Drew Faust took office as Harvard's 28th president on July 1 2007. Raised in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, Ms Faust is a historian of the Civil War and the American south. Her most recent book is This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War . It was published in 2008 and nominated for a National Book Award.

Ms Faust succeeded Larry Summers, now the director of the US president's National Economic Council. She took over at a time when the rich and growing endowments of America's elite universities had prompted some critics to question their charitable status. Since the onset of the financial crisis, which has had a severe impact on those endowments, that debate has receded.