A Promising Pick for Provost

The recent selection and approval of Steven E. Hyman as the University’s new provost is a positive indication that President Lawrence H. Summers intends to deliver on the promises he made during his installation speech. Hyman represents an excellent choice to help Summers’ administration deliver an increased emphasis on the sciences, centered on an improved undergraduate science curriculum, as well as new interdisciplinary initiatives that span the university’s diverse schools, institutes and departments.

Since its modern establishment at the beginning of former University President Neil L. Rudenstine’s tenure a decade ago, the position of provost has remained somewhat amorphous, resulting in unnecessary disputes and inefficiency. We hope that Summers’ administration will establish a more concrete role for Hyman than was held by his three predecessors, and that he will use his position in order to work with Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Jeremy R. Knowles to facilitate tangible improvements to the undergraduate experience.

In a time during which boundaries between disciplines are constantly shifting and becoming blurred, we welcome Hyman’s potential proposal to spearhead new interdisciplinary programs. Given his background as a former professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and the founder of the Mind, Brain and Behavior interfaculty initiative, Hyman is well-prepared to use his new role as provost in order to effect positive change. In his past six years at the National Institute for Mental Health (NIMH), Hyman was directly involved in connecting policymakers, scientists and researchers across many fields.

However, we also hope that Hyman will use his experience to ensure that these new programs represent a real linkage between fields instead of just a nominal association of disciplines. Hyman has already noted the difference between assembling researchers at a conference and facilitating true interdisciplinary research, and we hope his recognition will apply to undergraduate teaching as well. Ideally, students in an interdisciplinary concentration would participate in an integrated academic program as opposed to merely taking a smorgasbord of classes.

Hyman’s years in Washington have given him a wealth of experience, which we hope will help realize Summers’ goal of helping Harvard to become a truly global university. Although Hyman has most recently been away from the University and has never worked within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), he should work collaboratively with FAS as well as with the other faculties to improve interdisciplinary ties and to make the University more than the sum of its parts.