Drew Faust on the Hot Seat The Crimson reports that 11 provosts from public universities have sent Drew Faust a letter strongly criticizing her recent remarks about public education in Business Week magazine. (Here is a copy of the letter.)

...she was quoted as saying that public universities short on federal funds should leave expensive scientific research to their wealthier peers.

“We emphatically reject that notion,” wrote the administrators, who are provosts from schools such as the University of Michigan and the University of Wisconsin at Madison. “Collectively, our institutions educate more than 380,000 students, produce 1 in every 8 American PhDs, and conduct more than $4.5 billion worth of research every year.”

The president's response? To paraphrase Gomer Pyle, deny, deny, deny.

....Faust has sent a letter to each provost stating that the BusinessWeek article “seriously misrepresented” her views. ...

“I did not say, and I do not by any stretch of the imagination believe, that our leading public universities—which have been so critical for so long to the nation’s scientific enterprise—should somehow cede the field to well-endowed private institutions,” she wrote. [Emphasis added]

But according to Business Week, that's exactly what she said. (Note also that she so wished to avoid the word "wealthy" that she preferred the giggle-inducing "well-endowed.")

Not that Faust seems worried about Harvard or other top-tier research schools. "They're going to be—we hope, we trust, we assume—the survivors in this race," she says. As for the many lesser universities likely to lose market share, she adds, they would be wise "to really emphasize social science or humanities and have science endeavors that are not as ambitious" as those of Harvard and its peers.

Herewith, I will give some free advice. (Though really, I ought to charge for this stuff.)

President Faust, if you didn't say what you're quoted as saying, then call on the Business Week reporter to release the transcript of your interview.

But if you claim that you were misquoted and you don't call for the Business Week reporter to release the transcript, then, frankly, no one has any reason to believe you and you have compounded the initial error by looking political and disingenuous, which I'm sure you're not. Better to just admit that you said something dumb (heck, I do it all the time), apologize and move on.

Crimson reporter Rachel Pollack, you really ought to have called Business Week for comment. Don't just let Drew Faust's denial stand there. Ask the magazine if they misquoted her or not. Makes for a more interesting story, not to mention that it's only fair. And what the heck, why don't you ask them to release the transcript of the interview? If they have nothing to hide....

There. That and $2 will get you a tall coffee at Starbucks, though not a particularly good one.  ¶ 8:53 PM