When Harry Lewis was fired from his position as Dean of the College, the position was eliminated. At first, Dick Gross, Dean of Undergraduate Education, thought he could handle that job along with the one he already had. So the two positions were combined. Then it turned out that combining the two positions made too much work for one person. So Pat O'Brien was hired as a Deputy Dean.
I would guess that she was fired as a result of the investigation that was carried on, I think by Carol Thompson, of problem that were roiling University Hall in the final months of Summers' regime.
 

With an inside perspective, I can say that this event is much more significant than your blog has noted, Richard. O'Brien was in charge of everyone who interacts with students in the College's administration (though only as a House Master did she interact with them herself). All the lines on the org-chart she drew (and re-drew, and tinkered with) ran through her before branching.

Gross made a decision here and there, and chaired the Administrative Board, but mostly he only ran the curricular review and tried to herd the faculty. O'Brien was running the college. This means House Masters, sub-deans of students, and every associate dean, curricular or otherwise.

And she knew nothing about colleges. She could be passionate on certain topics, but they never had to do with the lives and learning of 19-year-olds. She was hired by a headhunter who is worth some close investigating; a corporate category-head to whom many of the College's non-curricular problems as an educational entity can be traced directly.

More importantly, O'Brien's management style was incommunicative, ruthless, and subserved no stated educational aims. To call it 'intimidating' is to miss the point that she actually did simply and with no advance feedback fire the people who might in a merely unhealthy organization feel intimidated. And the atmosphere was: "The beatings will continue until morale improves!"

If you didn't read the job listing for a "Director of Internal Communications" for the College in the spring, you're missing out on a good sample of how survey numbers were going to be boosted under her vision (I saw it in the Globe). She believed that branding tools were what schools needed more of.

As to the larger picture: The anonymous poster above is living in a fool's paradise if s/he thinks that the elimination of Harry Lewis's position was a well-thought-through administrative adjustment. It was a way of justifying his ousting, nothing more, and for three years no one has done his job. Gross never could have intended to do it; and no one except the old guard in the building seems to understand what's missing.

O'Brien was, I hope, fired because she was lousy at her job. I understand she's a good House Master, though, so one would hope she would stay on there. And some of her campus-wide initatives might be nice grace-notes to supplement a proper rethink and re-articulation of the student experience on campus.

The larger question is whether Gross has developed good enough relationships in the faculty to allow him to survive more than a year as Dean, given how poorly things have been going in the leading of the College proper. I'd say it's three to two in favor, since Bok would probably expect the new president to need some continuity in the Dean role. (But note that O'Brien's ouster couldn't wait even a year for a new president! Significant indeed; there are many stories under here).


Standing Eagle
 

I am the first anonymous poster. My message was not intended to be supportive of the firing of Harry Lewis or of the hiring of Pat O'Brien. On the contrary, these were terrible moves that had huge negative ramifications, as the second poster rightly says. Morale had been very low in University Hall and in other parts of the College as a result of Pat O'Brien's administration.
 

Night-owl anonymous: Right, I didn't mean to say that you were in favor of the events. And I caveat-ed the 'fool's paradise' thing with a big IF: just to clarify that the emphasis on How the thing happened, administratively, is less revealing than the Why.

Sounds like we're on the same page.

Standing Eagle
 

Eagle rightly says: "many stories under here" but misses one of the most ominous. Mass Hall (not Bok, but Hyman)clumsily objected to the firing, but failed to do anything about it. Consider this round one in the continuing conflict between Knowles and Hyman. So far the smart money is on Knowles.
 

Don't know anything about the objection, but I think Bok was more of an instigator of this move than an arbiter of it. Had that on pretty good authority.

Hyman perhaps now the statistics wonk left alone in the mushpot, all tables having been turned.

Standing Eagle