The Harvard Corporation elected Drew Gilpin Faust as the first woman to serve as Harvard University's president in its 371-year history on Feb. 11.
"This is a great day, and a historic day, for Harvard," James R. Houghton, the senior member of the Harvard Corporation and chair of the presidential search committee, said in a press release.
Houghton praised Faust's achievements.
"Drew Faust is an inspiring and accomplished leader, a superb scholar, a dedicated teacher and a wonderful human being," he said. "She combines a powerful, broad-ranging intellect with a demonstrated capacity for strong leadership and a talent for stimulating people to do their best work, both individually and together."
Faust said she considered the appointment as a "symbol of an opening of opportunities that would have been inconceivable even a generation ago."
Members of the AU community said they approved of Faust's appointment, which begins on July 1.
"She is an extremely smart woman who is very accomplished and intelligent," Charlene Gilbert, a professor in the School of Communication and a board member of the Women and Gender Studies program, said. "She is someone who has institutional vision."
Faust is a distinguished Civil War scholar and served as the dean of the Radcliffe Institute, a think tank whose mission is "to create an academic community where individuals can pursue advanced work in any of the academic disciplines ... within that purpose it sustains a continuing commitment to the study of women, gender and society," according to the Institute's Web site.
Her appointment came two years after controversial comments by Harvard's previous president, Lawrence Summer, who said genetic differences contribute to why women cannot attain top science jobs. During the troublesome aftermath, Faust oversaw two panels examining gender differences on campus.
"We have reached that time where women are in higher educational leadership," Gilbert said. "There were several exceptional women that filed for that post. The decision to appoint her was not directly tied to that."
Sarah Brewer, associate director of the Women and Politics Institute at AU, said although this appointment is a necessary step forward, there still is a long way to go toward achieving equality.
"As a feminist and advocate, these moves suggest a presumption toward equality when there's proof that a playing field is level in a weird way," Brewer said. "It makes people less vigilant to the continued barriers for women, and the very point that this is unique shows that."
With Faust's appointment, half of the Ivy League institutions have females as presidents, including the University of Pennsylvania, Brown University and Princeton University.
"[Faust] is a brilliant woman," JoAnna Smith, Women's Initiative director and a junior in the School of Public Affairs, said of Faust. "We hope that the AU presidential search committee is looking at potential women candidates."
The presidential search committee is open to a wide range of candidates, said David Taylor, chief of staff for the president.
"It is no idle comment that when you do indeed undertake a search of this magnitude that of course you want a broad representation of candidates of all attributes, whether it's the distinction of gender or racial composition," Taylor said.
