The TIME 100

I come from a Harvard family—no, there's no O'Brien Library, but every kid in my family (there are six of us) got a degree from Harvard College or Harvard Law School or Harvard Medical School. As first-generation Americans, we were firmly middle class: good students who aced our SATs and took out loans to pay for the privilege of a first-rate education. But when I was a freshman, my sister, who was in her junior year, told me she was being encouraged to drop her major, physics. The pressure was subtle, the message was clear: minority females were a rarity in the physics department, so she probably wouldn't succeed and might as well quit now. My sister stayed, went on to get her master's in physics, then her M.D./Ph.D. after that. Her experience has always made me wonder what happens to the students who aren't as stubborn. It's why I cheered Drew Gilpin Faust's appointment as Harvard's 28th president—the first woman to hold the job in the university's 371-year history. Faust, 59, has a lot on her plate—placating an often unwieldy and ego-driven faculty, making a Harvard education relevant in today's world, underwriting lower- and middle-class students who can't afford to pay—but already, by her sheer presence, she sends a message to every 19- or 20-year-old who dreams of going up against the odds: you can do it too.

O'Brien is special correspondent for CNN: Special Investigations Unit