Glickman said yesterday that he had not initially expected to get the job.

“They hired a headhunter,” he said. “I got a call a few months ago to see if I was interested. I never really thought anything would come of it.”

But Black Professor of Political Economy David T. Ellwood ’75, who assumed the deanship of the Kennedy School of Government yesterday, said many were less surprised by the MPAA’s choice.

“I think that those of us who knew his skills and abilities knew this was a real possibility simply because he brings so much to the table,” Ellwood said.

Ellwood said that a search process for the IOP’s next director had not yet begun, and that it could last past Glickman’s departure into the fall. In that case, he said, an interim director might come to the Institute.

Ilan T. Graff ’05, president of the IOP’s Student Affairs Committee, said Glickman would be sorely missed, lauding his political talents and ability to interest youth in politics.

“The combination of both having his own big ideas and being able to listen to other ideas that come to the table served him well at the IOP,” Graff said, adding that he thought these qualities would serve Glickman well at the MPAA.

Ellwood echoed Graff’s words, citing the political figures Glickman has brought to the IOP as guest speakers or fellows.

“One of his great strengths is he reaches out to people quite readily and is good at bringing together people from a variety of places and areas,” Ellwood said of the departing director. “He obviously brings to the [MPAA] a deep and quite comprehensive knowledge of the political process and Washington.”

And though Glickman said he was looking forward to joining “one of the most interesting industries in the world,” he said he would miss Harvard.

“The IOP is unbelievable,” Glickman said. “There’s no university in the country that has a place like the IOP.”

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