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If ever there were a case of university presidential suicide, it has to be that of the now ex-chief of my alma mater, Lawrence
H. Summers, who resigned from Harvard February 21 before being fired or facing a second vote of no confidence from the university's
undergraduate Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
Summers's five-year tenure was the shortest of any Harvard president since the Civil War, according to the university
daily Harvard Crimson. It is certainly the stormiest in my memory. And although I claim no special knowledge as an alum --
hell, I haven't had any substantial contact with Harvard in at least 20 years -- it is pretty clear to me that Summers designed,
built and hoisted himself with his own petard. He is an object lesson in how not to approach an elite, opinionated and socially-conscious
faculty.
We can begin with Summers's ill-advised decision early in his presidency to get in the face of well-known African American
scholar and speaker Cornel West, telling West in a private meeting that West was inflating grades and that he had better stop
writing about culture and stop making rap CDs and start being a serious scholar, according to the Washington Post [2/22/06].
I know nothing about the alleged grade inflation. But I'm a little bit familiar with West's work, and it is not clear to me
how his many published works and his writing about culture are not "serious," nor how his having made a rap CD is
at all relevant.
Let's just say that West was, uh, pissed as a result. He told Summers where to go, told the press that Summers was "messing
with the wrong black man" (again according to the Post), and left for Princeton. It was a disaster and an embarrassment
for Harvard. At that point the score became Miscalculation 1, Summers 0.
Then, in 2005, Summers moved on to the issue of women's innate abilities. Having apparently left his brain on the front
seat of his car, he walked into a conference and gave a talk in which he said that the shortage of women in math and science
may be due to their "intrinsic aptitude." A near-riot ensued. Summers went into an apology-loop in the following
weeks. But the damage was done. Miscalculation 2, Summers 0. He never recovered.
Add to that Summers's reportedly abrasive and authoritarian management style, and you have a recipe for a vote of no confidence
from the undergraduate faculty of America's most prestigious university. Which is exactly what he got in 2005. He was headed
for no confidence vote number two when, reading the tea leaves from the Harvard Corporation, which signs his paycheck, he
announced his resignation, effective at the end of this semester. He says he will return to Harvard as an economics professor
after a year off. His acting replacement will be 75-year-old Derek Bok, who happens to have been Harvard President while I
was there in the 1970s.
What is interesting to me is that Summers remains highly popular with students, who in an online Harvard Crimson poll
backed him three to one. There is obviously a gulf between what students and undergraduate faculty want, and if I were to
hazard a guess (based on nothing but a hunch), I would say it might have to do with students seeing him more as a decisive
corporate CEO while faculty members view him as a politically-challenged peer who does not play well with others.
Me, I sent my alumni letter to the Harvard Board suggesting that they fire Summers last year.
What is the moral of the story for a university president? I don't know. Maybe, "Be critical but don't be stupid."
Or, as an advertising creative director told me years ago after I badly screwed up, "You want to try to not set fire
to your clothes."
© 2006 Bruce A. Jacobs
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