John P. “Jack” Reardon Jr. ’60, who was for many alumni and friends of the University the human face of Harvard, died on Tuesday, June 23. Reardon’s connections in the Crimson sphere were extensive, and he understood, in a way that few others did, how Harvard worked—through people.
Reardon’s contributions to the University community are apparent in a letter signed by Sarah Karmon, Harvard Alumni Association executive director; Marc Goodheart, vice president and senior advisor to the president and provost; and Jim Husson, vice president for alumni affairs and development, sent to colleagues and friends on the day he died: “His wisdom, friendship, and singular way with people were among Harvard’s greatest human treasures. We count ourselves fortunate to have been among the many, many people who learned from Jack—and who loved him.”
In his long, lauded Harvard career, Reardon served as director of admissions and financial aid (1971-1975), director of athletics (1978-1990), and executive director of the Harvard Alumni Association (1990-2014). For 11 more years after retiring from that position, he continued to work on fundraising, on matters concerning Ivy League athletics, and with the Board of Overseers.
When he was awarded the Harvard Medal for his service in 2014—a strict surprise—HAA president Catherine Gellert ’93 told the Commencement crowd, “I hope you all can appreciate how much fun it was to keep a secret from a man who knows everything about Harvard.” His citation that day read:
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.
While working in admissions, Reardon championed the acceptance of non-traditional candidates, noting Harvard’s capacity for providing financial aid. As director of athletics beginning in 1978, incentivized by Title IX, the 1972 law that prohibited sex-based discrimination in educational institutions receiving federal funds, he oversaw the expansion of the women’s intercollegiate program, adding more than a dozen sports and increasing the budget tenfold. And as director of the Harvard Alumni Association, he shaped reunions and programs in ways that strengthened the connections between the University and its graduates.
A 2014 tribute to Reardon on the website of the class of 1960 provides both a detailed account of his Harvard career, which spanned six decades (1965 to 2025) and seven Harvard presidents. It quotes former President Drew Faust, who praised Reardon’s “admirable combination of humility and humor” and stated: “It is rare for a single person to transform an institution as much as Jack Reardon has transformed Harvard.’”
The tribute went on say that Reardon “has taught Harvard to confront aggressively and wisely important issues and change, to respond honestly and forthrightly to danger and damage; and to aspire unflinchingly to new goals…Reliably congenial, Jack is also rigorously attentive to standards. More aware than most people about what might be practical or impractical, he nonetheless always asks, “What’s right?”
Goodheart, who was secretary to Harvard’s governing boards from 1998 to 2025, said of Reardon recently, “Across decades in a community that’s all about learning, I’m hard pressed to think of anyone who’s taught me more about Harvard and its people than Jack. And I know there are countless people who feel the same.” Reardon embodied integrity and deep knowledge and wisdom, Goodheart said in an interview, while “always thinking in terms of the best interests of the institution.”
In December 2016, during the 150th anniversary celebration of the Harvard Club of New York, a portrait of Reardon was unveiled.
Another oil painting of Reardon, commissioned by his College class in 2011, hangs in the Murr Center, home of the athletics department.
Former Harvard Magazine editor John S. Rosenberg called Reardon “truly a figure whose titles barely suggest his roles and contributions, knitting the University community together for six decades, bringing Harvard from its past to the twenty-first century. He was an incredibly open-minded, tolerant person, in service to others, at a time when those virtues seem rare, or extinct. During some rocky moments, Jack’s warm wisdom not only bucked me up, it led to solutions no one else could have conceived or effected within the University context. I respected and trusted and liked him completely.”
Reardon himself, upon stepping down from the alumni association in 2014, reflected on Harvard’s transformation into an international, diverse institution. Most alumni, he said, have had good experiences that have made a difference in their lives “and they want to see the strength of the place continue. The one thing that is very special—and a lot of people don’t know it—but Harvard is a very human place. You think of the bricks and the concrete, but…I think it’s an unusually human place where people do care about one another. It’s been a spectacular place to spend my life.”
A group of alumni led by Harvard treasurer Tim Barakett ’87, MBA ’92, Paul Finnegan ’75, MBA ’82, and Tom McKinley ’74 are establishing an undergraduate scholarship fund, an athletics fund, and a professorship, each in Reardon’s name. The Harvard Alumni Association’s annual award for distinguished volunteer service by alumni has also been renamed in Reardon’s honor. An obituary, including funeral arrangements, appears here.
