Carter To Resign HKS Position

Harvard Kennedy School Professor Ashton B. Carter will leave his tenured position at the University to continue his work as head of procurement at the Pentagon, according to Aviation Week, an industry publication.

Carter left the Kennedy School in April 2009 to work as the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics—a position that involves managing the military’s purchasing programs and contracts with the defense industry.

Tenured Harvard professors are allowed a two-year leave of absence before they have to return to the University or lose their position. Carter’s leave will approach that limit in the spring, and he has said he does not intend to come back to Harvard.

“I came [to the Pentagon] committed to the tasks that we have undertaken, and that will take time and determination and I knew that from the beginning,” Carter told Aviation Week, adding that he intends to stay at the Pentagon as long as the current administration asks him to continue his work. Carter could not be reached for comment.

Together with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Carter has sought to reduce waste in Pentagon spending and to cut down on costly weapons programs at a time of increased strain on the military in Iraq and Afghanistan and heavy pressure on the federal budget from looming deficits.

At the Pentagon, Carter has been working closely with weapon industries to coordinate the acquisition of new technologies. Carter has also contributed to an aerial fleet replacement program and has been working on improving the Pentagon’s buying power.

Former CIA director and current MIT Professor John M. Deutch who worked with Carter at the Department of Defense in the ‘90s, described Carter as “extremely energetic, brilliant and capable.”

Deutch said that according to many people he knows at the Pentagon, Carter is very popular within the Department of Defense.

“He’s been very well received,” he said, adding that both the Pentagon staff and military industries seem to appreciate his energy.

“Everybody agrees he is doing an awesome job.”

At the Kennedy school, Carter was a defense policy professor and the Chair of the International Relations, Security, and Science faculty. He was also the co-director of the Preventive Defense Project, a research project that focuses on finding ways to reduce potential national security threat.

The University is famously strict in enforcing its two-year rule for public service leaves. Earlier this year, former Harvard president Lawrence H. Summers left his position as a senior economic adviser at the White House and cited the two-year rule as one of the reasons why he had decided to return to Cambridge.

-Staff writer Ariane Litalien can be reached at alitalien@college.harvard.edu