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Posts tagged as “Harvard Crimson”

Kristine E. Guillaume Elected 1st Black Woman President in Harvard Student Newspaper’s 145-Year History

By goodblacknews on November 14, 2018
Kristine E. Guillaume ’20 will serve as the President of the 146th Guard of The Harvard Crimson. (Photo: Amy Y. Li)

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

The Harvard Crimson, Harvard College’s daily newspaper, recently reported that Kristine E. Guillaume, Class of 2020, was elected to lead the 146th Guard as the paper’s President. Guillaume is the first black woman to serve as President of The Crimson in its 145-year history.

Guillaume, a joint African American Studies and History and Literature concentrator, is currently one of The Crimson’s Central Administration reporters. She has interviewed the last two of the University’s Presidents — Drew G. Faust and Lawrence S. Bacow — and worked as part of the reporting team that covered Harvard’s 2018 presidential search.

Queens, New York native Guillaume is also one of three Chairs of The Crimson’s Diversity and Inclusivity committee, responsible for formulating and overseeing initiatives meant to make the paper more diverse and welcoming to students from all backgrounds. Guillaume will begin as President on Jan. 1, 2019.

“I’m definitely proud to be a part of making the Crimson a more welcoming place, and to step into this role as the first black woman,” Guillaume said in an interview with the Boston Globe. “If by taking this role, I help affirm another Crimson staffer’s sense of belonging and ownership over the work that they do, I think that makes all of the hard work worth it.”

In her new position Guillaume will work as a go-between the Crimson’s editorial departments and initiatives, while also steering the future direction of the paper in the increasingly difficult media landscape. She will now oversee a paper with 320 staffers.

“At Harvard you’re in a space that was made for white men, so if you’re not the cookie-cutter white man who Harvard was built for, it can be difficult to navigate being here,” Guillaume said to CNN. “I want people to think about how to navigate, and feel like they can and get through their education and feel like they do belong here. That’s a big thing for me.”

Founded in 1873, The Crimson is the oldest continuously published daily college newspaper in the United States and the only breakfast-table daily publication of Cambridge, Mass. The paper is proud to provide news and analysis to a wide range of Harvard affiliates, Cambridge residents, and readers across the nation.

The Crimson selects its leaders through an election process called the Turkey Shoot, in which all outgoing members of the masthead are invited to participate. A candidate for a senior leadership position must receive at least 75 percent of the vote to be elected.