The Search for a New President

Today is a day to look back and celebrate the achievement's of the students graduating from all nine of Harvard's schools and institutions. For undergraduates in the College, it is the culmination of four years of hard work, time that has dramatically changed the course of their lives, collectively and individually. And yet, at this apex of achievement and well-deserved nostalgia, we, as an undergraduate newspaper, cannot help but take this moment to also look ahead, namely, to the next University president.

On May 22, President Neil L. Rudenstine announced that he will resign effective at the end of the next academic year. Although no search committee has yet been formed, much of the next year for Harvard's top administration will be consumed with the task of choosing a successor to Rudenstine, a new leader for the University.

Rudenstine mused upon his arrival in 1991 that he planned to stay no longer than a decade. After accomplishing the major goals stated at the onset of his tenure--including a wildly successful $2.6 billion capital campaign--Rudenstine has chosen to step down at an opportune time. The endowment has grown, the chronic budget deficits of many departments have disappeared, and Harvard Yard has seen a number of renovations, first-year residences to Annenberg Hall and the Barker Center. Although the capital campaign was at the center of his tenure, Rudenstine will also be remembered for his artful negotiation of the Radcliffe merger and his nurturing of the Afro-American Studies Department.

Looking ahead, it is our hope that the future leader of Harvard will take advantage of the University's present fiscal security and broaden the scope of the office beyond that of fundraising and managing administrative affairs. First and foremost, we believe that a university president should present a sweeping vision of how young men and women should be educated--the sort of vision that breathed life into the tenures of past Harvard presidents, Charles W. Eliot 1853, A. Lawrence Lowell, Class of 1877 and Derek C. Bok.

Second, the university president should occupy a more prominent role in setting trends for higher education. Specifically, we feel Rudenstine has not used the "bully pulpit" nature that the Harvard Presidency allows often enough. Although Rudenstine's efforts on the national stage to lobby for affirmative action and funding for university research were memorable, his immense fundraising charge did allow him to provide a coherent vision of what a college education--or at least a Harvard education--should constitute.

Universities, it seems, stand perpetually at a crossroads, whipped by the winds of change in our society. For Harvard a decade ago, the challenge was fundraising. Today, after meeting that challenge, Harvard and its next president should turn their focus toward the future of higher education, and on how that future will be influenced by technology. For example, the prospect of distance learning has the attention of many of Harvard's rivals, but the benefits of the project itself are still ambiguous. It is Harvard's role to be a leader on such issues, since they have the potential to change the place, tenor and nature of higher education.

Finally, we need a university president who is both accessible to undergraduates and willing to let students voices be heard in the highest reaches of the College. To students, a president is more than a faceless administrator or fundraiser; he or she needs to be in tune with the pulse of the student body. It is unfortunate that students will not be involved in the search committee to be formed this summer, and it is our hope that this does not preclude student concerns from being aired.

Today we congratulate President Rudenstine for completing his ninth year as Harvard's president and thank him for the hard work he has done in restructuring and funding the University. However, a year from now, at President Rudenstine's last Commencement, his successor will already have been chosen and the vision that will guide the College's and the University's future will be in place. Those who will be, at the end of today, the College's newest alumni and alumnae must take an interest in how Harvard's gifts will be utilized in the years to come.