Faust Looks Forward

The financial crisis, a cheating scandal, an encampment of protesters in Harvard Yard—events have shaped the presidency of Drew G. Faust.

“Happily we haven’t had a Civil War, you know,” Faust said, referencing the defining event of Abraham Lincoln’s presidency.

A subject of Faust’s historical scholarship, Lincoln famously described his presidency as a response to circumstance. “I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me,” he said.

Referencing that remark, Faust said she saw similarities between her presidency and the turbulent times it has seen and Lincoln’s time in office.

“I think that’s an important part of being president from 2007 to...2013,” she said. “Events have had a big role.”

In many ways, Faust was the perfect candidate to face the difficult events of her tenure thus far. A consummate listener and observer, Faust addressed the ideas and concerns of her predecessors and colleagues, responding in a way that has carried her through the storm.

“It’s not me coming in and announcing some set of ‘Drew Faust’ ideas plucked from out of the sky,” Faust said. “It’s rather trying to translate everything I’m hearing into a program that reflects the insights of people in the community.”

But by continuing her predecessors’ missions, her input-driven leadership style has made her vision­—including the central concept of ”One University”—an amalgamation of the feedback of Harvard community members and the ideas of her predecessors.

While her style has worked during tumultuous times for both the University and the world, it remains to be seen whether she can use her renowned communication skills to renew and refine inherited ideas and lead Harvard through an ambitious, 21st-century capital campaign.

VISION WITHOUT VOLATILITY

When former University President Lawrence H. Summers resigned from his post in 2006 under pressure from members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, marking the shortest tenure of a Harvard president since the United States Civil War, Harvard’s central administration faced a community still reeling from the controversy surrounding Summers’s presidency.

Looking for a safe choice who could pull together the various interests within the faculty while also continuing many of Summers’ landmark endeavors, the University’s governing bodies picked the dean of a little-known Harvard research institute.

Faust, then-Dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, was celebrated for her ability to forge connections between faculty members and cater to their needs—a skill that eluded Summers.

Director of the Mahindra Humanities Center Homi K. Bhabha, who served as a senior advisor in the humanities at Radcliffe, said that Faust’s communication skills enabled her to facilitate partnerships between scholars in different fields.

“The reason why she was able to transform Radcliffe Institute was the fact that she was a very good listener to the constituencies that formed Radcliffe,” Bhabha said of Faust’s role in crafting the Institute’s programs.

Faust herself said that she considers responsiveness a fundamental component of leadership. “The way I understand leadership is a combination of listening and responding,” she said.

The selection of Faust also demonstrated an underlying push for a less polarizing leader.

“I believe that the Corporation had in mind that Larry Summers should shake things up,” said Peter L. Malkin ’55, a real estate mogul and long-time Harvard donor. “The Board of Overseers and the Corporation had in mind that she should bring them back together again.”

In addition to securing a leader with communication skills, Harvard’s governing boards sought someone who would continue her predecessor’s efforts to unify research and learning across schools.

“Most of us—certainly on the governing boards—feel that the priorities that Larry Summers articulated are still the ones that we should focus on,” Nannerl O. Keohane, a member of the Corporation, told The Crimson shortly after Faust was confirmed as University president in February 2007. “We wanted the same sort of vision, and we would have been really worried if we had a candidate who had come in and said that their priorities were 180 degrees in the opposite direction.”

“One University” was a key initiative as Summers pursued a more unified, cohesive Harvard.

“Harvard must—we must—cross over,” he said in his 2006 commencement speech, the final address of his presidency. “Cross over from old disciplines to new; cross over from old structures of governance to new; cross over from outdated lectures to new active modes of learning; cross over from the confines of Harvard Square and put down new, ambitious stakes, in Allston and beyond.”

The unification message resonated with Faust even before she became president. Leading the Radcliffe Institute—which did not have its own faculty at the time—required her to reach across different parts of the University to create “intellectual opportunities and synergies,” she said.

Bhabha, who joined forces with Faust to lead a faculty seminar on “cultural citizenship” during her time at Radcliffe, said that the seminar brought together faculty members from various schools across Harvard and was a “very informal intimation of the ‘One University’ idea.”

“You can see her vision as being to integrate the University,” said Bhabha of Faust’s leadership as Radcliffe Dean and later as University President.

Looking back, Faust said the concept of “One University” was “a seed planted” during her tenure as Radcliffe Dean, one that has “taken on a whole new set of understandings, expressions, [and] elaborations” from her vantage point as University President.

Since becoming president, Faust has repeatedly stated a commitment to unification, saying that her presidency has focused on “building connections and breaking down boundaries.” Several centralizing and interdisciplinary initiatives, from unifying the Harvard Library to creating the inter-faculty Harvard Global Health Institute, have characterized her time in Massachusetts Hall. Moreover, she has espoused and executed the priorities set by Summers, such as reforming corporate governance, improving financial aid, and overseeing development in Allston.

Today, Faust continues to push this vision, now seen as a central part of her administration.

Provost Alan M. Garber ’76 immediately turned to “One University” when asked to define Faust’s vision.

“I think that’s been a very powerful message of hers, and she’s worked consistently toward that goal,” Garber said.

While he praised Faust’s commitment, Malkin said that unification had been the central administration’s goal in the administrations of former Presidents Summers and Neil L. Rudenstine.

“I think it’s not [a goal] that originated with President Faust,” Malkin said. “I think that Larry Summers certainly had that as a major goal, and perhaps Neil had to a lesser extent.”

Even Derek C. Bok—the president before Rudenstine and the acting president after Summers’s resignation—instituted a University-wide calendar during his year-long second stint in Massachusetts Hall.

With a unification effort already in full force, Summers’s exit left Massachusetts Hall with direction but without stability.

SETTLING DOWN, STRAIGHTENING OUT

Of the events that made Faust, the financial crisis may have been the most significant.

“Any vision in 2013 has to be one that operates within a set of acknowledged constraints,” she said in reference to the collapse.

That pragmatic view of University priorities developed unexpectedly, but fit Faust far more than Summers’s idealism. “It’s had a huge influence on the University—the world,” Faust said. “It’s undeniable.”

Malkin said that he thought the financial crisis and other difficulties of the past several years have made Faust’s job especially hard.

“I think that she inherited this situation that was much more complicated than she ever could imagine,” Malkin said. “And I think that in light of the problems that did arise, particularly with the endowment, but also other things that have occurred, it has made her job extremely difficult.”

But a commitment to a unified University survived not only a change in presidency, but also the Great Recession. In fact, Faust said that in some ways, the crash made unification more urgent.

“If there are ways that we can share certain processes, certain activities—look more holistically at what we’re doing as a University—that is consistent with what we need to be doing in the face of what’s happened,” she said.

Though the idea is older than a decade, a more unified University remains a desire of many in the Harvard community. For Faust, unification is less a visionary goal and more a product of input from the Harvard community and prior administrations.

“What we’ve heard over and over again from our faculty, from our students, from our alumni, is that Harvard is or can be greater than the sum of its parts,” Garber said.

Faust has developed an image as a consummate listener, a profile that has made her an approachable figure for those voicing opinions.

“I have the feeling that if I needed to talk to her, that I could get in and talk to her,” said Gary Urton, chair of the anthropology department. “And I feel that she would listen.”

Faust’s penchant for translating voices from across the community into University programming is especially notable when contrasted with the style of her predecessor, who was known for bold visions that did not necessarily attain consensus support.

“Summers led by confronting the faculty and community with his views,” Bhabha said. “He led from the front so to speak.”

In contrast, Bhabha described Faust as someone who “sees leadership as something whereby she is careful to pull the whole faculty with her.”

A NEW PUSH

With the Summers presidency in the University’s rearview mirror, and the financial crisis nearly past, the attention of Harvard’s central administration has taken a dramatic turn from dealing with financial meltdown to embarking on what many predict will be the biggest capital campaign ever by an institution of higher education.

Until now, events have shaped the Faust presidency. But the campaign’s September launch will force her to take control of them. In leading Harvard through a record-breaking drive, Faust’s ability to communicate with faculty and donors alike will undoubtedly be key.

“Nobody can take the place of a president in delivering a message as to why you should give money. Harvard has that president,” said John A. Kaneb ’56, a prominent donor who also serves on Harvard Medical School’s Board of Fellows. “[Faust has] a god-given ability to put people at ease without even trying—she does naturally. I’ve seen her do it. She did it to me.”

But Faust’s job will extend beyond communicating as the campaign challenges her to inspire donors with the specifics of a more-than-decade-old vision applied to today’s Harvard.

“I think that on the one hand, one hopes that her vision and her leadership will lead to the kind of support that’s necessary for the campaign,” Malkin said. “And on the other hand, the degree to which the campaign is successful—rightly or wrongly—will have a large measure in the evaluation of how successful she has been.”

Faust’s approach to the campaign, like her approach to her presidency, has relied on themes of the past.

According to long-time donor and venture capitalist Sidney R. Knafel ’52, the one university concept also drove Harvard’s last campaign, headed by Rudenstine in the 1990s. The campaign, which was Harvard’s first University-wide campaign, raised a total $2.6 billion—a massive sum at the time.

“[The upcoming campaign] isn’t the first effort to present Harvard as one university,” Knafel said, adding that the he predicts The Harvard Campaign will be more successful in that regard than the 1990s drive.

Still, he said, “They wouldn’t be functioning as collaboratively and collegiately [now] as they are if they hadn’t gone through the training ground of that [1990s] campaign.”

Building on this foundation, Faust must adjust the broad vision of unification to today’s world. Some of her announced initiatives include the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences’ move across the river to Allston and funding HarvardX, Harvard’s branch of the virtual learning initiative edX that brings online courses to anyone in the world for free.

Still, much is left to flesh out.

“President Faust articulates a wonderful communal vision of the University’s mission,” history professor Charles S. Maier ’60 wrote in an email. “But how it will translate into actual institutional initiatives, whether internationalization or edX or the allocation of resources, still remains less specified.”

This ability to articulate goals is important, according to former Provost Harvey V. Fineberg ’67—a major fundraiser in the University’s last campaign.

“It’s essential, because the president represents a singular voice,” said Fineberg, who argued that in capital campaigns the president of any institution holds the effort together.

Calls for a clear statement of goals have been joined by demands for a bolder vision altogether.

Graduate School of Education professor Howard E. Gardner ’65, who knows Faust well, said that her reticence is likely a result of the brashness that many say characterized Summers’s presidency and ultimately led to its undoing.

“We want [a strong position] from leaders; we want to know what you are willing to go to the mat for, what is important to you,” Gardner said. “I think by nature she is a private person, but also she saw what happened in the previous administration.”

Faust now faces what may be a defining moment in her presidency.

“She is the face of the campaign,” said Richard P. Chait, an Education School professor who studies higher education governance. “You can see what the priorities are; you can infer what the vision will be. In an odd way, it’s both a test of substance of the campaign and a test of the president.”

—Staff writer Nikita Kansra can be reached at nkansra01@college.harvard.edu. Follow her on Twitter @NikitaKansra.

—Staff writer Samuel Y. Weinstock can be reached at sweinstock@college.harvard.edu. Follow him on Twitter @syweinstock.