Green Has Quietly Earned Respect

Harvard's new provost is a thoughtful man who has quietly won the respect of his colleagues, and, some say, has made the University his adopted family.

Quietly is the operative word here. Jerry Richard Green, like the position he will fill beginning this summer, is still somewhat unknown to most Harvard students, faculty and staff. For most of his 20 years at the University, the Wells professor of political economy has remained behind the scenes, teaching, serving on committees and churning out academic papers.

With the exception of three years as chair of the economics department between 1984 and 1987, Green has kept a relatively low public profile. He has never taken a leave of absence to serve as a government official, and his name has rarely appeared in the press.

That is all likely to change, as today's announcement of Green's appointment to the provost job vaulted him to a lofty post within the University and the nation's higher education community.

The story of Green's rise to power begins in Manhattan. Green, whose father was in the hardware business, attended public schools in New York. From Stuyvesant High School, he went on to the University of Rochester, where he earned his undergraduate, master's and doctoral degrees.

Since 1970--before most current undergraduates were born--Green has been a professor at Harvard. The economist currently serves as chair of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Retirement Policy Committee. He also chairs the Committee on Professional Conduct and sits on several other faculty committees.

Green has also been a member of the faculty Council.

Department colleagues have described Green as an organized, hardworking individual who would make a good provost.

"He has a deep concern for the University and its constituent parts, students and faculty," says Barker Professor of Economics Stephen A. Marglin '59.

At the press conference where the appointment was announced yesterday, President Neil L. Rudenstine called Green "a person who's been extremely committed to Harvard."

Professor of Economics Eric S. Maskin '72, one of Green's closest colleagues, calls the new provost "a loyal Harvard citizen."

Green echoed those remarks at the press conference, saying, "Harvard is a truly unique institution. Its excellence has inspired a profound loyalty throughout the entire community."

Loyalty has paid off for Green, who will move into his new offices in Massachusetts Hall on July 1. Those who encounter the new provost there can expect to meet with a short. Mild-mannered, partly bald Jewish man whose voice still carries remnants of a New York accent.

"I can't think of a more decent and humane and conscientious and hardworking kind of man," Maskin says.

"He's modest, but he's not shy about making decisions," Rudenstine says of his new second-in-command.

Berkman Professor of Economics Andreu Mas-Colell describes Green as "soft-spoken," but warns that the economist should not be underestimated. "I think people will discover that he's quite forceful once he's made up his mind about something," Mas-Colell says.

Co-Workers say Green is an understanding and humane person.

The new provost is also an accomplished scholar and teacher. Green says he "didn't sleep much in January," while he was deciding whether to give up those pursuits for the administrative post.

As a scholar, he has published 87 research papers and articles in the past 22 years. Green was granted tenure in 1978, at age 32. He won a Guggenheim fellowship in 1987.

Green's research has focused on a variety of economic topics, both theoretical and applied. Green's recent work has been on tax enforcement and on aspects of behavior in risky situations, Mass-Colell says.

Some of Green's research has been in the economics of environmental and health care management, two areas in which the provost will coordinate interdisciplinary programs.

As a teacher, Green is "innovative...almost daring, by the standards of graduate teaching," according to Marglin. For example, Green used the play Other People's Money as a model for one graduate economics course.

Green won the Galbraith prize for teaching in economics in 1980 and continues to handle a heavy teaching load. This semester, he is teaching a graduate course on economic theory and another on "Uncertainty and Information."

He also helps teach a year-long seminar on public and organizational decision-making with professors from the Business School and Kennedy School of Government.

He is not teaching any undergraduate courses this semester but was a resident tutor in Currier House between 1974 and 1976 and taught a first-year seminar last year.

He is a member of the board of directors of Harvard-Radcliffe Hillel.

Green lives in Lincoln, Mass. with his wife, lawyer Pamela S. Green. They have no children.

Their home in Lincoln was designed by Green, and Pamela Green said that the couple enjoys walking the trials behind the house.

He is an avid golfer, who claims to be an expert on the rules of golf, and has a handicap of 8.