Sunday, June 10, 2024
At Harvard, Two Departures
Though it has not yet been publicly reported, economist and Harvard College professor Caroline Hoxby and her husband, associate professor of history and literature Blair Hoxby, are leaving Harvard for Stanford University.
Caroline Hoxby has sent the following e-mail to her colleagues:
I am writing because I recently informed Jim Stock, our chairman, that my husband Blair and I will be accepting our Stanford offers. We do so with great enthusiasm: Stanford promises to be stimulating and productive place for us.
This, however, is not an email about Stanford. It is an email about you. I want to say how much I have valued working with you and all the members of the Harvard Economics Department over the past thirteen years. You have not just been great colleagues, but the best possible colleagues. It has been an honor to work with people who are dedicated to economics, to advancing the field, and to training the best students anywhere on earth. It's hard to think of anything better than working with people who are serious, creative, and very, very smart. Everything from thesis defenses to seminars to search committees has been a pleasure and a learning experience. Both Blair and I regret having to leave colleagues whom we respect so much.
I will personally miss everyone at Littauer, and I wish especially to express my heartfelt thanks to the staff, some of whom I have known for over twenty years! Every time the department manages to get itself through the beginning of a semester or the job market season, we have the staff to thank for pulling us through and providing our students with a sense that all things do indeed get done.
Jim Stock has done a wonderful job this year trying to ensure that the Harvard situation worked out for us, and I am clapping for him as I write (tricky but possible). He could not have been a better or more responsive chairman. Many people in the department, other departments in the FAS, and other schools in the University have also been concerned about the situation and have expressed their concern to me and/or the administration in emails, in telephone calls, and in person. I am deeply grateful for the concern and the support we've been lent. We could not have wished for anything more from our chairman, our faculty colleagues, the staff, or our students.
All good thoughts and wishes,
Caroline Hoxby
I know only a little about Blair Hoxby's work, but have heard good things about his scholarship and teaching. For her part, Caroline Hoxby is widely respected in her field, and the loss of a Harvard College professor—the title is intended to reflect excellence in teaching—does not bode well for the university's commitment to undergraduate teaching. Or diversity, for that matter: Caroline Hoxby is a female, African-American economist, and that is a select group.
This can only be considered a huge loss for Harvard.
Blair and Caroline Hoxby.
Caroline Hoxby has sent the following e-mail to her colleagues:
I am writing because I recently informed Jim Stock, our chairman, that my husband Blair and I will be accepting our Stanford offers. We do so with great enthusiasm: Stanford promises to be stimulating and productive place for us.
This, however, is not an email about Stanford. It is an email about you. I want to say how much I have valued working with you and all the members of the Harvard Economics Department over the past thirteen years. You have not just been great colleagues, but the best possible colleagues. It has been an honor to work with people who are dedicated to economics, to advancing the field, and to training the best students anywhere on earth. It's hard to think of anything better than working with people who are serious, creative, and very, very smart. Everything from thesis defenses to seminars to search committees has been a pleasure and a learning experience. Both Blair and I regret having to leave colleagues whom we respect so much.
I will personally miss everyone at Littauer, and I wish especially to express my heartfelt thanks to the staff, some of whom I have known for over twenty years! Every time the department manages to get itself through the beginning of a semester or the job market season, we have the staff to thank for pulling us through and providing our students with a sense that all things do indeed get done.
Jim Stock has done a wonderful job this year trying to ensure that the Harvard situation worked out for us, and I am clapping for him as I write (tricky but possible). He could not have been a better or more responsive chairman. Many people in the department, other departments in the FAS, and other schools in the University have also been concerned about the situation and have expressed their concern to me and/or the administration in emails, in telephone calls, and in person. I am deeply grateful for the concern and the support we've been lent. We could not have wished for anything more from our chairman, our faculty colleagues, the staff, or our students.
All good thoughts and wishes,
Caroline Hoxby
I know only a little about Blair Hoxby's work, but have heard good things about his scholarship and teaching. For her part, Caroline Hoxby is widely respected in her field, and the loss of a Harvard College professor—the title is intended to reflect excellence in teaching—does not bode well for the university's commitment to undergraduate teaching. Or diversity, for that matter: Caroline Hoxby is a female, African-American economist, and that is a select group.
This can only be considered a huge loss for Harvard.
Blair and Caroline Hoxby.
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I agree, SE, a huge loss. I was on Faculty Council with her some years ago, and she was also a valuable member of the FAS Resources Committee, and is a very decent person.
This is tragic, to see Harvard continues to lose outstanding faculty and can't seem to do anything about it. Is there anyone at the helm there?
The departure of the Hoxby's is another example of the profound devastation caused by Summers during the last five years, demoralizing faculty who thought very highly of what Harvard was and stood for. This loss of innocence and idealism among many faculty will hunt the University for years to come.
Anyone following the public statements of Carolyn Hoxby over the last several years will see the anger and disillusionment of a scholar who clearly loves Harvard and who held much higher expectations for it than Harvard's President.
At a faculty meeting in 2005 Hoxby said to Summers:
"Every time, Mr. President, you show a lack of respect for a faculty member's intellectual expertise, you break ties in our web. Every time you humiliate or silence a faculty member, you break ties in our web," Hoxby said. "When you engage in speech that harms the university's ability to foster scholarship and that is not thoughtful, not deliberate, and not grounded in deep knowledge, you break ties by the hundreds."
A Professor does not get to utter those indictments to her President lightly. One can imagine the difficult conversation in the Hoxby's home around that time. It was probably then they decided to seriously consider leaving a place that had clearly meant much to them up to that point.
These are the wounds in the souls and consciences of Harvard faculty that Faust will need to heal, and this will be most difficult to do if she leaves the governance machine Summers put in place intact. Until she does, Harvard faculty will continue to be prey for smart leaders at Stanford, Columbia, Princeton and elsewhere, who will just have to offer a work environment that truly lives up to the highest values of the academy...
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=505373
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=512677
http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2005/02/23/summers_vows_new_tone_with/
Anyone following the public statements of Carolyn Hoxby over the last several years will see the anger and disillusionment of a scholar who clearly loves Harvard and who held much higher expectations for it than Harvard's President.
At a faculty meeting in 2005 Hoxby said to Summers:
"Every time, Mr. President, you show a lack of respect for a faculty member's intellectual expertise, you break ties in our web. Every time you humiliate or silence a faculty member, you break ties in our web," Hoxby said. "When you engage in speech that harms the university's ability to foster scholarship and that is not thoughtful, not deliberate, and not grounded in deep knowledge, you break ties by the hundreds."
A Professor does not get to utter those indictments to her President lightly. One can imagine the difficult conversation in the Hoxby's home around that time. It was probably then they decided to seriously consider leaving a place that had clearly meant much to them up to that point.
These are the wounds in the souls and consciences of Harvard faculty that Faust will need to heal, and this will be most difficult to do if she leaves the governance machine Summers put in place intact. Until she does, Harvard faculty will continue to be prey for smart leaders at Stanford, Columbia, Princeton and elsewhere, who will just have to offer a work environment that truly lives up to the highest values of the academy...
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=505373
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=512677
http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2005/02/23/summers_vows_new_tone_with/
In seeing the Harvard Corporation give an honorary degree to Larry Summers, the Hoxbys must have felt completely reassured in their decision to move to a University with clearer --and different-- moral standards.
The moral blows in recent years have hit close to home in the Econ Department. Remember this is the Department where Andrei Shleifer still teaches, thanks to a 30 million bail out extracted by Summers from the FAS endowment.
One can understand that some Professors in that Department, particularly those such as Professor Hoxby knowledgeable of the power of peer effects, would, mout of self-respect, rather move to a different neighborhood.
One can understand that some Professors in that Department, particularly those such as Professor Hoxby knowledgeable of the power of peer effects, would, mout of self-respect, rather move to a different neighborhood.
Probably less that these matters convinced Hoxby to go, than that her outspokenness about Summers left her with no supporters in the department helping her fight to stay. So we wind up with Shleifer, who Summers made it a priority to keep, and without Hoxby. Awful. Anon 5:40 has it just right: The damage Summers did lives on.
I would take CH at her word when she says she "regrets having to leave" her Econ colleagues and Harvard, even though she and BH also say they look forward to working at Stanford, where they are both accepting tenured offers. I hope Harvard works on getting them back.
Just to add: Blair H. is a top-notch scholar, highly respected in his field. And, indeed, he is a good teacher and a dependable colleague. Stanford English will be lucky to have him.
(His Harvard Hist and Lit position probably gave certain freedoms, but why didn't the English department make full use of his presence on campus? Harvard seems weak on helping and keeping such power academic couples, I fear.)
Former Bulldog
(His Harvard Hist and Lit position probably gave certain freedoms, but why didn't the English department make full use of his presence on campus? Harvard seems weak on helping and keeping such power academic couples, I fear.)
Former Bulldog
There's a good article in The Boston Globe today (6/11) by M-Bomb about their decision. Suffice it to say that the situation and circumstances are not as cut-and-dry as some individuals here would like it to be.
I don't get why people like to jump and blame everything on Summers. This has almost nothing to do with him.
Not only did Harvard fight to keep Shleifer, it paid a huge lot of money to settle his trial, putting FAS in debt as a result.
6:37: why Diane Sorensen? you mean in her role as acting Dean of Humanities? is there a story here?
FB
(Fomer Bulldog, or better perhaps, Flying Bluebird?)
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FB
(Fomer Bulldog, or better perhaps, Flying Bluebird?)
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