The Summers Era

When he becomes Harvard’s 27th president on July 1, Lawrence H. Summers will inherit control of a University that is strong and prepared for change. For the past 10 years, President Neil L. Rudenstine has worked diligently to strengthen Harvard’s foundations for an evolution that would come only after his tenure had ended. The centerpieces of Rudenstine’s work as president, the $2.6 billion capital campaign and the buildup of the $19 billion endowment, will enable historic investments in the University’s future. The purchase of 58 acres of land in Allston signals a significant alteration in the University’s physical presence. And the efforts to draw together Harvard’s fractious faculties under a stronger central administration have placed greater control in the hands of a visionary president. Summers was chosen as a man of action—-to leave an indelible stamp on the University by making wise use of its financial, physical and academic resources. We have no doubt that he will rise to the challenge.

As the College is the center of the University’s educational program, undergraduate education must be the central focus of Summers’ reforms. For all that Harvard offers, students are far too often left adrift in large, impersonal concentrations—-and even larger and more impersonal classes. Summers’ reported plans to hire as many as 200 new professors, as well as to encourage a significantly higher rate of tenure for junior professors, would by themselves change the face of the Faculty, but they would have even greater effects on the undergraduate experience. The unparalleled knowledge and experience of the Faculty is wasted where interaction between professors and students is lacking. A larger Faculty would reduce class size, allowing students to benefit from their professors’ expertise from across a table rather than across a lecture hall, and would allow for the increase of departmental classes required for the replacement of the unnecessarily restrictive Core Curriculum with a distribution requirement.

The increased promotion of junior professors would similarly enhance the academic life of the College, as junior professors, closer to their student days, frequently offer a better teaching experience than their research-focused elders. By tenuring junior professors early, rather than shipping them off to other schools and then welcoming them back 10 or 15 years later, Harvard will be able to benefit from the decades of their careers that normally go to the benefit of other universities. Small departments often do not have the manpower to expend the time needed to make senior appointments; while tenuring internal candidates does not increase the overall size of the Faculty, it will break this vicious cycle and shift the burden of the search process onto junior appointments, which are typically easier to conduct.

Moreover, a larger Faculty would help the College achieve a stronger undergraduate advising program, especially in departments that currently fail to match students with senior faculty. At the first deans’ meeting after his selection, Summers spoke at length on the need for improvements in undergraduate advising. Harvard’s academic resources are in many ways like its collections in Widener Library—-deep and comprehensive, yet often underused or difficult to find. Summers, who earned a stellar reputation for his teaching-—as a professor, a teaching fellow for Social Analysis 10, a tutor in Lowell House and as a mentor to undergrads and graduate students alike-—should understand the benefits that connections between students and faculty can bring. According to some reports, Summers was chosen in part because of the vision he articulated for a world-class College at a world-class University; the growth of the endowment gives Harvard the chance to remake its undergraduate experience, and Summers must make the most of this opportunity.

But Summers’ mandate for change will extend far beyond the College. As his predecessor has done, Summers must work to build coherence out of Harvard’s many faculties. Because the administration and budgeting processes of Harvard’s many schools are almost entirely separate, efforts to combine resources across the University have been limited and hard-won. The interfaculty initiatives in which Rudenstine justifiably took pride must be strengthened and expanded, especially in the areas in which Harvard can make the greatest progress. Work in the sciences—-and especially the biological sciences—-has made great progress in recent years through efforts at unification of various disciplines, and Harvard must do its part to ensure that its administrative divisions are permeable boundaries through which research and knowledge are easily diffused. Programs in biomedical research, bioethics and ecology could call on the expertise of many different areas of the University, and the central administration must do its part to maintain the connections through which academic research thrives.

Summers must remember the need to maintain such connections as he faces one of his most complex and long-lasting decisions: what to do with the land in Allston. At least one, and perhaps several more of Harvard’s graduate schools will likely be moved there over the next few decades. The inevitable move will profoundly alter the University’s physical plant—-and perhaps permanently so, as not even Harvard has the funds to move its graduate schools twice. Preparing the space for academic use will be a long and difficult process for the Harvard administration, but deciding which schools shall go and what is to be done with the space that is left will be an even heavier task. Summers must ensure that the rearrangement of the University enhances rather than interferes with its educational mission-—and that the Charles River will not mark an institutional division within Harvard, but only a geographic one.

Outside Harvard’s walls-—however, post-Allston, they may be defined—-Summers will find further challenges and further opportunities. As a former Secretary of the Treasury, Summers is used to the fact that his opinions can carry significant weight. While they may no longer move markets, Summers’ words should be equally significant in the educational sphere. The president of Harvard has played a somewhat muted national role in recent decades, but Summers should not shrink from using Harvard’s presidency as a bully pulpit to speak on issues affecting the interests of the University and of the educational community. Summers should also consider the suggestion advanced on this page by his colleague Jeffrey D. Sachs ’76—-namely, that of making Harvard a truly global University. Summers’ time at the World Bank has no doubt acquainted him with the shared and international nature of many of the world’s most pressing issues—-from economic development and political stability to infectious disease and climate change. Harvard must redefine its place in an era of globalization, placing an emphasis on cross-border collaboration, international study and universal values. Summers will also be charged with formulating Harvard’s response to the development of new technologies for the worldwide dissemination of knowledge, especially in the context of MIT’s decision to make class materials universally available via the Internet.

Many of these decisions lie far in the future. To date, Summers has wisely chosen to immerse himself in the life of the University-—visiting undergraduates at Springfest, in House dining halls and in student group offices. Summers should continue such efforts and should visit classes and sections as well—to experience them, if briefly, as a student would. (Who knows what changes to Harvard life might ensue if the president were forced to sit through a typical Core section?) However, soon it will be Summers’ responsibility to talk as well as listen. Though we understand his reluctance to announce his intentions before taking office, students and all members of the Harvard community have a profound interest in the course this institution will take. The Summers era will be one of difficult choices and long-lasting decisions, and healthy public debate on the president’s agenda can only serve to better the University.

Through the work of his predecessor, Summers has been given almost untrammeled freedom to realize his vision for Harvard. But as he takes office, Summers must share this vision with the campus. We look forward to hearing our new president’s goals and to working with him for our community’s welfare. The next few decades will be ones of profound change for the University, and Summers deserves our best efforts, best counsel and best wishes for the future.