Summers Exits Curricular Review
Larry Summers has stopped appearing at meetings of the General Education committee of the curricular review at Harvard.
Writing in the Crimson, William Marra suggests that this withdrawal is a consequence of the no-confidence vote; he calls it "the first significant transfer of power" from Summers to the faculty since that vote was taken.
I'm not so sure. Given the chaotic state of the review, doesn't this move have a jumping-off-a-sinking-ship quality?
Summers needs to give a show of ceding some power back to the faculty. But this move also distances him from an academic effort that, under his leadership, has gone badly wrong. Now, if it craters further, he can simply blame the faculty. "See what happens when I'm not around?" he can say, in so many words.
For the faculty, this may be a classic case of being careful what you wish for. They wanted Summers gone from the review; now he is. The pressure is on them to salvage what Summers has so far botched, or they will lose the spin game.
