Reardon Succeeds Glimp

Transition occurs in Alumni Affairs and Development

Fred L. Glimp will step down, and Thomas M. Reardon will step in, as the University's Vice President for Alumni Affairs and Development, President Neil L. Rudenstine announced this week. The transition will take effect July 1.

Glimp will remain in a senior consulting role as a special assistant to the President for development, maintaining a substantial portfolio of fundraising activities. Reardon, meanwhile, will assume full operational responsibility for the ongoing $2.1 billion University Campaign, which he has helped to lead as Harvard's associate vice president and director of development.

"Fred Glimp and Tom Reardon both deserve enormous credit for all they have done to launch and carry forward the University Campaign," said President Neil L. Rudenstine. "Thanks in considerable part to them and their colleagues, we are almost halfway toward our ambitious goal. Their partnership will continue, and will be essential as we move into the next phase of our effort.

"Fred Glimp has been an outstanding citizen of the University since the 1950s, and few people have ever served Harvard with more devotion, humanity, and effectiveness," Rudenstine added. "He has not only excelled in a series of important Harvard roles, but he has built a remarkable team of skilled and dedicated professionals in development and alumni affairs, none of them more so than Tom Reardon. Tom's appointment as Fred's successor will ensure both a smooth transition and strong, experienced, insightful leadership as the Campaign moves ahead."

Glimp, who has spent most of the last 50 years studying and then working at Harvard, said he has been contemplating a reduced schedule for some time, and is looking forward to "shifting gears" this summer. "Tom and I have worked very closely for 17 years, for two Harvard presidents, and in two major fundraising campaigns," said Glimp. "He and his colleagues, several of whom have been part of the team as long as he and I have, are the best in the business. I am very pleased that Tom will be taking over, and I look forward to helping him and Neil Rudenstine complete a successful University Campaign."

Glimp began his administrative work for Harvard in 1954 while a graduate student. He served as Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid at Harvard College from 1960 to 1967 and as Dean of Harvard College from 1967 to 1969. Before becoming Vice President for Alumni Affairs and Development in 1978, he worked for nine years as executive director of the Boston Foundation. A native of Idaho, he received his A.B. in 1950 and a Ph.D. in economics in 1964, both from Harvard.

Reardon, now in his third decade at Harvard, said: "I am honored to succeed Fred Glimp, and delighted to know he will continue to work with us in a very important role. We have been close partners, and it is essential for Harvard and for me that Fred continue to be deeply involved."

Reardon came to Harvard in 1975 as a fundraiser for the Kennedy School of Government. He later served as the communications director of the University Development Office and was appointed the director of the UDO in 1979. He was named associate vice president for development in 1995. Before coming to Harvard, Reardon worked as a political reporter for WEEI Radio in Boston and later as press secretary to former Massachusetts Gov. Francis Sargent. He graduated from Holy Cross College with a B.S. in political science in 1962.

"I am inheriting the finest group of volunteer and staff leaders in the country," Reardon said. "We face some imposing challenges in the coming months and years, but we're in an excellent position to meet them. We will do our very best to keep Harvard financially equipped to stay at the forefront of higher education."

Reardon said that he looks forward to a continuing close relationship between the UDO and the Alumni Office. "Over the years we have developed a mutually reinforcing set of alumni affairs and development activities that support the University's educational mission," Reardon said. "That integrated approach has been extremely valuable, and will be as important as ever in the years ahead."

Reardon added that the UDO hopes to make continued progress in identifying and supporting the common interests of Harvard's different Faculties and other units through the Campaign. "We are working together more and more, and learning as we go," Reardon said. "Coordinating a University-wide effort of this scope is a complicated business, but the increasing degree of communication and collaboration among the different parts of Harvard is one of the things that has made the Campaign so successful so far."