DISSENTING OPINION: A Noxious Mistreatment

In the wake of University President Lawrence H. Summers’ resignation, just about everyone is trying to diagnose and treat Harvard’s political crisis. One prominent viewpoint prescribes a sort of University senate, whereby the University faculty— and not just each individual one—would have a means to assert its views. This institutional innovation, its supporters claim, would have the double-benefit of preventing overreaching by the president or by any single faculty in university-wide matters.

The University senate solution, however, is a rash mistreatment of the problem at hand.

This solution is based on the view that Harvard’s institutional structure is the problem—that it fundamentally creates strife between the faculty and the central administration and that a forum is required for them to settle their differences. But conflict between Summers and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) stemmed from interpersonal problems in their working relationship, not from the way the University was structured.

Were institutional structures to blame, then the president would be fighting his faculty most of the time. Yet, a cursory examination of the last three decades shows that conflict has been the exception—nowhere near a rule. Instead, Harvard history reveals that faculty-administration and inter-faculty dialogue has been conducted on an informal and ad hoc basis. This system has been both flexible and effective when there has been a high level of trust between the faculty and administration. There is no reason to change this paradigm because we had one unusual crisis.

Not only do mistreatments fail to cure problems, but they have a tendency to exacerbate them. This one has four major drawbacks:

The first error is that proponents of the senate assume that other faculties will be a moderating influence. Yet there is no reason to assume this. This being Harvard, professors tend to be strongly opinionated, thinking highly of themselves no matter what they study. A University senate would draw out the politicos, creating a system even more political than the one we have in place

Secondly, those who claim that such a system would provide a unified public-relations front for the University forget that the University already has a single voice: the central administration and governing boards. These bodies tend to take more of a long-run view and are stewards of the overall good of the institution. Instead of adding to unity, a faculty senate reflecting the interests of individual fiefdoms would only exacerbate dissonance.

Third, the apportionment of seats would create unnecessary inter-faculty conflict as faculties and departments within faculties compete for influence. Some may recommend a meeting of Harvard’s full faculty, but as Harvard has 2,500 non-medical faculty and 9,000 medical school faculty, such a body would simply be too large to be effective.

Finally and most importantly, a faculty senate would only further retard progress at Harvard. On this page and on campus, a consensus has developed that if Harvard is to maintain its preeminence in academia, it must institute broad, progressive changes, something that has proven to be very difficult at an institution with a tremendous amount of inertia, history, and tradition. A University senate with more than symbolic power would only be an impediment to progress, slowing down the implementation of important decisions so they can be discussed at length by faculty members with already busy schedules—and that is assuming that the faculty agree with administration decisions. Inevitable disagreement will stifle necessary change in some crucial areas as has been the case with the FAS-controlled College curricular review, which has proceeded for three and a half years without a single vote.

A University senate would at best stall progress and at worse make the University ungovernable. We find no reason to support a system with so many clear drawbacks.



Matthew A. Busch ’07, a Crimson editorial editor, is an economics concentrator in Leverett House. Adam M. Guren ’08, a Crimson associate editorial chair, is an economics concentrator in Eliot House. Sahil K. Mahtani ’08, a Crimson associate editorial chair, is a history concentrator in Winthrop House.