The revolving door between politics and academics serves both presidents looking for fresh perspective in Washington and universities who want faculty with real world experience, Grayson explained. The frequent turnover in Washington largely driven by the cyclical back-and-forth of power between parties also ensures a steady exchange between universities and administrations.

“When a party loses power, those people have to go somewhere,” Grayson said. “So you can go to a think tank or you can go to a university so you continue to write and think about these issues.”

Because Harvard tends to attract more Democrats to the faculty than Republicans, it is unlikely that a potential Romney administration would draft as many professors as Obama has. The professors that Romney would likely select are primarily from the economics department or the Business school, Grayson said.

Obama drew most heavily from the Law School in the days following his election.

Former University President Lawrence H. Summers and former Law School Dean Elena Kagan were two of the most high-profile faculty to head to Washington in the administration’s earliest days, as the head of the National Economic Council and Solicitor General respectively. Obama also brought in Law School professors Daniel J. Meltzer ’72, Jody Freeman, and Cass R. Sunstein ’75 among others.

Summers, like many Harvard professors who followed Obama to Washington, returned to campus after two years of service in order to maintain his status as a tenured professor. Meltzer, Freeman, and Sunstein have also returned to Harvard in the last few years. Sunstein’s wife, former Kennedy School professor Samantha Power, still works for the president as a director on the National Security Council.

—Staff writer Nicholas P. Fandos can be reached at nicholasfandos@college.harvard.edu.