“Everyone’s been great from the president and Dean Kirby to my colleagues in Afro-American studies and the DuBois Institute and the students,” he said. “No one needs to do anything more. It’s great to be part of this community and feel so welcomed by it.”

Ultimately, Gates has said that his decision will depend on several personal factors, including whether he feels he can work so far away from K. Anthony Appiah, Harvard’s former Carswell professor of philosophy who now teaches at Princeton.

Gates was deeply troubled by Appiah’s departure last year, as the two are close friends and intellectual soul mates. They met as students at Cambridge University in 1973 and have spent most of their academic careers working at the same institutions.

“What I have to figure out is if I can live without Anthony Appiah, and only time will tell,” Gates said in an interview last spring.

For now, while he weighs his career options, Gates said he is trying to focus on life at Harvard.

“We have grand plans to rebuild the department and we retain our status as the greatest center for African American history and culture in the world,” he said.

—Staff writer Kate L. Rakoczy can be reached at rakoczy@fas.harvard.edu.