Richard, this post is ridiculous. Can you think of anything that makes it different when "women generalize positively about themselves"? Hmm. Let me think. Maybe it's the fact that MEN HAVE RUN THE WORLD FOR SEVERAL THOUSAND YEARS.

Context matters. When Larry Summers speculates about the possible incapacity of female scientists, he does so from very different position than does a KSG student writing about the very first female president of Harvard in its almost 400 years of history. It's entirely possible to be consistent while decrying Summers and writing (possibly silly) speculation about Faust's "female" style of leadership.

In other words, when people attacked Summers, it wasn't simply because he was generalizing; it was because of the content and nature of the generalization. After all, part of the point his critics made was that women faced more social obstacles to advancement in the field in general. That's a far cry from irresponsibly generalizing about unchangeable, biological differences to justify precisely those obstacles.

I think you have to be deliberately obtuse to think there's any hypocrisy on Kinder's part.
 

Sorry, I'm not buying it. Context might affect the way people react to the comments, but, at least in this case, it doesn't have anything to with their inherent wisdom.
 

Richard,

Did you read MB's profile of Drew Faust in the Globe today?

There's at least one thing she has in commong with Larry Summers. They are both cancer survivors. Maybe there's something in surviving cancer --or in a near death experience-- that propels people towards leadership. A sense of urgency about time perhaps.
 

C'monn Richard, don't play slow with your comment. There is no double standard here.

Obviously women like Faust who rose to leadership positions did so defying numerous social expectations. When she was a student at Concord most of the girls were expected to be housewives, nurses or secretaries. To have the guts to think of yourself in radically different ways from which most people around you think of yourself makes you a very unique individual, in ways that a man would not be.

This is to say women of Faust's generation are a very self-selected group of people who defied social expectations and broke barriers and stereotypes. In that sense she is much more atypical to women her age than Larry is to men his age.

True, things have changed for women since Drew went to Concord. The social expectations are very different for women the age of Faust's daughters and in that sense the differences in style may have more to do with social context and with the resiliency to challenge that context, than with sex or gender.

It is a wonderful thing to finally have a woman President at Harvard, if nothing else because it may show that even this place can catch up with the XX century. Everything I have read suggests that Faust HAS BEEN a good leader in the past, so it makes sense to expect her to be a good leader in the future.

You do well to raise critical questions and consider all angles of the issues explored in this blog, but give credit to Faust where it is due.
 

Um...play slow with my comment? Folks, there are a lot of you and there's only one of me. So..be patient.

To the last poster, I'm not taking anything away from Drew Faust. She's obviously an impressive and accomplished person. I don't think anything I wrote suggested that I was saying otherwise. In fact, I don't think anything I wrote had the slightest thing to do with her.

Haven't yet read the Faust profile, but I will, probably during Academy Award commercials. Just doing a bit of paying work now.
 

But you know, here's one thing that I would question about this post. What social expectation exactly did Faust defy? What stereotypes did she break?

I mean, she became a professor, which was perhaps somewhat unusual for a woman of her era but hardly unprecedented, and it's not exactly as groundbreaking as, say, Liddy Dole going to HLS. Then she became dean of Radcliffe, which wasn't about to have a man in that job. And then she became the fourth Ivy League female president—which is great, but is only groundbreaking in the Harvard context—not to mention that Hanna Gray was the acting pres of Yale, and Alison Richard, and women at MIT and Michigan....and so on and so on.

None of this is to take anything away from Faust. I want to emphasize that. It is more to critique some of the external evaluations of her. It is to say, before we cloak her in political rhetoric, can you show me where exactly she defied social expectations? Was it when she went off to—oh, struggle—prep school?

Off the top of my head, I think you could make a much more convincing argument for why Faust was chosen president for exactly the opposite reason—that she *didn't* defy social expectations. After all, the Harvard Corporation wasn't about to choose a rebel...
 

Bradley... you do have an interesting mind. You think of every possible angle indeed.

Yes, Faust is not a rebel, for sure, but she has probably followed a much less conventional path than most of the women who graduated from Concord with her. Maybe she is as much of a rebel as the Harvard Corp. could swallow.
 

To appreciate how exceptional Faust is consider this fact. She was Dean at Harvard with fellow Concord graduate Ellen Lagemann. Similar women, similar generation, similar background, similar education --both historians and professors of history. In fact they are good friends.

Here's the point about Drew's exceptionalism. Drew was Dean with three Presidents. Lagemann was Dean three years and was fired by the same President who appointed her. This is not meant to belittle Lagemann. It IS very difficult for women of their generation to raise to the top at places like Harvard. What makes Faust exceptional is that she did it, stayed on, achieved important things and move up to take on even greater responsibilities --and survived Larry Summers, not a small feat!
 

Stop bashing Larry! Larry was very supportive of women like Drew while he was President. In fact he wanted to make her Dean of FAS and gave her the opportunity to lead the Task Force which he knew would give her much visibility and position her for greater things. He was obviously visionary. In many ways he helped Faust become President of Harvard.

Larry was equally supportive with Elena Kagan, and time will show he helped her gain visibility for bigger and greater things than been the Dean of the Law School.

It is true he was not kind to Lagemann. But this has to do with her performance as Dean, not with his style or preferences. Ellen was simply a bad Dean and he would have replaced her earlier had he not been so distracted by FAS matters.
 

Perhaps one way in which Drew was smart is that she knew enough to appoint deputies who, while competent, would be loyal enough to support her leadership, rather than betray her.

Elena Kagan apparently knows as much as well.

Among the women Deans with Larry, Lagemann may have understood the importance of keeping loyal deputies the least. And Larry may have exploited this vulnerability.
 

The previous post is flawed... it assumes that Radcliffe can be compared to the Law School or the Education School... these are very different animals.

Faust has established her credentials as leader of Radcliffe. It is not clear how she would have led the Law School or the Education School. It is not clear how she will lead Harvard.
 

The poster at 5:55 says: "Stop bashing Larry! Larry was very supportive of women like Drew while he was President."
The poster must be unaware of one of the key episodes that caused deans and probably the Corporation to question Summers' integrity. Trying to defend his decision to deny Marcy Morgan tenure (wife of Larry Bobo), Summers told several people that even Drew Faust was opposed, and urged him not to approve it. Faust evidently never said anything like this, and in the small world of Harvard she heard about Summers' comments. This story, confirmed by many, was reported to the Corporation, and may have made more difference than any of the other misleading public statements of Summers.
 

Summers evidently had very unorthodox ways to govern Harvard. And was not shy about asking ambitious administrators to behave in ways that bordered in the unethical. At the Kennedy School he asked the Dean to fire some professors so he could appoint some of his favorites. At the School of Design he foisted an unwelcome Dean, completely disconnected from the faculty, down the throats of faculty. At the Education School he turned those reporting to the Dean against her and to provide him with reports that he used to push her out.

At Design and Education Larry used the same tactic, first appointed his person as acting Dean, thus making them vulnerable and insecure, and then confirmed them after been reassured of their complete loyalty and willingness to respond to his every demand.
 

What decision did Steve Hyman have in the decision to deny Marcy Morgan tenure? Wasn't he the chair of the ad-hoc?
 

Anon 8.55pm above suggests that Summers was a very unethical person, who did not hesitate to lie, put words in other people's mouths, and behave in every imaginable despicable way to achieve his ends...

Anon 9.43pm further suggests that Summers in turn appointed others who shared his ethics, as a way to secure his grip in the university, thus multiplying the chain of lies and deceit down to the schools. Not only was he unethical, he hired others who were like him and coerced others to behave in unethical ways.

Why did it take the Corporation five years to notice this pattern of behavior? Did he get worse with time or did he always behave like this?
 

Is there evidence that Drew Faust stopped Larry on his tracks and refused any of his presumed many advances to induce her to behave unethically?

Is there such evidence for Kagan or Hyman?
 

Are there differences in the character, and in the ethics they have demonstrated as Deans, of those appointed by Summers and those Deans appointed by his predecessors?

• Jeremy Knowles
Interim Dean, Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Appointed by Rudenstine in 1991 stepped down under Summers in 2002. Reinstated by Bok.

• Theda Skocpol
Dean, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
This is a woman of courage who denounced Harvard denied her tenure because she was a woman in 1980, eventually receiving tenure. She was appointed by Summers in 2005, when he knew he was on his way out.

• Jay O. Light
Dean, Harvard Business School
As with many of his appointments Summers named Light acting Dean (in 2005) to confirm him a year later. Light was appointed when Kim Clark resigned, unexpectedly, to become President of Brigham and Young. Clark is a very principled man and someone who would not have partaken to unethical forms of management.

• Benedict H. Gross
Dean, Harvard College Appointed by Summers in 2003

• Michael Shinagel
Dean, Continuing Education and University Extension
Has been a Dean over 30 years, serving several Harvard Presidents.

• R. Bruce Donoff
Dean, Harvard School of Dental Medicine
Appointed by Rudenstine in 1991


• Alan Altshuler
Dean, Graduate School of Design
Appointed by Summers as acting dean in 2004, confirmed a year later.
• William A. Graham
Dean, Harvard Divinity School
Appointed by Summers in 2002

• Kathleen McCartney
Dean, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Appointed by Summers acting Dean in 2005, confirmed by Summers a year later during the last few weeks of his Presidency. McCartney had been academic Dean for Ellen Lagemann, who resigned under pressure from Summers under mysterious circumstances.
•
• Venkatesh Narayanamurti
Dean, Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences
This division became a school in 2006, during the last few weeks of Summers reign.

• David T. Ellwood
Dean, Kennedy School of Government
A classmate of Summers in Harvards Economic Departments and fellow colleague in the Clinton Administration he was appointed as Dean by Summers in 2004

•
• Elena Kagan
Dean, Harvard Law School
Appointed by Summers 2003
•
• Joseph B. Martin
Dean, Harvard Medical School
Appointed by Rundestine in 1997

• Barry R. Bloom
Dean, Harvard School of Public Health
Appointed by Rundestine 1998

• Drew Gilpin Faust
Dean, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study
Succeeded Mary Maples Dunn in 2000, appointed by Rudenstine
 

5:55 says Summers
"gave her [Faust} the opportunity to lead the Task Force which he knew would give her much visibility and position her for greater things". The opportunity was an opportunity to bail him out for his idiotic remarks, and like most things he did had to do with his own survival and promotion. Some people thought she should have refused to head that task force and rather lead the charge against him, but it's to her credit as a team-player that she took it on -- though its findings met with lip-service pretty much.
 

There's a great opportunity for the enterprising reporters of the Crimson. Preparing a dossier on each of the schools and their challenges and document the nature of the differences between those schools whose Deans were appointed by Summers and the rest.
 

You are wrong 7.38am. This is not something undergraduates should touch. Too much dirt there. Stuff for Marcela B. or Sara R. perhaps.
 

the globe should not get involved there!

that is something for a harvard-specific entity to pursue. the rest of the world really should not care about the internal politics of harvard.

gotcha journalism is not good journalism.
 

Agree with the last post. The internal affairs of Harvard are not a matter for public consumption and are of no interest to the general public.
 

"The internal affairs of Harvard are not for public consumption."

Why not?
 

"..are of no interest to the general public."

How do you know this, exactly?
 

Because Harvard is a private University and it is privately managed. Only those with a legitimate interest and affiliation with the University have a right to know aspects of internal management processes. The public should be most interested in the scientific achievements of the faculty and those news are reported in the Harvard Gazette and appropriately disseminated by the University News Office.
 

A fascinating attitude for someone who is, presumably, a scholar. Because Harvard is "private" university and is "privately managed,"therefore it should stay...private. Quod erat demonstratum.

Harvard is a taxpayer-supported, non-profit institution. The taxpayers should know whatever they damn well want to know about it.
 

The taxpayers who think they have a right to know something about Harvard should contact the University Public Information Office and not get their news from reporters who have nothing better to do with their time than snoope into affairs that do not concern them.
 

Oh, I get it—you're kidding, right?
 

If a historian 50 years from now had only the Harvard Gazette as source she would conclude that Larry Summers was a visionary leader of Harvard who mysteriously decided to resign after initiating various brilliant and daring projects, but decided he wanted to settle down in Brookline with his English professor wife. And that's the way that they became the Brady Bunch. Yes, he must be kidding.
 

9:09: The Crimson has kept pace with The Globe and often beaten them, including the Faust announcement itself. If there's dirt to be had, it's better than they get it than the Globe.

3:43 and 9:19 and 10:18: It's good you're not a journalist. 100 percent agreed with Richard here. If it's of no interest to the general public, why does the Times keep running Harvard stories?

Richard, thanks for keeping up the good fight on this one.

-Emu