The Revenge of Harry Lewis
Forced out as dean of Harvard College by Bill Kirby and Larry Summers in March 2003, Harry Lewis is taking an elegant revenge: He has authored a book, "
Excellence Without a Soul: How a Great University Forgot Education," which decries the consumerist and materialist trends in higher education that (he argues) are responsible for the choice of Larry Summers as Harvard president.
How fortunes change: Ignobly removed from his job (as so many were during the Summers era), Lewis remains at Harvard, and with the high-profile publication of this book might well have a more influential voice at the university than the outgoing president.
(This is, by the way, an argument in favor of tenure.)
Today,
the Crimson reports on the excerpt of that book (see below) that ran in this week's Chronicle of Higher Education.
Does anyone else get the feeling that the real debate about the state of Harvard education—not the silly curricular review, nor glib remarks about students who don't know what a chromosome is—is starting now? It'd be fascinating to see, for example, a Sanders theater forum featuring Lewis, Bill Kirby, Summers (if he'd do it), and a couple of faculty members from the curricular review.
With the departure of Larry Summers, a thousand flowers may be about to bloom....
