Harvard's Dean of Arts and Sciences Resigns -- Sparking Accusations of Coercion Against President Lawrence Summers. (February 22, 2006)

     On January 27 William C. Kirby Harvard's Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), the university's largest faculty, resigned amid reports in The Harvard Crimson that university president, Lawrence Summers, had forced him out.

Professor William Kirby

On February 8 The Crimson reported, "Kirby, who has received lukewarm reviews from some professors in the past, was greeted by a standing ovation from the approximately

 200 Faculty members who packed the University Hall meeting room."

Addressing the standing room only group, English Department Chair James Engell appealed to President Summers and Harvard’s governing bodies, "Do not you and the fellows of Harvard College, the Corporation, and also the elected members of the Board of Overseers realize that this Faculty has for some time now lacked and continues to lack confidence in the leadership of the University?"

Many Faculty members are demanding that they be guaranteed a significant role in the appointment of Kirby’s successor. The choice is normally left to the university's president.

On March 15 last year a meeting of the FAS voted no confidence in Summers' leadership; a vote according to the Crimson that undermined the president's ability to lead the faculty, if not the University.

Professor of Anthropology Theodore C. Bestor commented on this meeting of February, "I think this was a more negative meeting than the ones last spring," while several of the faculty told The Crimson they felt the votes of no confidence of 11 months ago had not prompted the president to change in any meaningful way.

The Agassiz Professor of Zoology, Farish A. Jenkins Jr. could hardly have been more blunt, "Is it not time to reverse this tide of chaos and disruption? Time to appoint an acting president? Time to initiate a search for a new president?"

Judith Ryan, the Weary professor of German and comparative literature asked Summers, "Do you have any reason to believe that it would not be appropriate for us to revisit the question of confidence in

 your leadership at a subsequent [faculty] meeting?"

Summers replied that such a meeting "is, of course, the Faculty's prerogative, but insisted he was "very much aware of the importance of working as cooperatively and closely with professors of the Faculty

 as I can."

For whatever reasons, Summer's most ardent supporters last March were absent from the meeting but none that were contacted had altered their opinion.

The matter has now reach the pages of The New York Times which reported on February 13, "A year after weathering a no-confidence vote by the faculty, Harvard University's president, Lawrence H. Summers, is facing another showdown with dissident faculty members, raising new questions about his ability to maintain control over the university and perhaps even to remain in office," and went on to report, "Mr. Summers has declined to comment, and it is not clear where the [Harvard] board stands. Several members did not return phone calls seeking comment. Mr. Kirby, who will remain a Harvard professor, declined Monday to discuss his relationship with the president or the circumstances of his resignation."

This past Sunday (February 19) the NYT revisited the issue. "Several members of Harvard's governing board [known as the Harvard Corporation] have spoken privately with professors and administrators in recent days, trying to decide whether the board should intervene before the faculty takes a no-confidence vote next week [February 28] on the leadership of the university's president."

According to the Times, the board "is considering whether to continue to support Dr. Summers, as it has throughout a year of intermittent conflict at the university, or whether to ask him to resign, a professor who has spoken with board members said yesterday."