First female president for Harvard; Civil War scholar Drew Gilpin Faust continues to challenge status quo by reshaping school's 371-year history.(Main)

Byline: JESSE HARLAN ALDERMAN - Associated Press

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - By age 9, Drew Gilpin Faust had already begun to challenge the race and gender roles of the South.

A conversation with her family's black handyman and driver inspired her to send a letter on school notebook paper to President Eisenhower pleading for desegregation.

The enlightenment soon prompted her to question her entire Southern upbringing, where girls wore "scratchy organdy dresses" and white children addressed black adults by their first names.

"I was the rebel who did not just march for civil rights and against the Vietnam War but who fought endlessly with my mother, …