Harvard's President Is Again at Odds With His Faculty

NY Times ^ | February 14, 2006 | ALAN FINDER

[neverdem]

CAMBRIDGE, MASS., Feb. 13 — A year after weathering a no-confidence vote by the faculty, Harvard University's president, Lawrence H. Summers, is facing another showdown with dissident faculty members, raising new questions about his ability to maintain control over the university and perhaps even to remain in office.

The latest conflict was set off by the abrupt announcement late last month that William C. Kirby, the dean of the Faculty of Arts and Science, the university's largest school, would step down in the summer. The arts and science faculty has scheduled a vote on Feb. 28 on a new resolution of no-confidence in Mr. Summers.

"I believe that the business of the university has been seriously compromised by this bad leadership and it has become evident to a lot of people on campus," Mary C. Waters, a sociology professor, said in an e-mail message.

Mr. Kirby, a professor of Chinese history, has said the decision to relinquish his post was reached mutually with Mr. Summers, but many professors say they view it as a forced resignation, particularly because The Harvard Crimson, the student daily newspaper, quoted unidentified university officials as saying Mr. Summers had pushed out Mr. Kirby.

Professors are now demanding a significant role in the selection of a new dean...

[neverdem]

"These people are mostly the feminist left and its sympathizers," Harvey Mansfield, a professor of government, said of the president's detractors. "They fear that affirmative action will be abolished or diminished. They want more diversity, which means, paradoxically, more people like themselves. They want to run the university, and I think that Larry Summers wants to take it in a different direction."

[Mamzelle]

He may be a lib, but I hope he hangs on. His survival would deal a blow to the PC gestapo.

[Jeff Chandler]

Lib VS. Lib

[okiecon]

Harvard's Faculty Is at Odds With Their Faculties

[Malesherbes]

Larry Summers, a Clintonite Treasury Secretary in his former life, has a high IQ and doesn't suffer fools gladly. He is a liberal Dim but by Harvard standards he looks suspiciously conservative. Harvey Mansfield is one of the real conservatives at Harvard.

[NH Liberty]

Harvey Mansfield is one of the real conservatives at Harvard..

Mansfield's wife, Delba Winthrop, was one of my professors at Harvard. She's just a tiny little thing and, in general, soft-spoken, but whenever liberals make their typical nonsensical statements, she plasters their backs to the wall by challenging them with a series of questions that results in exposing the absurdity of whatever it was they just said.

It was a treat to watch her in action.