Students Must Demand Focus On Undergraduate Education

To the editors:



From my perspective as an alumnus, the goings on at Harvard (“Faculty Uproar Led to Ouster,” news, Feb. 22) comes down to this question: is the University to be run for the benefit of students or faculty? President Lawrence Summers thinks it should be run for the benefit of students, that is, that they should get a sound education to prepare them for productive and fulfilled lives. A majority of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and apparently the Corporation think the university should be run for the benefit of the faculty, that is, that they should be permitted to research and teach whatever they prefer, regardless of its long-term relevance to students or coherence as a curriculum.

Harvard students can help to right matters by making sure the Corporation knows their views about whose interests ought to dominate and what kind of president should be appointed to succeed Summers.



ROBERT K. ELLIOTT ’63

Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y.

February 24, 2006