Penn loses top prof to Harvard dean position

History Professor Drew Faust will head the new Radc liffe Institute. For years, Penn's History Department had been bedeviled with offers attempting to lure renowned Professor Drew Faust elsewhere. But it wasn't until yesterday that Faust signed a pact with another institution, agreeing to become the first dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. "This is what seems to me the best job in higher education," Faust said. "It's not just moving from one professorship at one institution to a professorship at another." As founding dean, Faust will hold a tenured position in the Harvard History Department. However, her primary responsibility will be overseeing the Institute's $350 million endowment and shaping its interdisciplinary focus on the study of women, gender and society. The newly established research center was created last October as an outgrowth of the controversial merger between Harvard and its sister school Radcliffe College, which historically had been independent. According to Harvard President Neil Rudenstine, Faust emerged as his first choice to head the new institute, culminating a worldwide search that began last summer. "Drew has exceptional intellectual and academic qualities, wonderful personal qualities and excellent leadership capacity," Rudenstine said."I couldn't be more pleased by the outcome." Faust, a recipient of the prestigious Francis Parkman Prize, has long been one of Penn's most distinguished scholars and one of the nation's leading historians of the Civil War and American South. She has also served as director of the Women's Studies Program at Penn since 1996 and holds the endowed Annenberg Professor of History chair. However, her national reputation also made her one of the University's most fiercely recruited faculty members, as she frequently received offers from other top-ranked History departments -- including those at Harvard and Yale University. But each time she turned them down to stay at Penn -- until now. "The last offer was three years ago, and it was a professorship like she had at Penn," School of Arts and Sciences Dean Samuel Preston said, referring to a job offer by Yale that Penn was able to match. "But this current offer is a one-of-a-kind position that it was clear we couldn't replicate at Penn." According to Preston, Faust told him that she was a candidate for the Radcliffe position about three months ago. But despite Preston working closely with University President Judith Rodin, this time Penn was unable to come up with a comparable package. "It wasn't the salary and benefits," Preston said, noting the prestige of the job. "It was a matter of Drew choosing whether she wanted to be a scholar and teacher or move into an administrative role." Joining her at Harvard will be husband Charles Rosenberg, who is a History and Sociology of Science professor at Penn and will receive a tenured appointment at Harvard. Faust's departure marks the first time that a tenured professor has resigned from Penn this year. "Drew is a superb scholar and teacher, and we will miss her terribly," Rodin said in a statement. "Her going is not only bad for American History [at Penn], it is bad for the whole of the History Department," History Professor Bruce Kuklick said. Preston pointed out the short-term impact of her loss, noting that it will make it harder for the department to recruit other top faculty. Faust will remain teaching at Penn next fall, but will leave at the beginning of the spring semester to start at Radcliffe.