The Washington Post has tapped a Harvard graduate as its next managing editor, adding another alum to the paper’s top ranks but prompting an internal debate over diversity in the newsroom.

Philip Bennett ’81, now assistant managing editor for foreign news, will take over Jan. 1. The current managing editor, Steve Coll, will depart to work on book projects.

Bennett, 45, has a rich background in foreign reporting, an interest he said was first piqued by a dinner in Winthrop House. While running the Harvard chapter of Amnesty International, he hosted Buenos Aires Herald Editor Robert Cox for dinner, and Cox told Bennett and his roommates about the detainment of reporters during the years of the “disappearances” in Argentina. After leaving dinner, Bennett aid, he knew he had to go to Latin America as a journalist.

“I couldn’t hit Argentina with a dart,” he recalled. “His story was so inspiring that it was something that just knocked me out and sent me on my way.”

At Harvard, Bennett ran track and cross country and contributed to the Harvard Independent and Harvard Magazine, he said. But he called his “most meaningful experience” taking a course called the Uses of History, taught by Warren Professor Ernest R. May and Dillon Professor Richard E. Neustadt at the Kennedy School of Government (KSG). Bennett became a case writer for them, and May served as his thesis advisor.

“They changed the way that I looked at understanding history,” Bennett said. “It was very easy...to make the leap to documentary journalism and its importance in influencing how people see the world. I apply those lessons almost every day.”

Though Bennett downplays the Harvard connection, College grads are no stranger to the Post’s top ranks: CEO Donald E. Graham ’66 and Publisher Boisfeuillet Jones Jr. ’68 are both former Crimson presidents.

Jones said that the reporters on the foreign staff who have worked with Bennett “appreciate the high quality that he demands of them” and respect “his ability to conceptualize stories.”

“The Post is going through a period of change, and you want somebody who has very sure journalistic instincts and good judgment to help lead in that effort,” Jones said.

Bennett will assume his new role as the paper struggles with flagging circulation and reconsiders its role in a more crowded media environment.

Bennett’s appointment has not escaped controversy. According to a Post story, some employees have taken issue with the selection of a white male over an African American, Eugene Robinson, and a woman, Liz Spayd, assistant managing editors for Style and national news, respectively.

Bennett acknowledged the debate and called it an important one to have.

“Race is one of the main subjects of the American story,” Bennett said.

“We’re fully engaged in that discussion, I think, and I’m glad to be participating in it.”

According to the Post story, Bennett and Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. will host a meeting in early December to discuss the issue of diversity at the paper.