President Donna E. Shalala told The Hurricane Wednesday that she does not think she is on the short list for candidates to assume the position of Harvard University president.
“I have no interest, and I don’t think they would contact me,” she said. “I love my job.”
Rumors regarding Shalala’s possible candidacy had emerged since a Feb. 26 Boston Globe article citing her among other female university leaders as a possible replacement for Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers, who resigned in February and will leave his post on June 30.
Summers and Shalala were both on President Bill Clinton’s cabinet, serving as secretary of the treasury and secretary of health and human services, respectively.
Shalala, who said she knows members of Harvard’s search committee, said she laughed when she heard the candidacy rumors.
“I’m sort of used to being on everybody’s list,” she said, “but I’m hard to move.”
On Tuesday, the Cambridge (Mass.) City Council passed a resolution urging Harvard’s search committee to choose a president who is in favor of living wages, among other things. The resolution, which specifically mentioned Shalala, was drafted by a city councillor who visited the striking UNICCO workers at UM on Monday. UNICCO also provides janitorial services for Harvard and other Cambridge businesses.