Grad Students Vote Against Lack of Confidence Motion

In the first official gauge of student sentiment toward University President Lawrence H. Summers since his controversial remarks on women in science, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) students voted that they do not lack confidence in his leadership.

Voting in an anonymous online poll that closed last night, 699 GSAS students said that they do not lack confidence in the leadership of Summers, while 608 students voted in support of the statement of no confidence. An additional 90 students voted to abstain, and 146 said that they required more information.

GSAS students also voted on a more conciliatory second motion which expressed regret in Summers’ statements on women in science, their effects, and parts of his leadership style.

On that motion, 945 students said that they agreed with the statement, while 362 students said they disagreed. One hundred forty-nine voted to abstain, and 87 said they needed more information.

The statements were identical to those presented at last Tuesday’s meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS). At that vote, professors voted 218 in favor, 185 against, with 18 abstaining, that they “lack confidence” in Summers’ leadership.

“I think it’s a really important message from graduate students,” said Zoe F. Trodd, president of the Graduate Student Council (GSC), the group that organized the vote. “Until now, we’ve only had faculty voices on this issue...This week we now have 1,543 extra voices to add to that debate.”

GSAS student Andrei G. Goureev said that he voted against both the motion of no confidence and the statement of regret because he thought Summers’ comments were within the realm of science.

“We would still have thought that the Earth is flat if scientists had worried that their ideas might offend somebody,” he said.

But graduate student Abena D. Osseo-Asare ’98 said that she thinks the issue goes beyond Summers’ recent comments.

“Personally, I think his leadership was poor before this current flare-up on women and science,” she said.

Some students also harbored objections to the GSC’s administration of the poll.

Graduate student Jacob M. Kline circulated an e-mail on Monday encouraging students not to vote at all.

“I was very concerned that it came very suddenly and the process in which they had decided [to offer a poll] was not very democratic,” he said.

But Trodd said that the decision to provide a voting forum was the result of a series of GSC meetings and input from dozens of graduate students.

GSAS student Lex Stein, who is studying computer science, said that he thought the online format of the poll was a mistake.

“It’s not really right for voting because I have no way of knowing if my vote is being counted or being registered,” he said. “This is why we have things like unbiased election commissions.”

Corwin S. Sullivan, a student of paleontology at GSAS, said that he abstained from voting on the second statement because he found it difficult to voice his support for Summers’ right to free speech while simultaneously condemning his management style.

“What the poll didn’t capture was that there are different reasons for being dissatisfied with President Summers,” he said.

Only 1,543 of the approximately 3,500 GSAS students turned out for the poll, Trodd said. But she speculated that the low figure may suggest that students are dissatisfied with what questions the FAS community is asking.

“One answer is possibly...students are telling the faculty, ‘Talk about this differently please,’“ Trodd said.

Trodd added she was hoping to invite Summers to meet with the GSC in the near future.

“I really do hope that the administration and faculty do take this vote into account as they continue to discuss the future of Harvard and where we go from here,” she said.

—Staff writer Javier C. Hernandez can be reached at jhernand@fas.harvard.edu.