Profs Doubt Truth of Summers’ Remarks

At a meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) today, University President Lawrence H. Summers will face professors who are questioning whether he lied to them last month, when he categorically denied that he had considered restructuring the University’s graduate and Ph.D. programs.

At last month’s Faculty meeting, Classics Department Chair Richard F. Thomas asked Summers whether he had “been contemplating or conducting even preliminary discussions” about changing two key aspects of long-standing University policy. He asked if Summers had ever considered empowering a faculty other than FAS to grant Ph.D. degrees, or if he had considered separating the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) from FAS and having it report to the Provost rather than to the Dean of Faculty William C. Kirby.

Interrupting Kirby, who had begun to answer Thomas’ question, Summers responded bluntly:

“No, and no,” he said.

But some professors have told The Crimson that University officials have discussed conversations about precisely such plans with small groups of Faculty. Two senior professors said they attended a meeting last Thursday at which outgoing GSAS Dean Peter T. Ellison told a group of department chairs that he spoke with Summers about the matter several months ago—and that they had clashed when the president advocated giving other faculties the power to grant Ph.D. degrees.

In addition, one senior professor said that Ellison told the chairs that several months ago Summers also met with faculty at the Harvard Medical School (HMS) to discuss the merits of allowing the school to award its own Ph.D. degrees.

According to the same professor, Ellison said that “there were some memos written by professors who had been at the meeting with the President and had shared what they felt were the President’s views of supporting other faculties being able to give the Ph.D.”

Chair of the Department of the History of Art and Architecture Yve-Alain Bois confirmed that Ellison had discussed the issue with department chairs last Thursday, though he would not confirm any specifics of Ellison’s conversation.

Ellison did not return repeated requests for comment yesterday.

Professors and administrators across the University agreed yesterday that the changes rumored to be under discussion are unlikely to become official policy.

But the discrepancy between Summers’ statements and what professors say they have been told might further weaken the already strained relationship between the Faculty and the president, especially in the wake of the Faculty’s no confidence vote last March.

“For Larry Summers to be answering just plain no to these questions that include even ‘preliminary discussions’ doesn’t seem quite accurate,” one department chair said. “I think it might well be the case that they’ve given up on this issue, but it seems as if they did quite possibly consider this.”

University Provost Steven E. Hyman, Kirby, and Summers’ spokesman yesterday all repeated the president’s April denial that any preliminary discussions had taken place.

And several deans—including HMS Executive Dean for Administration Eric Buehrens, HMS Dean for Basic Sciences and Graduate Studies Nancy Andrews, Kennedy School Director of Degree Programs Joseph McCarthy, and School of Public Health Dean for Academic Affairs James Ware—said they had not heard of any such discussions.

Professors said they did not know why, if such discussions had indeed taken place, Summers would not be completely forthright with the Faculty.

Kirby did say yesterday that FAS had hired a consulting firm earlier this spring to advise him and the next GSAS dean “on a broad range of issues facing the graduate program here and at other institutions.”

According to one senior professor, the firm was hired to conduct a survey of various department chairs to gauge their opinion on FAS’s exclusive oversight of Ph.D. programs. The professor also said he was interviewed by the firm.

Baird Professor of Science Gary J. Feldman said that this survey has largely been responsible for generating the concerns that Thomas voiced at the Faculty meeting last month.

“Kirby claims that he did [the survey] only to show that this was not a good idea,” Feldman said, noting that “the FAS has traditionally protected its role as being the only Ph.D. grantor in the University.”

Several FAS professors, wary of breaking with this tradition, want Kirby to explain in detail the purpose of the survey.

“I think what we need in a situation like this is a lot better candor,” one senior professor said. “What was the charge of the consulting firm? What were they doing?”

Kirby, who noted that the question of whether faculties other than FAS should be allowed to grant Ph.D.s has come up in the past, said he plans to address the issue at the Faculty meeting today.

—Daniel J. Hemel contributed to the reporting of this story.

—Staff writer William C. Marra can be reached at wmarra@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Anton S. Troianovski can be reached at atroian@fas.harvard.edu.