The president of the Harvard Alumni Association announced on June 8 the results of the annual election of new members of the Harvard Board of Overseers. The results were released at the annual meeting of the association following the University's 355th Commencement. The five newly elected Overseers are as follows:

Arne S. Duncan (Chicago) is the CEO of the Chicago Public Schools, the nation's third-largest school system. A former Harvard varsity basketball player, he is a 1986 graduate of the College.

Sandra Moore Faber (Santa Cruz, Calif.) is an astronomer and astrophysicist and University Professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she chairs the Department of Astronomy. She received a Ph.D. from Harvard in 1972.

Leila T. Fawaz (Cambridge, Mass.) is the Issam M. Fares Professor of Lebanese and Eastern Mediterranean Studies and director of the Fares Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies at Tufts University. She holds a joint appointment at Tufts as professor of history and diplomacy at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Fawaz received a Ph.D. in 1979 from Harvard.

Emily Rauh Pulitzer (St. Louis) is founder and chair of the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts. A former curator at Harvard's Fogg Art Museum, she currently chairs the Committee to Visit the Harvard University Art Museums. Pulitzer received an A.M. in fine arts in 1963 from Harvard.

Robert N. Shapiro (Boston) is a partner in the Boston law firm Ropes & Gray, specializing in estate planning and personal and charitable trusts. A 1972 graduate of Harvard College, he received a J.D. from the Harvard Law School in 1978.

The five new Overseers were elected for six-year terms. In 2006, eight candidates were nominated by a committee of the Harvard Alumni Association, as prescribed by the election rules. Alumni and alumnae ballots cast in the election totaled 29,193.

The primary function of the Board of Overseers is to encourage the University to maintain the highest attainable standards as a place of learning. Overseers carry out this mission by visiting faculties, departments, and other important programs throughout the University so that they can inform themselves about the quality of teaching, research, and administration and then identify problems and offer advice to faculties and University officials.