Speaking With a New Voice

The new voice of Harvard has a British accent.

Lucie McNeil, who comes to Harvard from 10 Downing Street, has traded a role as senior press officer for Tony Blair for a similar position in University President Lawrence H. Summers’ administration.

Appointed to the newly created post of senior communications director, McNeil will act as the president’s press liaison, a role that has expanded significantly in the year and a half since Summers took office.

Summers has spent much time in the national press spotlight in his relatively young tenure—far more than his predecessor Neil L. Rudenstine did—for issues ranging from his statements on anti-Semitism to his fallout with former Fletcher University Professor Cornel R. West ’74.

McNeil arrives as CBS’ “60 Minutes,” The New York Times Magazine and the New Yorker are all working on pieces about Summers.

The newest member of Harvard’s public relations team explained the increased interest as a natural phenomenon.

“Inherently, people are interested in Harvard and in Larry Summers, because he has a profile and a style,” McNeil said.

Though she is currently learning the ropes, reading up on Harvard and navigating Cambridge, McNeil said her new job will be in some ways old hat.

“It is a similar arrangement to my time at number 10—a press job where any subject can cross your radar,” McNeil said.

The similarities run deeper, as she joins a circle of Summers staffers—including Chief of Staff Marne Levine, Vice President for Government, Community and Public Affairs Alan J. Stone and Special Assistant Michael O’Mary ’99-’00—with backgrounds in and job descriptions drawn from the world of government.

The former secretary of the treasury who came straight to Harvard from Washington, Summers has modeled the Office of the President to resemble more of what he encountered there.

McNeil, who has been in Cambridge for about a month,aid her precise duties had not yet been clearly defined.

Stone, who McNeil will report to, said that in addition to stories about University leadership, McNeil would work on press inquiries about international issues.

The current official voice of the University, spokesperson Joe Wrinn, deferred to Stone regarding the future division of labor among senior University spokespeople.

“We will work out over time what her specific responsibilities will be,” Stone said. “Joe Wrinn, at this point, is more familiar with the internal parts of the University—with the various schools and with local press. He’ll keep a large part of that portfolio, but she’ll work with him...There is clearly room here and a need for all of us.”

Summers is known for pushing his staff hard, both in Washington and now at Harvard.

McNeil said she has found the experience of working with Summers “very challenging.”

“I like that he’s straight with you. He’s not afraid to give you his opinion on anything,” she said.

As a senior press officer for Blair’s administration, McNeil was responsible for briefing Blair’s chief press secretary on several government agencies on a daily basis.

Her duties at 10 Downing Street took her further afield—to Brussels to support NATO’s press office during the conflict in Kosovo and into Kosovo itself.

“It was like joining the army for four years. It was unbelievably challenging,” McNeil said.

Originally from Newcastle, McNeil has also worked in the London Communications Office of the Home Department, where she worked for the Police, Counter-terrorism and Crime desk.

McNeil left her government job last year and traveled through South America before accepting her new position at Harvard.

—Staff writer Ella A. Hoffman can be reached at ehoffman@fas.harvard.edu.