I Led The Crimson. The News Transformed Harvard.

It has been a newsworthy four years for Harvard.

Since my freshmen convocation in the fall of 2022, the University: appointed the first person of color to serve as its president; had its race-conscious admissions practices struck down by the United States Supreme Court; was the center of antisemitism and plagiarism scandals that resulted in the resignation of its newly inaugurated president; and became U.S. President Donald Trump’s punching bag during his first year back in the White House.

I joined The Crimson in 2022 and led the organization as its president through the first year of Trump’s second term. I’ve had a front row seat to Harvard’s relentless trips through the news cycle over the past four years, and while I was often skeptical of criticisms coming from outside, I believe they are largely pushing the University to transform for the better.

Unprecedented public scrutiny has led to an internal reckoning. It often feels like the Harvard I am graduating from is totally unlike the University I entered four years ago. Protests are more heavily restricted and the University seems more deeply interested in safeguarding conservative speech. College diversity offices have been dismantled and Harvard has adopted a version of an institutional neutrality policy. With each change comes accusations of capitulation — to external criticism and political bullies.

Though Harvard has appeared to yield to pressure in some cases, I think what we are largely witnessing is a willing and necessary transformation. Many of the changes Harvard has imposed and endured during this period reflect a University working to consciously recenter its academic mission, realigning itself with the core purpose of the institution.

A throughline in the controversies of the past three years is that they sow distrust in the legitimacy of Harvard’s scholarship. They suggest its students are unmeritorious, its faculty and administrators plagiarize, and that its education is more like indoctrination. They give the public reasons to discredit us and the work we do.

While the veracity of these claims and impact of this reputational crisis are dubious, the threat of Harvard scholars and scholarship losing cultural capital should be taken seriously. Harvard’s mission is to educate students and produce research that will lead to transformation of the individual and broader world, not to foster an insular echo chamber.

The administrative decisions of our time at Harvard seem conscious of the fact that a university which prioritizes its academic mission — perhaps at the cost of being a liberal stalwart — can more effectively produce the kind of transformative thought and scholars that its mission envisions.

The Intellectual Vitality Initiative, which officially launched in January 2024, aims to foster more productive debate on campus because “diverse perspectives are the backbone of who we are.” The Q Guide now asks students how comfortable they feel sharing controversial or opposing views in each course they take. The University suspended and took under review an academic program accused of being one-sided. Student handbook policies introduced at the end of 2024 cracked down on student attendance in class. Just last week, Harvard faculty overwhelmingly voted in favor of capping the number of A’s awarded in classes to battle a raging grade inflation problem.

Taken together, these internal and external facing actions reflect a university genuinely interested in making its academic environment more rigorous in order to maintain its status as a preeminent education and research institution. So, while I am not glad Harvard has often been a public target these past four years, I am optimistic about the realignment with purpose that this scrutiny seems to have inspired.

Though I am hopeful, I know many of my peers are disheartened by some of the changes they have witnessed. Harvard has made efforts to communicate its value to the world — such as featuring life-saving research on its website homepage and taking exclusive interviews with NBC News — but it must continue to prove it’s committed to that mission internally and maintain trust with its affiliates.

The chosen targets for funding cuts should heavily lean on student and faculty feedback, and the bar to suspend academic partnerships and programs must remain clear cut and high. The administration could also resume regular semesterly interviews with The Crimson to more directly communicate changes and plans with the thousands of Harvard affiliates which turn to it for University coverage.

Though much has changed in the past four years, Harvard remains in flux. Negotiations with the Trump administration appear to be ongoing, the student body still struggles to talk about divisive issues, and a presidential search is on the horizon.

Harvard is moving in the right direction, but it must stay course. For now, there’s still a long way to go.

McKenna E. McKrell ’26, a former Crimson President, is a Classics concentrator in Adams House.