Houghton Is a Bad Corporate Choice

Last week, the University chose James R. Houghton '58, the Chief executive officer of Corning, Inc., to replace Charles P. Slichter '45 as a member of the Harvard Corporation, the University's highest governing board. We were disaapointed with the University's choice, since Houghton appears as just one more corporate executive on a body with precious few academics. The Corporation is not merely responsible for the fiscal operation of the University, but also must approve the decisions of Harvard's faculty. Thus the Corporation's composition has a direct impact on the academic functioning of the University.

Currently, the Corporation retains only two people with academic backgrounds: President Neil L. Rudenstine and Geyser University Professor Henry Rosovsky. Rudenstine has spent most of his academic career as an administrator. Rosovsky also spent many years as an administrator and is not listed in the current Courses of Instruction in association with any class offered by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. The choice of Houghton further removes the Corporation from the one of the central purposes of the University: educating students.

Houghton joins three other corporate executives and a lawyer on the non-academic slate of the Corporation. The presence of an active research scientist, at a time when society is driven by technological advancement, has now disappeared. Houghton's background at Corning, a firm heavily reliant on scientific research, has been touted as maintaining the link to natural sciences that Slichter, a professor of physics and chemistry at the University of Illinois, provided. Houghton, who received his highest degree at Harvard Business School, has been called "not just another CEO." Some have even suggested that he might be instrumental in shaping academic scientists' relationships with corporations.

But the fact is that Slichter's viewpoint has not nearly been replaced. As well as having a background in the sciences, he was the only outside academic sitting on the Corporation. Right now, no member of the Corporation can objectively assess--from an academically informed perspective--the practices and strategies of the College and the University's various graduate schools.

Even though the Corporation missed appointing an academic, they still could have done more to broaden their collective experience. Other universities boast senators, cardinals and federal judges on their governing boards. Harvard maintains a diverse crop on its board of Overseers, but they have so little power that they weren't even informed when former provost Jerry R. Green resigned or when Rudenstine took a medical leave of absence.

With four executives, a lawyer and two academic administrators as members, the Corporation hardly cuts a wide cross-section of society. Why has Harvard, a habitual proponent of diversity, become so narrow in its focus?

The new direction in the Corporation runs the risk of turning the University into a business. With four executives holding the majority on a seven-member board, we fear that important decisions could be made with only a fiscal opinion in mind. The Corporation should not be reduced to a bunch of managers; its members must define the University's long-term goals and commitments. We are beginning to doubt the board's ability to do so and we hope that any future vacancies will be more thoughtfully filled.