Four alumni—Anand G. Mahindra ’77, M.B.A. ’81, J. Louis Newell ’57, Emily Rauh Pulitzer, A.M. ’63, and “Jack” P. Reardon Jr. ’60—received the 2014 Harvard Medal for “extraordinary service to the University”on May 29 during the Harvard Alumni Association’s annual meeting on the afternoon of Commencement day. President Drew Faust read the citations, printed in italics below.
- Active in the Harvard College Fund, Anand Mahindra is a member of the President’s Global Advisory Council, the Committee on University Resources, and the Harvard Business School (HBS) Board of Dean’s Advisors. In addition, he co-founded the HBS Association of India, was a founding member of the University’s South Asia Institute (SAI), and is currently in the SAI Founder’s Club. In 2010, Mahindra endowed Harvard’s humanities center with a $10-million gift in honor of his late mother, Indira Mahindra. Based in Mumbai, Mahindra is the chairman and managing director of Mahindra & Mahindra, Ltd., a leading $16.7-billion industrial conglomerate originally founded by his family in 1945 that now employs more than 180,000 people all over the world. He is also active in education and anti-poverty efforts, as both a trustee of the K.C. Mahindra Education Trust and a life trustee on the board of the Naandi Foundation. Distinguished graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Business School, you have served the University on several continents with deep devotion and insight, affirming the vital importance of the humanities while advancing interdisciplinary studies within a broad liberal arts.
- A long-time alumni leader, J. Louis Newell has served as chair and member of the Committee for the Happy Observance of Commencement and as vice president and director of the Harvard Club of Boston; he has also been involved with the Harvard College Fund for almost 50 years (for the last 25 as the participation chair). For this work, he has received both the HAA Alumni Award and the Harvard College Fund’s Joseph R. Hamlen ’04 Award. A former three-sport athlete, Newell has served the Varsity Club as president and chair (earning the Varsity Club Award in 2008) and chaired its popular annual football dinner for more than 35 years. Now retired from Seaward Management Corp., he lives in Dedham, Massachusetts, and has been a trustee for various institutions, including the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary and the philanthropic association Charlesbank Homes. He is the former president of Third Sector New England and emeritus director and president of the Freedom Trail Foundation. (President Faust announced that Newell, who was unable to attend the ceremony, would receive his medal in a special ceremony later. She then read his citation.) Whether cheering from the stands at the Stadium, or chairing the committee charged with making Commencement happy, you stand always ready to answer Harvard’s call, as a stalwart leader of your Class, the Harvard College Fund, the Harvard Club of Boston, and the Harvard Varsity Club.
- A former curator at Harvard’s Fogg Museum and the St. Louis Art Museum, Pulitzer is an arts patron and philanthropist who has contributed widely to the University’s arts program. She currently chairs the Overseers’ Visiting Committee to the Harvard University Art Museums, was a member of several other visiting committees, and serves on the Harvard Art Museums’ Collections Committee and Director’s Advisory Council. As significant donors to the Harvard Art Museums, she and her late husband, Joseph Pulitzer Jr. ’36 (an Overseer from 1976 to 1982 and a Harvard Medalist himself in 1993), played a decisive role in enabling the extensive renovation of the Fogg, which is set to reopen as the expanded center of the unified museums in November. In 2012, Pulitzer received the National Medal of Arts for her work as a scholar and supporter of contemporary art, and for helping to establish and lead the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, based in her home city, St. Louis. For 12 years she served on the board of Pulitzer, Inc., and she now chairs the board of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, in addition to serving on the boards of other organizations, including the St. Louis Symphony. She is also a life trustee of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. As Harvard Overseer, expert in modern and contemporary art, and devoted friend of Harvard’s art museums, you have elevated the University and its embrace of creativity through your profound belief in the power of art and education to transform how we look at the world.
- Longtime Harvard Alumni Association executive director John P. “Jack” Reardon ’60 is retiring from that position at the end of June. Reardon began his University career in the admissions office and rose to become associate dean of admissions and financial aid before becoming Harvard athletics director in 1978. He became HAA executive director, at the behest of then-President Derek Bok, in 1990, and has since guided and greatly expanded the organization. Reardon will continue to work on fundraising, Ivy League athletic matters, with the Board of Overseers, and remains a Harvard Magazine Inc. board member. From Admissions to Athletics to Alumni Affairs, you have shaped the Harvard we know and love, touching and changing countless lives through your skillful leadership and sage counsel, your impeccable judgment and inimitable way with people. The whole Harvard family salutes you—and thanks you.
