Case Western Pres Under Fire

Emboldened by the resignation of University President Lawrence H. Summers, the faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences at Case Western Reserve University voted no-confidence in its own president, Edward M. Hundert, last week.

The resolution, which passed by a margin of 131 to 44, is non-binding because only the Board of Trustees, Case’s highest governing board, has the power to remove the president.

The board has recently expressed support for the president.

The faculty in Case’s College of Arts and Sciences, which comprises 8.8 percent of the entire faculty, also voted no-confidence in the provost, John L. Anderson, by a margin of 97 to 68.

Hundert, who has held his post since 2002, wrote in an e-mail to the Case community last week that he accepted responsibility for a drop in donations and promised to address the university’s fiscal difficulties, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Hundert has been criticized for his handling of fund-raising efforts and the university’s budget. The university faces a $40-million budget deficit this fiscal year, according to the report.

Professor of Physics Lawrence M. Krauss, who circulated a petition among faculty calling for a no-confidence vote, said yesterday that he was “shocked by the overwhelming nature” of faculty support for the motion.

The Case faculty vote came a little more than a week after Summers’ resignation on Feb. 21. Summers was scheduled to face the second lack-of-confidence vote of his career at a Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) meeting on Feb. 28.

Summers lost a similar motion last March by a vote of 218 to 185.

Krauss said that although the timing of Case’s no-confidence vote was “coincidental,” the events at Harvard “set an example that Arts and Sciences could have an impact.”

The role that Harvard faculty played in Summers’ resignation also served to “embolden” the Case faculty, he said.

But the chair of the political science department, Joseph White, said yesterday that he believed the “case against our president was far stronger than the case against President Summers.”

FAS’ willingness to stand up to their president “made some of [the Case Western faculty] embarrassed that [they] hadn’t,” White added.

Krauss said he hoped that the vote would encourage Hundert to “reach out” to faculty members.

White, though, said he hoped the vote would begin a discussion that will eventually lead to Hundert’s departure.

Professor of Journalism Theodore Gup, who describes himself as a “strong critic of the president,” said he spoke out against the resolution because of the negative effect it would have on the faculty’s relationship with the president.

“There was little to be gained and a lot to be lost” from actually holding the vote, he said.

Some students at Case seemed nonplussed by the vote. Case freshman Allen Ye described the turmoil as “more of a faculty thing.”