Ned Price to Remain Interim IOP Director Through Summer as Search Nears End

Ned C. Price will remain interim director of Harvard’s Institute of Politics for two more months as the Harvard Kennedy School continues its search for the institute’s next permanent leader, according to a Friday email to IOP staff obtained by The Crimson.

Price, who has led the IOP alongside Beth E. Myers since December, will stay on through the summer after the pair’s original interim terms were set to expire at the end of June. Myers will leave the institute at the end of the month as planned.

The extension comes as the Kennedy School nears the end of a months-long search to replace former IOP Director Setti D. Warren, who died suddenly at his home in November. Warren, a former mayor of Newton, Mass., and a one-time candidate for Massachusetts governor, was 55.

In the email, Robert G. Berschinski, the Kennedy School chief of staff who chairs the search committee, wrote that the school hopes to install a permanent director by the fall semester but does not expect a successor to be in place before Price and Myers’ terms expire.

“In hiring, nothing is final until it’s final, so while our timeline may still need to shift, my hope is that the IOP’s next director will be in place for the fall semester,” he wrote.

“For that reason, I’m pleased to announce that Ned has agreed to extend his tenure as interim director for another two months in order to bridge any gap with the new director,” Berschinski added.

He wrote that the search, while still underway, appeared to be nearing its conclusion.

“While we’re not across the finish line yet, I think we might be close,” Berschinski wrote, adding that he was confident the process would produce “permanent leadership that can build on the IOP’s already strong foundation and lead us to new heights in the Institute’s seventh decade.”

An HKS spokesperson confirmed the details of the email.

Price and Myers have led the IOP since December, when HKS Dean Jeremy M. Weinstein named the pair to guide the institute on an interim basis after Warren’s death. Both have said they will not seek the permanent role, describing themselves as temporary stewards until the Kennedy School selects a successor.

The Crimson reported last month that former Massachusetts lieutenant governor Kerry M. Healey ’82 and former “Meet the Press” executive producer Betsy Fischer Martin had advanced to the final stage of the search.

The search team had winnowed an initial pool of roughly eight contenders to three finalists, two people familiar with the matter said at the time.

The search committee — composed of HKS staff, former IOP fellows, and Shorenstein Center director Nancy R. Gibbs, the only faculty member on the panel — began its work in December and will recommend candidates to Weinstein, who will make the final hiring decision.

In Friday’s email, Berschinski wrote that the committee, which he said includes Washington Post correspondent Dan Balz, had “run an exhaustive process in consultation with HKS and IOP senior staff, the SAC, IOP student leaders, fellowship alumni, Harvard college senior administrators, and others.”

The current search marks a more structured approach than the dean-led process that produced Warren’s appointment in 2023. That search lasted roughly seven months, beginning in August 2022 after former IOP Director Mark D. Gearan ’78 unexpectedly left the institute to serve a second stint as president of Hobart and William Smith Colleges. Warren was named permanent director in late March 2023.

Myers, a Republican consultant who served as a longtime senior adviser to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, will leave the institute at the end of June. Berschinski credited her with steering the IOP through a period of uncertainty after Warren’s death.

“Beth has elected to return to her pre-IOP life of what might be the busiest ‘retirement’ I’ve ever seen, including launching the new Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library next month,” he wrote.

“I’m deeply indebted to her for stepping up at a moment of need and guiding the ship with incredible skill, warmth, and strategy,” Berschinski added.

—Staff writer Jen L. Phan can be reached at [email protected] and Signal at jenphan.74. Follow her on X at @jenllphan.