<p>"The problem with Summers is he thinks he really is an expert in everything... and his arrogance has ****ed a lot of people off..."</p>
<p>"... he has no stores of trust or goodwill with the faculty..."</p>
<p>OK, so we know YOU don't like him. Other readers of this thread need to know, however, that such implications of universal hatred is false:</p>
<p>"I think he has very widespread support around the Law School, Dershowitz said. I think a lot of people at the Law School think of Arts and Sciences as unrepresentative of the faculty of Harvard University in general.</p>
<p>We all know how academic politics is played. If you don't like the agenda, attack the personality. Hence the whinings and complaints about arrogance. A scientist president with the same agenda won't fare any better. To paraphrase an old election slogan: It's the agenda, idiot.</p>
<p>It has irritated - but not surprised - me that the press has largely appeared clueless about the real source of the conflict, and has relied substantially on anonymous leaks from anti-Summers academics with an ax to grind. </p>
<p>The "leakee" of choice, an only-too-eager-to-serve young female on the Globe staff, fanned the flames in the early days of the controversy.</p>
<p>It has ever been thus ... dating at least to the time Cotton Mather was snubbed for the presidency and responded by encouraging a disparite group of right-wing clerics to found a "schoole" in Connecticut for which the rationale, quite simply, was that it wasn't "Godless Harvard."</p>
<p>I never said I was speaking for anyone but myself. Of course, it is just MY opinion, as one alumnus, and now employee.
And I am no "Harvard basher"... I love my alma mater...
and think the institution is one of the greatest intellectual centers the world has ever seen...</p>
<p>Since when is critisizing the leader = bashing the institution...
Oh wait, this is just like the US under the Bush regime...
criticism is NOT allowed.</p>
<p>Yes, Summers has solid support in some quarters and in some factions of the alumni... but he has also alienated large swaths of faculty and alumni as well... in other words, he has become a very polarizing and thus ineffectual leader.</p>
<p>Again, why did he decide to pick a fight with the Af-Am studies department as one of his very first acts as president????? He brought it on himself, coming in with the attitude that he was going to push the faculty around... I agree with many of his reforms, but it seems he didn't understand how to lead a diverse and complex university... being the leader of a university is NOT the same as being head of the Treasury Department.</p>
<p>My apologies -- jumped the gun on you. There are many Harvard bashers, though, who are deriving much delight from the soap opera and hysteria emanating from some of the departments ...</p>
<p>I think the idea of a scientist for president is interesting, but I am not sure it will solve the problem. Hennessy -- an engineer, not to be confused with a scientist -- has certainly done a great job at Stanford. The verdict on Tighlman -- a real scientiest -- at Princeton, though, it not clear. There are already voices of doubt from certain alumni quarters. The departure of Maria Klawe could be an opportunity to sharpen the SEAS and bring it loftier goals than the single tune it could sing under Klawe. On the other hand, Summers at Harvard and Levin at Yale -- both economists, mind you -- are fighting the faculty hard to bring greater scientific and technological appreciation to their instutions' cultures. Yale has much further grounds than Harvard to cover -- under Giamatti and Schmidt, the Engineering program almost lost accrediation and the faculty wanted to shut it down. Harvard at least is top-three in all the core sciences. Levin is making some progress with fund raising and lab constructions, but from outside it looks like he has to play mamby-pamby with the faculty and it just isn't clear he is winning it.</p>
<p>no problem... i actually like the direction Summers is trying to move the university... and to a real extent, the ooposition to Summers is largely "academic politics"... I just really don't understand how Summers could be so tone-deaf... he should have known how difficult it would be to alter the direction of a major research institution... and that he would need to finesse the faculty to go along with it... to get them on board... in a way, to let them think that this was their idea... but he went in with this attitude that he was just going to bust heads...</p>
<p>He was, as the saying goes, "just following orders." </p>
<p>The Corporation, as well as a sizeable fraction of concerned and informed alumni, have, for some time, been of a mind that the FAS is in need of a thorough housecleaning.</p>
<p>Heads may not need to be "busted", but there are more than a few fatheads on staff who should be encouraged to leave - sooner rather than later. Summers has allowed much of the good will he engendered by getting rid of that fraud, Cornel West by (1) pretending to apologize for it, and (2) not following up by ousting a few more embarrassing vestiges of the sloppy Rudenstine era.</p>
<p>Then there is Hugo Sonnenschein, another economist, who tried to change the University of Chicago as its president, and failed due to factulty opposition, much to the detriment of the institution, my guess is. I'd like to know the inside story on that!</p>
<p>The next president, Randel, just quit recently after a brief tenure.</p>
<p>Chicago is an excellent example of ANOTHER institution highly in need of - and highly resistent to - change, due to an entrenched faculty that is dedicated, first and foremost, to preserving its own "way of life" - heedless of the impact on the students or the University as a whole.</p>
<p>Again, at what major research institution is tenure not an impossible problem? Harvard is no worse in the fraction of deadwood faculty.
If you're going to reform tenure, you cannot do it without finesing faculty support...</p>
<p>Cornel West was certainly eccentric, but he was no "fraud."
But it was INSANELY stupid to go after Cornel West & Af-Am as his first act as president... I mean really... did he think this was going to endear him to the rest of the faculty?? And you CANNOT ignore the history here... Af-Am was practically nonexistant before Rudenstein... amid much student protest under Bok, Rudenstein personally took to helping construct the best Af-Am department that Harvard money could buy... the department, in its current form, was very new... after decades of neglect, its status within the university was still not solid... and Summers thought it was a good idea to go on the attck, on this specific department, given Harvard's history with this department? Are you kidding? This is what I mean by being so ridiculously tone-deaf...</p>
<p>Of all of Harvard's problems, Summers CHOSE to go after Af-Am and Cornel West in particular...</p>
<p>West was THE poster child for the kind of shallow pseudo-academic clap-trap that has begun to creep into the curriculum. He was an ideal target to send a message that badly needed sending. </p>
<p>Many (including not a few members of the Harvard faculty) quietly applauded Summers courage (if not his wisdom) in taking on "Brother West", risking a predictable howl from the ayatollahs of political correctness.</p>
<p>The Af-Am department - built in haste by signing free agent "superstars" indiscriminantly (as you seem to acknowledge) - left Summers to deal with an operation which had an ill-deserved reputation based on Skip Gates abilities as a promoter. It is now being restructured into something quite different and academically far more solid.</p>
<p>You REALLY don't get it... as I said before, there is a historical context to contend with... of all of Harvard's internal problems, eccentric Cornel West was small potatoes... but you cannot ignore the message that sent to the rest of the faculty... do you think this would win him allies so that he could push through some of the tougher reforms? Wrong.
He alienated the very faculty he now desperately needs in order to
alter the course of the university.</p>
<p>Again, I refer to my Gavin Newsom analogy... by SF standards, he was a bit conservative (still VERY liberal by national standards)... he wanted to crack down on the homeless problem, make more room for developers and make SF more business friendly... he barely won over a Green party candidate... and progresives were ****ed-off... But with Gavin's grand gesture (symbolic to be sure), he really managed to win over many of his critics so that he can actually get through some of the tougher reforms.</p>
<p>I agree with particular reforms, but what you don't seem to understand is that he has NO credibility witha significant enough chunk of the faculty that he will have a hard time with getting any needed reforms no matter how good or needed. For someone so "intelligent", he played the game wrong... and be sure, academic politics is a game... no, rather it is a bloodsport.</p>
<p>Obviously, he is losing the confidence of even the very conservative Corporation...</p>
<p>With all due respect, I think YOU'RE the one who doesn't "get it." </p>
<p>Summers got off to a great start by dumping Brother West, but then failed to capitalize by 'apologizing' for it. </p>
<p>Similarly, He lost a chance to build a powerful counter-constituancy by failing to follow-up on initial hints that he would push for the return of ROTC and by the pathetic effort to buy off the feminnazis with $50 million in "recruiting" funds and new high-level, high-salaried "women" slots in the administration. </p>
<p>As might have been expected, neither the "apologies" nor the bribes gained him any traction with those gunning for him. Rather, they cost him support from those inclined to support him.</p>
<p>When the circumstances called for a Ronald Reagan or a Maggie Thatcher, Summers listened too closely to the accomodationists. When he tried to make peace with the "opponents" they (correctly) viewed it as a sign of weakness and continued to plot his beheading.</p>
<p>A clear, "take-no prisoners" approach would have won him significant national support and even broad support from the student body. Even the Crimson editorialists, of all people, sense that it is Summers and definitely not the faculty, who is acting in THEIR interest.</p>
<p>"cost him support from those inclined to support him"</p>
<p>IMHO, Summers was never as far to the right as many who supported/adopted him wished him to be. He was a smart, pragmatic, no-nonsense liberal (look at his political history, ask his friend Gene Sperling) with an unfortunate tin ear.</p>
<p>He wasn't prepared to develop the kind of coalition that was his for the taking; all he had to do was to dramatize the selfishness of the faculty barons - putting them on the defensive and KEEPING them there. It had nothing to do with a "tin ear", but rather with a loss of nerve, IMHO.</p>
<p>Wow...
The fact that you used Rush Limbaugh's phrase "feminazi"... yeah, whatever. Talk about loss of credibility...</p>
<p>In any case, this is much, much bigger than the fairly trivial Cornel West flap... Summers just doesn't know how to lead... he likes to pontificate on matters that he clearly is not an expert, he likes to bully (like spreading rumors that he planned to FIRE the Dean of FAS rather than privately asking him to resign)... sorry, but he doesn't understand that you cannot run a university like the Treasury Department.</p>
<p>Simply put, he has failed at leadership... and the longer he hangs on, the more it hurts the university.</p>
<p>RE: the ROTC issue... Harvard had a principled position (no organizations that discriminate based on race, religion, sex, sexual orientation) that the vast, vast majority of the faculty supported... one can disagree in good faith, but he had no right to unilaterally go over the expressed wishes of the majority of the faculty... he is not KING of the university with absolute authority, though it is apparent that that is how he viewed his role.</p>
<p>Clearly we have quite different ideas about how to get from point A to point B, and about whether the FAS blend of excessive political correctness and excessive self regard isn't in need of a frontal assault to change the culture. "Apologies" and bribes won't do it. The anti-Summers plotters care far less for the institution than they do for their own selfish interests. </p>
<p>The least that can be said for Summers is that he recognized the nead for radical reform and has been willing (up to a point) to fight for it.</p>
<p>All this cliche talk about "leadership failure" etc etc is so much horse manure, IMHO. The barons simply were bound and determined not to follow; few care if the temple falls around them as long as their lifestyle survives.</p>
<p>YES! And that really is a fatal flaw for someone trying to lead a monstrous entity such as Harvard. The problem is, Summers thought he had much more absolute power than he really had... he just didn't understand that he had to get the faculty on board... to incorporate them into his vision for the university... he NEEDS them to make the reforms work... but he went in with a very confrontational, combative manner that alienated the very people he needed to get the job done.</p>
<p>Again, I must say, I AGREE with many of the needed reforms... but he just didn't have the right set of leadership skills for THIS context...
the world of POLITICS is very different than the world of ACADEMIA.</p>