Signs Indicate Summers May Focus on College

After the smoke clears from Harvard's presidential search, undergraduates may find that they have reason to be optimistic about the agenda of the University's 27th president.

The search committee's meetings were conducted entirely in secret, and there is clearly a great deal students still do not know about Lawrence H. Summers' plans for Harvard.

But there have been signs all along that Summers' presidency may be more oriented toward undergraduates than that of his predecessor, current president Neil L. Rudenstine.

To some extent, Summers' course has already been set for him by Rudenstine, who raked in $2.6 billion in a massive capital campaign. Summers, then, can devote less attention to padding the University's coffers and more to other matters.

Rudenstine was not focused enough on the College for some people's taste. According to Quincy House Master Michael Shinagel, who met with the search committee last fall, Rudenstine's fundraising neglected important College issues, like residential overcrowding.

Whether Summers will prioritize the space concerns articulated by Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 in his recent Report on the College remains to be seen. Unlike Provost Harvey V. Fineberg '67, a top candidate into the final days of the search, Summers never lived in Harvard's Houses as an undergraduate--he went to MIT.

But in the realm of undergraduate education, there is a strong feeling that Summers--who became the University's youngest-ever tenured professor in 1983--will be a champion of students' academic interests.

Reaction in the College to Summers' appointment has focused on Summers' reputation as a professor.

"He was a very good teacher and a good mentor to graduate students and undergraduates," Lewis said. "He really seems to understand the full range of the mission of the University, and that's incredibly important."

The praise Summers has received from former students constitutes "the best kind of recommendation" one can receive, Lewis added in an e-mail.

And perhaps Summers--once an Ec10 teaching fellow--may bring a unique perspective to academic issues like class size.

As a member of the economics faculty, Summers taught in a department which now suffers from a very high student-faculty ratio and low marks for undergraduate advising.

Lewis has been particularly critical of the state of advising in the economics department.

Christopher L. Foote, the department's director of undergraduate studies, said the department hopes to improve student satisfaction by offering more courses, thereby cutting class size and encouraging student-faculty interaction.

One way to do this, of course, would be to hire more faculty, a solution that has long been championed by many in the University. The president must approve all tenure decisions, and any move to dramatically increase the size of the Faculty would be a costly venture requiring strong central administration support.

Rudenstine has said that hiring 100 more Faculty members would cost about $400 million and ought to be a top priority--ostensibly one for the University's 27th president to undertake.

In a move that surprised many Undergraduate Council leaders, Summers met informally with the

council at a reception last night--a signal, if only a symbolic one, that Summers cares about undergraduate life.

Rudenstine has not fielded questions from the council since a lightly attended "Days of Dialogue" event in November. Lewis said he was "delighted" to hear of Summers' meeting with the council.

Yet while students say they imagine Summers will do a good job as president, many are skeptical that his appointment will have many ramifications, positive or negative, for their lives.

"It's not like it changes anything," said James J. Albertine '04. "I still have my midterms this week."

--Staff writer David C. Newman can be reached at dnewman@fas.harvard.edu.