New Education School Leader Appointed

Wooed by promises of more money and attention for the Graduate School of Education (GSE), Ellen Condliffe Lagemann will be the school’s next dean, University President Lawrence H. Summers announced yesterday.

At an event to introduce the school’s new dean to students and faculty, Summers said he hoped the noted historian and educator would bring new energy to what has traditionally been one of Harvard’s most overlooked schools.

Lagemann currently serves as president of the Spencer Foundation, a Chicago-based group that supports education research, and as a professor at New York University (NYU)—and she “did not come easy,” Summers told the audience.

In fact, according to Lagemann, Summers convinced her to accept the post only after making substantial pledges of ideological and financial support.

“Larry Summers first argued me into thinking about becoming dean, and then bowled me over with his ideas for the school and his unprecedented promises to help,” she said.

During their first phone call, she said, Summers claimed he was “just checking names.”

“He then said, ‘Why don’t you want this job?’ and proceeded to demolish everything I could come up with,” she said.

She said that Summers’ commitment to GSE—including a promise of strong financial support—finally convinced her to come. No specifics of what support Summers offered were announced yesterday.

“She said it was essential that our support be moral, and that it be tangible as well,” he said.

Summers called Lagemann “a model of the kind of leader we were all seeking when we began the search for the dean of the Ed School.”

Lagemann taught for 16 years at the Columbia University Teachers’ College and in Columbia’s history department. From 1994 to 2000 she chaired NYU’s humanities and social sciences department and also directed the Center for the Study of American Culture and Education at the Steinhardt School of Education at NYU.

Lagemann’s extensive experience in the field of education made persuading her to come to Harvard worth extra effort, Summers said.

“Ellen is a person who knows education schools,” he said. “She is a person who knows education.”

Lagemann said improving the reputation of graduate-level education work in general, and the GSE in particular, would be a top priority for her. She said she also wants to make GSE more attractive and accessible place for undergraduates.

“Ed schools generally tend not to have the prestige of something like a business school, a law school or FAS,” she said. “That has to change if we want to change education, especially K-12 education, throughout the country.”

Lagemann said she has no specific agenda for now, but is eager to begin meeting with students and faculty to discuss changes at GSE.

And Lagemann’s appointment marks a significant change for the male-dominated ranks of Harvard deans—it is the first time in the University’s history that two schools will be headed by women.

Drew Gilpin Faust, dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, is currently the only permanent female dean.

Lagemann has worked with Faust before as a member of the ad hoc committee which provided extensive recommendations for the shaping of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study after Radcliffe College merged with Harvard in 1999.

Faust, who has publicly stated her desire for a female candidate to fill both the GSE post and the still-vacant Divinity School deanship, described the appointment of Lagemeann as “brilliant.”

“I’ve known her since we were in high school together but got to know her professionally through her judicious contributions to the Radcliffe Institute Ad Hoc Committee,” Faust wrote in an e-mail yesterday. “I am thrilled to have her here permanently...as a neighbor across the Radcliffe Yard.”

Lagemann succeeds Jerome T. Murphy, who was dean from 1992 through June 2001. Professors of Education Judith D. Singer and John B. Willet have served jointly as acting dean this year, while an advisory committee convened by Summers has been meeting to find a new dean.

Singer, who will return to the faculty when Lagemann takes over in July, said she was impressed by the time and energy that Summers devoted to the search, considering that GSE is smaller and often overlooked in comparison to the larger graduate schools.

“This is not replacing Jeremy Knowles,” she said of the outgoing dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. “One could imagine a president not taking that kind of time to help find a new dean [for GSE].”