Harvard's President Treads Softly, Softly During Her First Six Months in Office. (April 8, 2008)

When historian Drew Faust took over the presidency of Harvard University on October 12, 2007, she knew she had a monumental task before her. The brilliant but abrasive and politically inept Larry Summers had undertaken to reform Harvard, recasting its undergraduate curriculum, expanding its sciences, which would entail the $1bn plan to develop a world-class science and biotech complex, including the Harvard Stem Cell Institute across the Charles River, and reducing the strength of the faculties, particularly that of the powerful Arts and Sciences.

Under Professor Faust's administration Harvard continues to increase the US$120m (A$130m) financial aid programme, now being extended to many more lower- and middle-income families. Nearly 7 out of 10 of Harvard students now receive a degree of financial aid and 50% get scholarships averaging US$40,000 a year. Harvard's fees are around US$48,000 a year.

According to Joanna Walters writing in The Guardian: "...on some of the big centralising academic and management reforms needed on campus, some ask if Faust is being too slow and collaborative. 'I think the honeymoon is lasting a bit long and we need to see quicker results,' says one insider."

But the short of it is that Professor Faust has inherited the reform agenda that was developed between her predecessor and the Harvard Corporation.

New York University's president, John Sexton, who studied at Harvard Law School, told Joanna Walters that apart from furthering the internal reforms, Professor Faust has to simultaneously resist the influence of a federal government obsessed with "short-termism". "I don't get the sense that she is a capitulator. This is a strong woman and she has a clearheaded view of things - her style fits very nicely with the need."

But the mystery remains as to if, let alone how, Drew Faust is going to bring the faculties to heel especially Arts and Sciences.