While a search committee, headed by Harvard Alumni Association Executive Director Jack P. Reardon ’60, conducted interviews and screened candidates, Summers had the ultimate responsibility of making the appointment.

Over the six-month search, the search committee interviewed 15 candidates for the position, according to a prepared statement from Reardon.

In announcing Scalise’s appointment, Summers praised Scalise’s efforts to begin the women’s soccer programs and said that it showed his commitment to broadening the range of students who participate in the College’s athletic program--a commitment that Summers said he was looking for in a new athletic director.

Summers said that he also had sought an athletic director who would be a skilled manager of the department--a quality that Scalise had demonstrated as a dean at HBS.

“I’m thrilled that Bob Scalise agreed to assume the leadership of Harvard’s athletic program,” Summers said.

Scalise, who earned a masters degree from HBS in 1989, has worked in his current position, where he had oversight of the school’s $200 million budget, since 1996.