Appoint Academics To Corporation

With the announcement of the retirement of Geyser University Professor Henry Rosovsky and Richard A. Smith '46 from the Harvard Corporation, the University's highest governing body, we would like to issue a call for their replacement by academics.

The departures are significant because they leave the entirety of the Corporation's members with perspectives that are grounded in the business world. Though we acknowledge their deep commitment to learning, the CEOs on the Corporation lack the experience and vision of academics, one which would provide the Corporation with a necessary balance.

The last Corporation member to step down, Charles P. Slichter '45, also an academic, was replaced by James R. Houghton '58, a corporate executive. It is certainly not in the University's interest to be run by corporate executives alone. Those who have made a personal, life-long commitment to the pursuit of learning serve a necessary place on the University's ranking body.

An academic, especially one chosen from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, would be familiar with the financial obligations of the College. Rosovsky, a former dean of the faculty, for example, served such a role in his understanding of the monetary demands of PAS not solely from the pecuniary standpoint. We would the next Corporation member to have as intimate a relationship with the University community as Rosovsky. He knew many people at Harvard in an academic capacity and by virtue of these relationships he was able to instill greater trust of the Corporation among professors and administrators. We hope to see a current member of the Harvard faculty or Administration for these reasons.

More generally, an academic sees the University from the bottom up, rather than from the top down. The ideal type of scholar recognizes the centrality of teaching and learning in the University. The ideal Corporation member sees Harvard from this angle. We need to stop the rend of universities being run as businesses rather than as academic Institutions, the last bastion of a liberal arts education in this country. The scholar values learning for learning's sake, a goal which should be synonymous with the mission of the University.

We are pleased to hear that the search committee shares our desire to appoint an academic to the Corporation. Charlotte P. Armstrong, a member of the search committee and the Board of Overseers, says, "It's very important to have the point of view of an academic when you're running an academic institution." We agree with Armstrong that if the Corporation is to have academic excellence as its ultimate end, it makes a great deal of sense to make use of academics for the means of its attainment.