Six Elected to Faculty Council

Six professors were elected last week to the Faculty Council, four of whom were vocal critics of University President Lawrence H. Summers during the recent maelstrom about his remarks on women in science.

A third of the seats on the council, the 18-member governing body of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), are up for reelection at the end of every academic year. Faculty members had until last Friday to mail in their ballots and were informed of the results Monday.

This year, only two new professors were elected, while four have served previously. Professor of Psychology Elizabeth S. Spelke, who argued publicly in April that the dearth of women in the hard sciences can be attributed to discrimination, is one of the new members elected to the council.

Professor of Anthropology Arthur Kleinman, Professor of the History of Science Everett I. Mendelsohn, and Professor of Comparative Literature Judith L. Ryan, all of whom spoke about the Faculty’s place in University governance during the uproar over Summers’ Jan. 14 remarks, were re-elected to serve three-year terms.

Kleinman, who was serving out the final year of another faculty member’s term, will be serving his first full three-year term on the council.

Also joining the council are Cabot Associate Professor of Computer Science Salil P. Vadhan, who, like Kleinman, served last year, and Assistant Professor of Visual and Environmental Studies and of English and American Literature and Language J. D. Connor ’92, who is new to the council.

Professor of Anthropology and of African and African American Studies J. Lorand Matory ’82, who submitted the motion for the lack of confidence vote in Summers, ran for council election but lost, according to Mendelsohn.

Gary Feldman, Baird professor of science and a two-term council member who did not run for reelection this year, said that it was “unusual” that four of the six council members were returning members.

“Normally people don’t run for reelection,” Feldman said. “I think that the feeling that the Faculty Council may take on more responsibility for Faculty affairs was of interest for people to continue.”

Indeed, members yesterday emphasized their desire to make the council’s presence better felt next year, when the Faculty moves to a 14-meeting schedule over the current nine-meeting schedule.

“[The Faculty Council] hasn’t been given terribly much of a role and we want to strengthen that,” Ryan said. “It has been possible for us to place items on the agenda but it’s been full of items that have come from the administration and the Dean’s office. We need to take advantage of the opportunity we do have to propose items for the agenda.”

Mendelsohn said that this year’s Faculty meetings resembled “a show-and-tell session,” and he would like to give faculty members a larger role in the council’s proceedings.

“We believe the Faculty deserve more time for thorough and informed discussion,” he said.

Council members also said that there will be a push next year to make the discussions of the Faculty Council’s own meetings formally available to all members of FAS.

“There’s a perception that the Faculty Council meetings are secret, but in fact that’s not true,” Feldman said. “The only restriction is that Faculty Council members are asked to not attribute specific quotes to other Faculty Council members.”

Mendelsohn said that the curricular review, the implementation of the recommendations of the Task Force on Women Faculty and the Task Force on Women in Science and Engineering, and Allston development will rank among the council’s highest priorities next year.

“I think there will be a real attempt to scrutinize what is being proposed or planned [in Allston],” Mendelsohn said. “While at one level the decisions can probably be made at the Office of the President and the Corporation, to put up buildings with which the Faculty is dissatisfied will be a mistake.”

The chair of the faculty council, Dean of the Faculty William C. Kirby, could not be reached for comment yesterday. Spelke and Connor did not return requests for comment.

—Staff writer May Habib can be reached at habib@fas.harvard.edu.