New Motion Calls on Corp. To Intervene

A new motion on the agenda for the Feb. 28 meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) implores the Harvard Corporation, the only body with the power to fire University President Lawrence H. Summers, to intervene in the escalating battle between professors and the central administration.

While past Faculty motions have expressed professors’ displeasure with the president, the new resolution reflects rising frustration with the Corporation’s continued silence on the Summers storm.

The motion, which was put on the docket by Professor of Physics and Applied Physics Daniel S. Fisher and obtained by The Crimson tonight, does not refer to Summers by name, nor does it mention the word “resign.” But its text implicitly calls for an administrative shake-up at the highest levels of the University.

Another motion, put on the docket last week by Weary Professor of German and of Comparative Literature Judith Ryan, asks the Faculty to vote on whether or not it “continues to lack confidence in the leadership of President Lawrence H. Summers.” Summers lost a similar vote 218–185 last March.

Fisher has long been an outspoken critic of Summers’ leadership. Last February, he told the Yale Daily News that “Harvard is becoming a dictatorship,” and he told both the Yale student paper and the Boston Globe that he was looking for jobs outside of Harvard.

Recently, he has expanded his criticism to the Corporation for failing to remove Summers from the presidency.

In a question rhetorically addressed toward the Corporation, Fisher asked at the last Faculty meeting on Feb. 7: “How after everything that you have learned over the past year...how can you have collectively failed to come to the conclusion that Harvard would be far better off with a new president?”

Fisher declined to comment this evening. Summers' spokesman, John Longbrake, also declined to comment.

The full text of Fisher’s motion calls for the Faculty to vote on the following resolution:

“This Faculty respectfully adjures the Governing Boards, especially the Corporation, to re-establish in collaboration with the Faculty effective governance and leadership of Harvard University.”

According to a preliminary agenda of the Feb. 28 meeting, the session of the full Faculty will be moved from its standard location in the Faculty Room of University Hall to Sanders Theatre, in Memorial Hall.

The Faculty Room can hold 200–300 professors, and meetings are moved to other locations when larger attendance is expected for particularly contentious votes.

Sanders Theatre is one of the largest venues available on Harvard’s campus, and is used to hold large classes such as Moral Reasoning 22, “Justice”—along with major concerts and shows.

Administrators moved the March 15, 2005, Faculty meeting, at which professors passed the no-confidence motion, to the mainstage theater at Loeb Drama Center on Brattle Street, which holds a maximum capacity of 556, according to a University website.

There are more than 700 members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Sanders Theatre can seat 1,167, according to a University website.

The decision to move the Faculty meeting to Sanders may signal that FAS administrators expect record turnout. But the move may also come as a result of a scheduling conflict at Loeb. The curtain will rise at the American Repertory Theatre’s production of “Romeo and Juliet” at 7:30 p.m. that same evening.

—William C. Marra contributed to the reporting of this story.

—Staff writer Evan H. Jacobs can be reached at ehjacobs@fas.harvard.edu.

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