CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - After a little more than a year as Harvard University's first female President, Dr. Drew Gilpin Faust, 60, has taken up professional stripping again. The feisty Faust describes herself as "a rebellious daughter" who "didn't buy" her mother's advice that "it's a man's world, sweetie, and the sooner you learn that, the better off you'll be." So at 19, she followed her free spirit and became a stripper at Club Fantastique in Chicago. Faust reportedly was the highest paid stripper in the club's history.
Faust later launched a distinguished career as an educational executive at Penn and Radcliffe, all the while working local strip clubs at night. "My secret was I never minded the guys groping me," Faust giggled, "and believe me, it really paid off in tips." Faust practically has a horselaugh when she thinks how much more money she's made than her contemporaries who majored in Women's Studies. "Schmucks!" she says derisively. "They must feel very 'empowered' -- in the poor house!"
Then finally last year, Harvard came calling. "She refused to wear the pasties," said Harvard trustee Noah Swayne. "That, frankly, was the deciding factor in her selection [at Harvard]."
While she runs Harvard during the day, starting next week on Tuesday nights, Faust will trek into Boston where she will bare it all at the Beacon Hill Breast Factory. Bradleys Roadhouse, cigar-chomping owner of the club, said that he's sold out for six months. "Having the President of Harvard stripping for us has given us much-needed cachet," he said. Roadhouse is hoping Faust will institute a homework-free Tuesday night for the male undergrads "so they can stop by and bond with their President." To prepare for the onslaught, Roadhouse says he is installing "first class peep-booths with state-of-the-art coin-operated timing mechanisms."
