Philip W. Lovejoy, deputy executive director of the Harvard Alumni Association (HAA), has been appointed executive director, succeeding John P. (Jack) Reardon Jr. ’60 in that role effective July 1. The executive director leads HAA's approximately 40-person staff, who are responsible for club and shared-interest-group operations, education and travel programs, international outreach, digital communications, class reports, reunions, and more.
Reardon, who began his professional Harvard career in 1965—successively serving as associate dean of admissions and financial aid, director of athletics, and, since 1990, HAA executive director—announced earlier that he would relinquish that management responsibility at the end of the academic year in June. (As reported then, he will continue to apply his unmatched institutional memory and people skills on Harvard’s behalf—working on fundraising, Ivy League athletic matters, with the Board of Overseers, and projects tied to alumni relations. And he remains a Harvard Magazine Inc. board member.)
The transition to Lovejoy should be seamless, since he has had an increasingly broad operating portfolio at HAA for a decade. Given the public unveiling of The Harvard Campaign last September, and the associated intense focus on alumni engagement, it is no doubt comforting to the University’s alumni affairs and development leadership that the search for Reardon’s successor at HAA found the ideal internal candidate, and so could maintain continuity in operations.
Lovejoy, a graduate of Trinity College, became director of external affairs for the then-Harvard Museum of Natural History in 1998 (the museum has a travel program, and he had previously worked in the travel industry). It was a natural move to HAA, where he was associate director of alumni education, including HAA’s extensive travel offerings, from 2004 to mid 2006, before becoming director of University-wide alumni affairs, and subsequently assuming the overarching responsibilities he exercises now—including, recently, the launch of HarvardX for Alumni online content. He also chairs the board of directors of the Boston Center for the Arts.
In the announcement of the appointment, Lovejoy said, “Harvard is a singular place filled with brilliant and engaging alumni who are making a huge impact in the world. The HAA empowers our alumni to connect with one another and build the foundation of a lifelong relationship with the University.” Reardon hailed the appointment, saying, “Philip has done a spectacular job as deputy executive director. He has initiated a number of new programs during his tenure, and he has built excellent relationships with our staff and with our alumni. He brings great personal strengths to this role.”
President Drew Faust said in the statement that “Philip will unquestionably build on Jack’s extraordinary stewardship that enables the HAA to convene thousands of alumni to engage and connect.” And Tamara Elliot Rogers, vice president for alumni affairs and development, to whom the HAA executive director reports, noted that Lovejoy “has been committed to engaging our worldwide community of alumni through a range of programs, from lifelong learning to public-service opportunities, digital communities, and more…The HAA is in great hands.”
Read the announcement here. Further details, including the membership of the search committee, appear here.
