Early last December, the Crimson reported that the search committee (the Corporation and three members of the Board of Overseers) had compiled a list of about 30 candidates for consideration. (Jamie Houghton was furious about the leak and suspected the Board of Overseers.) Among those seen as plausible were Lawrence Bacow, the president of Tufts; Stanford provost John Etchemendy; Alison Richard, Cambridge University’s vice-chancellor; and Shirley Tilghman, the president of Princeton. “If Shirley Tilghman”—a successful president who happens to be both a molecular biologist and a woman—“had wanted this job it would have been hers in a heartbeat,” says one source close to the process.

Also on the list was Cech, winner of the 1989 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and president of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a science foundation with a $15 billion endowment. Few thought Cech a logical choice: The head of HHMI does not raise money, he gives it away. And Cech was committed to maintaining his Boulder, Colo., laboratory, a time commitment no Harvard president could afford. “Still, in the early going, Cech interviewed very well,” says one former overseer.

Between December 1 and January 1, Elena Kagan and Steven Hyman were dropped from consideration. Each had individual liabilities. Kagan is said to have a brusque administrative demeanor—“like dealing with Larry all over again,” says one Harvard dean—while Hyman was rumored to have vented his frustration with Summers too frequently. Yet both were doomed by the concern that they would never be trusted by FAS. “Elena was put aside a long time ago,” says one source close to the Corporation. And according to a professor who knows Hyman, “There were just some people out there for whom it was unthinkable that Larry Summers’ provost could be president.” Neither Kagan nor Hyman, however, was informed that they were no longer under consideration until the choice had been made. In an e-mailed statement praising Faust, Hyman told me, “I was so out of the loop that I was informed of the results by a very polite newspaper reporter.” (At Faust’s request, Hyman has since agreed to stay on as provost.) Kagan heard the bad news from a member of the search committee just hours before the final decision became public.

Meanwhile, several outside candidates had publicly withdrawn their names from consideration. Some weren’t serious contenders, but some, such as Alison Richard, John Etchemendy, and Lawrence Bacow, were. “The fellows were shocked by the number of institutional leaders who pulled out between mid-December and January,” says a source close to the Corporation. “They were sitting there saying, ‘Those denials are only for public consumption,’” certain that when Harvard came calling, the candidates would change their tune—only to find out that they wouldn’t. Whether the Harvard job was losing allure or other universities had grown in appeal, the candidates seemed happy to steer clear of Cambridge.

By mid-January, just two names were left: Cech and Faust. “Cech was the outsider and Drew was the insider,” says the former overseer. “They were neck and neck.”

The Corporation certainly liked Faust. She had regularly met with the fellows during the storm over Summers’ infamous women-in-science speech, when Faust had agreed to chair a committee on the status of women at Harvard. “She built trust with the fellows,” says one Harvard professor. Houghton in particular liked the historian. The senior fellow “was always in Drew’s corner,” says a source familiar with his thinking. “He was always leaning toward [supporting] her.” Corporation treasurer James Rothenberg, says the professor, also “felt comfortable with her.”

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