Harvard University recently appointed its first female president in the school's 371-year history. Drew Gilpin Faust, a Civil War scholar, will begin the job July 1.
Some see Faust's appointment as an attempt to make up for the sexist comments of previous president Lawrence Summer, who said that genetic differences account for why women cannot attain top-level jobs in science.
Even as Harvard joins the University of Pennsylvania and Brown and Princeton Universities in the ranks of elite colleges with female presidents, the rest of the country lags behind. A study by the American Council on Education showed that in 2006, 77 percent of college presidents were male. Discounting two-year colleges, the number of female presidents drops to a mere 20 percent.
Faust's appointment is particularly important to the ongoing search for a new president for AU. Despite priding itself on diversity, AU has never had a female president. Hopefully, the Presidential Search Committee is considering a variety of diverse candidates, including women and racial minorities.
It's time that AU had a female president. Hopefully, we don't have to endure any sexist comments to get there.
