Harvard University will have its first female President in its 371-year old history when Drew Gilpin Faust is named 28th President of Harvard University on Sunday Feb. 11. Faust will also become the first Harvard president to have not obtained a degree from Harvard.
She will replace the embattled Lawrence Summers, who drew public ire for a 2005 speech in which he was believed to have said that women were not succedding in the science fields because they had less "intrinsic aptitude" for it than men.
Faust, currently dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, had also lead a study on advancement of women at Harvard after Summers' fateful remarks. The author of five books, she is also a former professor of history and women's studies at the University of Pennsylvania.
Faust will go from being a dean overseeing a budget of about $16 million to a president taking care of $3 billion in university funds.
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