Harvard University named Claudine Gay as first black president

Harvard University named Claudine Gay, a dean of the Faculty of Arts and Science, as its new president, the first African American to hold the post at the prestigious university. Gay, 52, is just the second woman to be elected to head the school in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Gay, the daughter of Haitian immigrants, will take over as the university’s 30th president on July 1, 2023.

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About Claudine Gay:

• The daughter of Haitian immigrants, Gay graduated from Stanford and then earned her Ph.D. in government at Harvard in 1998, winning the Toppan Prize for best dissertation in political science.
• Gay was elected to the presidency by the Harvard Corporation, the university’s principal governing board.
• She will be succeeding current Harvard President Lawrence S. Bacow, who announced he was retiring in June after five years at the helm. His predecessor, historian Drew Gilpin Faust, was the first woman to serve as Harvard president since its founding in 1636.