Alan M. Garber will stay on as Harvard’s president longer than initially planned, the university’s governing board said Monday, a sign of confidence in a leader who took the reigns of America’s oldest university during a politically tumultuous moment.
Dr. Garber was set to lead the university through June 2027, but Harvard’s board said the appointment was now indefinite.
“Alan’s humble, resilient and effective leadership has shown itself to be not just a vital source of calm in turbulent times,” Penny Pritzker, head of the board, known as the Harvard Corporation, said in a statement on Monday, “but also a generative force for sustaining Harvard’s commitment to academic excellence and to free inquiry and expression.”
In a statement, Dr. Garber said he was “profoundly honored” by the trust placed in him.
Dr. Garber served as provost, or top academic officer, for many years. He became interim president in January 2024 following the resignation of Claudine Gay after she faced a congressional hearing on antisemitism and allegations of plagiarism.
The hearing in 2023 occurred at the end of a year in which the university lost a Supreme Court case that struck down race-conscious admissions and became a battleground for debates over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It started a new era of political scrutiny, marked by congressional investigations over antisemitism and eventually an unprecedented attack from the Trump administration.
Around the start of the second Trump administration, the university took many steps to try to insulate itself from political scrutiny, including hiring a lobbying firm with deep ties to President Trump and embracing a highly debated definition of antisemitism urged by supporters of Israel.
Nevertheless, the Trump administration sought an escalating list of concessions from Harvard. Dr. Garber resisted, saying no government should dictate what universities can teach or whom to hire. The Trump administration responded by freezing about $2 billion in funding from the university.
The university sued the administration into releasing the funds, winning its case in federal court. But Mr. Trump has continued to explore ways to punish the university, including trying to limit its ability to educate international students.
The university and the administration have been in discussions for months seeking an agreement that would settle the dispute. Mr. Trump has said he would like to see the university pay $500 million, even as some faculty members, students and alumni have urged Harvard to continue to resist the government.
Dr. Garber earned a base salary of about $922,000 in fiscal year 2024 and $243,000 in other compensation, according to tax records. Amid financial uncertainty, the university said in May that Dr. Garber would take a 25 percent pay cut.
Dr. Garber’s ties to Harvard stretch more than a half-century, since he became an undergraduate student there in 1973. He earned three degrees from Harvard — a bachelor’s, a master’s and a doctorate, all in economics — as well as a medical degree from Stanford University. An expert on health policy, he was also a faculty member at Stanford for about 25 years.
Vimal Patel writes about higher education for The Times with a focus on speech and campus culture.
The post Harvard’s President Will Stay in the Role Indefinitely appeared first on New York Times.
