, race and human rights.

"How many times do I have to tell you? Demons do not bleed," she read to the group gathered at Memorial Church, quoting a widow speaking to her dying daughter. "We bleed — demons never."

Morrison met Faust last summer at Harvard's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, where Faust served as dean from 2001 until becoming president. Morrison received the 2007 Radcliffe Institute Medal in June and requested to take part in Faust's inauguration. Morrison also read at Gutmann's and Simmons' inaugurations.

Faust is the first Harvard president since 1672 without a Harvard degree. She received her undergraduate degree from the all-female Bryn Mawr College outside Philadelphia and earned her masters and doctoral degrees from Penn, where she studied American civilization.