journal59-75.final 4/7/06 7:53 PM Page 59 JOHN HARVARD’S JOURNAL After a telephone news conference to discuss his resignation on February 21, President Lawrence H. Summers stepped outside Massachusetts Hall to face the broadcast media and meet with student supporters. constantly raised but incompletely ex- Corporation and Summers. (Links to the A Presidency’s plored. Given his unexpectedly brief texts are available at www.harvardmag- Early End tenure, that leaves much work for Har- azine.com.) vard’s transition leadership, and for Sum- The Corporation’s letter made these After five years of frequent contro- mers’s ultimate successor. Those leaders key points: versy on matters of fundamental academ- must also help calm the community and • Summers would serve through the end ic and intellectual substance, and the refocus its energies on its academic mis- of the academic year. Following a sabbati- style in which those issues were pursued, sion—priorities that seemed particularly cal, he planned to return to the faculty, the Harvard presidency of Lawrence H. pressing in the fervid atmosphere imme- and the Corporation intended to appoint Summers will end on June 30. Through- diately following Summers’s resignation. him to a University Professorship, Har- out his administration, questions about The news itself was announced on the vard’s highest professorial rank, upon the how the University should develop fac- University website at 1:00 p.m. on Tuesday, completion of his presidential service. ulty, teach students, and organize re- February 21, the day after Presidents’ Day, • He would be succeeded July 1, on an search in the twenty-first century were accompanied by letters from the Harvard interim basis, by Derek Bok, who was Photograph by Vilsa E. Curto/Harvard Crimson Harvard Magazine 59 journal59-75.final 4/11/06 5:01 PM Page 60 JOHN HARVARD’S JOURNAL END OF A PRESIDENCY president from 1971 to 1991. For Bok, who Saying that it had accepted Summers’s “has been a di∞cult and sometimes led Harvard after the turmoil of the late resignation with regret, the Corporation wrenching one.” It exhorted members of 1960s—the antiwar protests, occupation cited his service to Harvard, animated by the community to “look forward in a of University Hall, and forcible removal of “a sense of bold aspiration and initiative, a spirit of common enterprise” of scholar- those sitting in by police o∞cers—the prodigious intelligence, and an insistent ship and education. new tour of service represents a second devotion to maximizing Harvard’s contri- call to calm troubled waters. (Bok quickly butions to the realm of ideas and to the In his own letter, Summers cited began preparing to assume his new du- larger world.” As examples of “invigo- “rifts between me and segments of the ties; see “The Interim Agenda,” page 64.) rated” academic programs and keener en- Arts and Sciences faculty” as the factor • Provost Steven E. Hyman “will carry gagement with “complex challenges facing making it “infeasible for me to advance forward in his vital role.” society,” the Corporation cited work on the agenda of renewal that I see as crucial • The Corporation would have “more to the undergraduate curriculum; Harvard’s to Harvard’s future.” That definition of say soon about the search for a new presi- international agenda; the “pursuit of new what had transpired would become dent, which we intend to launch prompt- intellectual frontiers” within and across sharply contested ground. ly” (see page 66). departments and schools; enhanced finan- He then presented an informal brief for The statement was signed by James R. cial aid for students from lower-income what had been his presidential agenda. Houghton, Nannerl O. Keohane, Robert families and graduate students pursuing “Believing deeply that complacency is D. Reischauer, James F. Rothenberg, and public-service careers; faculty appoint- among the greatest risks facing Harvard,” Robert E. Rubin—the current Corpora- ments; and planning for Allston develop- Summers wrote, “I have sought for the last tion members other than Summers. (Pa- ment, particularly in the sciences. five years to prod and challenge the Uni- tricia A. King begins her service in May.) The past year, the Corporation noted, versity to reach for the most ambitious WEIGHING IN The resignation of President Lawrence H. Summers became courses designed to appeal to their whims.…Mr. Summers also grist for a torrent of commentary worldwide, much of it highly began a move to rein in grade inflation; he dispelled some of Har- political, even ideological. On March 12, in the Sunday Telegraph, vard’s political correctness by inviting conservative speakers and Tisch professor of history Niall Ferguson—no left-wing fire- looking for conservative professors to hire; he transformed the brand—coolly summarized the rhetorical warfare this way: “Ei- policy of a∞rmative action by reducing the pressure to hire more ther a reactionary despot has been deposed by faculty freed0m- blacks and women as such; he opposed Harvard’s hostile atti- fighters, or a bold reformer has been thwarted by vested tude toward the U.S. military. Besides these measures of cultural interests.” (At its extreme, the latter argument extended to politics, he sought to put or keep Harvard first in science…. claims that the president was being ousted by tenured oppo- Thanks to the Harvard Corporation, all this e≠ort is sus- nents intolerant of his ideas and speech.) Without documenting pended—who knows for how long. In forcing Mr. Summers out, all the passionate extracurricular volleys, here is a sampling of the Corporation surrendered to the “diehard left” ([Frankfurter faculty members’ di≠erent opinions. professor of law] Alan Dershowitz’s expression) which had op- posed him from the start and is now celebrating in triumph and “The Debacle at Harvard” glee.…I do not know, but I suppose this was done out of sympa- Mr. summers was trying thy and fear combined, probably out of fear of not showing sym- to hold Harvard to a higher pathy. The Corporation is composed of liberals and leftists, and standard of excellence than was reportedly led in this action by the feminist Nannerl Keo- it was becoming used to— hane, former president of Duke University, and by liberal demo- exemplary scholarship crat Robert Reischauer, president of the Urban Institute. from all faculty, hiring only But the Corporation was also afraid of showing too much the best without the pres- sympathy with the left. It could not summon the manly con- sure to meet a quota based fidence to avow that Mr. Summers was being ousted because his on sex, and a challenging agenda of renewal clashed with the diversity agenda of the femi- curriculum that gets the nist left and its sympathizers. best out of both students Harvey C. Mansfield, Kenan professor of government, excerpted with permis- and faculty.… sion from a manuscript submitted to the Claremont Review of Books Mr. Summers proposed EWS OFFICE a curriculum review that “Wanted: A Leader” would result in solid courses forced out by a radical “segment” of the Fac- Harvey C. Summers was not aimed to answer students’ Mansfield ulty of Arts and Sciences. He was not forced out because bold vi- needs, replacing stylish JON CHASE/HARVARD N sions threatened a complacent faculty. Most faculty in arts and 60 May - June 2006 journal59-75.final 4/11/06 5:01 PM Page 61 goals in creative ways.” Acknowledging Summers cited as priorities work on was necessary to e≠ect desired change— that there “surely have been times when I the undergraduate curriculum and stu- with Summers’s especially forceful per- could have done this in wiser or more re- dent life; “renewal of the faculty” when sonality was a sure formula for unsettling spectful ways,” Summers wrote of his “the median age of our tenured professo- members of the community, construc- “sense of urgency” stemming from a con- riate is approaching 60”; extending finan- tively or not. The contrast with the al- viction of Harvard’s special ability to cial aid; “unprecedented commitments most self-e≠acing manner of his prede- “make a real di≠erence in a world desper- to science and technology” and to engi- cessor, Neil L. Rudenstine, was especially ately in need of wisdom of all kinds.” He neering; overcoming “artificial bound- great. Summers acknowledged in his let- also spoke of “laying some of the founda- aries of departments and schools,” which ter the tensions that did ensue, noting tions for what may come.” (This was an would require an increased willingness “strains and moments of rancor.” eerie echo of Faculty of Arts and Sciences to “transcend parochial interests in sup- [FAS] dean William C. Kirby’s resignation port of broader University goals”; and the During a 35-minute telephone news letter of January 27; Kirby wrote, “[W]e planned Allston campus. (Because Sum- conference that Tuesday afternoon, Senior have set a strong foundation.” The furor mers remains president through the end Fellow James Houghton summarized the following Kirby’s announcement, and the of the academic year, a review of his ad- Corporation’s written statement before manner in which the end of his deanship ministration will appear in a future issue.) Summers spoke. After saying, “This is a was handled, widened the fissures be- In retrospect, mixing these implicit day of mixed emotions for me,” the presi- tween president and faculty, as revealed at perspectives—that the College was not dent summarized his accomplishments. the faculty meeting of February 7. (See educating its students as well as it could; He acknowledged that he felt “very much “Arts and Sciences Dean to Leave O∞ce,” that Harvard had become, or risked be- regret for the rifts and cleavages” between March-April, page 58, and below.) coming, complacent; and that prodding himself and sciences are eager to reinvigorate undergraduate education, not the root of the problem, and po- strengthen cutting-edge science, internationalize the university, litically correct decisions could not develop the Allston campus, and encourage collaboration among solve it.… the schools.