Why Has She Departed?

When Kiyo Morimoto, the head of the Bureau of Study Counsel, retired last spring after 27 years at the Bureau, he recommended that Jean Wu, then associate director, be appointed as his successor.

Wu was later rejected by a search committee of administrators and professors. She has since left Harvard to accept a post at Brown University, and her departure exacerbates the under-representation of Asian-Americans in the College administration, Asian students say.

"She was one of the few Asian administrators. That's a concern of ours," said Denley Chew '87, president of the Asian American Association, a student group.

Search committee member Perry London, a professor at the School of Education, said that although Wu's credentials were "very, very excellent," none of the more than 20 original candidates who submitted applications last spring was "exactly suited for the position."

Wu, who became associate dean of the college at Brown this fall, said she had taught a house seminar with Morimoto entitled "Asian American Experience and Identity." She said she requested a faculty appointment to continue teaching the course after Morimoto's resignation, but her request was denied.

Wu would not explain why she decided to leave Harvard.

She said she will be teaching an Asian-American studies course at Brown.

Dean of the College L. Fred Jewett '57 said the Faculty of Arts and Sciences requires that a seminar instructor have a faculty or teaching appointment in order to "provide reasonable control over the quality of the course." In some cases, instructors without faculty positions are permitted to jointly teach courses with professors, he said.

Jewett said that many students have told him that they would like to have an Asian-American studies course at Harvard. "The University is constantly looking for people in teaching areas that are underepresented," Jewett said.

But students ask why the University overlooked Wu, who they said is well qualified to represent the Asian perspective.

"Wu was qualified. So this suggests Harvard is taking seriously neither her qualifications nor students' demands for Asian American studies," said Hein Kim '87, a member of the Radcliffe Asian American Women's Group.

Dissatisfaction with Wu's departure was also expressed in an anonymous letter sent to Jewett.

"Once again, Harvard administration [sic], through its own arrogance and folly has managed to lose an excellent and dedicated professional," the letter said. "On a campus that very direly needs role models and mentors for minority and women students, Jean Wu was an oustanding model and mentor for many."

The letter's authors, who identified themselves as "students who use the bureau and graduate students," said in the letter that they had learned from the staff at the Bureau that the administration had appointed an acting director without the support of the bureau. "These circumstances contributed to Jean Wu's decision to leave Harvard," they wrote.

Jewett said he found it "hard to take [the letter] seriously when you can't respond directly."

Newly appointed associate director of the Bureau M. Suzanne Repetto, Wu's successor and an eight-year veteran of the Bureau, said that the "tone of the letter misrepresents what happened." But Repetto would not comment further on the reasons for Wu's departure.