Inauguration Ceremony of the 30th President of Harvard University: A Profile of Professor Claudine Gay

2023/11/21

Image: President Gay

In the early morning of Thursday, September 28, 2023, I headed from Purchase, where Keio Academy of New York is located, to JFK Airport, and landed at Boston's Logan Airport in just over an hour. I was there to attend the inauguration ceremony of Claudine Gay as the 30th President of Harvard University, held in neighboring Cambridge from that evening through the following day.

Professor Gay was born in 1970 to a family of Haitian immigrants, studied economics at Stanford University, and earned her PhD in government from Harvard University in 1998. After teaching at Stanford, she was welcomed as a professor of government at Harvard in 2006, and the following year, she also became a professor of African and African American Studies. From 2018, as the Edgerley Family Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, she promoted staff diversity, interdisciplinary education for students, collaborative research among scholars, and active engagement of the faculty in the university community. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she eliminated the faculty's deficit through bold financial reforms.

In recognition of these skills, for the first time in the nearly 400-year history of Harvard University since its founding in 1636, a Black woman holding the title of Wilbur A. Cowett Professor of Government was named the new president. Thus, while President Kohei Itoh would normally have attended, I, serving on the East Coast of the United States, acted as his representative due to scheduling conflicts. Among the delegations from over 180 universities and academic organizations invited from around the world, other attendees from Japan included Professor Kaori Hayashi (Executive Vice President) and Professor Yujin Yaguchi (Vice President) representing the University of Tokyo, and Professor Masahiro Yamaguchi (Vice President) from Tohoku University, who joined the commemorative procession, which was broadcast on TV.

President Gay

The relationship between Keio University and Harvard University is long and deep. When Yukichi Fukuzawa established the college in 1890, at the recommendation of the 20th President Charles William Eliot, he invited Thomas Sergeant Perry—an American literature scholar and grandnephew of Commodore Matthew Perry of the Black Ships—to the school in 1898.

Furthermore, in 1936, Keio University President Shinzo Koizumi attended the Harvard University Tercentenary Celebration during the tenure of the 22nd President James Bryant Conant, and was influenced by the enhancement of the science and technology curriculum. In 2008, at the 150th anniversary ceremony of Keio University planned by President Yūichirō Anzai, a representative of the 28th President Drew Gilpin Faust attended and read a congratulatory address. In 2015, I myself was invited to give a special lecture at Harvard's Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies. In this way, Keio University and Harvard University have maintained a friendship spanning over 130 years since the establishment of the college.

The inauguration ceremony began on the evening of the 28th with a welcome reception for international delegations at the Faculty Club and an artistic pre-ceremony at Memorial Hall. I was particularly amazed by the student male chorus, who masterfully performed not only classical pieces but also a wonderful arrangement of The Turtles' "Happy Together."

The following morning, Friday, September 29, the day of the main inauguration ceremony, I attended the symposium "Looking Forward: The Future of Academic Institutions." Moderator Robin Kelsey, Professor of Arts and Sciences, posed questions such as "How can universities restore trust and avoid political polarization?", "What kind of critical thinking is possible in academic research and education given ecological and computer science changes?", and "What do you think of the Supreme Court's ruling that affirmative action is unconstitutional?" In response, Megan Panzano (Lecturer in Design and Architecture), Louis Menand (Professor of American Literature and Thought), Durba Mitra (Associate Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies), and Matthew Potts (Professor of Divinity) gave sincere answers from their respective positions. The conclusion drawn was that to consider the future of the university, it is an urgent task to critically examine all ethical premises and hypotheses.

After these preparatory exercises and a luncheon, the outdoor ceremony starting at 2:00 PM began with many speeches and performances, much like the pre-ceremony, reaching its climax with new President Gay's inaugural public speaking, "Courage to be Harvard" (Courage to be Harvard - Harvard University President). Although the weather worsened at this point, she declared at the beginning, "It is raining, but I do not intend to shorten my remarks," and after offering thanks to her family, she began by saying, "Not 400 yards from where I stand, some 400 years ago, four enslaved people lived and worked in the household of the president of Harvard." Since Professor Gay herself is a Haitian immigrant from her parents' generation, she has not personally traced the history of African Americans. However, she foregrounded how the history of exclusion in Black slavery and the history of resistance and defiance to overcome it are closely linked right there at Harvard.

She then focused on two major principles essential to the modern university: "Why?" and "Why not?" While the former is the scientific attitude that forms the basis of academic inquiry, the latter is the practical attitude of taking action to reform the world, even knowing the difficulties. Indeed, it was the latter, "Why not?", that got to the heart of this inaugural public speaking.

"When we summon our courage to ask 'Why not?', and in turn, link new ways of thinking to new principles of action, we expand the possibilities of what Harvard can become and what it can do in the world."

In this speech, where Professor Gay's rhetoric and logic were exquisitely intertwined down to the smallest detail, she quoted freely from greats in the history of thought and literature such as John Adams, John Rawls, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Langston Hughes. I should also note that even if not explicitly mentioned, homages to Martin Luther King Jr., John Lennon, and Steve Jobs could be felt throughout. This was truly an inaugural public speaking rich in insight and vision, making one feel that the new Harvard President's awareness of the issues will open up the future of university education on a global scale.