Kane said he originally had planned to leave Yale at the beginning of the term, but had agreed to stay there for most of September when he heard that a major strike was being planned to coincide with the semester’s start.

In his time at Yale, Kane said he and his colleagues watched Harvard closely—especially following the fierce controversy surrounding Kirby’s preregistration plan, which he said was similar to various ideas contemplated at Yale at the time.

And the lifelong pianist and singer says that he learned one significant lesson from his time as the registrar in New Haven.

“My sense after seven years at Yale is that there was only one school that mattered, and that was Harvard,” Kane said.

His predecessor Becella, who decided to retire in January to live with her husband in Ireland, had served as registrar for nearly seven years.

—Staff writer Simon W. Vozick-Levinson can be reached at vozick@fas.harvard.edu.