Why did Harvard University invite Alfred North Whitehead to become a professor of philosophy?

In the early 1920s, Alfred North Whitehead was widely recognized as the most distinguished figure writing in English within the philosophy of science. Because of his reputation, Harvard University sought to bring him to their faculty.

The appointment was made possible in early 1924 when Henry Osborn Taylor, a historical scholar and friend of the university, pledged the necessary funds to cover Whitehead's salary. Harvard subsequently offered the 63-year-old scholar a five-year appointment as a professor of philosophy. While the university initially recruited him for his expertise in the philosophy of science, they soon discovered they had acquired a metaphysician of a stature comparable to historical giants such as Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and G.W.F. Hegel.2