Helena Buonanno Foulkes â86, a former corporate executive who has held top positions at CVS Health and served as CEO of the Hudsonâs Bay Company, will serve as the president of Harvardâs Board of Overseers for the next year, the University announced Monday.
The Board of Overseers, which is made up of alumni who are elected in slates of five to six-year terms, is the Universityâs second-highest governing body. P. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale â74, a developmental psychologist who recently stepped down as the vice provost for academics at Northwestern University, will serve as the vice chair of the Boardâs executive committee, the school announced.
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/ Caroline Culler
The annual balloting for members of the Board of Overseers and elected directors of the Harvard Alumni Association (HAA) begins today, and concludes May 18. Alongside the eight candidates for Overseer put forth through the HAA nominating process, a slate of candidates running on the Harvard Forward platform has qualified for the 2021 ballot by petition, as was the case during the pandemic-delayed voting last year. That makes the election more competitive and changes its nature, perhaps stirring greater alumni interest and participation in the balloting again. This is the first election since the governing boards adopted changes in the composition of the Overseers last September, following Harvard Forward’s success in electing three petition candidates in 2020.
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Citing “our society’s mistrust of elites, intellectualism and academic expertise,” for example, Bardon envisions the board playing “an important role…by overseeing the pursuit of diversity in the Harvard Community” specifically, “demonstrat[ing] that our graduates are neither privileged nor out of touch.” Carney highlights the importance of sustainability, via “new engineering technologies (such as AI), new governance mechanisms to apply those technologies (such as data privacy), new financial technologies (to address the tragedy of the horizon at the heart of the climate crisis) and new political technologies (including social movements and new international governance mechanisms) to forge the consensus and create the urgency for action that is implemented in a timely and just manner” requiring a university that “doesn’t only pursue excellence in each discipline but that creates breakthroughs by being connected across them.” And L