Regarding `Rudy'

When Neil Leon Rudenstine assumed Harvard's presidency in 1991, the fanfare was predictably grandiose. Students hung banners from their dorm room windows proclaiming their love for "Rudy." Capitalizing on the enthusiasm, Rudenstine set to work almost immediately with his perceived mandate to unify Harvard's disparate parts and kick off its first-ever University-wide capital campaign with the unprecedented goal of raising $2.1 billion.

Eight years later, the campaign is drawing to a close, and for those who have been fundraising for nearly a decade, it is time for a break. Chief among those is Neil Rudenstine.

"There's a huge burnout factor in these jobs now, and he's been at it very intensively for eight years. One would just wonder how long an individual can keep up that kind of pace," says Charlotte H. Armstrong '49, outgoing president of Harvard's Board of Overseers. "Give the man a break--he's in his mid-60s."

Harvard, however, takes no breaks. Capital campaigns are now "a way of life," as Armstrong puts it. Harvard Law School (HLS) could be the first to begin the next wave of University capital campaigns, if its proposal is approved next spring.

But Rudenstine admits that the large drive wrapping up now will be his last University-wide campaign. Following its completion in December, he says he plans to stay a few years to tie up loose ends--raising money for areas like endowed professorships that haven't yet met their fundraising goals.

After that, however, he says planning for the next campaign must begin and adds that "whoever does the next campaign needs to be able to stay the whole way." And so he will bow out to make way for the next campaigner.

The rest of the Rudenstine era seems more or less predictable. Rudenstine's remaining goals are not far-reaching. There is nothing new on his list--he plans simply to finish projects he has already started. Upon taking office, he told senior officials that his would be a 10-year presidency. In all probability, he will leave Harvard with the Class of 2001.

Has Rudenstine's reign been good for the University? Undoubtedly, if Harvard's coffers are any measure of its success. In some ways, Rudenstine looks to have accomplished the goal that was set for him when he came in, cultivating greater concern for the University as a whole among its diffuse parts.

But the spirit of collaboration that many say he has introduced has cost the University strong, unified leadership. Rudenstine's tenure will probably be remembered for the role others played in formulating policy, rather than for what he himself accomplished.

The president of Harvard is a busy man, and the job he holds is probably more than any one person could ever hope to perform with unquestioned success. The bulk of Rudenstine's time, however, is caught up in the kind of minutiae more appropriate for a small college president than the head of a major University. As a result, it seems, the office of the president of Harvard University has shrunk under Rudenstine's well-intentioned hand.

Teaching Harvard New Tricks

In the year Harvard was founded, Thomas Hooker, the first preacher in Newtowne--present-day Cambridge--and his congregation packed up and moved to what is now Hartford, Conn.

But Hooker had already left a legacy for Harvard, in a 1626 sermon where he proclaimed, "Every tub must stand upon its own bottom."

Harvard, Puritan institution that it was, took Hooker's advice to heart and adopted his phrase as the motto that would govern the separate parts it established over the years. Each school of the University--referred to as a "tub" by Harvard administrators--has its own faculty, its own endowment and its own dean to run it. Each tub is autonomous and independent.

The role for a Harvard president, then, is a complicated one, since it is difficult to exert any control over the deans of the separate tubs, who often pursue their own courses at the expense of the interests of the University as a whole.

Rudenstine's predecessor, former HLS dean Derek C. Bok, was known as a headstrong and legal-minded leader and often chose to govern by decree. He used public statements and open letters to set a course for particular schools and then stood by those directions.

Rudenstine chose an entirely different way to deal with the "tubs." Administrators and alumni say an attempt to create collaboration between the different schools has been one of the defining features of his presidency, a commission spelled out by the presidential search committee that named him.

"One important ingredient that the search committee was looking for was for a president who would pull the University together," Armstrong says. Under Rudenstine, she says, "A quantum leap has been made in that regard."

In the eight years of his presidency, Rudenstine has attempted to centralize everything from the University's accounting to its international programs, and it is, in part, for these efforts, says Provost Harvey V. Fineberg '67, that Rudenstine will be remembered.

Recognizing the power of the Harvard deans, Rudenstine felt the best way to bring influence to the central administration would be to inspire collaboration among the deans. He frequently meets with all 10 of them, and this year went so far as to bring the entire group to meet with the Harvard Corporation. It had never happened before. Rudenstine did it twice this year. For the president, the deans are becoming a sort of cabinet, thinking not only about their own schools but also about the good of the entire University--at least some what.

"Now," says one University source, "if you get two or three deans in a room together, they behave themselves."

Bringing the deans together led to the first University-wide academic planning process, in which each school took a look at its future and tried to figure out how to get there. The plans were expensive and gave rise to the first-ever University capital campaign, pegged at the stupefying goal of $2.1 billion. The campaign, which has met with astonishing success, has given the deans a common goal that they have been pursuing in concert for more than five years.

The sheer amount of money Rudenstine has been able to raise stands as his other major achievement as president. With six months remaining, the University expects to exceed its goal by at least $100 million.

The campaign is not the only centralized effort to come out of Rudenstine's tenure. Project ADAPT, a $100 million overhaul of the University's bookkeeping systems, is scheduled to be completed in 2001. ADAPT will centralize accounting across the University, coordinating Harvard's financial records and setting up an on-line expense reimbursement system that the whole University will subscribe to.

Rudenstine has also pushed a series of "interfaculty initiatives," academic programs that jump from tub to tub in pulling together their faculty. The initiatives, in such areas as the environment and ethics in the professions, are run by the provost's office, which Rudenstine directly presides over, rather than by the deans.

Outside Harvard, Rudenstine has been visible on a few issues--diversity and affirmative action and funding for scientific research and student aid, primarily. Affirmative action, in particular, has been his signature song.

"He's the leader on fighting for diversity," says James H. Rowe III '73, Harvard's former vice president for government, community and public affairs. Rudenstine has given congressional testimony, lobbied lawmakers and pushed the issue even within the University, setting up a challenge fund to help departments hire "underrepresented groups."

And so Rudenstine, as any top official will testify, has not been sitting on his hands.

In the remaining years of his presidency, he says he still has three goals left to accomplish: several building projects--the Widener library renovation and the construction of the Knafel center for government and international affairs--must be finished. A planning process examining information technology and distance learning must be completed. And Rudenstine plans to coordinate post-campaign academic planning with the deans. He also wants to make sure FAS' $200 million science initiative and the merger with Radcliffe continues to go smoothly.

Limited Success

But these remaining projects are not going to change the face of Harvard significantly. For all intents and purposes, Rudenstine's course is set.

And while he has worked himself into the ground since he took the job in 1991--his exhaustion at one point became national news--a long look reveals that Rudenstine's accomplishments are sometimes dubious.

By bringing Harvard's deans together to govern, he has not really given himself any more power or made the system any more efficient.

A truly centralized administration isn't possible, not simply because the deans would never stand for it but because it is not part of the Harvard culture.

"Harvard's very decentralized," says D. Ronald Daniel, treasurer of the University and member of the Harvard Corporation. "We don't have any intention of changing that."

"It makes the authority of the president and the role of the president less than it would be at other universities," Daniel says. "The president's leadership is expressed through the people he makes the deans."

And in fact, the deans are still fighting. They quibble over who gets access to big donors--railing against the centralized fundraising office of the capital campaign.

Supposedly, they are collaborating on their efforts to set up international outposts, but Harvard's only office abroad--located in Hong Kong--remains exclusively the domain of the Harvard Business School. And while HLS is ready to push ahead with another campaign, Knowles is dragging his feet, insisting Harvard settle into a noncampaign mode.

Knowles in particular has a "something of an upper hand in dealing with the president," in the words of one former University official. "He is pretty politically skilled, which is interesting because Rudenstine had vastly more experience when he came to the University, and Knowles had not been terribly active in the public affairs of the Faculty."

Knowles, the official says, "doesn't miss a trick."

One current administrator says Knowles is far more conservative than Rudenstine, especially when it comes to spending money. He is skeptical, for example, of plans to move ahead on "distance learning" at Harvard--education over the Internet and through correspondence. Rudenstine, on the other hand, wants to push forward with planning on the topic.

And in the most dramatic example of the clash of temperaments, Knowles last year resisted the Harvard president's desire to implement a financial aid increase to rival those being announced throughout the Ivy League and beyond. Only this fall did Knowles decide to unveil a plan of his own, and only after the Corporation had voted to take a much larger chunk out of the endowment for annual spending.

On issues past and future--from the $200 million science initiatives Knowles finally consented this year to ill-fated plans for a film studies center--Knowles will continue to dictate the pace of life at Harvard's largest school. Knowles combines a smaller vision with a bigger, more forceful personality.

If Rudenstine's presence at Harvard appears weak, he is practically invisible on the national scene. His behind-the-scenes tactics have substituted for taking a public stand as affirmative action has been rolled back nationwide.

Says C. Douglas Dillon '31, who presided over the overseers in 1969 and is a former secretary of the treasury, Rudenstine has not been "quite as active trying to influence legislation in Washington as some other presidents."

Even at Harvard, in fact, many say diversity has been the subject of more rhetoric than real action.

"No one would say the University is anywhere near where it needs to be" in the realm of tenuring female faculty, says Renee M. Landers '77, former president of the Board of Overseers and a strong Rudenstine advocate. "The numbers of senior women in the faculty are not much better than when I graduated."

Rudenstine's Role

Morton Keller, a professor of history at Brandeis University who is currently writing a history of Harvard, says Rudenstine's weakness is simply part of a cycle in the 20th century Harvard presidency.

Presidents come in pairs, he says. The first is an innovator, changing the mission and modus operandi of the University, the second making those plans possible.

For example, James B. Conant '14, who was a Crimson editor, sought to make Harvard more open and meritocratic during his presidency and attempted to change the University from a playground for Boston Brahmins to a more serious academic institution.

But his vision could not be realized until his successor, Nathan M. Pusey '28, could raise money and bring the affluence to Harvard that Conant's vision required.

Bok imagined the "worldly university," Keller says, but he was not a successful fundraiser.

It was Bok who began the internationalization that Rudenstine is now involved with. It was Bok who created the University vice presidencies that gave Harvard a real, centralized bureaucracy. It was Bok who inaugurated the first "interfaculty initiative," Harvard's program on ethics in the professions.

"If pressed, I think we can say that [Rudenstine] has gone far to raise money and increase the infrastructure that Derek Bok envisioned of the worldly institution," Keller says.

Fundraising, not ideas, has been Rudenstine's greatest achievement for Harvard. The capital campaign's unimagined success is "75 percent" Rudenstine's doing, says Vice President for Finance Elizabeth C. "Beppie" Huidekoper. The powers that be are pleased--according to Daniel, Rudenstine has been "very effective" as a fundraiser.

And so, some say, instead of truly unifying the University, Rudenstine chose a different path to make his mark.

"His only notable success has been the campaign," Keller says. "But the economy has been so damn good anyway..."

What might be seen as "passivity," the former official says, "is just limited objectives. The main one is to raise a lot of money."

But some say that Rudenstine's time in officehas called for exactly his kind of presidency.Frankfurter Professor of Law Alan M. Dershowitz, astauch Rudenstine supporter, describes the 1990sas "a quiet season" that calls for a quiet leader.

"I feel confident with him as the presidentthat nothing really wrong will happen," Dershowitzsays. "He hasn't been somebody who has shaken therafters but that's not a bad role to play."

Explaining Rudenstine

Neil Rudenstine will sit in his Mass. Halloffice with a distressed student, unconscious ofthe ticking of the large grandfather clock,playing a counseling role that is perhaps betterhandled by a College administrator. He works lateinto the night handwriting letters--oftenthank-you notes--to acquaintances and colleagues.

One Rudenstine associate says the president isoften advised to delegate these tasks to othersand free up his own time for University matters.

"He still has a kind of hands-on managementstyle--he spends time on things other universitypresidents would delegate," the source says.

At heart, Fineberg says, Rudenstine is anintellectual.

Rudenstine is not content to relinquish any ofthe academic aspects of his job--running thelarger Harvard much as he helped run Princetonwhen he was provost. He reviews 20 tenure casesper year--six in the last two weeks. And forRudenstine, reviewing a case does not mean simplyskimming the material.

"You have to have enough mastery to lead themeeting," Rudenstine says.

He says he strives to maintain a nearly equalbalance of time and effort between pureadministration and academic concerns.

"I try very, very hard to have as close to 50,maybe 40 percent, be directed to academic andintellectual things related to the University,"Rudenstine says.

The president considers "academic andintellectual" to encompass more than just histasks related to the University. He readsconstantly, keeping up with the new developmentsin every field from neuroscience to politicaltheory and engaging professors in livelydiscussions about their work. "[You're not doingyour job], if you don't know what the devil'sgoing on academically," Rudenstine says.

To make time for all of these tasks, Rudenstineregularly works 15- to 16-hour days, often risingat 6 a.m. to get in extra reading time before theday officially begins. Rudenstine writes all ofhis own speeches--often spending days perfectingmessage and language.

Over the last few weeks he has been writing theBaccalaureate, Commencement and reunion speeches.Over a recent five-day period, he says, "I simplywrote from 8 or 9 a.m. to 9 or 10 p.m."

Those who know him well say he has giveneverything he has to the job. This summer thepresident was planning to forego his personalvacation to make more time for work untilcolleagues persuaded him that he needed therelaxation.

"He's given more of himself than is good forhim," says Peter L. Malkin '55, a major Harvarddonor. "One just hopes that it doesn't take toomuch from his own strength." At points, itcertainly has. In 1994, the president was forcedto take off from his job for a two-month break asa result of "exhaustion."

But that style of leadership, obsessing overdetails that are beneath the concerns of hisoffice, may not simply be charming. It may also beharmful to the presidency, as Rudenstine avoidslarger, more important questions in favor ofrelative trivia.

Again, Rudenstine seems stuck in the paradigmhe operated under at Princeton.

As dean of the college at Princeton, Rudenstineserved under his mentor William Bowen, who wasthen president. According to Rudenstine, Bowentaught him the methods of "collaborativeadministration."

At Princeton, which has only one faculty andone administration, "You can get to know mostfaculty and a lot of students," Rudenstine says.The collaborative method met with great success atthe smaller school.

But, Keller says, "Bowen's style didn't workvery well at Harvard--Rudenstine landed onNormandy beach and he didn't know what hit him."

"He will not come in and say, `Here's the plan,here's what's going to be done,'" Huidekoper says.Unlike his predecessor Bok, the current presidentlistens more than he contributes.

"A meeting with this president is aconversation, not a monologue," Fineberg says.Bok, says one University source, used to call inthe deans and lecture to them, while Rudenstine ismore "collegial" in his approach.

"Neil's strength is on the collaborative end,not so much on the directed end," Landers says.

Certainly, much is to be gained by Rudenstine'shumility. Many attribute the success of thecampaign in large part to Rudenstine's personalstyle. He has spent hours with potential donors,personally taking them on tours of Widener Libraryor discussing gift possibilities over lunch. "Whohe is has made an enormous difference to thecampaign," Huidekoper says.

However, this meekness has kept him from thepublic appearances and strong presence in theHarvard administration and as a national figurethat his colleagues used to their advantage.

"He does not worry about attracting anyattention to himself. He's not anyone who's ashow-off person," Rowe says. "He's not somebodywho's going to be on the talk show...There aremany times when you want Harvard to be in thechorus."

King of the World

Rudenstine is certainly by no means alone inscaling back the power of his office. Universitypresidents are not what they used to be--either ininfluence and prestige or in academic status.Their roles have become more administrative innature. Rudenstine matches the new profile--a goodfacilitator, a personable individual but withoutthe desire to bring Harvard to the center of thenational limelight.

"Today they are hired and judged by how they dotheir administrative job," says Harvey A.Silverglate, a Boston lawyer who has writtenextensively about higher education.

As the institutions grow, they become moresubdivided, and the authority that was once vestedin the president is in the hands of a number ofdeans and vice presidents. "Presidents seem tomatter less as institutions get larger," Kellersays.

The University president's voice--much likeRudenstine's--becomes lost in the shuffle of deansand other administrators.

"Nowadays, university presidents aren't thoughtto speak out as much as they used to. It isn'tthat Neil makes major policy pronouncements, butthere is work done in a more indirect way,"Armstrong says.

Many bemoan the decline in influence of theuniversity president, saying that the positionshould carry with it a sense of principles.

"Leadership in terms of academics...in terms ofdedication to principles...those are not skillsthat are sought after [anymore]," Silverglatesays. President of universities feel that theirmain job is to keep the peace. I don't think it isworth keeping the peace if that means giving up animportant principle."

But whether Harvard should recede to thechorus, as Rowe puts it, is debatable.

Experts on academia say people look to Harvardfor an academic--and to a certain extentcultural--example and to the leader of theinstitution as a symbol of what Harvard standsfor.

"Anything that the president of Harvard saysthat is mildly newsworthy is going to get in thenews," says Robert Birnbaum, a professor ofeducation at the University of Maryland whoadvocates a generally conciliatory style ofleadership. "The president can get any singlething he wants done done. The only thing is thecost of getting that."

But presidents have become increasinglyconservative, either in their visions for highereducation or in their willingness to assertthemselves and bring their visions into being.Rudenstine's reluctance ever to issue orders isindicative of the phenomenon.

"A group can't run anything--it never hasanyplace," says James L. Fisher, co-author ofThe Effective College President. "You'vegot to have accountable people who pay the piperif things aren't done effectively."

"The Harvard president has a heck of aplatform," he adds. "I would encourage any personnationally or internationally to use it."

But it seems that Rudenstine's use of thepresidency is no accident--he was chosen for hisconciliatory and ego-less style by the corporationin 1991.

Will the university president ever be what itonce was? Fisher says a movement is alreadyunderway in American colleges and universities togive more power to the office of president. But tomake the heads of higher education truly importantfigures, in all probability, the president ofHarvard will have to make his voice heard. Theodds of Rudenstine doing so seem pretty slim. Asfisher puts it, "He's no James Conant."

Love the One You're With

With Rudenstine's presidency drawing to aclose, it is certainly possible the next presidentwill be a more dynamic leader. He or she could bevisible on campus, known across America as one ofits public intellectuals and chart a clear coursefor the future--all the while continuing to raisemoney and be involved in the academic core of theUniversity.

But in all likelihood, the University does notwant such a leader.

It is difficult to say which is stronger today:Harvard's finances or its reputation. Under suchcircumstances, alumni, officers and professors sayRudenstine has established the model Harvardpresident for the time being--it is a conservativemoment.

Daniel says the corporation would still want anintellectual for the job--"he or she would alwayshave to be a first-rate scholar."

But the most important considerations inpicking Rudenstine's successor will probably havemore to do with surface qualities than with a newvision for Harvard or the University's place inhigher education.

For instance, Dershowitz says he would like tosee a woman or an African-American as the nextpresident and Landers notes that Conant was thelast Harvard president with a scientificbackground.

"One needs to think about those things,"Landers says. Perhaps she has Fineberg--a healthissues expert--in mind. Many officials say theyhave been impressed with the job he has done asprovost.

But with Rudenstine still in office, and likelyto remain so for another year or so, theUniversity's attention still belongs with him.

The question remains, however, whether hisattention will focus on the University beyond itsfinancial health, and whether he has ability toshape its future in any substantive way.

It may well be that the legacy left byHarvard's first non-entity president of the 20thcentury will be a pattern of leaders just likehim.

But some say that Rudenstine's time in officehas called for exactly his kind of presidency.Frankfurter Professor of Law Alan M. Dershowitz, astauch Rudenstine supporter, describes the 1990sas "a quiet season" that calls for a quiet leader.

"I feel confident with him as the presidentthat nothing really wrong will happen," Dershowitzsays. "He hasn't been somebody who has shaken therafters but that's not a bad role to play."

Explaining Rudenstine

Neil Rudenstine will sit in his Mass. Halloffice with a distressed student, unconscious ofthe ticking of the large grandfather clock,playing a counseling role that is perhaps betterhandled by a College administrator. He works lateinto the night handwriting letters--oftenthank-you notes--to acquaintances and colleagues.

One Rudenstine associate says the president isoften advised to delegate these tasks to othersand free up his own time for University matters.

"He still has a kind of hands-on managementstyle--he spends time on things other universitypresidents would delegate," the source says.

At heart, Fineberg says, Rudenstine is anintellectual.

Rudenstine is not content to relinquish any ofthe academic aspects of his job--running thelarger Harvard much as he helped run Princetonwhen he was provost. He reviews 20 tenure casesper year--six in the last two weeks. And forRudenstine, reviewing a case does not mean simplyskimming the material.

"You have to have enough mastery to lead themeeting," Rudenstine says.

He says he strives to maintain a nearly equalbalance of time and effort between pureadministration and academic concerns.

"I try very, very hard to have as close to 50,maybe 40 percent, be directed to academic andintellectual things related to the University,"Rudenstine says.

The president considers "academic andintellectual" to encompass more than just histasks related to the University. He readsconstantly, keeping up with the new developmentsin every field from neuroscience to politicaltheory and engaging professors in livelydiscussions about their work. "[You're not doingyour job], if you don't know what the devil'sgoing on academically," Rudenstine says.

To make time for all of these tasks, Rudenstineregularly works 15- to 16-hour days, often risingat 6 a.m. to get in extra reading time before theday officially begins. Rudenstine writes all ofhis own speeches--often spending days perfectingmessage and language.

Over the last few weeks he has been writing theBaccalaureate, Commencement and reunion speeches.Over a recent five-day period, he says, "I simplywrote from 8 or 9 a.m. to 9 or 10 p.m."

Those who know him well say he has giveneverything he has to the job. This summer thepresident was planning to forego his personalvacation to make more time for work untilcolleagues persuaded him that he needed therelaxation.

"He's given more of himself than is good forhim," says Peter L. Malkin '55, a major Harvarddonor. "One just hopes that it doesn't take toomuch from his own strength." At points, itcertainly has. In 1994, the president was forcedto take off from his job for a two-month break asa result of "exhaustion."

But that style of leadership, obsessing overdetails that are beneath the concerns of hisoffice, may not simply be charming. It may also beharmful to the presidency, as Rudenstine avoidslarger, more important questions in favor ofrelative trivia.

Again, Rudenstine seems stuck in the paradigmhe operated under at Princeton.

As dean of the college at Princeton, Rudenstineserved under his mentor William Bowen, who wasthen president. According to Rudenstine, Bowentaught him the methods of "collaborativeadministration."

At Princeton, which has only one faculty andone administration, "You can get to know mostfaculty and a lot of students," Rudenstine says.The collaborative method met with great success atthe smaller school.

But, Keller says, "Bowen's style didn't workvery well at Harvard--Rudenstine landed onNormandy beach and he didn't know what hit him."

"He will not come in and say, `Here's the plan,here's what's going to be done,'" Huidekoper says.Unlike his predecessor Bok, the current presidentlistens more than he contributes.

"A meeting with this president is aconversation, not a monologue," Fineberg says.Bok, says one University source, used to call inthe deans and lecture to them, while Rudenstine ismore "collegial" in his approach.

"Neil's strength is on the collaborative end,not so much on the directed end," Landers says.

Certainly, much is to be gained by Rudenstine'shumility. Many attribute the success of thecampaign in large part to Rudenstine's personalstyle. He has spent hours with potential donors,personally taking them on tours of Widener Libraryor discussing gift possibilities over lunch. "Whohe is has made an enormous difference to thecampaign," Huidekoper says.

However, this meekness has kept him from thepublic appearances and strong presence in theHarvard administration and as a national figurethat his colleagues used to their advantage.

"He does not worry about attracting anyattention to himself. He's not anyone who's ashow-off person," Rowe says. "He's not somebodywho's going to be on the talk show...There aremany times when you want Harvard to be in thechorus."

King of the World

Rudenstine is certainly by no means alone inscaling back the power of his office. Universitypresidents are not what they used to be--either ininfluence and prestige or in academic status.Their roles have become more administrative innature. Rudenstine matches the new profile--a goodfacilitator, a personable individual but withoutthe desire to bring Harvard to the center of thenational limelight.

"Today they are hired and judged by how they dotheir administrative job," says Harvey A.Silverglate, a Boston lawyer who has writtenextensively about higher education.

As the institutions grow, they become moresubdivided, and the authority that was once vestedin the president is in the hands of a number ofdeans and vice presidents. "Presidents seem tomatter less as institutions get larger," Kellersays.

The University president's voice--much likeRudenstine's--becomes lost in the shuffle of deansand other administrators.

"Nowadays, university presidents aren't thoughtto speak out as much as they used to. It isn'tthat Neil makes major policy pronouncements, butthere is work done in a more indirect way,"Armstrong says.

Many bemoan the decline in influence of theuniversity president, saying that the positionshould carry with it a sense of principles.

"Leadership in terms of academics...in terms ofdedication to principles...those are not skillsthat are sought after [anymore]," Silverglatesays. President of universities feel that theirmain job is to keep the peace. I don't think it isworth keeping the peace if that means giving up animportant principle."

But whether Harvard should recede to thechorus, as Rowe puts it, is debatable.

Experts on academia say people look to Harvardfor an academic--and to a certain extentcultural--example and to the leader of theinstitution as a symbol of what Harvard standsfor.

"Anything that the president of Harvard saysthat is mildly newsworthy is going to get in thenews," says Robert Birnbaum, a professor ofeducation at the University of Maryland whoadvocates a generally conciliatory style ofleadership. "The president can get any singlething he wants done done. The only thing is thecost of getting that."

But presidents have become increasinglyconservative, either in their visions for highereducation or in their willingness to assertthemselves and bring their visions into being.Rudenstine's reluctance ever to issue orders isindicative of the phenomenon.

"A group can't run anything--it never hasanyplace," says James L. Fisher, co-author ofThe Effective College President. "You'vegot to have accountable people who pay the piperif things aren't done effectively."

"The Harvard president has a heck of aplatform," he adds. "I would encourage any personnationally or internationally to use it."

But it seems that Rudenstine's use of thepresidency is no accident--he was chosen for hisconciliatory and ego-less style by the corporationin 1991.

Will the university president ever be what itonce was? Fisher says a movement is alreadyunderway in American colleges and universities togive more power to the office of president. But tomake the heads of higher education truly importantfigures, in all probability, the president ofHarvard will have to make his voice heard. Theodds of Rudenstine doing so seem pretty slim. Asfisher puts it, "He's no James Conant."

Love the One You're With

With Rudenstine's presidency drawing to aclose, it is certainly possible the next presidentwill be a more dynamic leader. He or she could bevisible on campus, known across America as one ofits public intellectuals and chart a clear coursefor the future--all the while continuing to raisemoney and be involved in the academic core of theUniversity.

But in all likelihood, the University does notwant such a leader.

It is difficult to say which is stronger today:Harvard's finances or its reputation. Under suchcircumstances, alumni, officers and professors sayRudenstine has established the model Harvardpresident for the time being--it is a conservativemoment.

Daniel says the corporation would still want anintellectual for the job--"he or she would alwayshave to be a first-rate scholar."

But the most important considerations inpicking Rudenstine's successor will probably havemore to do with surface qualities than with a newvision for Harvard or the University's place inhigher education.

For instance, Dershowitz says he would like tosee a woman or an African-American as the nextpresident and Landers notes that Conant was thelast Harvard president with a scientificbackground.

"One needs to think about those things,"Landers says. Perhaps she has Fineberg--a healthissues expert--in mind. Many officials say theyhave been impressed with the job he has done asprovost.

But with Rudenstine still in office, and likelyto remain so for another year or so, theUniversity's attention still belongs with him.

The question remains, however, whether hisattention will focus on the University beyond itsfinancial health, and whether he has ability toshape its future in any substantive way.

It may well be that the legacy left byHarvard's first non-entity president of the 20thcentury will be a pattern of leaders just likehim.