On the morning of Wednesday, January 31, Thomas R. Cech, the Nobel Prize–winning head of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, picked up the phone and called the Harvard Crimson. In December, the newspaper had reported that Cech was a candidate for the presidency of Harvard. Now, Cech told the paper, “I have withdrawn my name from consideration.” Quickly posted online, those words shocked the Harvard campus. Cech wasn’t the first candidate to say no, but his exit was different. It came late in the search process, and the campus buzz had it that he wasn’t just a candidate, he was a leading candidate. With Cech gone, who was left?
