Who will be Harvard University's next permanent president?
Basic
57
14k
resolved Aug 3
100%36%
Alan Garber
0.4%
Nancy Coleman
2%
Tomiko Brown-Nagin
0.4%
Srikant Datar
0.4%
Douglas Elmendorf
0.4%
Rakesh Khurana
0.4%
Meredith Weenick
0.6%
Claudine Gay
0.2%
Jimmy Carter
0.2%
Bill Ackman
0.4%
Lawrence Bacow
0.3%
Hopi Hoekstra
0.4%
Roland Fryer
0.7%
Harvey V Fineberg
24%
John F Manning
8%
Danielle Allen
3%
Jenny Martínez
0.1%
Abraham Lincoln
0.1%
Mahatma Ghandi
0.1%
Benjamin Franklin

Resolves to the next permanent president, whenever they are announced.

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@traders I've closed the market for discussion. This definitely seems like an edge case, and I apologize for thinking I could get away with loose criteria for what I thought would be objective.

As of now, I am planning to resolve to Alan Garber. No president is literally "permanent", and he has had the "interim" part of his title stripped, making him officially the President. Open to discussion.

based on a quick read of Harvard's statement, I think I agree with resolving to Garber? Mostly this is based on the wording of the announcement:

Alan M. Garber, Harvard’s interim president since January and previously its longest-serving provost, will serve as president through the 2026-27 academic year

which refers to him previously as "interim president", and here just says "serve as president through 2026". So it's a weird case, but in the spirit of the question, I feel like he's no longer "interim while the search is happening"—there's no current search, Garber was selected, they're just going to launch a search in 2 years. Until then, he's the president, he's not just interim until the search completes.

The argument against is simply that the title says "permanent president", and clearly Garber isn't permanent, they've stated how long he'll serve. That's totally fair. And it's possible I'm reading too much into "interim" having any real meaning.

I just think this is an odd edge case where Garber seems to best reflect the spirit of the question, even if he doesn't quite fit the original title. Very open to alternative cases (don't think I have any Garber shares)

sold Ṁ422 Alan Garber YES

https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2024/08/harvard-names-alan-garber-president-through-2027

Harvard Names Alan M. Garber President

No longer interim; will serve through June 2027

Alan will carry forward as president through the 2026-27 academic year and we will launch a full and wide-ranging search for his successor in the late spring or summer of 2026.

I anticipate this market being tough to resolve. Unlike the other market, it doesn't contain a provision saying that interim presidents count if they serve for more than a year. It also doesn't say just "president," it says "permanent president." I originally bought YES but I have now sold because if he is only serving until 2026, he is objectively not the permanent president.

@DanMan314 maybe extend close date? (unless intended to close before the decision!). No idea when we should expect it, but probably not until the fall?

@Ernie oh woah you did this before the resignation was announced.

JoshuaboughtṀ50Claudine Gay NO

@Joshua haha fair I should have learned to add this as an answer!

@DanMan314 I will resist the urge to add @EmmettShear