Alan M. Garber
The Steward
Legacy, values and the long now, leadership as care and continuity.
Alan M. Garber is The Steward in the truest sense, a leader who assumed Harvard's presidency amid congressional scrutiny, campus tensions, and hard questions about academic freedom, and refused to abandon the university's foundational commitments under pressure. A physician-economist by training, he pairs analytical steadiness with principled endurance. He does not chase the moment.
“David, I actually think that the top research universities in the US are all incredibly accomplished, and I don't feel as though Harvard is so far ahead of any other institution. We're stronger in some areas in Princeton and maybe not as strong in others.”
“That's the problem we have to solve. I think that to fully address this, we do need a wider range of views on campus. It's not just about liberal, conservative. It's on all kinds of dimensions. We need a diversity of views. We need many different views, and we need to create an environment in which our students can speak freely.”
“I think that the core issue is really a question are our students exposed to the full range of serious views about important issues? It could be in science, it could be in my field of economics, it could be in political science in all kinds of areas.”
“The provost is number two officer of the university and the chief academic officer. At Harvard, it's a relatively new role. There was a provost briefly at the end of World War II because President Conan was in Washington and the provost kind of ran the university. Very temporary arrangement. But it really started in modern times in 1991.”
The David Rubenstein Show: “Alan M. Garber”
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