Searching for a New Dean

A committee advising University President Lawrence H. Summers on the search for a new dean of the Graduate School of Education (GSE) met for the second time on Tuesday, as the school’s faculty and students began to weigh in on issues facing the top-ranked institution.

Members of the committee, who come from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the business, medical and law schools, say the Dean Search Advisory Group will advise Summers both on specific candidates and general issues pertaining to GSE.

The divinity school is also searching for a new dean, and together the searches represent Summers’ first opportunity to make his mark on Harvard’s individual schools, as the responsibility for choosing new deans lies solely with the president.

Faculty at GSE and on the advisory committee say that while no dominant issues have emerged in the search thus far, the question of whom Summers picks is an important one that will likely determine the course of the best-endowed and number one-ranked school of education in the country.

Money, Cash Flows

GSE has had enormous financial success over the past decade, leaving the course open for a new dean.

Under the leadership of former Dean Jerome T. Murphy—who stepped down at the end of June to return to research and teaching—GSE raised $111 million as part of the recent University-wide Capital Campaign, causing GSE’s perpetually stretched endowment to surge.

As a result, says Anrig Professor of Education and Advisory Committee member Richard F. Elmore, the school was able to add a large number of senior faculty, create new programs and expand existing ones.

“The big issue is now, ‘What do we want for the next stage?’” Elmore says. “This is clearly not a turn-around operation.”

But fiscal concerns will remain a part of the next dean’s daily worries, says GSE professor and committee member Susan Moore Johnson.

“We went from feeling very poor to still feeling very stretched. Our needs are many,” she says.

New programs take money, and professors say that in order to remain preeminent GSE needs to continue to grow.

Other fiscal priorities are University-wide. In his inaugural speech two weeks ago, Summers signaled that graduate student financial aid would be one of his top priorities, and faculty and students alike identify the need as particularly acute at GSE.

Because the school’s alumni typically go into lower-paying work, the need for loan forgiveness or direct aid is often considerable.

Even with sufficient funds, practical difficulties—including severe space constraints—check GSE’s growth and will need to be dealt with by the new dean, faculty say.

“We really need space here,” Johnson says. “We are limited in our programs.”

GSE abuts residential neighborhoods, and any growth will have to be off-site. As a result, the school is widely seen as a candidate for a move across the river to University land in Allston.

While Johnson said it would be unlikely that a dean will be brought in specifically to plan for such a move, space issues will figure prominently on GSE’s future agenda.

Faculty stress, however, that there are other concerns more central to the school’s academic mission that deserve the attention of the new dean.

Education First

No great pedagogical debates currently divide the school’s faculty, but professors say that has not always been the case throughout GSE’s history.

At various times, the school has vacillated between providing practical, professional education for would-be teachers and sponsoring theoretical academic research.

After a period in which an activist GSE tackled social problems, the 1980s witnessed a turn inward for the school, as GSE got out of the “teacher-teaching business” and turned into a school of “number-crunchers,” Elmore says.

Now, he says, the school tries to balance training and practical research with more theoretical work.

But still, faculty say the new dean will need to set the school’s course in dealing with both the practical and theoretical pedagogical issues.

Deborah J. Stipek, the dean of Stanford University’s School of Education, says there is currently interest and pressure for schools of education to be relevant to K-12 improvement efforts.

GSE and other schools see this as a “window of opportunity,” she says.

In recent years, GSE has also increasingly implemented programs that involve the school in the surrounding community. Elmore praises these programs and says this type of practical involvement should be augmented by the next dean.

Members said that Summers assembled an advisory committee whose collective areas of expertise cover the wide range of issues that the truly interdisciplinary school of education must deal with. In addition to professors of education, the committee includes experts on psychology, the economics of education and public education policy.

FAS Professor of Government and committee member Jennifer Hochschild says that she brings to the committee some knowledge of the field of educational policy.

“I know the issues, and I know who some of the best researchers in the country are on this,” Hochschild said. “I hope to be able to help.”

Missing Students

During the search for the University president last year, students often protested that they had no official say in the decision-making process, which rested solely in the hands of the University’s governing bodies.

With the GSE dean appointment resting solely with Summers, students say they are again frustrated.

Maria Brenes, the president of GSE’s Student Government Association (SGA), says the dean search has been one of SGA’s main topics of conversation this year.

“Many students definitely feel that the process of selection should be structured so that students are involved in the decision,” Brenes says. “The dean selection is something that has even more importance than faculty selection to us.”

Brenes says she and other students also feel the lack of influence is ironic. “We are taught to empower our students to make decisions,” she says. “It’s an irony that while our input has been solicited, we have no direct influence over the decision.”

Brenes says SGA is looking into writing letters to Summers to voice their concern, and is also considering inviting Summers to a town-hall meeting to discuss the search. She says that while students share many of the faculty’s concerns, particularly on financial aid, they have other issues they would like the dean search to take into account.

Sean Buffington, an assistant provost staffing the advisory committee for the central administration, wrote in an e-mail that Summers is interested in getting a wide range of perspectives from those at GSE, including faculty, staff and students.

“[Summers] has invited these groups to send him letters and e-mail messages about the challenges the school faces, the characteristics of the next dean and particular candidates,” Buffington says, adding that Summers has met with senior faculty and plans to meet with students and junior faculty as well.

Pick and Choose

Committee members and administrators remain mum on the search, but observers say the position is likely to attract many candidates.

Stipek says that since GSE is large and high-profile, it is at an advantage in drawing the most qualified potential leaders. On the other hand, she says that the type of well-known, experienced and established candidates GSE will seek out will be hard to lure away from their current posts.

Committee members say candidates could come from a variety of backgrounds. Knowledge of both the professional, practical end of GSE’s mission should be combined with scholarly research and academics, they say.

Hochschild says someone with a background in the actual practice of teaching might bring an important perspective, but stressed that this was only one of many models.

Committee members gave no indication of when they thought Summers hoped to have a dean in place. Buffington says no timetable exists, but adds the search remains a high priority for the president.

—Daniel P. Mosteller contributed to the reporting of this story.

—Staff writer David H. Gellis can be reached at gellis@fas.harvard.edu.