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* HARVARD UNIVERSITY’S EMBATTLED PRESIDENT, Lawrence H. Summers,
resigned this afternoon and will be replaced, on an interim
basis, by Derek C. Bok, who was president of Harvard from 1970
to 1990. Mr. Bok would be expected to “clean up the mess and
make conditions right for the next president,” according to a
senior professor with knowledge of the tumultuous events of
today in Cambridge, Mass.
–> SEE http://chronicle.com/free/2006/02/2006022106n.htm http://chronicle.com/free/2006/02/2006022106n.htm

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Lawrence Summers Quits as Harvard President in Advance of New No-Confidence Vote; Derek Bok to Step In

By ROBIN WILSON and PAUL FAIN

Harvard University’s embattled president, Lawrence H. Summers, resigned this afternoon and will be replaced, on an interim basis, by Derek C. Bok, who was president of Harvard from 1971 to 1991. Mr. Bok was chosen to “clean up the mess and make conditions right for the next president,” said a senior professor with knowledge of the tumultuous events of today in Cambridge, Mass.

Mr. Summers, who had been buffeted by controversy for more than a year, was expected to resign on Monday, the professor said, and this morning’s Wall Street Journal said his resignation was imminent.

In a public letter, Mr. Summers said his resignation would be effective on June 30. “I have reluctantly concluded,” he wrote, “that the rifts between me and segments of the arts-and-sciences faculty make it infeasible for me to advance the agenda of renewal that I see as crucial to Harvard’s future. I believe, therefore, that it is best for the university to have new leadership.”

In a message of reply, Harvard’s governing board saluted Mr. Summers for his work despite the controversy that has surrounded his presidency. “While this past year has been a difficult and sometimes wrenching one in the life of the university,” the board wrote, “we look back on the past five years with appreciation for all that has been accomplished and for the charting of a sound and ambitious forward course.”

In its message, the board said that after a sabbatical, Mr. Summers would return to the Harvard faculty as a “University Professor,” a distinguished post held by only a handful of Harvard professors.

The key fact pushing the pace of events this week, according to the senior professor, is that today is the last day the agenda can be changed for next Tuesday’s meeting of Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences. At that meeting, faculty members had planned to vote on a motion of no confidence in Mr. Summers’s leadership. The faculty, which includes Harvard’s undergraduate and graduate divisions and is the largest academic unit on the campus, passed a similar no-confidence measure last March.

Next Tuesday’s meeting could have proved exceptionally embarrassing to Harvard and to the Harvard Corporation, its seven-member governing board, the professor said, because of other items on the agenda.

Chief among them was to be a motion to censure Mr. Summers for his role in what has become known as the “Shleifer affair,” the professor said. Andrei Shleifer, a prominent Harvard economist and personal friend of Mr. Summers, was a defendant in a lawsuit alleging that he and a former staff member had defrauded the U.S. government through a program intended to help Russia make the transition to a market economy.

Harvard defended Mr. Shleifer throughout the litigation and last August agreed to settle the case by paying a $26.5-million penalty. Mr. Shleifer has never been disciplined by Harvard, and in fact was awarded a new chair during the litigation, said the professor who spoke to The Chronicle. As a result, Mr. Shleifer’s relationship with Mr. Summers has drawn increasing criticism. The professor said the combination of the penalty and legal fees had cost Harvard $44-million.

Another motion to have been offered at the faculty meeting would have assailed the governing board for inadequate governance, the professor said, and would have singled out members of the Harvard Corporation by name for criticism.

The professor said the information came from conversations with current and former administrators at Harvard and with members of the Harvard Corporation.

Neither Mr. Summers nor members of the Harvard Corporation were available for immediate comment beyond their published statements.

Mr. Summers, a former U.S. secretary of the treasury and chief economics adviser to President Bill Clinton, has had several highly publicized clashes with Harvard faculty members, most notably over his comments at a conference in January 2005, when he said women might be underrepresented in the top tiers of science and mathematics because of innate differences in their abilities from those of men.

Mr. Summers also had a bitter dispute with Cornel West, a leading scholar of religion and African-American studies, who subsequently left for Princeton University.

Members of the Harvard Corporation had supported Mr. Summers, with the exception of Conrad K. Harper, a corporation member who resigned last July, citing concerns over the president’s leadership.

The recent turbulence at the university was exacerbated by the departure of the dean of arts and sciences, William C. Kirby, who last month announced that he would step down. Several faculty members have angrily asserted that Mr. Summers pushed the dean out.

In his letter, Mr. Summers did not admit to making any mistakes, but he seemed to acknowledge missteps in his leadership. “I have sought for the last five years to prod and challenge the university to reach for the most ambitious goals in creative ways,” he said. “There surely have been times when I could have done this in wiser or more respectful ways.”

Copyright © 2006 by The Chronicle of Higher Education

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