Campus & Community

Faust, Nowski recognized with Harvard honors

3 min read

Drew G. Faust, president-elect of Harvard University, dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and Lincoln Professor of History, has been named the recipient of the 2007 Harvard College Women’s Professional Achievement Award. This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Women’s Leadership Awards.

Tracy Nowski, a Harvard senior, is the student winner of the 2007 Harvard College Women’s Leadership Award. Honored for exceptional skills as leaders and role models, both women received their awards at a ceremony and dinner on April 25 at the Charles Hotel in Cambridge, Mass.

Faust came to Harvard in January 2001 when she was named dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. In February 2007, she was named the 28th president of Harvard University. Faust previously served at the University of Pennsylvania. She is a historian of the Civil War and the American South, and the author of five books, including “Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War” (University of North Carolina Press, 1996), for which she won the Francis Parkman Prize in 1997. “This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War” (Alfred A. Knopf) will be published in 2008. Faust was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1994, the Society of American Historians in 1993, and the American Philosophical Society in 2004. She received her bachelor’s degree in 1968 from Bryn Mawr and received her master’s degree (1971) and doctoral degree (1975) in American civilization from the University of Pennsylvania.

Nowski, an honors concentrator in the study of women, gender, and sexuality, has held significant leadership roles with 10 different campus student organizations and college committees in her time at Harvard. Nowski has served as director, assistant director, mentor, and national board member of Strong Women, Strong Girls (SWSG), a national nonprofit that pairs college student mentors with girls in grades three to five. Among her many accomplishments in this group, she reformed the curriculum, spearheaded a mentor development and training program, and secured funding for new programs within SWSG. Nowski has also been an educator in the Office of Sexual Assault Prevention and Response for the past three years, facilitating educational workshops to raise awareness of and prevent violence in the college community. With a flair for the dramatic, Nowski has been heavily involved in the Athena Theatre company as a director and actress. Harvard Model United Nations has benefited from Nowski’s leadership as a director and moderator. In each of these student leadership roles, Nowski is known for her kindness, good humor, creativity, and boundless enthusiasm for students achieving their goals in community with one another.

In addition to her infectious energy for her peers and their pursuits, Nowski’s service to Harvard College is unparalleled. She was director of event logistics and publicity for the junior class events committee, and was the undergraduate representative to both the student-faculty Committee on House Life for the past three years and the Committee on Undergraduate Education this year.

In addition to recognition of Faust and Nowski, the College awarded senior Erika Helbling an honorable mention for the 2007 Women’s Leadership Award, in recognition of her many noteworthy achievements.