Summers To Resume Teaching at Harvard

Former University President Lawrence H. Summers will resume teaching and research at the Kennedy School this month after serving as a top economic adviser at the White House for two years.

Summers will also serve as the director of the Sharmin and Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Kennedy School. The center focuses on  global policy issues that involve both the public and private sectors.

Summers said in a statement that he is looking forward to teaching public policy in a stimulating academic setting now that the economy has stabilized.

"I am especially excited by the prospect of working with some of the most able students in the world at such a critical time," he said.

Summers’ teaching at the Kennedy School will focus on how public policy is influenced by current shifts in global economy.

It remains unclear whether Summers will also teach courses through the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, though Dean of the Kennedy School David T. Ellwood said that Summers “will certainly be participating in courses outside of the Kennedy School.”

In the past, Summers taught economics classes both through the Kennedy School and the FAS.

"[Summers] has been at the center of the best economic times and also the most challenging economic times," Kennedy School Dean David T. Ellwood said. "He has such an exceptional combination of experience and insight."

Summers was appointed Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and Director of the White House National Economic Council in November 2008. He announced last fall his intention to return to Harvard at the end of 2010 in part to avoid losing his tenured position at the University.

At the White House, Summers served as a key economic counselor to Obama during the economic crisis, advising him on the stimulus package as well as running the Oval Office’s daily economic briefings.

"We will miss him here at the White House, but I look forward to soliciting his continued advice and his counsel on an informal basis," said President Obama in a statement last fall.

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