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News & Views item - February  2005

 

 

Harvard's President Under Attack at Meeting of Faculty of Arts and Sciences. (February 17, 2005)

    According to the Harvard Crimson, the only media representative allowed to be present, a meeting of Harvard's powerful Faculty of Arts and Sciences on Tuesday was attended by over 250 academic staff. They were there to confront Harvard's President, Lawrence Summers. For the most part not about his remarks suggesting that "innate differences" between the sexes contributed to women's under representation in science and mathematics but to voice their strong views to what they see as a “crisis of governance and leadership” that is afflicting the University. "An opinion expressed by the majority of the ten speakers at the meeting," according to the Crimson. It also reported that a number of the criticisms were punctuated by applause from the attendees.

 

 Concerns were voiced that Summers routinely stifles debate and intimidates professors into silence. Faculty members also pointed to what are considered a series of mishandlings during Summers’ tenure, including the departure of Cornel R. West in 2002, the controversy surrounding the invitation of poet Tom Paulin in 2003, and the lack of communication regarding plans to revamp the undergraduate curriculum and the initiative for Harvard "to spend billions of dollars turning" the rather rundown suburb of Allston across the Charles River from Cambridge into a campus bigger than its Cambridge parent. Currently the Allston site houses the Harvard Business School. Together with the expansion of infrastructure Summers wants a far greater resourcing of the sciences to the point where it assumes pre-eminence, and a greater degree of central governance thereby reducing the traditional powers of Harvard's nine relatively autonomous faculties.

 

Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology Theda Skocpol may have resorted to hyperbole when she told Summers, “Fear and manipulation have been used to govern capriciously,” and added that professors see their speech chilled “in fear that they will be criticized publicly or lose their jobs,” but she struck a resonant chord.

 

One senior faculty member said that in order to stay on as president, Summers must have the support of a critical mass of the most important faculty members but the professor felt the speeches and strong applause at the meeting,  indicate that Summers does not have the support of that critical mass. While not all agreed that Summers lacked a majority of supporters, matters will come to a head this coming Tuesday when  an emergency meeting of the Faculty is to be held to further discuss what Professor of Comparative Religion and Indian Studies Diana L. Eck called “the widening crisis of confidence” in Summers’ fitness to lead the University. In short, the intention is to obtain a vote of no confidence in Summers and to force the Corporation, the seven-member governing board of the University, to remove Summers from the Presidency. They are the only ones who can do so.

 

At one point Professor of the History of Science Everett I. Mendelsohn criticized the Corporation for its lack of awareness of Faculty discontent. “To the overseers, I would say, where are you when we need you?” And he took specific exception to Corporation member Robert E. Rubin, and former Secretary of the Treasury. Rubin had told The New York Times in January that Summers was an “oustanding president,” and he did not know of any faculty discontent with Summers’ management style.

 

At the end of the meeting, one member of the faculty told the Crimson that Summers has two options -- to resign, or wait until he is pushed out after a vote of no confidence at next Tuesday’s emergency meeting.

 

It's an odds on bet that Larry Summers will be "hitting the phones" to gauge just what support he has within the Faculty -- and the Corporation, while the Corporation will be trying to determine if allowing him to continue in the Presidency will be so divisive as to seriously damage Harvard. Part of the Corporation's deliberations may well rest on judging whether Summers' plans for expanding the university would be better served by his resignation.

[Note added 18 February: The Crimson reported in a follow-up, "History Department Chair Andrew D. Gordon, who did not attend Tuesday’s meeting, said the most recent Summers controversy simply took the lid off Faculty frustrations that had long been simmering.
    “It’s not simply a matter of that one comment or this particular issue,” Gordon said yesterday, in reference to Summers’ Jan. 14 speech. “There’s widespread discontent at multiple levels...catalyzed by this one event.”

 

    The Crimson went on to report:

     Professors may find it difficult to call an official vote of no confidence in University President Lawrence H. Summers at next Tuesday’s continuation of this Tuesday’s Faculty meeting, due to a stipulation in Faculty Meeting rules that 80 percent of professors must approve calling a vote that is not on the official agenda.
    If professors are successful in calling a vote, only a simple majority would then be required for the legislation to pass. However, parliamentary procedure also requires that the vote be retaken at the next Faculty Meeting, scheduled for March 15, so that professors not in attendance have an opportunity to vote.
    A declaration of “no confidence” in Summers’ leadership would only be a symbolic gesture—the Corporation is the only body that can force Summers from his post as president.

The Office of the Harvard President has now released a full transcript of Professor Summers remarks at the January 14 meeting of the National Bureau of Economic Research Conference on Diversifying the Science & Engineering Workforce.]