Black is Beauty Caribbean Connection

Scholarly Claudine Gay

By Dana Malcolm

Staff Writer

#USA, March 2, 2023 – Born in the Bronx on August 4, 1970, to Haitian Immigrant Parents, Claudine Gay is the first head of Harvard of African descent and the second black woman to head any Ivy League university in history.

Her appointment was announced in late 2022 and will come into effect in July this year. A celebrated scholar and social scientist she attended two Ivy Leagues; Stanford where she got her Bachelors and Harvard where she got her PhD.

She distinguished herself as the best in both cases, her undergraduate thesis was awarded the prestigious Anna Laura Meyers Prize while her dissertation at Harvard for her PhD won the Toppan Prize in political science.

Recognizing her talent Harvard recruits offered her a position as a Professor and she was consistently promoted, eventually serving as the Edgerley Family Dean of Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences and now will be President.

Her connection to Haiti is very strong. She told Harvard in a video interview, “One of the ways that being the daughter of Haitian immigrants has influenced the approach I take to teaching is that I often work with children who are either first generation or also from immigrant families.”

She said that her unique position allowed her to bring the sort of sensitivity that students like this need to help balance the wishes of family and their own hopes and dreams.

She currently serves on the boards of the Pew Research Center, Phillips Exeter Academy, and the American Academy of Political and Social Science, a true Black History Maker.