Landers Named Head Overseer

Renee M. Landers '77 has been elected president of the Harvard Board of Overseers for the 1996-97 academic year, culminating a six-year career on the board.

Voting was held on April 14, but the results were not announced until Commencement Day. At the same time, Harvard announced five new members, including notables like historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, would join this governing body.

Landers will replace outgoing President Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, president emeritus of the University of Notre Dame.

Landers said she has been involved in Harvard governance since her undergraduate days when she was active in the Committee on House Life and the Radcliffe Union of Students. Since graduation, she has worked with the Harvard Alumni Association and served on the Board of Overseers since 1991.

The main duties of the president of the Overseers are to help the president of Harvard set the agenda for Overseers meetings, manage the board's executive committees and make sure the committee process works well, Landers said.

The role Landers envisions for the board in governing Harvard, and the one it has traditionally taken, is more responsive and reactive than proactive, she said.

"Particularly in areas affecting the curriculum and the faculty, the leadership should come from the deans and the central administration," Landers said.

The job of the Overseers is to act as a consultant for the permanent bureaucracy, she said.

"No matter how good the administrators are and how well designed the administrative structure is, there are going to be problems," she said.

Those areas in which the Overseers take a strong role to shape the future of Harvard most often should come through long-term observation and planning, Landers said.

The board has a unique position in that it is able to track departments over time and get a broader view of where they have been and where they need to go, she said.

"The board has a powerful role in making changes over time," she said.

Landers stands by the major decisions of the Overseers from the past year. She defended the board's decision not to give the go-ahead for a proposed Civil War memorial which would have included recognition for Harvard affiliates who died fighting for the Confederacy.

"More consulation and thinking needed to be done," Landers said. "It's not the kind of issue where you can easily understand the positions."

Issues the Overseers are likely to encounter, she said, are much the same as those which face the central administration--long term finances, for example.

Helping to balance the budgets of Harvard's faculties and controlling the long-term costs of education are of primary concern, Landers said.

"These are hard times for universities--these things always need to be watched," Landers said. "The cost of higher education is always growing, and there is a limit to what the market will bear. We always must do what we can to limit these growing costs."

The five new Overseers elected this spring are, in order of their vote totals, Goodwin, Robert D. Reischauer, J. Michael Biship, Richard E. Oldenburg and Woodrow A. Myers

"No matter how good the administrators are and how well designed the administrative structure is, there are going to be problems," she said.

Those areas in which the Overseers take a strong role to shape the future of Harvard most often should come through long-term observation and planning, Landers said.

The board has a unique position in that it is able to track departments over time and get a broader view of where they have been and where they need to go, she said.

"The board has a powerful role in making changes over time," she said.

Landers stands by the major decisions of the Overseers from the past year. She defended the board's decision not to give the go-ahead for a proposed Civil War memorial which would have included recognition for Harvard affiliates who died fighting for the Confederacy.

"More consulation and thinking needed to be done," Landers said. "It's not the kind of issue where you can easily understand the positions."

Issues the Overseers are likely to encounter, she said, are much the same as those which face the central administration--long term finances, for example.

Helping to balance the budgets of Harvard's faculties and controlling the long-term costs of education are of primary concern, Landers said.

"These are hard times for universities--these things always need to be watched," Landers said. "The cost of higher education is always growing, and there is a limit to what the market will bear. We always must do what we can to limit these growing costs."

The five new Overseers elected this spring are, in order of their vote totals, Goodwin, Robert D. Reischauer, J. Michael Biship, Richard E. Oldenburg and Woodrow A. Myers