<p>This article which I just saw at the Harvard site may give better insight into Summers' difficult management style. What seems to be truly amazing is that he acted in this manner knowing that a no-confidence vote was looming.
Was he so arrogant that he believed the faculty could not unite against him?</p>
<p>Here's a more interesting, and more current link; Glenn Reynolds suggests that perhaps Summers is so smart, he did this to the A&S faculty on purpose :) (the dummy went to Yale Law, so he didn't know to say FAS).</p>
<p><a href="http://instapundit.com/archives/021799.php%5B/url%5D">http://instapundit.com/archives/021799.php</a></p>
<p>Must be a real dummy because Yale also has an FAS, not an A&S faculty. :)
Maybe I'm terribly outdated, but A&S to me means Abraham & Strauss.</p>
<p>Dumbest 800-pound gorilla in the whole blogosphere, without question :) Just ask anyone.</p>
<p>Harvard's Abraham & Strauss faculty....I hadn't thought of that, but it has a certain ring, doesn't it?</p>
<p>Reynolds says " the captains of political correctness into a no-win situation."...</p>
<p>...and, as I said before, completely misses the point, that the controversy is NOT about PC. It's not about the role of women, although that plays into it. As the other link points out, it is about management style.</p>
<p>Why to folks like Reynolds and driver keep trying to politicize a controversy that, fundamentally, is not political? </p>
<p>Do folks just not read? Do folks only look for the quotes, the links, the data, that support their pre-conceived notions? </p>
<p>Oh well, interesting discussion. Maybe I'm missing the point? Too close?</p>
<p>You are not missing the point. From my reading of posts here and at the Harvard site, there are many (who seemingly have some allegiance to Harvard) who are trying to obscure what is going on by introducing irrelvent information. Their hope seems to be to change the nature of the discussion (from serious inquiry to the bizarre). What is really sad, is that many of these posters, particulary at the Harvard site, appear to be older H alums. They are scaring younger posters from getting involved in any discussion. The threads bear this out. The Moderators should do something.</p>
<p>Politicians have a bizarre, contentious relationship with academia - I wouldn't limit it to any particular breed of politicians either. On one hand, the academics that agree with their policies are lauded as experts; those who disagree are dismissed as ivory-tower bound nut cases who have no idea how the real world works. By continually "exposing" the bias in academia, politicians and their blog partisans are able to effectively play both sides - obviously, anyone who agrees with their politics and is an academic must be a true expert, b/c he/she succeeded despite the overwhelming (insert here: liberal, corporate, etc.) bias of academia. </p>
<p>Personally, I think Summers and his thoughtless comments are going to end up doing a net good for women faculty. In this situation, the most publicly scrutinized university in the US is forced to do more than just talk about the issue of women in academia and science. Harvard is forced to spend money on the issue, and that will make other universities do the same. Also, citing statistics involving the number of faculty earning tenure isn't fair unless you also cite percentages - percent of people earning tenure in the past x years who are also women. You have to do this because Harvard is known for heavily recruiting senior faculty (one of the new chemistry recruits is indeed a woman) and for having a very low tenure rate for assistant professors.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Why to folks like Reynolds and driver keep trying to politicize a controversy that, fundamentally, is not political? </p>
<p>Do folks just not read? Do folks only look for the quotes, the links, the data, that support their pre-conceived notions?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Newmassdad: ;). Yes, I think so. I hope things work out well in Cambridge and that some positive new energy is injected into the university as a result of this turmoil. Energy that may include greater diversity--gender, racial, political--and perhaps a bit more harmony. Although from the little I have observed at a couple of major universities, faculty relationships are not infrequently sometimes tumultuous? Perhaps not unlike within other organizations?</p>
<p>"Maybe I'm terribly outdated, but A&S to me means Abraham & Strauss."</p>
<p>I grew up near one of those; my cousins were "Lever & Greenberg". ;)
(How's THAT for a PC comment?)</p>
<p>Summers should simply propose that any male faculty member could resign his position and be replaced by a woman.</p>
<p>I can just see the stampede.</p>
<p>I completely agree that this sad flap is not about PC, per se...it is, as NMD said, about management, or more precisely, power within the organization....which is to say, political. But the faculty IS using the PC issue to pillory Summers. It's the equivalent of playing the "race card" to end a discussion on affirmative action. Calling someone a racist is easier than substantively debating the issue. Same principle applies here, which is why I think these professors look so poorly. </p>
<p>This is one of the best articles I have seen yet on the subject, from a very unlikely source---the NYT Book Review. By a woman, no less. It's well worth a read, and makes many of NMD's points as far as what has been going on behind the scenes. Excellent, useful links within the article as well.</p>
<p>Driver:</p>
<p>I don't think the faculty is using the PC issue, as you put it, to pillory Summers. Let us remember that by refusing to release the text of his NBER remarks until members of FAS pressed him repeatedly to do so, Summers allowed the press to describe their contents and thus frame the ensuing debate. It was not a case of the profs trying to shout him down: it was a case of profs asking him what he had said exactly and his refusing to tell them. </p>
<p>A better way of describing what has happened since is that for many, this was the last instalment in a continuing story of faculty dissatisfaction with Summers' management on a variety of issues. Summers' NBER comments were made only a few months after a very unsatisfactory meeting in which senior female faculty expressed concern at the declining tenure offers to women over the period of Summers' presidency. But it turned out that other profs had reasons of their own to be dissatisfied; and they began to talk to one another across disciplines and departments. </p>
<p>I think that the issue of increasing the ranks of female faculty will be easier to fix than the other issues that have surfaced. Summers made proposals, as reported by the Crimson, that, to me at least, seem excellent. But the matter of his management style is more problematic. Is it possible to get a leopard to change his spots?</p>
<p>Summers was brought in to capitalize on what Rudenstine had done. Rudenstine had spent all his years at Harvard fund-raising. Because of this, he had not been able to pay attention to educational issues ranging from faculty renewal to curricular review, to student's housing, etc... But he raised the money that made it possible for Summers to launch his financial aid initiative and he bought the Allston land that Summers is proposing to develop. As in any new venture, you need buy-in from those who will be affected and will be carrying the burden of seeing it through. Summers was chosen by the Harvard Corporation because he was different from Rudenstine, but not in order to antagonize the faculty or divide it. Unfortunately, that is what has happened.</p>
<p>I'm chuckling at the thought of an abrasive, antagonistic guy trying to navigate the Boston political waters well enough to build so much as an herb garden in Allston!</p>
<p>Look at the trouble Robert Kraft had navigating those waters in an effort to build a football stadium...and he's anything but abrasive.</p>
<p>Can you imagine a guy like Summers trying to do business with the Bulgers and Meninos of the Boston political scene?</p>
<p>
[quote]
Let us remember that by refusing to release the text of his NBER remarks until members of FAS pressed him repeatedly to do so, Summers allowed the press to describe their contents and thus frame the ensuing debate.
[/quote]
A huge PR blunder.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Can you imagine a guy like Summers trying to do business with the Bulgers and Meninos of the Boston political scene?
[/quote]
I hope he has good bodyguards.</p>
<p>ID:</p>
<p>Yes, what a thought!</p>
<p>A lot of us back here in Boston have made the observation that it takes real talent to offend the Mayor of Boston, the Govenor of Mass, the Mayor of Cambridge, and PO the local legislature, all of which LS has managed to do in the past two years. </p>
<p>His Allston project? DOA for the foreseeable future. The mayor of Boston (Allston is part of Boston) wanted a Harvard project in Roxbury Crossing in the worst way. What did LS do? Not return the mayor's call (symbolically, at least.)</p>
<p>Ted Kennedy or Mike Dukakis could certainly handle the Boston politics. Wouldn't that be special for one of them to be president of Harvard.</p>
<p>
[quote]
A lot of us back here in Boston have made the observation that it takes real talent to offend the Mayor of Boston, the Govenor of Mass, the Mayor of Cambridge, and PO the local legislature, all of which LS has managed to do in the past two years.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That is rather remarkable. Under normal circumstances, offending one of those would be reason enough for at least one of the others to love you just out of spite!</p>
<p>School's professors wrestle with the question, what next? Is the rift between Summers and faculty to large to overcome? Today's update form the Boston Globe:</p>