The Personal President

In a year of rather stern speechifying about political polarization and the need to engage on such divisive issues as access to abortion and controlling climate change, President Bacow had serious things to say (see here). But he also indulged in some asides that revealed a quick wit that appears often in private conversations, the long-established ties that preceded his move into Mass Hall, and a bit about his cultural roots.

Intoducing the honorary-degree recipients at the annual Wednesday dinner in Annenberg Hall, he noted that he had the “distinct pleasure of sharing initials” with the first: museum leader Lonnie Bunch. And of economist Emmanuel Saez, said Bacow (holder of four degrees in economics, law, and public policy), the Berkeley professor was known as “a shy data jock—by the way, I can relate to that.”

When Daniel Fenn ’44, A.M. ’72, received his Harvard Medal Thursday afternoon, reflecting 75 years of alumni service, the president went off script to recall meeting the honorand when Bacow was “a 20-year-old graduate student at the Harvard Kennedy School in 1972.”

And as someone who speaks openly about his Judaism and roots in Jewish culture (the chaplain of the day Thursday morning was the Bacows’ rabbi, Wesley Gardenswartz), it was both natural—and very funny to those who have seen her work, most notably during the $9.6-billion Harvard Campaign—to hear Fenn’s fellow medalist Tamara Elliott Rogers, former vice president of alumni affairs and development, described as wielding “just the right balance of chutzpah and humility.”

Click here for the July-August 2019 issue table of contents

You might also like

Trump Administration Aims at Harvard Funding

Part of concerted effort to target campuses labeled antisemitic

Improving Harvard College and Graduate School Discipline

After the 2024 encampment, a Faculty of Arts and Sciences committee recommends changes.

How to Protest Effectively

A Harvard Kennedy School panel on today’s resistance movements

Most popular

Walter E. Fernald

From enlightened care for the intellectually disabled, to eugenics, and back

Harvard Overseer Candidates’ 2025 Priorities

Governing-board nominees’ perspectives on the University’s challenges and opportunities

Bill Gates on AI and Innovation

At Harvard, the Microsoft co-founder discusses his biography—and artificial intelligence. 

Explore More From Current Issue

Harvard's Tom Kane on Effective School Reforms

Tom Kane deploys data to help improve education.

Teen "Grind" Culture and Mental Health

Teens need better strategies to cope with lives lived partly online.

“AI Anxiety”

The Undergraduate on the uneasy collision of technology and writing