Harvard president Lawrence Summers greets supporters after announcing his resignation Tuesday.
Posted on 02/27/2006 8:01:21 AM PST by MinorityRepublican
BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) -- Leading the world's wealthiest and probably most famous university sounds like the plummiest job in academe -- with a staff, a house, and a half-million dollar salary among the many perks.
But running Harvard isn't easy. Neil Rudenstine, school president from 1991 to 2001, was forced to take leave of absence for exhaustion in 1994. His successor, Lawrence Summers, announced Tuesday he would resign June 30 after a tumultuous five years, his ambitious agenda to get Harvard's territorial undergraduate and professional schools on same page done in by faculty revolts and brusque management style.
Harvard-watchers inside and outside the university said Wednesday they believe it's a job that can be done. Summers' successor, they said, will likely enjoy honeymoon, given the unwillingness of the Harvard community to endure another failed presidency.
But the new leader will first have to heal a campus bitterly divided over Summers' departure. Then he or she will have to preserve Harvard's reputation while confronting the same obstacles that undermined Summers, namely a proudly independent faculty and intense media scrutiny.
Being popular with the students isn't enough at Harvard: Some came out to support Summers when they heard he was quitting and the Harvard Crimson student newspaper said in an editorial Wednesday that his flaws should not "have cost Summers his job."
"I wouldn't want to be on the search committee," said John Bethell, the retired editor of Harvard Magazine.
That search will be watched closely not only at Harvard but in higher education generally, because of what it will reveal about the priorities of a leading university. The question is whether Harvard will go with a safe candidate to calm the waters, or try to find someone who shares Summers' ambitions to shake up Harvard but can do so more tactfully.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Harvard president Lawrence Summers greets supporters after announcing his resignation Tuesday.
Larry Summers got the shaft foe being honest and patriotic,something that Harvard does not approve of.
My baby brother is in the Fly Club.
Correct
I'm surprised. If I remember correctly, he worked in the Clinton Administration. Mind telling us what exactly happened here?
BUMP!
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/02/26/anatomy_of_summerss
Jeff Jacoby is the only reason left for reading The Boston Globe. This covers the entire Summers controversy.
His greatest crime,and perhaps his only real crime (in the eyes of those who bore the 'long knives" at Harvard),was that he suggested in a recent speech (given less than a year ago) that the scarcity of women in mathematics,engineering and certain other sciences could be due to some sort of genetic or gender differences in the makeup of women versus men.
Leftists in general,and Harvard leftists in particular,went ballistic when they heard this.
Harvard has moved so far to the left, even Cindy Sheehan looks like a right wing radical.
The implication was that the women scientists on the faculty are second-rate. Which is false, They are at best third-rate.
Harvard is in its own "Ivory Tower".
I'd rather hire somebody who went to a community or technical college than an Ivy-league loser produced by this dump.
he got the shaft because he had the gaul to not bow to liberalism and political correctness. He was interfering with the liberal brainwashing that goes on at these schools.
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