Shots In The Dark: This and That

Wednesday, November 15, 2023

This and That

A reporter from the Daily Pennsylvanian called to chat about Amy Gutmann and her Halloween photo; you can find her story here. What's interesting to me about the piece is not what it says, but an underlying reality of it: two of the three people interviewed are bloggers. (The reporter told me that no one at Harvard wanted to speak on the subject.)

It goes to my earlier point about new media and the university...

Meanwhile, here's the transcript of Larry Summers' online "debate" about the election. (I put debate in quotes because, although it was advertised as such, he's really just answering pre-screened questions.)

Summers takes a middle road: He's a little more forthright than he has been in the past, but still seems to be extremely careful about his public statements. I suppose you can't blame him for that, but I still think that Summers has a far more interesting mind than he displays here.... As I've often said, I really would like to read a Summers book in which he cut loose and showed off that very distinctive intelligence of his. I think he'd need a ghostwriter for it because his writing is not as fluid as his thinking. But if he teamed up with that guy who co-wrote Freakanomics, he could produce a very interesting book.

Finally, sounds like the faculty meeting at Harvard yesterday was pretty hot. The question I can't tell: Are the objections to the current proposal for curricular reform serious enough to threaten its passage, or is this just fine-tuning?

My guess is somewhere inbetween....

¶ 10:12 AM

Comments:

What makes you think all former Harvard Presidents CAN write a book? They are not selected for the job on demonstrated competency in that domain and the demands of the job are not such that they help those without prior ability in that area to develop it.

As you may know, some Harvard Departments accept two or three articles in lieu of a dissertation. In some cases those articles are written in a combination of English and Math Equations.

Of course Derek Bok and Neil Rudenstine COULD write books, but they displayed many other signs of having well rounded intellectual skills.

# posted by Anonymous : 12:47 PM

The Gen Ed Report seems to be heading through. It's interesting that most of the discussion of yesterday's meeting amounted to mere quibbling over the designations and categories that the Task Force made. Most faculty seem to agree with its overall vision, if not its execution. Unsurprisingly, apathy reigns among the students--the attitude being, it's not going to affect us so why should we care?

# posted by Anonymous : 3:35 PM

The article about Amy Gutmann does well to distinguish between the snapshot of her and the student in the suicide bomber costume, on the one hand, and Larry Summers' remarks about women and science, on the other. The underlying problems were the real reason behind Summers' downfall.

# posted by Anonymous : 6:54 PM

Richard and Anon 12:47 seem to be suggesting that Larry Summers is not capable of writing a book on his own. Why wouldn't he be able to do this?

# posted by Anonymous : 10:01 PM

In the words of Harry Lewis:

"Lawrence Summers's principal failing was not that he was too strong or too uncongenial, but that the wisdom, knowledge, and judgement he lent to faculty affairs were too feeble. In the end, professors realized that Summers was not offering leadership they could respect. The Harvard Faculty would rather mind its own business than vote down the president: they did not do so for sport. The majority voted against him, and a larger majority was prepared to do it again, because his intellectual contributions as president failed to meet Harvard's high standards and to bring honor to the institution." Harry Lewis. Excellence Without a Soul. Page 262

# posted by Anonymous : 10:14 PM

Just don't agree with Lewis's take there at all (yes, Richard, going with the "s," sorry). I think blaming it on a lack of Larry wisdom shows faculty arrogance--a much larger factor in the fiasco than Summers's intelligence. I'd say it was his business-like approach to academic administration, that might be fair. Wisdom? No. Take away women in science, and he's still in Mass Hall.

# posted by Anonymous : 7:32 AM

Amy Gutmann has already proven that she can write good books and develop original ideas in an intelligent way.

She has also demonstrated competency in developing a vision and working with faculty at two Ivy League Universities.

Perhaps she was not thinking when she posed for that picture on Halloween, but there is no possible comparison between her record of success and demonstrated intelligence and any of the repeated blunders and failings Lewis writes about.

# posted by Anonymous : 10:45 AM

Anon 7:32, Summers had a "businesslike approach"? Have you heard about the FAS deficit? What good business leader replaces the head of his biggest operating division and then has to fire the replacement a couple of years later in the middle of a major overhaul of that unit? And have you any idea how many new toadies, from limo drivers to associate provosts, Summers brought into the central administration? The university bureaucracy grew vastly under Summers with no increase in productivity. If this is a businesslike approach, no wonder businesses get in trouble.

# posted by Anonymous : 9:23 PM

The consequence of the facts the previous poster describes is that the university is now largerly controlled by administrators and by the development office who have made the university a big money making machine to pay themselves big fat salaries. Faculty are no longer directing the academic life of the university. Faculty and students are the decorative elements of a business where there is no accountability.

# posted by Anonymous : 9:51 PM

Are Universities the next Enrons?

# posted by Anonymous : 11:49 PM

A way to verify the out of control growth of administration at Harvard is to look at the change in the percentage of the total budget represented by administrative expenses (equal to salaries of administrators) over the last 50 years.

Incidentally, the Harvard Factbook, which reported these figures clearly a decade ago, changed the format of reporting 4 years agoo, making it more difficult to see this:

http://vpf-web.harvard.edu/budget/factbook/

Given such drastic increases in the share of the total cost of higher education represented by administration one would need to see much greater efficiency in how universities are run... or perhaps much greater conflict.

Incidentally, what is the likely scenario when at some point administrative costs have to be reduced? would those performing perfunctory functions go first? or will those administrators fired first be those who may most concentrate on their jobs and therefore be less attentite to politics? If the survivors of this process of natural selection are those among administrators most astute politically --not necessarily those most competent-- what would this do to accountability in the University, to focus on the university's mission and to conflict with faculty and students?

May we live interesting times...

# posted by Anonymous : 5:58 AM

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