A woman for Harvard
The week's news at a glance.
Cambridge, Mass.
For the first time in its 371-year history, Harvard University this week named a woman, Drew Gilpin Faust, as its president. Faust, a 59-year-old historian of the South and the Civil War, succeeds Lawrence Summers, whose presidency began to unravel in 2005, after he suggested that women might lack an “intrinsic aptitude” for the hard sciences. Faust heads the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, a small Harvard think tank. Some colleagues questioned her ability to manage a large organization, but she seems to possess the necessary tact. Referring to her predecessor’s tumultuous tenure, she said Summers’ “powerful thinking and impatience for results cleared the way for important new initiatives.”
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Why UK scientists are trying to dim the Sun
In The Spotlight The UK has funded controversial geoengineering techniques that could prove helpful in slowing climate change
By Abby Wilson
-
Gandhi arrests: Narendra Modi's 'vendetta' against India's opposition
The Explainer Another episode threatens to spark uproar in the Indian PM's long-running battle against the country's first family
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK
-
How the woke right gained power in the US
Under the radar The term has grown in prominence since Donald Trump returned to the White House
By Chas Newkey-Burden, The Week UK