Last year, my cousin from Taiwan attended a party with several scholars and experts, one of whom mentioned that she was a member of the National Taiwan University Selection Committee. My cousin said that she didn’t know that it might be that National Taiwan University was choosing the principal, and she didn’t take it seriously.
Later, when she went to Taiwan, it was announced, but due to some disputes, the highest institution in Taiwan still had no principal, which was very surprising. It was not until the former Minister of Education released the news on Christmas Eve that Guan Zhongmin confirmed that he could take office on January 8, 2019, but the three Ministers of Education lost their money in the process.
My cousin caught up with the selection of new principals during his four years at Harvard University. He was fortunate to witness the three outstanding educators becoming the principals of Harvard . He took this opportunity to organize and share the process of selecting a principal in Harvard with me.
0 The national conditions in the East and the West are different, and various universities also have great differences. However, both higher education institutions have no distinction between central ideas and national boundaries. The choice of principals of higher education institutions should not be regarded as a joke.
Harvard president selection is under the responsibility of the Harvard Board of Directors (President and Fellows, Harvard Corporation), and currently has a total of 13 members. In my cousin's sophomore year, Lawrence Summers, the 27th Harvard president, resigned due to speech issues and disagreement with certain Harvard professors. Harvard must select a new principal as soon as possible.
The day after Sanmers officially resigned to the board of directors, the Harvard director immediately called Derek Bok, the 25th President of Harvard. Burke, 75, has already lived a leisurely retirement life by the Florida beach, but when the Harvard director himself flew to Florida to inform Harvard that there was no principal, Principal Burke immediately agreed to return to Harvard campus for a year to serve as principal until the board of directors finds a suitable candidate.
On the premise that ensuring that Harvard school affairs will not be interrupted, the Harvard Selection Committee officially launched the relevant procedures on February 21, 2006.
In the whole process my cousin told me, there was basically no competition for selfish interests, no intervention from local political parties, no media exaggeration, no professors' remarks, students' education will not be affected, school affairs development will be as usual, schools should be the priority and education should be based on education: this should be the true independent spirit of higher education.
Harvard University receives US federal funds every year, reaching US$625 million in 2018. I have never seen the ruling party of the United States, the US president or the US Department of Education interfere with the selection or autonomy of Harvard presidents.
Selected committee members include: former Duke University and Wesleyan School president, Georgetown University law professor, former president of Wasser College, economist, computer scientist, Citigroup president and many other heavyweights.
Selection committee members go to various places to conduct alumni interviews, and Harvard professors and committees of various student organizations also have the opportunity to communicate with the selection committee. So recommendation letters from all walks of life kept pouring into the Harvard Loeb Center like snowflakes. At the beginning, there were a total of 750 candidates, and after the committee eliminated them one by one, only about 30 candidates were left when the board meeting was held at the end of December.
Among the list of candidates for Harvard presidents, those from the outside world are: Stanford University Provost, University of Pennsylvania, Cambridge University President, Princeton University President, Tufts University President, former National Institutes of Health and Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry. Inside Harvard, there are: the dean of the Law School (later appointed by the U.S. Supreme Court judge by Obama ), the provost and the later elected historian, President Drew Faust.
However, some candidates from outside said they were reluctant to leave their current job after careful consideration; the presidents of British universities do not want to leave the UK, and although the provost of Stanford University has a good relationship with Professor Stanford, he himself has no connection with Harvard.
In addition, because the newly elected president of Harvard University must start large-scale fundraising work, president candidates must have experience in higher education fundraising (the total fundraising of $9.6 billion was raised during the five-year period from 2013 to 2018).Finally, the committee made a choice among the two candidates: Ms. Foster or Nobel Prize winner in chemistry Thomas Cech. Because Mr. Cech was already in charge of the huge Howard Hughes Medical Institute in the United States and was unwilling to give up his scientific research work, Cech decided to voluntarily give up and no longer compete for the position of Harvard president.
After 20 rounds of interviews, on February 11, 2007, Harvard officially announced that Ms. Foster was successfully elected as the 28th Principal. She is not a Harvard graduate, and was previously the dean of Radcliffe College within Harvard. She stood out and became the first female president in Harvard history, and successfully led Harvard University for 11 years until her retirement in 2018.
In my junior year, under the leadership of Principal Burke, my cousin took economic courses and happily participated in club performances. Before President Burke left, they also performed Brams' string sixtte in the University Hall and were awarded the signature book of President Burke. Thanks to President Burke for giving up his retirement and returning to lead Harvard University.
When I was in my senior year, President Foster was deeply loved by students after taking office and remained in touch even after graduation. When President Foster visited Asia, he cared for graduates. No matter how busy the principal was, he still didn't forget to find several alumni of the same class to have breakfast together.
My cousin said that she is also looking forward to the new president of National Taiwan University.
