While he praised Faust’s commitment, Malkin said that unification had been the central administration’s goal in the administrations of former Presidents Summers and Neil L. Rudenstine.

“I think it’s not [a goal] that originated with President Faust,” Malkin said. “I think that Larry Summers certainly had that as a major goal, and perhaps Neil had to a lesser extent.”

Even Derek C. Bok—the president before Rudenstine and the acting president after Summers’s resignation—instituted a University-wide calendar during his year-long second stint in Massachusetts Hall.

With a unification effort already in full force, Summers’s exit left Massachusetts Hall with direction but without stability.

SETTLING DOWN, STRAIGHTENING OUT

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Of the events that made Faust, the financial crisis may have been the most significant.

“Any vision in 2013 has to be one that operates within a set of acknowledged constraints,” she said in reference to the collapse.

That pragmatic view of University priorities developed unexpectedly, but fit Faust far more than Summers’s idealism. “It’s had a huge influence on the University—the world,” Faust said. “It’s undeniable.”

Malkin said that he thought the financial crisis and other difficulties of the past several years have made Faust’s job especially hard.

“I think that she inherited this situation that was much more complicated than she ever could imagine,” Malkin said. “And I think that in light of the problems that did arise, particularly with the endowment, but also other things that have occurred, it has made her job extremely difficult.”

But a commitment to a unified University survived not only a change in presidency, but also the Great Recession. In fact, Faust said that in some ways, the crash made unification more urgent.

“If there are ways that we can share certain processes, certain activities—look more holistically at what we’re doing as a University—that is consistent with what we need to be doing in the face of what’s happened,” she said.

Though the idea is older than a decade, a more unified University remains a desire of many in the Harvard community. For Faust, unification is less a visionary goal and more a product of input from the Harvard community and prior administrations.

“What we’ve heard over and over again from our faculty, from our students, from our alumni, is that Harvard is or can be greater than the sum of its parts,” Garber said.

Faust has developed an image as a consummate listener, a profile that has made her an approachable figure for those voicing opinions.