Boston Globe Touts Obama as Top Candidate for Harvard President

Former President Barack Obama is on the Boston Globe's shortlist for next president of Harvard University.

The newspaper on Thursday floated Obama's name along with six other possible candidates to succeed current Harvard president Drew Faust, who announced she'd step down next year.

The paper noted Obama's alumnus status and his time heading the Harvard Law Review, and that a critique of Obama being “too professorial … might be a plus at Harvard."

"It's not leader of the free world — but heading one of the world's premier universities could hold lots of appeal," the newspaper wrote of Obama, who headed the Harvard Law Review.

"The former president was often accused of being too professorial — which might be a plus at Harvard," the Globe wrote.

Also listed were Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen; Harvard's provost and professor of medicine and economics Alan Garber, and its business school dean Nitin Nohria; Rice University president David Leebron; Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute president Shirley Ann Jackson; and Arizona State University president Michael Crow.

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