Faculty, Forgive Summers

Bored by the challenge of redefining higher learning through the once-per-quarter-century Harvard College Curricular Review, professors hijacked yesterday’s Faculty meeting and directed its agenda once again toward criticisms of University President Lawrence H. Summers. The College is alive again? Nay, it is, unfortunately, floundering. At the risk of deifying a president this page has often disagreed with, we stand unconvinced and unimpressed by the latest Faculty-led outburst against Summers. Further, we urge the remaining disgruntled members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, in the absence of substantive disagreement with Summers—and there does not seem to be much—to press on with the important issues facing the University.

The professed motivation for yesterday’s Faculty outcry was, in addition to the now tired refrain about Summers’ heavy-handed leadership style, malaise over the handling of Dean of the Faculty William C. Kirby’s recent resignation. But Kirby’s long rumored departure was anything but unexpected in the aftermath of last spring’s Summers debacle. Rather than throw its hands up in faux-surprise, the Faculty might have been encouraged by an apparent recognition by Summers of the importance of having a dean who can facilitate a well-functioning relationship between Massachusetts Hall and the Faculty.

Summers deserves the benefit of the doubt in the Kirby split, particularly given today’s announcement that Summers had agreed to a uniquely faculty-friendly search process for finding a new dean of the Faculty. The search which landed Kirby the position only gave the Faculty a token advising role in his selection. By contrast, in the search for the next dean, seven professors appointed by the Faculty Council will choose the pool from which Summers will create a search committee. In turn, this search committee, shaped largely by Faculty input, will play a large role in vetting even the final “short list” from which Summers will make his ultimate selection.

Were this the only accommodation made by Summers since members of the Faculty were last inflamed, perhaps yesterday’s performance would have been justified. But any fair observer would grant that, if still imperfect, Summers has at least taken positive steps towards accommodating the Faculty’s complaints. He has removed himself from any direct role in the ongoing Harvard College Curricular Review (HCCR)—perhaps in retrospect, mistakenly, given the Faculty’s disappointing failure to take leadership in this seminal initiative. He has also commissioned a Task Force on Women Faculty and appointed Professor of the History of Science and of African and African American Studies Evelynn M. Hammonds to the new position of senior vice provost for Faculty development and diversity. Most importantly, if we take the discontented faculty members at their word last spring, it has been encouraging to see that the infamously combative Summers has steered clear of high profile controversies that once frequently landed him in the headlines of national newspapers.

All this for naught? It would seem so given the tenor of yesterday’s meeting which included renewed insinuations of demands for Summers’ resignation.

Harvard is at a crossroads in its history. The HCCR, the Allston planning process, and the internationalization of our University will be the defining episodes of Harvard’s 21st century. It should come as no surprise that a higher degree of centralized leadership has arisen to shepherd these major initiatives through. While some members of the current Faculty may have grown used to the understated approach of former University President Neil L. Rudenstine, Harvard’s most memorable and admired presidents—the Eliots, the Connants of our history—have been bold visionaries who took a hands-on role in defining University policy and more broadly, the central tenets of American higher learning. Summers was brought in to revitalize the University presidency as Harvard looks to reflect and retool.

The onus is on the Faculty to air and, further, to act on genuine, substantive, and specific grievances when they exist. But the continued venting of general, undirected dissatisfaction with Summers’ brusqueness, his abruptness, or any of his acknowledged idiosyncrasies, is a disservice to the entire Harvard community. A distracted Faculty must stop neglecting the vital business of forging ahead with the HCCR, finding a new dean of the Faculty, and rehabilitating the finances of the debt-laden FAS budget, among other things. We hope that at the next Faculty meeting, instead of walking out on the final minutes of the discussion which centered on the HCCR, it will be our educational future that takes center stage, and faculty members will leave the meeting should the boring business of chiding Summers resurface.

Reconciliation takes two, and the Faculty thus far has failed to meet Summers halfway. We believe Summers has made a good faith attempt to reach out to the Faculty. The real question is: Will the Faculty reach back?