Harvard to name first woman president

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Feb. 10 (UPI) -- Harvard plans to name historian Drew Gilpin Faust as its first female president, The Harvard Crimson in Cambridge, Mass., said.

Faust's selection was expected to be ratified by the Board of Overseers on Sunday, The New York Times reported Saturday.

Faust's selection comes two years after former Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers caused an uproar by suggesting that fewer women than men reach high levels of academia in math and sciences because of innate differences.

Some professors, especially women at the nation's oldest university, were thrilled with the choice, The Times reported.

"It's been a lonely place for women, very lonely. There aren't many of us," Mary Waters, the acting chairwoman of the Harvard sociology department, told the newspaper.

Faust, a historian of the Civil War South, is the author of five books. She is a former professor of history and women's studies at the University of Pennsylvania and is the dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

Harvard would become the fourth Ivy League university to name a woman president, the Times said.

Faust's selection was first reported by The Harvard Crimson.