<p>Faculty 1, Summers 0
By Boston Herald editorial staff
Wednesday, February 22, 2006</p>
<p>The jihad waged by the Harvard faculty and their media enablers against President Lawrence H. Summers has finally succeeded.
After five years on the job, battling a brand of politics that makes Washington look like the Peaceable Kingdom by comparison, Summers gave up the fight yesterday, announcing his resignation effective at the end of the academic year.
Summers came to the job with the perfect resume - a stint as a Harvard economics professor (and the youngest to get tenure) and as Treasury secretary during the Clinton administration. But he also brought so much more - energy, a clear vision of where the university needed to be a decade or a half-century from now and an inability to hide his disdain for business-as-usual.
From the time he set foot on campus Summers was frustrated by the pace of life as governed by the academic calendar and by people guaranteed their jobs virtually for a lifetime.
But for all his vision, seeing to it that the university would have the land on which to expand in the years ahead and encouraging such trail-blazing efforts as the Stem Cell Institute, Summers simply wouldnt kowtow to the gods of political correctness.
Now he has paid the price. Harvard will, of course, go on, relishing its image as a place where the inmates do indeed still run the asylum.</p>
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At the same time, several prominent donors said they were aghast at Dr. Summers's fall. </p>
<p>"How can anyone govern a university where a fraction of faculty members can force a president out?" said Joseph O'Donnell, a Boston business executive who is a former member of Harvard's Board of Overseers and a prominent donor.
<p>"How can anyone govern a university where a fraction of faculty members can force a president out?"</p>
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<p>The no-confidence vote was by a majority of FAS faculty voters, not a minority. (Although I suppose it's true that 3/5 of a group is technically "a fraction.") Yes, the FAS is only one of ten faculties, but it's the heart and soul of the university, and I suspect most Ed School, K-School, etc. faculty members would admit as much. If Summers had angered a majority of the Design School faculty, chances are, no one outside of the Design School would care, and he'd still have his job.</p>
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If Summers had angered a majority of the Design School faculty, chances are, no one outside of the Design School would care, and he'd still have his job.
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<p>What about others, higher up in the pecking order: business, law, med</p>
<p>I guess, that was precisely O'Donnels point that like in constitutional law the "one person- one vote" principle should be observed. As for your math: 3/5 of FAS remains a definite minority of all faculty, that is how I read his term "fraction"</p>
<p>What about others, higher up in the pecking order: business, law, med</p>
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<p>Much harder to predict, IMHO. They have less power than FAS, but more than K, Ed, GSD, Divinity, etc. It wouldn't do a president any good to have the B-school faculty calling for his head, but I don't think he'd be a dead man walking like he is with FAS against him.</p>
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<p>like in constitutional law the "one person- one vote" principle should be observed.</p>
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<p>That's all well and good as an idea, but in practice, some faculty members are "more equal than others," so to speak. Size, money, and seniority lead to power at Harvard just like they do in the rest of the world, and FAS has the most of all three. You can see that pecking order in everything from real estate to Commencement rituals (which reward older faculties).</p>
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That's all well and good as an idea, but in practice, some faculty members are "more equal than others,"
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<p>...well, if 3/5 of one part are 'more equal' than the entire rest, we are talking like tenfold more or similar. Nobody said life was fair, but O'Donnel's concern, as I read the NYT article, found this an unfit principle for the governance of a university.</p>
<p>Which brings up the question, if the FAS faculty had more influence than the HC members who thought along the same lines.</p>
<p>Hanna, do you know what role Kirby's demise played in the ousting of Summers?</p>
<p>Hanna, do you know what role Kirby's demise played in the ousting of Summers?</p>
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<p>Nope, I know no details about this. I only know that it fueled the concern about the number of leaders (including Harry Lewis) who either left or lost their positions during the Summers administration.</p>
<p>Bear in mind, Hanna, that less than a majority of those eligble to participate in the earlier FAS "no confidence" vote even bothered to show up. </p>
<p>So it was 218 out of about 800 eligible who voted to have the President walk the plank. </p>
<p>And of course these 218 constituted an even tiner fraction of the entire Harvard faculty.</p>
<p>I agree with Hanna that FAS is the core faculty at Harvard, but in fact only about 1/3 of FAS voted in favor of the no-confidence resolution last year (which carried by a slim majority of those voting). The remainder either voted against or didn't vote (didn't vote was, I believe, the plurality winner). I am skeptical that a majority of the entire FAS wanted to oust Summers, and I'm certain that a majority of the overall University faculty did not want to oust him, but he had become such a lightning rod that the business of the University kept getting sidetracked by the vocal minority.</p>
<p>Bill Kirby is tremendously popular with the faculty (and a wonderful person). His resignation was clearly the catalyst for the renewed uprising - though I think it was really an excuse just as Summers' remarks on women in science was an excuse last year. The real issue was the allocation of decision-making power between the faculty and the President.</p>
<p>Edit: P.S., making the same point as Byerly - though his numbers, which are probably more accurate than mine, would indicate that only about 1/4 of FAS voted in favor.</p>
<p>I generally agree with Cosar, but I am not sure I agree with his assertion that Kirby was "tremendously popular" with the FAS faculty as a whole. As far as I can tell, while most like him as a person, few thought he was that effective, and many on the "left" and the "right" (in academic reform matters) had little use for him at all.</p>
<p>The standing round of applause for him at the last faculty meeting was, in consequence, a monstrous display of hypocricy; most of the applauders didn't give a fig about Kirby, but just sensed another opportunity to attack Summers indirectly.</p>
<p>in the FAS. Were really ALL of these 1,063 eligible to cast their vote of confidence in 2005? Or just the tenured? Btw, if not just the tenured, an interesting question would be, if a disproportionate share of those 218 denying their "confidence" in 2005 were tenured professors. Any hard data, Byerly?</p>
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And of course these 218 constituted an even tiner fraction of the entire Harvard faculty.
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<p>for comparison (same source)
university faculty:
872 tenured
211 associate
325 assistant
1,025 other teaching faculty
2,433 total</p>
<p>Another question: do FAS votes have a particular weight according the rules of governance?</p>
<p>We cannot infer from the number of people who did not vote what they would have voted.<br>
It is well known that the US has a lower voting rate than many other nations. But we still accept the verdict of the majority of those who do turn out to vote. I believe that in recent local elections, about 20-30% of eligible people turned out to vote in my community. Stll, they elected a council and a school committee that are now making decisions that affect all those who reside in this town, whether or not they voted, or voted for these particular successful candidates.</p>
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But we still accept the verdict of the majority of those who do turn out to vote.
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<p>Fair enough. Nobody questioned the result of the 2005 no-confidence vote. </p>
<p>The point (originating from H+HBS alumnus' O'Donnel's remarks in the NYT:"How can anyone govern a university where a fraction of faculty members can force a president out?") was that it is highly misleading to suggest that the the majority of THE faculty at Harvard wanted Summers out.</p>
<p>(although we of course don't know how the outcome would have been in the new vote that Summers preempted with his resignation)</p>
<p>Last fall, Kirby and Summers took great pride in announcing that FAS had exceeded its timetable for having 750 faculty by 2010, as it had now reached 700.</p>
<p>At any one time, about 1/4 to 1/3 of the faculty is on leave and thus does not attend meetings. At monthly meetings, the 200-seat Faculty Room in University Hall amply accommodates all faculty who want to attend. Last spring, the meeting was moved to the larger Lowell Hall then later to Loeb Theater. Both were packed. It looks to me that most of the faculty that was in town and eligible to vote turned out to do so. </p>
<p>Of course, 218 out of 700 is a fraction; so would 2/3 or 3/4. But from what I've heard, the fear, going into Feb. 28, was that the no-confidence vote would be larger than last year. And the issues that were galvanizing Summers' critics were numerous and did not neatly divide along lines of left vs. right or sciences vs. humanities.</p>
<p>I do not pretend to "speak for all alum", but I can tell you that I have spoken to several hundred in the last year, and the overwhelming majority would opt for Summers any day over the FAS turf protectors - just as would an overwhelming majority of the students.</p>
<p>Summers any day over the FAS turf protectors</p>
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<p>For me, it isn't about Summers vs. FAS. It's about Summers vs. another president. Would someone else be more effective at this job? We don't know who the search will turn up, but to me, the answer is, "Probably."</p>
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When asked by one of those students, former Crimson business manager Gregory B. Michnikov 06, whether someone with Summers bold vision would want Harvards presidency now, the president paused. </p>
<p>Its such a pleasure to be with you guys, Summers responded, drawing laughter and applause.