Faculty Will Debate Harper’s Departure

The same professor who last March introduced the vote of no confidence in University President Lawrence H. Summers has called for a discussion next week of Conrad K. Harper’s recent resignation from the Harvard Corporation.

In July, Harper resigned from the Corporation, the University’s highest governing body, saying he “could no longer support” Summers’ presidency.

In a letter to Summers dated July 14, Harper cited his displeasure with Summers’ January comments on women and minorities, his 2002 spat with former Fletcher University Professor Cornel R. West ’74, and a disagreement with James R. Houghton ’56, the Corporation’s senior fellow, about Summers’ salary, among the reasons for his resignation.

Harper concluded his letter by writing: “I believe Harvard’s best interests require your resignation.”

The discussion, which was placed on the docket by Professor of Anthropology and African and African American Studies J. Lorand Matory ’82, will occur next Tuesday, when the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) meets for the first time since Harper’s July departure.

And though Summers normally chairs Faculty meetings, Dean of the Faculty William C. Kirby will act as chair during the Harper discussion.

Summers also stepped down as chair during the contentious Feb. 22 and March 15 meetings that culminated in a vote of no confidence in his leadership earlier this year.

“By FAS rule and by tradition, the President chairs formal meetings of the Faculty. However, the President has asked that the Dean chair the docketed items of Faculty business and policy,” Kirby wrote in an e-mail yesterday.

When Summers stepped down as chair last spring, the move was designed to let professors feel comfortable bringing their criticisms to the president, though it also had symbolic force, illustrating, even before the March vote took place, that Summers had lost the confidence of many FAS professors.

After the March 15 meeting, Summers once again chaired the Faculty meetings. Now, Matory’s motion and the president’s decision to step aside as chair may suggest that discontent with Summers’ leadership has not dissipated. Tuesday’s meeting could reignite tensions that have been largely dormant since the March vote. Kirby wrote yesterday that he welcomes his Faculty to air their concerns to himself and the president.

“I will also certainly urge colleagues to communicate their views regarding the Corporation search and suggestions of candidates directly to the search committee. The search committee has set up an address specifically for this purpose,” he wrote.

Classics Department Chair Richard F. Thomas said many professors are interested in discussing the circumstances of Harper’s resignation.

“I think there is obviously concern and interest in the fact that Conrad Harper, who was an excellent member of the Corporation, left the way he did,” Thomas said.

“I think it’s a good thing that the matter is on the agenda,” he added. “I think the Faculty has an interest in not simply pretending that it didn’t happen.”

The FAS website says the agenda posted on its site is the “final agenda,” though professors may still add or retract motions before the meeting. Matory did not return calls for comment yesterday.

Tuesday’s agenda is currently available only to faculty members, but a copy obtained by the Crimson also shows two other docket items—a discussion of the recommendations of the two task forces on women faculty, and a presentation by Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Theda Skocpol on the establishment of a Graduate Policy Committee (GPC).

Senior Vice Provost for Faculty Development and Diversity Evelynn M. Hammonds will report on the implementation of the task force recommendations.

Hammonds said she told yesterday’s meeting of the Faculty Council, FAS’s 18-member governing body, that her staff is in the process of surveying junior faculty members, as recommended by the task forces, and that the survey results will appear in the spring.

“They’re setting up and getting started and getting the staff,” said Harvard College Professor and Phillips Professor of Early American History Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, who is a member of the Council.

Ulrich also said that the Faculty Council plans to meet with the Harvard Corporation in October, though she did not elaborate on the agenda for that discussion.

The Council met once with some members of the Corporation last April in the wake of the March FAS vote of no confidence in Summers’ leadership.

According to one member of the Faculty Council, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the information has not yet been officially released, the docket committee—Professor of the History of Science Everett I. Mendelsohn, Ulrich, and Thomas—along with Cabot Professor of Social Ethics and Pforzheimer Professor Mahzarin R. Banaji, Anthropology Department Chair Arthur Kleinman, and Dunwalke Associate Professor of American History Lisa M. McGirr, will represent the Faculty Council at the October meeting.

Skocpol’s discussion of the GPC is slated to follow the discussion of Harper’s resignation. The new committee, which has not yet been formed, would mirror the College’s Educational Policy Committee and would help advise Skocpol on matters of graduate education, Thomas said.

—Staff writer William C. Marra can be reached at wmarra@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Sara E. Polsky can be reached at polsky@fas.harvard.edu.