This interview was edited for length and clarity.
While the Harvard Corporation exercises fiduciary responsibility for the University, the Board of Overseers plays an oversight role. Last summer, the tax on Harvard’s endowment income was raised from 1.4 percent to 8 percent, and the FAS is staring down a $365 million structural deficit. In the face of financial instability, how should Harvard approach cost cutting?
I believe deeply that our decisions, financial or otherwise, really have to be grounded in our values. In my previous role as surgeon general of California, there were so many excellent programs that we were looking to fund and put in the state budget. And then, when COVID hit and the state budget took a decline, we really had to look at cutting costs, which is always really difficult. One of the key approaches to that is listening really thoughtfully to our constituency, which is going to include students, faculty, staff — and really grounding in a key and core set of priorities. And then a lot of the decisions flow from there.
One of the pieces of good news is that while Harvard is facing some major fiscal challenges, I think Harvard is certainly in one of the strongest positions of any university to be able to navigate that in a way that is really thoughtful. That is always going to be my approach to addressing things like figuring out how we’re managing the budget. Obviously, anytime we’re looking at a budget, we are looking at a combination of what’s coming in and what’s going out, and how we reconcile against that, what our reserve looks like, and how we want to manage how we’re using that reserve. And that’s why the values-based framework is so important, because that is where our decisions on all of those pieces ultimately flow from.
In December, President Garber’s term was extended indefinitely in a bilateral decision by the governing boards. What are your thoughts on the Presidential search process and the decision to bypass it? Should faculty or other stakeholders have more of a say?
It’s a little bit challenging to weigh in on what the current body has done without understanding the deliberations and really recognizing the behind-the-scenes of why that has happened. Having indefinite leadership — I don’t think that’s the goal. It makes sense to have folks be able to weigh in on that process, but again, without being privy to those deliberations and understanding what kind of goals they were seeking to accomplish, I would be remiss in criticizing that decision one way or the other.
In October, a planning body proposed a set of bylaws for a University-wide faculty senate to play a deliberative and advisory role with respect to the governing boards. The proposed senate would be a relatively weak body compared to many other elite institutions. What do you make of the recommendation, and of faculty input to governance more broadly?
Note: Interviews were conducted before the announcement of negotiations between the faculty senate planning body and representatives of top University administrators.
In general, I like the idea of faculty input into governance, because faculty are in direct relationship with students. I think that they are on the front lines of the educational environment, and so, generally speaking, I’m in favor of faculty having a voice.
Over the past year, Harvard has faced escalating political pressure from the Trump administration. Do you think a deal with the administration, perhaps including a cash settlement, is a practical solution?
I think that it makes sense for the University to have thoughtful, good-faith discussions with the administration. Now, whether or not a deal — and of course, it would certainly depend on the terms — there’s a lot of different pieces to that question, in terms of what the University is required to do to get to that point.
I always go back to a core set of values. I do think that academic independence is incredibly important. It’s part of why I am standing in this role right now. So when we’re talking about a deal, I always believe in deliberative discussions, being in conversation, and trying to arrive at a shared goal. I think that right now, with the current administration, some of the things that are on the table feel like they would not be in the interest of the University to go along with.
Last semester, Harvard instructed alumni interviewers to not mention applicant race, ethnicity, or national origin in written evaluations, and it was revealed that the Undergraduate Minority Recruitment Program had quietly ended. This followed the renaming of the University’s Office of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging and the closure of offices at the College for minority students, LGBTQ students, and women. Finally, the Department of Justice sued Harvard last month, one of the latest offensives following the 2023 Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard decision. What do you make of the recent changes, and of Harvard’s approach to diversity more broadly?
As someone who has done a lot of work in the area of diversity, equity, and inclusion, I get that there’s this national push against using that language. And I have to say that, for me, another core value is that we are supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion to the extent of what is allowable by law. So we’re not talking about crossing any legal boundaries or anything like that.
This is a very clear place where we have the opportunity to express our values, and there are many ways that we can support diversity, equity, and inclusion that do meet the legal requirements and don’t put the University at risk.
I do think that this is a really important issue, and as someone who has led this work on a very public level, equity is quality. I think that some of the language that has been used to undermine and denigrate diversity, equity, and inclusion — as if it means a lower standard of quality — when I think that those of us who do have expertise in this work recognize that when we are talking about academic excellence, when we are talking about encouraging a learning environment where we want to have diverse viewpoints, when we are talking about quality, in my mind, diversity, equity, inclusion is core to quality and excellence.
As a follow up, should the College end legacy admissions and preferences for children of donors?
I would need much deeper information about the impacts of the current program of legacy admissions. I really would want to understand more deeply. As a physician, as a public health person, as a researcher, I think on its face, the idea of legacy as a qualification, what are the ways in which current leadership believes that it’s enriching the University? What are the costs, economic or otherwise, of ending that program?
At the same time, we do want to be clear that one of the challenges of legacy admissions is that they tend to accumulate privilege. They tend to accumulate access and privilege by handing it down from generation to generation. We recognize that some of that privilege has been acquired in ways that are inconsistent with our current values. I definitely want to be mindful that when we think of access to a university like Harvard, we want to make that as broadly accessible as possible.
The Intellectual Vitality Initiative was introduced in 2024 to foster free exchange of ideas and combat self-censorship. What do you make of the state of campus speech, and how can Harvard best promote open discourse?
I know that free speech has been a big issue, and also a sense of safety has been an issue. I recognize and have followed the ways in which Harvard has come under fire. And I think that in an educational environment and a university environment, we want to foster a robust discourse, and we want folks to feel safe expressing their divergent viewpoints.
One of the things that is really important to recognize is that a university campus is often the first place outside of their home of origin where a lot of students are — it’s like their next developmental stage after leaving home. And so a lot of students are learning how to advocate for themselves in an environment of broad viewpoints. They’re learning how to be in community with someone with whom they disagree.
I think that Harvard has some important work to do around creating an environment. That’s not something that people just learn overnight, right? Most people don’t walk out of their houses with that — that is something that we actually have to put intentional infrastructure around in terms of giving folks the tools and the resources to be able to express their viewpoints and have robust intellectual exchange, while at the same time feeling safe in their campus environment and recognizing that someone can have a differing viewpoint.
How do we respond to that? How do we engage with that? What are the acceptable and unacceptable ways for us to express those viewpoints? I know it’s been a lot, and it again comes back to how I always anchor with values-based leadership. What are the values that we are trying to move forward as a University? What do we communicate, and how do we hold the value of free speech while at the same time holding the value of safety and respectful discourse?
One of the primary roles of the Board of Overseers is to periodically assess Harvard’s schools and departments. What do you see as the key challenges and opportunities for growth in Harvard’s current academic environment?
My career has been really focused on translating knowledge into action to better society. I was at the Harvard School of Public Health, so I’m a public health person, and going into clinical medicine, my work was supporting the underserved — running a clinic to care for the underserved — before becoming California’s first surgeon general. One of the things that really excites me about this opportunity is recognizing the way that knowledge is implemented in an interdisciplinary way, and what it takes to get from knowledge to impact.
One of the things that I think Harvard does really well is that if you’re in one graduate school, you can take classes at any of the other graduate schools. That cross-pollination of knowledge is literally how, for example, when I was in office and the COVID pandemic hit, that ability to crosswalk — we have research, we have communications, we have public health, we have our financing systems, education, operations, logistics — how do you get 20 million COVID tests out to the population? It was a really fascinating process. That excites me — the opportunity to support our schools in thinking in that cross-disciplinary way, to leverage knowledge for societal benefit.
Also, as a researcher, I was the co-principal investigator of the randomized control trial that did the validation on clinical screening for adverse childhood experiences. I recognize that research — particularly with everything that’s happening in the federal government — is one of the shining stars at Harvard. Thinking about what’s happening with NIH funding is also another area where I hope to be able to think together and support how we maintain a really robust research community.
In recent months, the University has had to reckon with its ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey E. Epstein, who donated over $9 million to the University, which helped fund one of its departments. With that in mind, what are your thoughts on Harvard’s current donation policy?
I’m coming back to values-based leadership. What are our values, and how do we manifest our values in the decisions that we make? I know that when it comes to donations and investments in the University, it’s not always possible — and as someone who’s done a lot of fundraising in my day, it’s not always possible to know your donor’s full background.
I think sometimes, the University does want to cultivate resources from a broad range of donors. You absolutely have to have scrutiny — I think the Epstein example is just blatant — you absolutely want to have some level of scrutiny around the resources that you’re accepting.
In a similar vein, we’ve heard calls for consequences for association with Epstein, including revocation of tenure. When, if ever, should tenure — or for that matter, University professorship — be revoked?
Going with the Epstein example, I think that if someone is convicted of a crime — if they’ve had due process and they’ve had an investigation — if someone were convicted of a crime, that would be a case. Association, for me, is a slippery slope in terms of whether or not the individual knew or participated in wrongdoing. I think that it is important for folks to have due process. I would not suggest revoking tenure simply because of an association.