Wooed by promises of more money and attention for the Graduate School of Education (GSE), Ellen Condliffe Lagemann will be the school’s next dean, University President Lawrence H. Summers announced yesterday.

At an event to introduce the school’s new dean to students and faculty, Summers said he hoped the noted historian and educator would bring new energy to what has traditionally been one of Harvard’s most overlooked schools.

Lagemann currently serves as president of the Spencer Foundation, a Chicago-based group that supports education research, and as a professor at New York University (NYU)—and she “did not come easy,” Summers told the audience.

In fact, according to Lagemann, Summers convinced her to accept the post only after making substantial pledges of ideological and financial support.

“Larry Summers first argued me into thinking about becoming dean, and then bowled me over with his ideas for the school and his unprecedented promises to help,” she said.

During their first phone call, she said, Summers claimed he was “just checking names.”

“He then said, ‘Why don’t you want this job?’ and proceeded to demolish everything I could come up with,” she said.

She said that Summers’ commitment to GSE—including a promise of strong financial support—finally convinced her to come. No specifics of what support Summers offered were announced yesterday.

“She said it was essential that our support be moral, and that it be tangible as well,” he said.

Summers called Lagemann “a model of the kind of leader we were all seeking when we began the search for the dean of the Ed School.”

Lagemann taught for 16 years at the Columbia University Teachers’ College and in Columbia’s history department. From 1994 to 2000 she chaired NYU’s humanities and social sciences department and also directed the Center for the Study of American Culture and Education at the Steinhardt School of Education at NYU.

Lagemann’s extensive experience in the field of education made persuading her to come to Harvard worth extra effort, Summers said.

“Ellen is a person who knows education schools,” he said. “She is a person who knows education.”

Lagemann said improving the reputation of graduate-level education work in general, and the GSE in particular, would be a top priority for her. She said she also wants to make GSE more attractive and accessible place for undergraduates.

“Ed schools generally tend not to have the prestige of something like a business school, a law school or FAS,” she said. “That has to change if we want to change education, especially K-12 education, throughout the country.”