American political scientist and university administrator
Claudine Gay (born August 4, 1970) is an American political scientist and academic administrator who is the Wilbur A. Cowett Professor of Government and of African and African-American Studies at Harvard University. From July 1, 2023, until January 2, 2024, Gay was the 30th president of Harvard University. She became the first Black president of Harvard. In December 2023, Gay and two other university presidents faced pressure from the public and from a Congressional committee to resign, over responses to alleged antisemitism on their campuses. Gay also faced myriad accusations of plagiarism and as a result, she resigned from the presidency of Harvard in January 2024.
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Family, friends, colleagues, students and postdocs, alumni, distinguished guests. I stand before you today humbled by the prospect of leading Harvard, emboldened by the trust you have placed in me, and energized by your own commitment to this singular institution and to the common cause of higher education.
The political polarization doesn’t help, but it is striking that the erosion in public trust is bipartisan. That should be telling us something, that there’s a broad-based questioning of the value of higher education. Yes, there are some elements that are being inflected by partisan politics, but this is pretty widespread.
The challenges, of course, are not unique to Harvard. At the top of the list, I’d put declining trust in higher education and fewer people understanding the value of higher education for both individuals and society. That’s an existential challenge for us as an institution. The silver lining is that there are many potential partners as we make the case for why what we do matters and how it contributes to making the world a better place and enables all of us to thrive.
Betraying my bias as a political scientist, I’m really excited about what we can do around democracy. We’re at a moment where it’s important for those of us who are champions of democracy to help the world understand how to make democracies work: How democratic governance and democratic practices can actually — if well done — solve crises and solve people’s problems.
I talked about the opportunity for Harvard to be more connected to the world by centering the most pressing challenges that the world faces as University priorities. For me, those include democracy and all the ways in which democracy is faltering around the globe, the climate crisis, and inequality, to name a few. Harvard has a lot to bring to the table for society’s urgent priorities. There are also “frontier” opportunities that Harvard is uniquely positioned to exploit.
There are three things that I always look for. I look for a commitment to excellence, because that’s what it means to be at Harvard. I look for commitment to collaboration, because I believe that no one has a monopoly on insight — even if it’s in your area and you are an expert. And I look for commitment to the mission, because that’s why we’re all here. I expect that from any member of a team that I lead and collaborate with. From there, we get to the unique requirements of a position and the unique contributions or assets that an individual might bring to the role.
The biggest takeaway from my own research is just how important it is for people to feel seen and heard. Even when they disagree, it is critically important for their values, interests, and preferences to be recognized by leadership and integrated into the thinking of leaders. That’s probably the biggest thing. That’s one of the reasons my starting point in any decision-making process involves trying to understand the perspectives of the various stakeholders around an issue. I do that not with the expectation that I can satisfy everyone, but with an understanding that those perspectives need to be part of the consideration I bring to any issue.