Professors Say They 'Continue To Lack Confidence' in Summers

Professors launched an hour-long attack on University President Lawrence H. Summers’ leadership at today’s Faculty meeting, and—in sharp contrast to similar sessions of the Faculty a year ago—no professors rose in Summers’ defense.

“I think this was a more negative meeting than the ones last spring,” Professor of Anthropology Theodore C. Bestor said as he exited University Hall tonight.

Eleven months ago, members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences passed one resolution declaring their “lack of confidence” in the president and a second that expressed “regrets” about Summers’ “managerial approach.”

Those anti-Summers sentiments resurfaced today.

“Now, almost a year after two resolutions of no confidence in your leadership were voted by this Faculty, it is with no small sense of urgency that I stand here to declare that the College and the University are in a state that is much dissembled and patently dire,” said Agassiz Professor of Zoology Farish A. Jenkins Jr.

Jenkins added: “Is it not time to reverse this tide of chaos and disruption? Time to appoint an acting president? Time to initiate a search for a new president?”

The chairman of the English department, James Engell, appealed to Harvard’s governing bodies to recognize that Summers has left the Faculty in a “divided, demoralized, and dispirited” state.

“Do not you and the fellows of Harvard College, the Corporation, and also the elected members of the Board of Overseers realize that this Faculty has for some time now lacked and continues to lack confidence in the leadership of the University,” Engell said.

The meeting was the first since Dean of the Faculty William C. Kirby resigned from his post 10 days ago amid reports in The Crimson that Summers forced him out of office.

While 13 professors attacked Summers today and none defended him, the packed hall of about 200 professors erupted into an extended standing ovation for Kirby when he first rose to speak.

After the meeting, Summers said in a statement released to The Crimson: “I have heard the concerns of the Faculty and continue to be committed to working constructively with them.”

SUMMERS' KNIGHTS

At least two of Summers’ most prominent supporters on the Faculty—Stephan Thernstrom and Ruth R. Wisse—were absent from today’s meeting.

At least two of Summers’ most prominent supporters on the Faculty—Stephan Thernstrom and Ruth R. Wisse—were absent from today’s meeting.

Wisse, the Peretz professor of Yiddish literature, is in Atlanta today and will deliver two speeches at Emory University tomorrow, according to her husband, Leonard Wisse.

Thernstrom is on leave this academic year. "I might have gone if I had known this would come up," he said in a phone interview this evening.

Thernstrom said that Summers "has certainly made some blunders, but I think that goes with the territory."

"I do not lack confidence," Thernstrom said.