The Economist

From my window in Leverett yesterday afternoon, I could see the sun setting behind Baker Library. Dara F. Goodman ’07, Co-Chair of the Radcliffe Union of Students, was readying her room for a champagne toast. A throng of students was chanting outside Mass. Hall to a phalanx of camera crews. And students on several open lists made pacts to hold a protest at Tuesday’s Faculty meeting. As the steeple of Baker Library pierced the glowing orb and the sky grew crimson, then dark, so began the evaluation of the tenure of Harvard University’s shortest serving President since the Civil War.

In his resignation address to students and media outside Mass. Hall yesterday, University President Lawrence H. Summers mentioned that he had loved working with Harvard students throughout his time as president. The feeling was mutual. Hundreds of us took his classes and heard him lecture. A lucky few even grinded with him at a recent study break in Annenberg. Summers’ ability to turn issues on their heads by looking at them from an economist’s point of view was eye-opening.

Maybe that’s why, to the bitter end, students supported Summers 3-to-1. Unfortunately for Summers, though, the tally for the no-confidence vote at next week’s Faculty meeting was quite likely to reveal just the opposite proportion.

From last January, when Summers’ comments about “intrinsic aptitude” catalyzed Faculty dissent, up to now, our president lost the support of many of his high profile backers in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. He did so not necessarily because his ideas were flawed, but because of how he expressed them. In forming opinions, Summers favored data over politics, basing his judgments on empirical evidence and changing his mind just as quickly if the evidence turned against him. Summers’ confidence in his own judgments, barring counterarguments he deemed suitable, got him into trouble often. After resigning due to differences with Summers, former Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dean Peter T. Ellison recalled a time when Summers stated that economists were smarter than political scientists and sociologists. More seriously, Faculty members complained that Summers played favorites with funding and the tenure process, bestowing grants and professorships on those whose fields he deemed worthy. In general, it has been individuals from these favored fields who have strongly supported him throughout his difficulties with the Faculty.

In past weeks, the announcement of Dean of the Faculty William C. Kirby’s resignation has lost him the support of his star backers. With a large minority of the Faculty vehemently opposed to Summers, his supporters reasoned that no reconciliation was possible. Without their support, Summers was forced to resign.

As an end to a conflict which has distracted the Harvard College Curricular Review, Allston development, and a whole host of academic endeavors, Summers’ resignation was, objectively, the best decision for the University as a whole. But there is a flip side to the Summers coin. Though they are the traits that angered Faculty members the most, Summers’ strong opinions and single-mindedness have begun the transformation of Harvard into an institution at once more dedicated to its students and more centered on cutting-edge research.

Summers focused on the student experience at Harvard in his resignation letter, writing that “the quality of the experience we provide our students is not fully commensurate with their quality or the quality of the Harvard faculty.” In action as well as in word, Summers has worked to improve the undergraduate experience in particular. His office’s six million dollar grant is paying for Hilles renovations, the new Loker Pub, and the Lamont Café. His initiative to increase international opportunities at Harvard has been welcomed by students. And his decision to make Harvard’s financial aid the most generous in the world has made Harvard a leader in promoting educational equality. It is indisputable that Summers listened to student demands.

Summers has also crafted an enduring vision for Harvard’s expansion into Allston. It combines a strong emphasis on science research buildings with new undergraduate Houses, multi-purpose performance spaces, and an urban redevelopment plan. This expansion, in tandem with the recent enlargement of the Faculty, will place Harvard at the forefront of future scholarship, scientific and otherwise.

In short, Harvard’s future seems secure even if its present is just the opposite. During his resignation speech yesterday, Summers talked about his vision and his initiatives continuing, even if he himself relinquished the helm. That seems like a fair plan, save for one question: Can anyone besides Larry Summers get it done?

My guess is yes. A good portion of the Faculty’s grievances are purely personal, not intellectual. Humanities professors may gripe about Harvard’s investment in science, but they gripe more about the power, independence, and above all, stature, they seemed to have lost in the past five years. A new president who honors Homer, Herodotus, and Hippocrates equally should be able to expand on Summers’ vision without facing the same roadblocks.

Summers knew the rules. He knew the dangers of saying, “I know best,” to a collection of the greatest minds in the world. And yet he still dug his own grave. For the sake of following through on his vision, let’s hope that this fact was due more to the sharpness of the spade rather than to the pliability of the earth.



Alex Slack ’06 is a history concentrator in Leverett House. His column appears regularly.