Columbia Names Nemat Shafik as President, the First Woman to Lead the University - The New York Times

U.S.|Columbia Names Nemat Shafik arsenic President, the First Woman to Lead the University

Columbia University announced connected Wednesday that its caller president would beryllium Nemat Shafik, an economist who has served arsenic president of the London School of Economics since 2017, and earlier that arsenic lawman politician of the Bank of England.

The enactment of Dr. Shafik, known arsenic Minouche, marks the archetypal clip a pistillate has been named to pb the prestigious New York instauration and follows the caller appointments of women to caput apical universities including Harvard, Dartmouth, M.I.T., the University of Pennsylvania and George Washington University.

She volition presume the Columbia presidency successful July, taking implicit from Lee C. Bollinger successful the midst of a tumultuous clip successful the academy, with universities facing not lone an upcoming Supreme Court determination connected race-conscious admissions but besides debates implicit escaped code and the precocious outgo of education, rankings and wage for teaching assistants.

In a missive to the Columbia community, the university’s committee of trustees said it had recovered a “perfect candidate” to pb the university, calling Dr. Shafik, 60, a “brilliant and capable planetary leader, a assemblage builder and a pre-eminent economist who understands the academy and the satellite beyond it.”

Her planetary acquisition is notable. Born successful Alexandria, Egypt, she has not lone tally the London School of Economics since 2017, but she has besides served arsenic vice president astatine the World Bank, lawman managing manager of the International Monetary Fund and lawman politician of the Bank of England.

In its letter, the committee said that what acceptable her candidacy isolated was her “unshakable assurance successful the captious relation institutions of higher acquisition tin and indispensable play successful solving the world’s astir analyzable problems.”

Dr. Shafik’s upbringing was partially successful the United States, wherever her household relocated during the 1960s for her father’s work. She attended schools successful Florida, North Carolina and Georgia earlier receiving an undergraduate grade astatine the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

She received a master’s grade from the London School of Economics and Political Science successful 1986, followed by a Ph.D. successful economics from St Antony’s College, Oxford University, successful 1989.

Mr. Bollinger, who announced past twelvemonth that helium would beryllium leaving the university, led the University of Michigan erstwhile the Supreme Court decided Grutter v. Bollinger, which upheld the close of colleges to prosecute successful affirmative enactment successful admissions. Grutter whitethorn beryllium overturned successful the Supreme Court cases presently pending against Harvard and the University of North Carolina.