Blood from a Stone
Alan J. Stone, Harvard's Vice-President for Government, Community, and Public Affairs, has resigned,
the Crimson reports.
This is excellent news for Harvard.
The Crimson describes Stone's job thusly: "Stone was responsible for managing the University’s relations with its neighbors, the press, and the government."
Well, sort of. Stone was a Larry Summers henchman, and his power around Harvard came largely from that status. He was secretive, and he did his job secretively. During the Summers' years, Stone was a guy whose name was always coming up in conversation, but no one seemed to know exactly what he did, except that he had Summers' ear. Also, he was extremely well-paid for his mysterious labors—around $400,000 a year, if I recall.
Stone represented much that is worrisome about modern Harvard: the hiring of political operatives who have no feel or appreciation for university culture and values, the gradual encroachment of "vice-presidents" within university administration, and their lack of accountability to the larger community. Alan Stone had no Harvard connections whatsoever when he was hired, no institutional memory. (To be fair, he wasn't entirely unfamiliar with university culture; he had a brief stint at Columbia.)
The Gazette says this about Stone:
He has aimed to stimulate press coverage of the extraordinary accomplishments of Harvard faculty and students, and fielded innumerable media inquiries about one of the nation's most visible and closely watched institutions.
(Incidentally, the Gazette piece has vastly more information than the Crimson piece. The Crimson, which feels pretty sleepy this fall, needs to do a real story on Stone's behind-the-scenes influence.)
Stone was, in other words, a kind of Karl Rove figure for Larry Summers. He was almost never photographed, rarely quoted in the paper, and few people around Harvard knew who he was or what he did. That is not healthy.
The funny thing is, when Stone took the job, I heard only good things about him. He was reputed to be open, accessible, helpful. In my experience, none of those things proved to be true. What happened?
If Derek Bok is behind Alan Stone's resignation—as one assumes he must be, because a guy who was basically a speechwriter before doesn't leave a $400k a year job lightly—then this is an excellent sign: Bok gets it. Things at Harvard are changing.
