Harry Summers at Harvard

Anti Summers
http://www.keithboykin.com/arch/2006/02/22/the_lawrence_su

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http://www.now.org/press/01-05/01-20-Harvard.html

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A Democrat

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/21/education/21cnd-harvard.html?ex=1298178000&en=e66a06df2ce16bb4&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

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Embattled President of Harvard to Step Down at End of Semester

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By ALAN FINDER
and KATE ZERNIKE
Published: February 21, 2006

Lawrence H. Summers resigned yesterday as president of Harvard University after a relatively brief and turbulent tenure of five years, nudged by Harvard's governing corporation and facing a vote of no confidence from the influential Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
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Jodi Hilton for The New York Times

Lawrence H. Summers, the president of Harvard University, in his office in Feb. 2005. He resigned today.
Related
Board Said to Be Seeking Faculty Views on Harvard President (February 19, 2006)
Harvard's President Is Again at Odds With His Faculty (February 14, 2006)
Harvard Chief Defends His Talk on Women (January 18, 2005)
The Tempest in the Ivory Tower: An Overview of Lawrence H. Summers's Troubles at Harvard (March 17, 2005)

Related Site: Harvard University Gazette (news.harvard.edu)
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The announcement by Dr. Summers, an economist and a former secretary of the Treasury, disappointed many students on the campus and raised questions about future leaders' ability to govern Harvard with its vocal and independent-minded faculty.

But advisers and confidants of Dr. Summers said he privately concluded a week ago that he should step down, after members of Harvard's governing corporation and friends  particularly from the Clinton administration  made it clear that his presidency was lost.

Dr. Summers, who earned a base salary of $563,000 in the 2004-5 academic year and received a 3 percent raise last July, is to leave office June 30. Derek C. Bok, 75, who was Harvard's president from 1971 to 1991, will serve as interim president until a permanent successor is found.

Hailed in his first days as a once-in-a-century leader, in the mold of perhaps Harvard's greatest president, Charles W. Eliot, Dr. Summers, 51, came into office with plans to expand the campus, put new focus on undergraduate education and integrate the university's schools. But he eventually alienated professors with a personal style that many saw as bullying and arrogant.

His well-known desire to change Harvard's culture, which he saw as complacent, was accompanied by slights to some faculty members and missteps like his statement last year that women might lack an intrinsic aptitude for math and science.

And some of his major decisions  including overhauling the undergraduate curriculum, appointing deans and mapping out a new campus  were hugely divisive at the 370-year-old university.

"I looked at the extent of the rancor that had emerged in parts of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences," Dr. Summers told reporters yesterday, "and the extent to which for many I personally had become a large issue, and concluded very reluctantly that the agenda for the university that I cared about  as well as my own satisfaction  would be best served by stepping down."

Dr. Summers's decision came after three fractious weeks following the resignation of William C. Kirby, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and left the university divided. About 50 students waving signs that said "Stay, Summers, Stay" and chanting "Larry, Larry" rallied in Harvard Yard yesterday after the news broke. Dr. Summers appeared to cheers and dispensed high-fives.

At the same time, several prominent donors said they were aghast at Dr. Summers's fall.

"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.

But several of Dr. Summers's faculty critics  predominantly in the humanities and social sciences, but extended across the university  said the president had made the right decision.

"A strong leader is not just someone who can name a goal or force a change," said Mary C. Waters, a sociology professor, "but someone who can bring out the best in people and find ways to encourage teamwork."

Though Harvard negotiated a university professorship for Dr. Summers  the highest faculty position, with rights to teach in any department  his friends said they did not know if he would take it.

His sabbatical year next year, they said, may be a moment for him to survey his opportunities, including Wall Street or the possibility of advising a Democratic presidential campaign. Several of these people declined to speak on the record because they did not want to be seen as divulging Dr. Summers's thoughts.

But they were also not surprised at how his tenure ended. After last year's dispute over women in science and a no-confidence vote last March by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, several senior Harvard officials close to Dr. Summers wondered whether each faculty meeting would become a moment to rekindle no-confidence votes.

"Win or lose, he realized that it was going to be very difficult to govern and that the better part of valor was to step aside," said David R. Gergen, director of the university's Center for Public Leadership at the John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Dr. Summers's aides and supporters had tried to find ways to save his presidency before the second no-confidence vote, set for next Tuesday. Dr. Summers also sought ideas from allies including another Treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton, Robert E. Rubin, who is a member of the seven-seat governing corporation, and Gene B. Sperling, a former economic adviser to Mr. Clinton.

