HARVARD GAZETTE ARCHIVES

Spencer is Named New Associate Vice President

Clayton Spencer. Photo by Jane Reed.

Clayton Spencer has been named to the newly created post of Associate Vice President for Higher Education Policy, President Neil L. Rudenstine announced today.

Spencer, the former chief education counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources, teaches federal higher education policy at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and has served since early 1997 as a senior consultant to the University on federal policy issues.

"Clayton Spencer is a remarkably talented and experienced analyst of higher education policy issues, whose expertise has already served Harvard extremely well," said Rudenstine. "She has worked closely with the major higher-education associations, and is unusually knowledgeable about a wide range of issues that are of great importance to Harvard and to all of higher education. I know that she will be a thoughtful, energetic, and collegial presence not only in Massachusetts Hall, but across Harvard and beyond." "I am delighted to take on this new responsiblity for Harvard," Spencer said. "Education is a central public policy concern, and Harvard has an important voice in shaping the debate. I look forward to working with President Rudenstine and other colleagues on a range of issues important to the University and to higher education."

In her new role, Spencer will provide substantive support to Rudenstine and to the University on various issues of national and institutional policy, while also assisting with a broad range of duties in the Office of the President.

As chief education counsel to the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources (majority 1993-94, minority 1995-97), Spencer managed the committee's education staff and directed the legislative process. She was responsible for staffing Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), in his capacity as chairman and then ranking member of the committee, on higher education legislation and policy, including federal student aid, science and research policy, education budget and appropriations, and technology in education. Since February 1997, she has consulted to Harvard on a range of policy issues including college costs, student aid, the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, and various other matters with a public policy dimension. She also teaches "Issues in Federal Higher Education Policy" at the Graduate School of Education. Spencer received a bachelor's degree, magna cum laude, with highest honors in history and German, from Williams College, then earned a B.A. in theology from Oxford. She received a master's degree in the study of religion from Harvard, then completed her J.D. degree from Yale Law School, where she was an editor of the Yale Law Journal, winner of the moot court competition, and chair of the Public Interest Council.

After clerking for Judge Rya W. Zobel of the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, she practiced law at the Boston firm of Ropes & Gray from 1986 to 1989, then served from 1989 to 1993 as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Boston, prosecuting criminal cases.

A trustee of Phillips Exeter Academy, Spencer has spoken and written frequently on higher education issues, and in 1997 was awarded the Williams College Bicentennial Medal for achievement in the field of education policy.

Spencer lives with her husband, Professor Ashton Carter of the Kennedy School, and their two children in Winchester.