Why was Steve Hyman unable or unwilling to do for Caroline and Blair Hoxby what he has successfully done for other academic couples at Harvard recently?
 

You are asking the right question Richard. One might perceive the Provost's unwillingness to be helpful as retribution for Hoxby's stance during Summers' fall. Another indication that Larry's legacy lives on in the appointments that he made...
 

Steve,

Is Marc Lipsitch more valuable to Harvard than Caroline Hoxby?
 

This would have been an FAS matter, not a matter for Steve Hyman, at least not in the first instance. It would have been up to other departments in FAS to say whether they wished Blair Hoxby to join them. Traditionally, departments have been reluctant to accept members whose appointment they did not themselves initiate.
 

Indeed. And at Stanford it was the president who sat down with them, according to today's Globe story, and asked what it would take to get them there, and then figured out a way to make it happen.

Several recently arrived FAS professors came because Summers wanted them here, so the tradition of departmental autonomy in faculty appointments has been pretty well compromised already. The difference here is just in which president wants which professors to come. And which professors already here don't have the backing that would make it sensible for them to stay when other top places recruit them, not with money but with a sane personal lifestyle.
 

Is there a campaign underway to tarnish the character of Professor Hoxby? The Crimson article suggests that this may be the case. Would Harvard look better in having allow her to depart for Stanford casting doubts over her emotional balance and portraying her as an angry person.
 

Caroline Hoxby's cardinal sin is to be a Catholic who proved, with impeccable methods, the superiority of Catholic schools. Why should this upset some of her colleagues? and why should it cause Summers-Hyman to let her walk?
 

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The comment which compares Caroline Hoxby and Cornel West and then accuses administrators of lumping them together really takes the cake.

Let me just say that as someone has worked with both of them, I have experienced their personalities as night and day. For all his eccentricities, Prof. West can be generous to a fault, whereas I have seen Prof. Hoxby's vindictiveness first hand -- as have some of her colleagues in the Economics department. Such interpersonal issues unquestionably predate any of the controversies about Summers, I would add.
 

I've deleted those comments, actually, because it's one person who frequently pops up on the board, posting rhetorical questions that implicitly accuse various parties at Harvard of being racist. If this person wants to make a serious argument, I welcome that. Otherwise, please stop posting.
 

And 9:21, in the interests of fairness, I think you should either back up what you're saying a bit or balance/contextualize your comments.
 

I would go further, Richard. Aononymous 9:21, you're a coward and an assassin. You write "I have seen Prof. Hoxby's vindictiveness first hand". Give us some examples along with your name. Since CH is leaving you have nothing to fear, even if you are an undergraduate who got a bad grade from CH -- which you clearly are not since you know that Cornell West is "generous to a fault" and he left before any currently enrolled undergraduate was at Harvard. You say you are "someone has worked with both of them" (sic). Pray tell how.

I say nothing about the Economics Dept. and my valued colleagues there, but that you should claim "some of her colleagues" have experienced her vindictiveness there is passing strange, given what has gone on in the last couple of years.

So, 9:21 speak up, name yourself, and give us chapter and verse, or crawl back under your rock and be silent. If you are vulnerable by status, e-mail me in confidence and say just how, and I will apologetically retract my declaration that you are a snake.

Sadly, 8:51 is probably right.
 

9:21pm here.

I am a little surprised to be on the receiving end of such a vituperative attack from the esteemed Prof Thomas, who wrote in such great haste that he managed to misspell Cornel West's name.

I am obviously not going to identify myself here, as I am not an undergraduate -- bravo for your detective work -- but someone who is more vulnerable. Hard to imagine, Prof Thomas, but there are people who work at Harvard who are neither undergraduates nor professors! Yet we care about the fate of the institution nonetheless.

And, indeed, public record of one incident of Hoxby nastiness relates to just this part of the Harvard population. Hoxby was a member of the living wage committee that was put together after the sit-in in 2001, selected by President Rudenstine, and chaired by her colleague Prof Lawrence Katz.

But take a look at the Crimson article here.

As this article makes clear, she resigned from this committee because of her conservative politics and attacked the personal ethical principles of the remaining faculty members in an apparent attempt to stop Harvard workers from receiving living wages (ironic that my previous comment was attacked for assassination, then, when it more aptly describes her behavior).

As the article makes clear, she announced her resignation to the Crimson before she told her colleagues on the committee -- despite engaging in character assassination against them, including another professor from Economics.

This is one incident for which I can provide a public record. Common sense suggests why I decline to elaborate on other incidents or share my personal information with Prof Thomas, who I have no reason to trust and nothing to prove to.

I can see why this kind of behavior on Prof Hoxby's part would appeal to the undergraduates at the Crimson, who get a scoop. But I can also see why it might make others reluctant to retain her.
 

Ahaa 9:21/10:10, I see where you're coming from now, and I understand your point of view and even retract unilaterally my use of the word "snake". My own generally leftist credentials are I think beyond dispute, including turning up and speaking in support at Mass Hall during the occupation.

RB's book even refers to me as one of "just the kind of aging radicals for whom LS had no use -- classics professor Richard Thomas, for example" (pp. 162-3).

But that, and your posting of the Crimson article that records her quitting the admirable in its findings Katz Committee is irrelevant to the issue at hand, whether Harvard should want to retain a scholar such as CH.

Prof Hoxby and I have have talked and disagreed on such issues, so I still take issue with yours as follows, which does not emerge from the Crimson article you quote:

"I have seen Prof. Hoxby's vindictiveness first hand -- as have some of her colleagues in the Economics department."

The Crimson piece shows no vindictiveness that I can see. In short I differ from CH on living wage, charter schools, etc., etc., but would rather have her in Cambridge than Stanford, precisely for that reason. That's what a great university is about, and your encounter does nothing to change my mind.
 

Sorry, that was me again, RFT
 

Thanks to a friend for telephoning me in France and telling me about this bizarre "thread" of comments so that I could set the record straight.

There were three reasons why I resigned from the Living Wage Committee. First, I felt that the students on the committee were being treated dismissively. This seemed unfair to me because the students were working just as hard and taking their roles just as seriously as everyone else. Second, I had been working behind the scenes for weeks to ensure that the committee's process would be regularized in the sense of taking testimony from both proponents and opponents of the Living Wage. Think of Congress. When it raises the minimum wage (or does anything else), it hears testimony from both sides. Even if Congress did not care about being informed, it would still maintain this process in order to ensure that the resulting legislation had credibility. In academia, the process is more important because teachers have an obligation to "model" decision making that is based on logic and evidence. It may be ok for a congressman to vote for something just because his campaign contributors like it, but scholars are supposed to be higher-minded. After I resigned, the committee was regularized and did hear testimony from both sides. Why my behind-the-scenes pressure for regularization did not work and my resignation did the trick is a mystery to me. It was evidently fairly easy to set up the testimony. Third, I joined the committee in part because I teach modern government policies directed at poverty elimination. I hoped that Harvard could be a leader in using modern methods to get living-type wages "right". In the 1990s, millions of people were lifted out of poverty in the U.S. by the Earned Income Credit (EIC), which is a wage supplement (and thus like a Living Wage) but more complicated. It does not just raise wages, it targets the poorest workers and takes account of hours worked and family circumstances. Thus, it remedies problems that a plain vanilla Living Wage cannot. For instance, workers at Harvard sometimes complain not only that their wages are low but that they have too few hours to make ends meet. This is something that an EIC-like policy can remedy by setting the parameters so that employers have an incentive to provide adequate hours. At some point, it became obvious to me that Harvard's Living Wage Committee was not going to think about modern methods of employer-based poverty elimination. Thus, it seemed less important to remain on the committee because my expertise was not going to be used.

I am friends with every member of the Living Wage Committee of whom I can think, so evidently they did not feel that I was vindictive. The Committee's chairman and the President knew that I was resigning long before the Crimson did. My behind-the-scenes concerns were the subject of discussions that took place over weeks, not days.

Just for the record, I am not a Catholic and have never been one. I am not anti-Catholic either nor anti- any religious group.

Finally, the Crimson was incorrect to report that I "once before" considered going to Stanford. We've just been considering the matter with care and thus slowly. It's all the same decision, not two separate ones. The assertion that the Economics Department has been less than fully supportive is also incorrect. My chairman and colleagues have worked extremely hard to retain me. I am sincerely grateful to them and hope that no one casts aspersions on them by suggesting that they've been anything less than terrific.
 

Bombardieri’s article indicates that she has only a cursory understanding of how Harvard and other universities work to retain scholarly couples. At Harvard it is standard practice for the Provost to actively intervene to attract a scholar with an academic spouse, or to retain one. Two years ago, for instance, the wife of a Professor at a professional school applied to another professional schools and was turned down, in spite of the efforts on her behalf made by the Provost. This scholar and her husband, the Harvard Professor, obtained offers from Stanford and indicated they were prepared to accept them. The Provost then worked with the Dean of the professional school which had initially turned down the Professor’s wife offering to cover a substantial portion of her salary, should she receive a comparable appointment to what Stanford was offering her –a tenure track position. The school in question opened a search this year and hired this person as a junior faculty in a tenure track. As a result Harvard retained the Professor and gained a qualified junior scholar in another school. What this example depicts is ordinary business for Provosts and Presidents.

The only puzzle regarding the Hoxby’s, a puzzle poorly addressed by Bombardieri’s reporting, is why did Steve Hyman not do in her case what is common practice and what he was doing for others in remarkably similar circumstances.

Drew Faust may learn much about the priorities of the team set in place by her predecessor examining in detail the cases of faculty members who were allowed and in some cases pressured to leave under circumstances similar to Caroline Hoxby’s and comparing them with other cases where the University did what is now common practice to retain or attract faculty.
 

Thanks for your post, Professor Hoxby, addressing both the bizarre issues raised by the poster and the Crimson error in suggesting that you'd had separate offers from Stanford.
 

Professor Hoxby's post extends her appreciation to her colleagues and chair. Shouldn't she also be thanking her Dean, Provost and the Vice-Provost for Diversity? Given that her departure will make Harvard a less diverse institution, in effect if not in intent, and given that scholars of her stature are rare and far between, one would have to assume that Harvard did everything possible to retain her on the faculty. Can you confirm that this is indeed the case Professor Hoxby?
 

10.10pm above must be a member of the Harvard administration trying to tarnish Professor Hoxby's character. It is a good thing that she gave a clear and most satisfying response to this anonymous backstabber.
 

Given the publicity that this departure has received --front page of the Boston Globe-- it would be appropriate if the President of the University issued a statement expressing regret over this departure and confirming that the University did indeed do everything possible and customary to retain Professor Hoxby on the faculty.
 

8:04: You are of course entitled to post anonymously, as was yesterday's 10:10 p.m. (I think you're right 8:08!), which in effect forced CH to post her clarification. However you overstep when you anonymously challenge someone who is onomously responding to malicious anonymous attacks to engage in further dialogue.
 

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I should probably clarify that my story in The Crimson never says that Professor Hoxby had received a separate offer in 2005 and that she turned it down.

It says: "In 2005, Hoxby publicly announced that she was considering leaving Harvard to accept a tenure offer at Stanford."

I never took up the issue of whether these were two separate offers or one single one (and Professor Hoxby clarifies that it was one). The phrase "once before" comes from Richard's post, not the story.

I don't really see an error -- I never asserted that this was a separate offer she had turned down, and I don't think it was suggested either.
 

Paras, your story is poor journalism and is disrespectful of a very esteemed Professor. You should learn to do the necessary research before writing, to demonstrate better analytic skills and to treat people that you write about with consideration. Perhaps you could even consider apologizing to Professor Hoxby for any unintended damaged caused by your poor reporting.
 

Now, hang on a second. The guy comes online to stand up for his story, which takes some guts, and you anonymously blast him without actually offering any specifics. You may be right for all I know--I can't remember exactly what the article said—but there's no evidence of it in your post. It seems unfair to come down on the guy quite so heavily without actually saying why. Moreover, he put his name to what he wrote, twice.....
 

I just read 10:30 myself Richard, went back to Paras' Crimson article, which seems to me objective and fair, and perfectly respectful, and was about to say what you have just said. P's article in fact underscores the tremendous loss occasioned by CH's departure. So, anonymice (tip of the pen to SE), at least get your facts right and present arguments as you namelessly, and in this case unjustly, chide those who name themselves.
 

Crimson story was accurate and generous. Is Paras male or female?
And when is the other shoe going to drop?
 

Just a note from overseas (and no, I'm not a Hoxby) to say that Prof. H.'s post about her record and her departure makes me glad to have been her associate at a place like Harvard. It has class.

Moreover -- and I think this is what gossip-blog-readers should take away from this pair of threads -- Prof. Hoxby's post has SUBSTANCE.

It's easy to forget that the players in Harvard power struggles are first and foremost intellectuals. And it's easy to forget that the things outsiders and relative outsiders find fascinating -- namely, personalities and alliances -- might play a very small role in the actual work of the University. In this case, to be more precise: when an intellectual in the social sciences is involved with a matter of University policy, her participation may hinge much more pertinently on the substance of the ideas behind that policymaking than on questions of whose shiv is in whose back when.

One might call this intellectual integrity, in the technical sense of 'unity' or even 'wholeness': the belief that the mind-work one does most of the day should extend also to the values of the institution one participates in; the belief that one's intelligence has value in conversations about power and priorities. And it is that belief that I tend to find underrepresented in the Crimson, in public understandings of the University's life, and in the stalking-horse 'conservative' arguments about lack of intellectual diversity, about elitism, and about the irrelevance of universities to national issues (except as straw man). It is important for those interested in university life not to forget the ways that those three things -- immaturely defined newsworthiness, gossip, and dishonest, reactionary anti-intellectualism -- reinforce each other.

Prof. Hoxby's post, in its unselfconscious descent into the policy arcana she is fascinated by, is an invitation for members of a university to check themselves.

Interestingly, despite the way the crisis was fomented and deployed publicly to dislodge Pres. Summers, I did not by and large find anti-intellectualism, lack of substance, or 'playing dumb' to be a significant factor in the faculty meetings about Summers's presidency. I was proud then to be associated with the members of that body, even though the body at large was presenting itself poorly to the world; and Prof. Hoxby was among those I felt most worthy of emulation. Smartness has value, when one carefully chooses, every day, not to play dumb.

Read Prof. Hoxby's post again, gossipmongers, and notice how earnestly she is interested, even many years later, in the intellectual questions behind the work of the Living Wage Committee. If this be an ideology, then let it be a partisanship as lawful as eating.

Best wishes from abroad,

Standing Eagle


PS. Someone tell me again why Bill Kristol, who has never asked an honest question or cared about a well-founded answer, is allowed to teach alongside actual scholars like Prof. Hoxby and many, many, many of her colleagues, people of integrity all (and again, thank you to the poster above who suggests that we 'take her at her word' when she praises those colleagues and thanks them).
 

I'd like to go back to the very interesting posting by anonymous of June 12 6:09 AM. Under what circumstances does the provost intervene in such cases? Could it be that he intervened in the case 6:09 cites because it involved different professional schools and he was thus the appropriate mediator? Did the Hoxby case, which involved two appointments in FAS, ever reach the provost?
Perhaps there is someone out there who can respond to these questions. I think we need to know the answers before we start blaming Steve Hyman for the outcome of the Hoxby case.
 

To Standing Eagle,

My apologies for using this public forum to thank you for your posting, which Richard Bradley was kind enough to send to me and Blair. It shows you to be not only generous but also thoughtful and articulate. I hope that you are a former student so that Harvard can take a tiny bit of credit for your ideas and training.

You post reminded me of a quotation from John Donne about universities (or, more precisely, about what universities are when they are at their best).

"The University is a Paradise. Rivers of Knowledge are there. Arts and Sciences flow from thence. Counsell Tables are Horti conclusi, (as it is said in the Canticles) Gardens that are walled in, and they are Fontes signati, Wells that are sealed up; bottomless depths of unsearchable Counsels there."

Thanks and all good wishes--

p.s. I did not have space to mention two of the other fine attributes of Earned Income Credits, as opposed to plain vanilla Living Wages, but anyone curious can email me.

p.p.s. I agree with Paras that his article does not actually say that we made two separate decisons, and I apologize for suggesting that it was an error on his part rathern than a misreading.
 

Quite right on Kristol, SE 7:28 yesterday. He also teaches alongside Summers and Giuliani, and we assume Summers' friend Dean David Ellwood brought Kristol to Harvard. Look at the hypocrisy of this course description:

http://ksgaccman.harvard.edu/courses/course.aspx?number=PAL-214

PAL-214 - Can America Be Governed?

Our understanding of governance, and many of our mechanisms of governance, are (allegedly) far more sophisticated today than they were in the past. But are we actually doing a better job of governing ourselves? What are the main obstacles to successful governance? How can those obstacles be overcome? The question of governing America today will be investigated mostly through case studies of successful and unsuccessful governance over the last quarter century including Reagan, Clinton, Bush, several Cabinet secretaries, governors, and mayors. Occasional guests (e.g., Rudy Giuliani, Larry Summers) will be featured.
 

And are the occasional guests selected to talk about good or bad governance?
 

This sounds like a regular course on bad governance and bad leadership, a popular topic these days. It is perhaps no wonder that the course is being taught at Harvard, the right context to think about these topics.
 

I predict that the Hoxbys will not leave Harvard after all. In fact they may be reunited at Harvard...