Gutmann, who earned her Bachelors degree from Radcliffe in 1971 and later a Ph.D in political science from Harvard, has focused mostly on such subjects as democracy, education, ethics and the value of human life. She is the author of several books dealing with these topics, including Democratic Education, Democracy and Disagreement—which she co-wrote with Harvard Associate Provost Dennis F. Thompson—and Color Conscioius: The Political Morality of Race—with Harvard’s Carswell Professor of Afro-American Studies and of Philosophy, K. Anthony Appiah.

Gutmann also boasts an extremely successful career as teacher and mentor, for which she was honored with the President’s Distinguished Teaching Award, the highest honor that a Princeton professor can receive.

Lisa Lazarus, a rising senior who served last year on Princeton’s presidential search committee and was once a student in Gutmann’s classroom, said that Gutmann’s talent for teaching may be one of her greatest assets as she takes over the position of Princeton’s chief academic officer.

“She is a phenomenal professor, which is a capacity in which many students have gotten to know her,” Lazarus said. “She’s an engaging person who poses interesting questions and will readily debate with students.”

Gutmann acknowledges the enormous impact that the provost has on the lives of students at Princeton, and says she looks forward to the challenge.

“The provost is the point person for making sure that all the initiatives are taken that are necessary to enable Princeton students to have the best experience they can possibly have,” Gutmann said.

“A few of the challenges that I hope we live up to over the next five years are making a Princeton education truly and entirely affordable to all students regardless of family income, creating even closer and more rewarding student-professor interactions than ever, and offering a wider range of living and social options than are now available to students, making the campus even more lovely and user-friendly than ever before,” she said.