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They must have. However, I wonder how many experienced academics were on the search committee, or if it's mostly rich donors. That could explain a lot. My take

They must have. However, I wonder how many experienced academics were on the search committee, or if it's mostly rich donors. That could explain a lot. My take: I think Gay was one of several up and coming internal candidates which Harvard keeps in the wings for bigger things. She had capably proved herself as FAS Dean, much like Faust oversaw the Radcliffe Institute. The search committee thought Gay would be ready to lead the University as an experienced administrator, and ignored or overlooked the academic red flags.

gnicholas 3y ago
It is possible that they assumed all due diligence had been done by the committees that gave her tenure and elevated her to her prior positions, and therefore didn't really do much looking at her academics at that juncture. Apparently she was tenured at Stanford just 5 years after arriving, which means she was put up for tenure after 4 years. That is amazingly fast, especially given her publication record. I guess the articles she published were incredibly impactful, since it is typically very difficult to get tenure at Stanford without at least one book.