Yet another thread on summers... with an update

<p>CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (AP) -- After meeting again with faculty, Harvard President Lawrence Summers said he hoped he was on the road to repairing relations with students and professors disenchanted with his leadership.</p>

<p>Summers spent two hours hearing out critics and supporters Tuesday in a standing-room-only gathering of about 500 in a university lecture hall.</p>

<p>Summers has been criticized for his recent remarks suggesting intrinsic differences may partly explain why fewer women ascend to top academic jobs in science. The controversy sparked opposition at a faculty meeting last week that Summers described as "searing."</p>

<p>This time, he got an earful about his famously blunt management style but the focus was on building better relations for the future.</p>

<p>"People were very polite, very civilized and I really felt the president understood what was going on," said Miri Kubovy, professor of Near Eastern languages and civilizations.</p>

<p>Attendees said there was little if any talk of a no-confidence vote some faculty had indicated they would pursue, though one faculty member said he would put the matter on the agenda for the next faculty meeting March 15.</p>

<p>Faculty rejected a proposal that a three-person committee of administrators and faculty mediate between Summers and university professors, according to attendees and an account by the Harvard Crimson, the student newspaper and the only media outlet allowed inside the meeting.</p>

<p>Afterward, Summers issued a statement calling the discussions "candid and thoughtful" and said he hoped they "will help all of us move forward together in the most collegial ways possible."</p>

<p>Summers maintains the support of the Harvard Corporation, the university's governing body. Any no-confidence vote by faculty would be largely symbolic, and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences is just one of 12 divisions of the university.</p>

<p>The latest controversy over Summers' leadership style dates to his January 14 remarks at a National Bureau of Economic Research conference -- remarks he believed were off the record.</p>

<p>At the request of faculty, Summers released a full transcript of his comments last week, which show him arguing -- with repeated qualifications -- that innate differences partly explain why more men than women score in the highest ranges of math and science tests and rise to top science jobs.</p>