Harvard University’s president Claudine Gay announced on Tuesday, January 2, that she has resigned from her position amid mounting pressure after anti-Semitism and plagiarism controversies. She will now reportedly return to a position as a regular faculty member.
Who, then, will replace her now?
Alan M. Garber is Harvard’s interim president after Gay’s resignation. Garber joined Harvard, his alma mater, as many as 12 years ago. He serves multiple roles at the institution.
Who is Alan M. Garber?
The Harvard Corporation welcomed Garber in an online statement. “We are also grateful to Alan M. Garber, Provost and Chief Academic Officer, who has served with distinction in that role for the past twelve years – and who has agreed to serve as Interim President until a new leader for Harvard is identified and takes office. An economist and a physician, he is a distinguished and wide-ranging scholar with appointments at Harvard Medical School, Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health,” it wrote.
“We are fortunate to have someone of Alan’s broad and deep experience, incisive judgment, collaborative style, and extraordinary institutional knowledge to carry forward key priorities and to guide the university through this interim period,” it added.
‘Our goal is to ensure that our community is safe’
Back in November, Garber had expressed his “regret” over Harvard’s statement on the Israel-Hamas conflict. “Our goal is to ensure that our community is safe, secure, and feels well supported — and that first statement did not succeed in that regard,” he told the Harvard Crimson.
Garber added that the current anti-Semtism on the campus is the most “serious” one that he faced since he joined the institution. “In my view, none has been as serious for the University as this one — and I’m even including Covid in that,” he said.
“The community was immediately divided, and that is not true of every crisis that we face,” Garber said of the ongoing conflict sparked by the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel. “It is a combustible situation, and one in which many people are grieving.”
