He Wrote the Book

No one doubts that outgoing Dean of the Faculty Henry Rosovsky knows a thing or two about Harvard. After all, he wrote the book.

A Harvard scholar for more than 26 years, now Geyser University professor and a Corporation member, Rosovsky is a self-proclaimed "owner." He understands the rules of the game--he helped make them.

For those who haven't heard by now, Rosovsky recently published The University: An Owner's Manual, a 309-page book about his first term as dean from 1973 to 1984.

Despite his acknowledged savoir faire, as the 63-year-old economist ends his second, and he hopes last, tour of duty in University Hall, he says this past year has not been without its difficulties. They are the difficulties, one might say, of one who knows too much.

"The last time around, I had goals and ambitions," says Rosovsky. "[This time] it is quite different. Basically I had to operate without a long-term plan. It turns you basically into a fireman."

Few faculty members, however, say they expected Rosovsky to be anything more than a stabilizing figure, someone to stay the course.

"It was a a caretaker deanship. It had to be," says Michael B. McElroy, Rotch professor of atmospheric science and at one time among the candidates to succeed Rosovsky as dean.

You can't get much more stable than Rosovsky. A member of Harvard's chief governing body for life, the acting dean is self-confident. He commands respect. He was offered the Yale presidency in 1977, but he didn't take it.

He thought he had finished the "dean" stage of his career when he left that post in 1984, but then A. Michael Spence unexpectedly announced his resignation last year, and suddenly Rosovsky was back to fill the gap.

The appointment may be temporary, but those close to the one-year dean say Rosovsky maintains a solid grasp of the bigger picture.

"I was particularly impressed by his ability to plan and organize in light of the University's future, even if his own management is for the short term," says Brendan A. Maher, dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. "He took much more into account than other people would have."

He had little choice, given his permanent responsibilities as a Corporation member. Indeed, Rosovsky's many hats are sometimes confusing. As dean, Rosovsky occupied what many have called the University's number two administrative post. Meanwhile, he spent a good part of this year helping to fill Harvard's top position--the presidency.

Although Maher and other administrators took on added responsibilities while Rosovsky was working on the presidential search, the acting dean still maintained a very full schedule. Rosovsky's familiarity with his post and his fellow scholars, colleagues say, made these multiple roles easier.

"He is of course very experienced. He knows all the people and has come back into the job with remarkable ease," says Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Phyllis Keller, the first person Rosovsky hired when he assumed the deanship in 1973.

"He has put his personal stamp on the deanship," Keller says. "He is a collegial person--people like him and respect him."

Despite his high standing among other faculty members, Rosovsky says the temporary status of his appointment has made his job more difficult. He is anxious for the term to end.

"It is an intensely political job," he says. "When you are in for a year, you are a lame duck. It's harder to get people to serve as chairmen of departments because they say to you 'you'll never have an opportunity to be grateful to me."

But Rosovsky's colleagues say that it is the dean himself, not other professors, who is creating the lame duck label.

"Lame duck is not the way you are perceived but how you perceive yourself," says one observer. "It is more in his mind than anyone else's."

Whatever "difficulties" Rosovsky says he may have faced, the year was hardly an unproductive one.

The University made 22 senior appointments this year, including several in Afro-American Studies and History, which have been lacking faculty in recent years. In particular, Rosovsky helped engineer the appointment of preeminent scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr., who will become the chair of Afro-Am in the fall.

Rosovsky credits Spence for laying much of the groundwork for this faculty growth and a national economy for making Harvard look more attractive. Yet he is clearly proud of his work: "the Faculty has been strengthened," he says.

Protests

It hasn't all been fun and games. Rosovsky came under fire from Afro-Am protesters this fall, when no appointments had been made and only one tenured professor remained in that department.

After a series of rejections last spring, this semester spelled rebound for the Afro-Am Department. In addition to Gates, two more senior appointments in the department are likely to be made.

Duke Professor K. Anthony Appiah is currently weighing a tenure offer from the University, and Wisconsin Professor Franklin D. Wilson may soon also receive an offer.

Still, Afro-Am concentrators don't give Rosovsky high ratings. Jeanne F. Theoharis '91, an Afro-Am concentrator and one of the students who protested the dearth of faculty hiring this fall, calls Rosovsky a "paradox."

Although publicly Rosovsky said he is supportive of Afro-Am, Theoharis says that the dean was not truly committed to the department. Indeed, Theoharis says that the administration should not claim credit for Afro-Am's turnaround.

"They got lucky that Gates said yes," says Theoharis. "It wasn't that they were working so hard."

Budget Cuts

Even as Rosovsky tried to expand the Faculty's roster, he had to trim in other areas as a result of a budget crunch that gripped FAS and the entire University. This fall Rosovsky was faced with the unpleasant task of cutting six percent from departmental budgets.

"It's been handled very well...extremely thoughtfully," says Maher of the budget cuts. He points to Yale, Princeton and Stanford, where budget cuts have affected many more programs than at Harvard and have "really eaten into resources."

Ruling over the faculty in times of tough budgets are nothing new to Rosovsky. He himself says that it is his apparent destiny to be a rainy-day dean.

"It has been my misfortune to be dean in rough times. I have never been dean in good times," says Rosovsky. "It is only when I left that times were good."

Despite successful budget trimming and faculty hiring, Rosovsky himself continues to downplay his role in the past year. "I accepted and tried to operate this intricate machine," says Rosovsky. "But I didn't try to redesign the machine."

As July 1 approaches, it's well-known that Rosovsky is good and ready to leave University Hall. He is counting down the days on a calendar prominently displayed on his office mantelpiece.

Rosovsky says the calendar is a symbol of his state of mind. "I don't think you fall in love with this type of job twice," he says.

But Rosovsky, despite his impatience, must have learned something from his second tenure as dean. Less than two years after releasing his magnum opus, word has it "the owner" is planning a sequel.