The idea that DF accomplishes something just by "being there" will need to go away, and soon, if Harvard is to grapple effectively with the huge issues it faces. Sixties generation Americans are overly inclined to priviledge descriptive representation over accomplishments, and it is sad if Harvard falls into this ditch.
Thirteen of 23 lines--the first 13--are about the O'Brien family. President Faust is basically an afterthought. If I were her, I'd be embarrassed that this was what millions of TIME readers across the world were reading about me.
Why? because Soledad O'Brien is an Afro-Cuban-American female journalist in her forties? Because she wrote a short yet poignant piece briefly illustrating the rocky road of both women and minorities seeking a higher education at "an often unwieldy and ego-driven" Harvard? I suppose it's a safe emotional place to be disdainful. But I would hope for better from such intelligent posters.
Because the piece is meant to be about Faust, not O'Brien, and the writer's egotism got in the way of that simple fact. There's nothing you learn about Faust--her background, her achievements, her plans for Harvard--so O'Brien's piece is a disservice to her.
I see no disservice. I see a journalist using a personal experience to illustrate sexism and prejudice and the resulting posts confirming that existence in the world and at Harvard. Maybe Faust didn't get a detailed bio in this Time but a mention of the role that sexism will play in her tenure is of no disservice.
Sexism in her tenure? Poster, I'll probably write more about this later, but let me pose some questions: At what step of her career ladder has Drew Faust's gender hurt her? At what step has it helped her? On balance, has it hurt her more than it's helped her, or the other way around?
As to O'Brien being an idiot, just give me a little while to find the ten minutes it'll take to document that claim.
I don't think the posters defending O'Brien really want to get into the business of defending an anchor from a 24-hour cable news channel. We'll just see how O'Brien holds up as a champion of un-self-absorbed accuracy on the television.....
In my guise as a former editor, I can both defend and fault O'Brien.
She was clearly chosen to write the squib because she's a woman who went to Harvard, and her editors (Time, CNN, it's all about the synergy) thought that those points of connection would make her an interesting choice.
Having been chosen, she felt honor-bound to disclose her Harvard identity, and use it as a framing device for her comments on Faust. Not entirely her fault.
That said, her editor should have told her to cut back on her story and get more on Faust in there.
That also said, since Faust is doing and saying so little, at least publicly, she is still an empty vessel into which this kind of banal political rhetoric can and will be poured.
Until she actually stands up and starts to define herself, others will be doing the defining for her, for better or worse.
The new Harvard President is going to need some coaching. At the Charles last Friday she was not terribly impressive with Bill Clinton. You don't just stand up next to a person of Clinton's stature and need to come across as a bit more visionary.
Richard, do you think it is actually possible that Harvard would be unequivocably replaced as the premier american university in the coming years? anyone observing the recent past would conclude that there are severe problems that get in the way of retaining the first place, maybe even of staying in the top 10. The problems are clearly more severe in some schools, but widespread enough to be symptomatic of something more general. But, are the problems over? if not, are they likely to be over soon?
There are numerous signs of decline documented by the Consortium for Financing Higher Education (COFHE), an organization of elite schools that pool data on admissions, tuition, and the like. COFHE is sensitive to antitrust investigations proposed during the late eighties. COFHE is an organization that doesn't really like to advertise its existence.
M.B. of the Globe wrote during the Presidency of LHS:
Student satisfaction at Harvard College ranks near the bottom of a group of 31 elite private colleges, according to an analysis of survey results that finds that Harvard students are disenchanted with the faculty and social life on campus.
An internal Harvard memo, obtained by the Globe, provides numerical data that appear to substantiate some long-held stereotypes of Harvard: that undergraduate students often feel neglected by professors, and that they don't have as much fun as peers on many other campuses.
The group of 31 colleges, known as the Consortium on Financing Higher Education, or COFHE, includes all eight Ivy League schools, other top research universities like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford, and small colleges like Amherst and Wellesley.
''Harvard students are less satisfied with their undergraduate educations than the students at almost all of the other COFHE schools," according to the memo, dated Oct. 2004 and marked ''confidential." ''Harvard student satisfaction compares even less favorably to satisfaction at our closest peer institutions."
The 21-page memo, from staff researchers at Harvard to academic deans, documents student dissatisfaction with faculty availability, quality of instruction, quality of advising, and student life factors such as sense of community and social life on campus.
The raw data used in the memo come from surveys of graduating seniors in 2002, but are the most recent comparison available and are still consulted by Harvard administrators. On a five-point scale, Harvard students' overall satisfaction comes out to 3.95, compared to an average of 4.16 for the other 30 COFHE schools. Although the difference appears small, Harvard officials say they take the ''satisfaction gap" very seriously.
Only four schools scored lower than Harvard, but the schools were not named. (COFHE data are supposed to be confidential.) The memo also notes that Harvard's ''satisfaction gap" has existed since at least 1994.
On the five-point scale, Harvard students gave an average score of 2.92 on faculty availability, compared to an average 3.39 for the other COFHE schools. Harvard students gave a 3.16 for quality of instruction, compared to a 3.31 for the other schools, and a 2.54 for quality of advising in their major, compared to 2.86 for the other schools.
Students gave Harvard a 2.62 for social life on campus, compared to a 2.89 for the other schools, and a 2.53 for sense of community, compared to 2.8.
Why hasn't Drew Faust named a dean of FAS? What is she waiting for? Classes are over, there are a lot of major decisions that can't be made until the new dean is named. With Jeremy Knowles out of the picture and his right hand man, David Fithian, leaving for Chicago, there is a complete sense of paralysis in U Hall. Why can't Faust name a dean?
This is anon 2:35 and 3:15. I wish I had the time and the energy to fully answer your questions in re:sexism in her tenure. I don't. My feelings are this: that YOU dear sir will be able to answer this more fully, eloquently and accurately than I ever could. The more I think about it the broader the topic seems. I have a few opinions but I'm going to keep them to myself. I however look forward to reading YOUR opinions as you seem both sensitive to the issue and a better reporter than I. But I think it suffices for me at this time to say that when Faust's appointment was made the National Organization for Women President Kim Gandy said, "NOW is so pleased that Harvard will finally have a female president -- and it has only taken them 371 years. Larry Summers, we couldn't have done it without you." It took one yahoo (Summers) to bring the this sexism issue at Harvard to front and it was NOT the qualifications of this woman to land her this job (for which she is more than qualified). Lastly, all indications point to the fact that she is a methodical and possesses powerful people skills. I'm sure she is choosing her battles wisely and waiting to make her mark. Here's hoping........
This mostly to 8:45 p.m. DF is being corrrectly deliberate about the appointment, since getting it right is the crucially important thing.
Sure it is unfortunate that David Fithian, another of Harvard's very best, is leaving--for a significantly more elevated position at Chicago, I might add. And yes, University Hall needs attention, but that is no reason to rush it.
The discussions DF is having with potential FAS Deans surely include focusing on a host of lesser but very important decanal appointments and administrative structures. It is therefore likely many of the decisions that need to be made are taking shape in the same time frame as this appointment. This all guesswork, by the way. The work of our advisory committee was finished over two weeks ago
I in fact think it is a very POSITIVE sign that DF is being deliberate.
8:13 a.m. seems to be trying to cover something up. As I said yesterday:
This mostly to 8:45 p.m. DF is being corrrectly deliberate about the appointment, since getting it right is the crucially important thing.
Sure it is unfortunate that David Fithian, another of Harvard's very best, is leaving--for a significantly more elevated position at Chicago, I might add. And yes, University Hall needs attention, but that is no reason to rush it.
The discussions DF is having with potential FAS Deans surely include focusing on a host of lesser but very important decanal appointments and administrative structures. It is therefore likely many of the decisions that need to be made are taking shape in the same time frame as this appointment. This all guesswork, by the way. The work of our advisory committee was finished over two weeks ago
I in fact think it is a very POSITIVE sign that DF is being deliberate.
This is the clip I had in mind, in which O'Brien runs an insane counterexamination of Sen. Feingold's factual statements about the law, and megaphones every aspect of the claim that the proposed Congressional censure resolution is "crazy." No attention is paid to the very clear and truly factually uncontroversial claim that Pres. Bush's violation of FISA is a breaking of the law. No Republicans even seriously questioned that fact at this point.
The beauty part here is highlighted on the hosting website: O'Brien is willing to totally switch her beliefs about what censure is when it suits her rhetorical purpose of hammering Feingold:
O'Brien: “Why a censure, it’s basically a slap on the wrist?”
later
O'Brien: “Why something so serious as a CENSURE of a SITTING PRESIDENT?”
And here's the other video I was thinking of -- Bruce Springsteen calling O'Brien an idiot to her face, while she obsessively hammers him with questions about whether he shouldn't just shut up and not be so political.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xxi6EDtYb4o
She asks, in the extended version of this clip, like eight times: "Is there a worry you start getting political and you alienate your audience?" Look at how this thing is edited to make him look out of control, and captioned "The Boss's New Tune."
And then there's this clip in which O'Brien is flummoxed that someone whose son has been killed by terrorists isn't baying for blood, and doing a hat dance at the news of Zarqawi's death:
Berg: "I'm sorry when any human being dies.... and his death will reignite yet another wave of revenge, and revenge is something I ... do not wish for." "I have to say, sir, I'm surprised; I know how devastated ... your family was when Nick was killed in such a horrible and brutal and public way---" Berg: "Well you shouldn't be surprised..." "But at some point one would think -- is there a moment where you say, 'I'm glad he's dead!'.... There have been family members who's weighed in... and said they think [Zarqawi] went straight to hell...." Berg: "...When are we ever going to learn [to eschew revenge]?" "There's an alternate reading that would say... Iraqis will be inspired by the death of Zarqawi.... That's actually what I'm saying... experts I've spoken to this morning have said this is a critical moment... That would be an alternate scenario to the [cycle of revenge] one you're pointing to.... "There's a theory that a struggle for democracy --- [interrupted] There's a theory [firmly, refusing to leave script] that as they try to form some kind of government that in fact it's going to be brutal, it's going to be bloody.... That's the history of any country... that they pay for the promise of something better than what they had under Saddam Hussein."
And here, if you're still interested, is O'Brien playing dumb again on a different issue -- to Joe Wilson -- "Republicans would say, He wasn't outing your wife, he was trying to correct -- and the word they would use is -- a lie in which you said that the VP had sent you to Africa. (Elaborates parroting Republican talking points)." "In fact I did not say that...." (O'Brien reads a passage from the editorial, in which indeed Wilson says the CIA, NOT the VP, asked him to go in order to respond to a query from "the Office of the VP.") "Couldn't a reading of that be, Hey, you're insinuating that you're going to Africa at the behest of the VP?" Answer: No.
"Did [the trip] in part come about because your wife said, Hey! Joe could do this trip?" Response: CIA has already answered that question: No. The CIA has said that repeatedly whenever asked since.
"Did you see Peter King -- here's what he said on another network: [repeat of all the falsehoods just debunked about Wilson having claimed to have been representing the VP]. Which seems to me a long way of saying, She deserves what she got."
Again, O'Brien doesn't listen to the answer.
"You know that the bar for illegality is quite high.... (Lists in long-winded fashion the four criteria for covert-agent-outing crime). Do you believe that Karl Rove has done anything -- to the letter of the law -- illegal?"
Is she covert? He won't say. "But isn't that the $64,000 question, cause if she's not covert then the whole thing is a wash?" --Ask Fitzgerald. "Okay, I'll take that as a no-comment on that one."
Is this interviewing? No -- she just reads from a list of attack questions, and does not skip the ones already answered.
I stand by my claim about her work. She's not doing journalism. She's a vessel for creating a fair fight between the government and its critics, even or especially when all the facts are on the critics' side.
My bigger beef with the Time Magazine piece referenced in the initial post was with the way that personalities on TV are treated as if they speak with special authority. Whatever O'Brien's accomplishments might be -- and I'm suspicious that they have any substance -- they weren't the reason Time chose her to write about Drew Faust, scholar and leader. She was chosen because (as Richard points out) she works for Time Warner, and it's a synergy, and she's a face on TV and a name people recognize. Do they recognize it for any substantive reason? I very much doubt it. Might as well have Judge Judy write stuff about the influence of Justice Roberts -- makes just as much sense.
Standing Eagle Apologetic about the length of this post, but it's at the end of the thread so your scrolling muscles shouldn't be overtaxed
PS. Full disclosure: Some of the most egregious things I associated with Soledad O'Brien's work on CNN were actually things done and said by Norah O'Donnell, who is REALLY ridiculously right-wing hacktastic. My blending of the two anchors in my head might be a sign of anti-Irish bias.....
Richard said: "Since Faust is doing and saying so little, at least publicly, she is still an empty vessel into which this kind of banal political rhetoric can and will be poured."
I think this is the most important point on this thread.
You can think what you want, but please believe me that I've never put anything unsigned on this blog. So I'm not the 8:13 anonymous poster, who's clearly just filibustering.
The S. O'Brien post was backup for a point I made much earlier in the thread. Again, sorry it was so long.
I don't believe SE is 8:13, since the former would have typed his own philibuster (were he so inclined), rather than cut and paste the Bloomberg report (hmmm), as 8:13 did, to cover up my earlier post, accidentally recovered by SE's 12:47 piece on Soledad O'Brien -- very interesting on Berg and the Boss. If anyone missed mine, here it is (last time):
Richard Thomas said... 8:13 a.m. seems to be trying to cover something up. As I said yesterday:
This mostly to 8:45 p.m. DF is being corrrectly deliberate about the appointment, since getting it right is the crucially important thing.
Sure it is unfortunate that David Fithian, another of Harvard's very best, is leaving--for a significantly more elevated position at Chicago, I might add. And yes, University Hall needs attention, but that is no reason to rush it.
The discussions DF is having with potential FAS Deans surely include focusing on a host of lesser but very important decanal appointments and administrative structures. It is therefore likely many of the decisions that need to be made are taking shape in the same time frame as this appointment. This all guesswork, by the way. The work of our advisory committee was finished over two weeks ago
I in fact think it is a very POSITIVE sign that DF is being deliberate.
