In Encore, Bok Faces Familiar Challenges

Derek C. Bok, Harvard’s president from 1971 to 1991, will serve as Harvard’s interim leader after University President Lawrence H. Summers steps down on July 1, the Harvard Corporation announced in a statement yesterday.

The Corporation, the University’s top governing body, asked the 75-year-old Bok to hold the post until a new president is inaugurated, according to the letter.

In his second go-around in Mass. Hall, Bok faces a challenge that parallels the one he confronted when he took the reins in 1971. At the beginning of his tenure, Bok earned a reputation as a composed and effective leader who successfully dealt with a campus bitterly divided over the Vietnam War, the University’s ties to the military, and race relations at the school.

Bok’s reputation as a consensus-builder still resonates among many faculty members today, who see his brief upcoming tenure as a chance to restore stability to the University.

Environmental Science and Public Policy Chair James J. McCarthy, who arrived at Harvard in 1974, said yesterday that Bok demonstrated “a real nurturing style of leadership” during his tenure.

Frankfurter Professor of Law Alan M. Dershowitz, who has worked at Harvard Law School for over 40 years, called Bok a “wonderful choice” for interim president.

“He has the experience, he’s calm, he’s balanced,” Dershowitz said. “I only wish he was 55 years old and could serve out the next ten years.”

‘UNIVERSALLY TRUSTED’

Rising from full professor to dean of the Law School to University president in a decade, Bok took the reins of the University at age 41.

A 1971 Crimson editorial said that one of Bok’s highest charges would be “to overcome the mammoth negative Pusey legacy,” referring to Bok’s predecessor, Nathan M. Pusey ’28. Pusey faced particularly strong criticism in 1969 for calling police to respond to a student occupation of University Hall.

Student activism had roiled the Harvard campus throughout the 1960s, and Bok, who had established his conciliatory leadership style as head of the Law School, was charged with diffusing the crisis.

Bok’s trustworthiness as a leader is legendary, individuals across the University said yesterday.

“He’s a man of honor, of probity, and a man of values,” Former Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Jeremy R. Knowles said. “He has an unimpeachable integrity.”

In a Jan. 1971 interview with The Crimson, Bok said that he intended to show just those qualities while in office: “My own feeling is that it is really terribly important that you be as open as you can be about what you’re doing, be very careful about what you promise and that you break your back to fulfill any commitments that you do make—and in that way very slowly build up trust in at least a substantial number of students and faculty.”

Summers likewise spoke highly of his predecessor’s credibility in an interview in his Mass. Hall office yesterday.

“President Bok is a universally trusted figure of great stability, and I’m sure he’ll do an extremely good job during the interim period,” Summers said.

Summers’ critics in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences have often chastised Summers for making inconsistent statements to the Faculty.

Some professors have cried foul over Summers’ conduct regarding the investment scandal implicating Jones Professor of Economics Andrei Shleifer ’82, who is a longtime friend of Summers.

Faculty have also accused Summers of misleading them about his decision to allow faculties other than the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences to award PhDs.

DIFFERENT STROKES

During his two decades as president, Bok oversaw major changes in the structure and character of the University.

Besides mending the rifts in the Harvard community in his early years, Bok also oversaw the implementation of the Core Curriculum and, during his last decade, saw a threefold increase in the University’s endowment.

Bok also proved pivotal in the founding of the Kennedy School of Government, where he is currently the chair of the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations. Until 2003, he was also the 300th Anniversary University Professor.

Bok, like Summers, expanded the staff of the central administration, adding four vice-presidents, an in-house legal staff, and several other new administrative positions.

Although Bok and Summers both expanded the administrative capacities of Mass. Hall, the two men’s management styles do not appear to be so similar.

Very early on in his presidency, Bok became widely known as a “crisis solver,” according to a May 1972 Crimson editorial. But, as he attempted to dampen the campus conflicts in the early 1970s, some observers felt that Bok did not address the University’s problems head-on.

“[He] has demonstrated an irritating, but apparently effective, knack for avoiding direct confrontation through postponement,” the 1972 Crimson editorial read.

Summers, in contrast, has come under fire by faculty for his blunt managerial style.

Many professors also criticized Summers for governing the University in a style reminiscent of Washington, where Summers served several high-level posts, including as Treasury secretary from 1999 to 2001.

Summers, for example, is driven to work in a black Lincoln Town Car with a license plate that reads “1636.”

Bok, when he was president, drove his own Volkswagen.

Despite the differences between the two men, members of the Harvard community contacted by The Crimson—including Summers’ longtime supporters—universally offered praise yesterday for Bok and the Corporation’s decision to appoint him.

“Derek Bok is a great, great leader, absolutely no question,” said Lee Professor of Economics Claudia Goldin, who has backed Summers throughout his tenure. “The first thing that came to my mind was Derek—no question.”

And Beneficial Professor of Law Charles Fried, also a supporter of Summers, called Bok “a dear friend and a wonderful man. He did it well before.”

Harvard spokesman John D. Longbrake said that Bok was not available for comment yesterday, but Bok said in a press release that he would “do [his] best to carry out the Corporation’s request.”

“There is no institution I care about more deeply, and I will make every effort to work with colleagues to further the University’s agenda during this transitional period,” he said.

Alan Stone, Harvard’s vice president for government, community, and public affairs, declined to comment on a time-table for the selection of Harvard’s next president. Bok’s tenure as interim president will end when the search process concludes.

Longbrake declined to discuss the circumstances surrounding Bok’s appointment. Bok resigned his post as head of Common Cause, a nonprofit government-accountability organization last week.

—Staff writers Lois E. Beckett, Javier C. Hernandez, and Anton S. Troianovski contributed to the reporting of this story.
—Staff writer Daniel J. T. Schuker can be reached at dschuker@fas.harvard.edu.