Rudenstine Leaves Office, Summers Steps In

There will be no torches passed, gavels handed off or ceremonials of any sort tomorrow when outgoing President Neil L. Rudenstine leaves his Mass. Hall office for good. His replacement Lawrence H. Summers officially assumes the presidency on Sunday, July 1, but will not be moving into his office until Monday.

The first round of ceremonies were completed in advance of Rudenstine’s final week, with a wide array of Harvard groups toasting his tenure and commemorating his departure at events held in New York, Boston and Cambridge.

Well-wishers included faculty, staff, alumni and a host of University big-wigs.

The official University welcome for Summers will be held off until his Inaugural gala, two days of events scheduled for Oct. 11 and 12.

Previous inaugurations have varied in size and tone. For University President Derek C. Bok, who preceded Rudenstine, the inauguration was a modest affair.

As part of the process of gearing up for a huge capital campaign, Rudenstine’s ceremony was big—seminars and banquets greeted the new president.

Indications are that Summers’ welcome will fall along the lines of Rudenstine’s, as student performances and symposia are already being planned. The official installation of Summers, a ceremony that will include an formal academic procession, has been set for 2:30 on Oct. 12 in Tercentenary Theatre.

Rounding Out the Staff

Summers has spent the last three months in part preparing for the meetings and decisions that will greet him when he officially begins the job on Monday.

Most pressing is filling the position of the Vice President for Government, Community and Public Affairs, which Paul Grogan steps down from this weekend. Summers has been consulting with Washington friends and colleagues about their thoughts on the position.

Another key position that will be empty upon Summers’ arrival is that of the Provost. University administrations have indicated they believe Summers will retain the position, resurrected under Rudenstine, but they say that role of the provost under Summers is an open question.

Within the Office of the President, some restructuring is in the offing. Currently, Summers is looking to hire a Chief of Staff, a new position in Mass. Hall to help coordinate relations between the University’s top administrators, and several other staff assistants.

However, no major departures are expected from the current Mass. Hall roster.

Summers must also select deans for the Graduate School of Education and the Divinity School and will immediately step into the sometime contentious tenure process, in which he will he holds final say.

“I expect it to be busy time as I settle in, and one of the things I will be focused on a number of important searches for very important positions,” Summers said in an interview last night.

“I’m very excited,” Summers said. “I feel even more fortunate in being entrusted with this responsibility as I’ve had a chance to observe the strength and quality of the university community.”

In the Limelight

Summers is back at his residence in Maryland today, but he had been in Cambridge this week, in part in order to attend a Kennedy School of Government (KSG) conference on the economic policy of the last decade.

Summers was a panelist at a Institute of Politics event Wednesday night, a panel to which he had committed himself before he was selected as president.

Moderated by KSG Dean Joseph S. Nye Jr., the panel also included Stanley Fischer, first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Allan Meltzer, the former chair to the International Financial Institution Advisory Commission to the U.S. Congress and Brad DeLong and Barry Eichengreen, University of California-Berkeley economists.

The panel began in good humor, as Nye joked that he would be introducing his soon to be new boss.

“If there’s one thing you learn it is that introductions of your boss always sound like flattery,” Nye joked. But in the end, Nye said to laughter that “like anyone, Larry, you’ll only get ten minutes.”

The panel provided observers the chance to see the new Harvard president, a world-class college debater and an intellectual prize-fighter, in action. In his presentation, which ran well over the allotted ten minutes, the former Secretary of the Treasury spoke without notes, outlining some of what he saw as the legacies of the Clinton administration.

Summers displayed his mettle during exchanges with Meltzer, who harshly criticized aspects of America’s policy in response to the financial crises of the past decade.

The most animated of the listeners, Summers fidgeted and at times communicated exasperation through facial gestures .

When each speaker had finished their presentation, Nye offered Summers the chance to respond to Meltzer. With a smile on his face Summers called aspects of Meltzer’s argument factually inaccurate and dissected its failures.

In a question and answer session after the presentations, audience members posed question to all of the panelists, but there was a clear focus on Summers.

Most of the questions focused on Summers’ perspective on economics, but at least one had a distinctly Harvard flavor.

A Harvard graduate first exhorted Summers to be a mensch, the Yiddish word for a person of integrity, and then asked him if he was going to use Harvard’s endowment for “the common good or for special interests.”

Summers responded that Harvard would use its funds to “pursue the common good as it sees fit,” to which the audience responded both with applause and hisses.

After the panel, Summers lingered on the stage for half an hour as well-wishers had their photographs taken with the President-elect, chat and offered their assistance. Summers assured each of them that he needed all of the help he could get.

Last night, Summers said he enjoyed the panel and the opportunity to catch up with old friends that it provided. “I hope, to the limited extent possible, to maintain my connection with economics and economic policy.”

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