Harvard President Says She Will Step Down Next Year

Drew Gilpin Faust, the first woman to be Harvard’s president, announced on Wednesday that she would step down next year after 11 years of service, a period in which she oversaw ambitious fund-raising, expansion of academic programs and increases in student and faculty diversity. Dr. Faust, a well-liked historian known for her scholarship on the American South, was appointed in 2007 after a turbulent period in which her predecessor, Lawrence H. Summers, an economist and former Treasury secretary, alienated significant portions of the faculty.