Poll: Students Give Profs Low Marks in Summers Saga

Undergraduates blame both the president and the professoriat for the recent crisis of governance at Harvard’s highest ranks, but Lawrence H. Summers earns better marks than Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) members, according to a poll conducted by The Crimson last week.

Nearly two-thirds of surveyed students—66 percent—said that they “disapprove of the way that members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences have handled their relationship” with Summers.

But only 42 percent of surveyed students said they “disapprove” of the way that Summers has handled his relationship with FAS professors.

The poll does not reveal the specific sources of students’ discontent with FAS or Summers. But it does suggest that—at a time when the national media has blasted FAS members—many undergraduates share the general impression that their professors mishandled the Summers storm.

Just 15 percent of polled undergraduates said that, “in general,” they approve of the way that FAS professors have handled their relationship with Summers. Twice as many—30 percent—expressed approval of the way that Summers treated FAS members.

Students were largely undecided when asked about the three-and-a-half-year-old Harvard College Curricular Review. Just 23 percent said that they approve of the way that FAS members have handled the review; 31 percent said that they disapprove, and 46 percent said they were “neutral” or “don’t know.”

Interviews with undergraduates over the weekend revealed a wide range of views on the recent controversy. Yuan Zhu ’09 of Straus Hall gave FAS members a thumbs-down for their handling of the Summers affair. “They pushed him out of the campus,” Zhu said.

But Dhruva K. Kothari ‘06, a Mather House economics concentrator, said that Summers got what he deserved. “If he didn’t accord enough respect to the Faculty, I don’t have problems with the way they treated him.”

STATISTICALLY SPEAKING

The Crimson e-mailed 840 randomly selected undergraduates last Tuesday morning and asked each of them to respond to a series of questions involving the Faculty, Summers, and the Curricular Review. The iCommons polling tool ensured that all the responses were anonymous.

Of the students e-mailed, 354 took the poll, for a response rate of 42 percent. Fifty-four percent of the respondents were male and about 46 percent were female. Freshmen responded in the greatest numbers: 33 percent of those who completed the poll were members of the Class of 2009. The poll carried a margin of error of about 5 percent.

The executive director of the Harvard Opinion Research Program, Robert J. Blendon, recommended that The Crimson recalculate the results to give equal weight to the responses from females and males.

“Re-weighting” the responses by gender only marginally changed the results.

For instance, when the male and female responses were given equal weight to adjust for different response rates, the percentage of students who disapprove of FAS members’ handling of their relationship with Summers fell from 66 percent to 65.

Re-weighting the responses by class year changed the results by just a fifth of a percentage point, as upperclassmen were slightly more negative toward their professors than freshmen were.

Judith L. Ryan, the professor who initiated last month’s scheduled vote of no confidence in Summers’ leadership, wrote in an e-mail that she believes the poll’s findings are “not very meaningful” because students were not asked about specific actions taken by either Summers or the Faculty.

“There are many aspects of this, some further in the past and some more recent, and without specification, the poll does not reveal anything very significant,” Ryan, the Weary professor of German and comparative literature, wrote.

But Blendon, the public opinion expert, said that the use of the phrase “in general” in the polling question meant that results did reflect students’ impressions of the Summers-FAS dispute.

“I can’t believe that students don’t have some general impression,” Blendon said.

Ryan wrote that the question about students’ approval of Summers could have been interpreted by some respondents as asking whether “students approve or disapprove of what some of President Summers’ supporters have called his failure to stick up for himself.” So those who said they approved of Summers’ handling of the situation might have been expressing their support for Summers’ decision to resign, according to Ryan.

Summers’ spokesman declined to comment last night.

Associate Professor of Government Barry C. Burden wrote in an e-mail that he was surprised to see more students respond “neutral” or “don’t know” for the question about Summers than for the question about FAS members’ handling of the situation.

“I would have expected precisely the opposite, just in the way that it’s easier for the public to track the president than Congress,” Burden wrote.

—Rachel L. Pollack and Anton S. Troianovski contributed to the reporting of this story.

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

—Staff writer Daniel J. T. Schuker can be reached at dschuker@fas.harvard.edu.

POLL RESULTS

What is your expected year of graduation? (354 responses)

  A.   2006: 20.1%

  B.   2007: 20.9%

  C.   2008: 26.0%

  D.   2009: 33.1%

  E.   Other/No Response: 0.0%

What is your gender? (354 responses)

  A.   Male: 54.2%

  B.   Female: 45.5%

  C.   No Response: 0.3%

In general, do you approve or disapprove of the way that members of the
Faculty of Arts and Sciences have handled the Curricular Review? (353 responses)

  A.   Approve: 23.2%

  B.   Disapprove: 31.2%

  C.   Neutral/Don't Know: 45.6%

In general, do you approve or disapprove of the way that members of the
Faculty of Arts and Sciences have handled their relationship with
University President Lawrence H. Summers? (352 responses)

  A.   Approve: 15.3%

  B.   Disapprove: 65.9%

  C.   Neutral/Don't Know: 18.8%

In general, do you approve or disapprove of the way that University
President Lawrence H. Summers has handled his relationship with members of
the Faculty of Arts and Sciences? (354 responses)

  A.   Approve: 29.7%

  B.   Disapprove: 41.8%

  C.   Neutral/Don't Know: 28.5%