Come July 2023, six of the eight Ivy League schools will have women leaders.
The Ivy League, with some of the oldest institutions of higher education in the U.S., recently announced bold choices in leadership. Dartmouth College, Harvard University, and Columbia University named new presidents, each to take office in July. For Dartmouth and Columbia, these are the first women presidents in their history, while Harvard welcomes its first African American president.
Dr. Sian Beilock (Dartmouth), Dr. Minouche Shafik (Columbia), and Dr. Claudine Gay (Harvard) will join current presidents M. Elizabeth Magill (University of Pennsylvania), Dr. Christina Paxson (Brown), and Dr. Martha E. Pollack (Cornell) in leading institutions. All except one have been coed at the undergraduate level since the 1970s or 1980s.
“They are without a doubt powerhouses in their field and have proven themselves as effective, innovative leaders,” said Dr. Taylor Odle, assistant professor of educational policy studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “I do think that folks should be excited about this because for better or worse in American higher education, institutions unequivocally mimic the Ivy League or the Ivy League Plus (institutions such as MIT and Stanford).
“Now, these three new women presidents can bring new vision and energy to these roles, where women have not always been in those spaces before,” he added. “I’m excited to see what their visions might entail and how those might even diffuse down the ladder to other institutions.”
Historical perspective
Dr. Felecia Commodore
