Lean in, speak out
In one of their final events together, Harvard College seniors huddled over hot beverages at Tercentenary Theatre Wednesday afternoon as they also drank in some clear-eyed wisdom about confronting hard truths, delivered by corporate executive and author Sheryl Sandberg during the annual Class Day ceremonies. The chief operating officer at Facebook, Sandberg ’91, M.B.A. ’95, is best known to the public as the author of “Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead,” an influential 2013 best-seller-turned-cultural-phenomenon that urged women to step confidently into leadership roles. The book ignited a spirited international conversation about feminism and the workplace. “We don’t always see the hard truths, and once we see them, we don’t always have the courage to speak out. When my classmates and I were in college, we thought the fight for gender equality was won … Sure, most of the leaders in every industry were men, but we thought changing...