Why Doesn't Harvard Blog?
The Times runs a fascinating piece about university presidents who have taken to writing blogs. They include the presidents of Trinity University, Towson University, Colorado College and Michigan State.
Here's an interesting example of what one president blogs about.
Dr. Lou Anna K. Simon, of Michigan State, used her blog to condemn a plan by a conservative student group to stage a "Catch an Illegal Immigrant" day, in which a student playing the part of an illegal immigrant would have been hunted down and "arrested."
According to the Times....
But the group that planned the event, Young Americans for Freedom, said that the blog inhibited free speech, and that no professor or administrator should express an opinion publicly about anything. “We’re here to be educated, to get our degrees,” said Kyle Bristow, chairman of the group, which dropped its plans in favor of a forum on immigration later this semester. “They’re here to provide an atmosphere where we can be educated. We should be able to think for ourselves and not have people like Lou Anna Simon thinking for us.”
I think that's pretty tenuous logic, myself, but I can see the issue: Would a presidential blog tempt its author to comment on campus matters too readily, like a teacher waving a ruler overhead to inflict punishment upon wayward students?
On the other hand, of course, students could strike back, by simply posting comments on the blog?
The larger point, of course, is that none of this goes on at Harvard. The presidential website posts speeches and press releases; the president is intended to be a figure of remote and Olympian status. (How else can he raise money?)
But why couldn't Harvard officials blog? I could see Derek Bok, the author of annual letters to the community during his time as president, reveling in the ability to blog. Neil Rudenstine, the author of so many handwritten letters, might also enjoy it.
Larry Summers, not so much.
And while it's unlikely that the Corporation would blog, I could certainly envision a Corporation website. (Then again, I'm not so sure that Jamie Houghton knows how to surf the web, so that's a problem there.)
Incumbent upon such developments is a change in attitude within the upper echelons of the Harvard administration—a willingness to be less secretive and more transparent, less faux-omniscient and more accountable.
That seems unlikely to happen any time soon, as Harvard's status in American society rests upon the idea that the purpose of a Harvard education is to achieve power, and power is something to be hoarded rather than shared. It is the elitism of power, rather than the elitism of excellence, that truly defines Harvard.
I asked a Crimson reporter once if he knew of any Harvard professors who blog. What a natural evolution this would be for them, to continue translating their thoughts and ideas from the lecture hall onto the webpage.
After a couple days of scouting, he reported back that he was able to find one—one!—blog written by a Harvard prof.
Now, I know that the colleges mentioned above whose presidents blog are modest in stature compared to Harvard. But perhaps this gives them greater freedom to experiment; perhaps they are, as the writer David Osborne once said of the states, laboratories of democracy.
And perhaps this is the kind of thing that, over time, will make them look innovative and Harvard out of date.
Here's a thought: Why doesn't Jeremy Knowles commence an initiative in which FAS sets up really powerful personal webpages, including blogs, for its professors?
