Students To Advise Pres. Search

Thirteen professors and 14 students will advise the committee searching for Harvard’s 28th president, the University announced on Friday.

For the first time in recent memory, faculty and student representatives from across the University will offer a formal consultative voice in the ongoing presidential search, which launched in March and is expected to be completed by springtime next year.

Political scientist Sidney Verba ’53, the Pforzheimer University professor and the director of the Harvard University Library, will chair the group of faculty members, and Matthew J. Murray, a joint-degree student at the Kennedy School of Government and Harvard Law School, will lead the student committee.

“We look forward to benefiting from the thoughtful counsel of both of these groups, whose members will bring a range of helpful perspectives from across Harvard,” search committee chair James R. Houghton ’58 said in a statement.

The student advisory committee—joined by search committee member Nannerl O. Keohane—convened for the first time on Friday, and over the summer students will begin to gather input in an informal manner, Murray said. In the fall, the committee will begin regular formal meetings, he added.

The University announced in March that the chairs of each advisory group would meet with the search committee “from time to time,” and that members of the search committee would “periodically” attend meetings of the advisory boards. But the ultimate selection of the next president will be left to the nine members of the search committee, culled from the ranks of the University’s two top governing boards, the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers.

Since the launch of the search in late March, undergraduates and graduates have bemoaned the exclusion of students from the committee.

Last month, the Harvard Graduate Council—which includes representatives from each of the University’s graduate and professional schools—released a letter urging the University to add a graduate student to the search committee.

The letter resulted in an April 14 meeting between University administrators and leaders from the Graduate Council, but no change has ensued and both the University and the council have declined to offer any details on the meeting.

Despite the dissatisfaction among some, Murray said he believes students will have an ample opportunity to “speak their mind and offer their input.”

“I am under the impression that the search committee will take the comments we gather from students very seriously and thoughtfully,” Murray said.

“I think the best evaluation of the outcome will have to take place after the fact.”

The members of each committee were chosen by the search committee in consultation with deans and “other officials” at the University, according to Harvard spokesman John D. Longbrake.

The Undergraduate Council also submitted a list of recommendations to the search committee after conducting its own application process.

The search committee has begun “structured consultations with various alumni groups as well as leaders in higher education,” and it will also begin to solicit advice from Harvard staff, according to the statement.

Longbrake declined to comment on the schedule of meetings between the search committee and the advisory panel chairs.

In addition to Verba, the faculty advisory committee includes four other members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS)—the largest bloc from any single school.

In February, University President Lawrence H. Summers cited an inability to repair relations with “segments” of that school’s faculty as the chief reason for his resignation.

And some professors at the University’s other schools have expressed worries that the search committee may cave to FAS clout in selecting Harvard’s next leader.

The four FAS member are English professor Stephen Greenblatt, history and African and African American studies professor Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, chemistry professor Eric N. Jacobsen, and astronomy professor Ramesh Narayan.

The other faculty members are Lisa Berkman of the School of Public Health, Richard H. Fallon of the Law School, Amy Hollywood of the Divinity School, Alex Krieger of the Design School, William A. Sahlman of the Business School, Judith D. Singer of the Graduate School of Education, Robert Stavins of the Kennedy School, and Christopher T. Walsh of Harvard Medical School.

Three Harvard College students—Whitney S. F. Baxter ’07, Katherine A. Beck ’08, and Vivek G. Ramaswamy ’07—will serve on the student advisory committee.

“I just hope to be a conduit to the undergraduate student community and to make sure that undergraduates are represented to the search committee,” Baxter said on Friday.

The other members of that committee are Emilie M. Dressaire and Sarah A. Carter ’02 of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Liza K. C. Ching ’02 of the Kennedy School, Kerith J. Conron of the School of Public Health, Gillian L. Fell of the Medical School, Christopher C. Fonzone of the Law School, Mark J. McInroy of the Divinity School, Owen Patrick of the Business School, Hannelore B. Rodriguez-Farrar of the Graduate School of Education, and Christopher White of the Design School.

—Staff writer Javier C. Hernandez can be reached at jhernand@fas.harvard.edu.