Shots in the Dark

The New York Times reports on the latest in the heartbreaking case of Terri Schiavo. I say “heartbreaking” not just because of the sadness of Schiavo’s condition, but because of how Congress has exploited Schiavo for political gain. (And not just Republicans—a lot of Democrats voted for the ghastly “Palm Sunday compromise.”)

Here’s something I don’t understand: why all the people who want Schiavo’s feeding tube reinserted are so appalled at the idea of her passing.

Don’t get me wrong: I don’t worship death, and I’m not exactly looking forward to my own moment of reckoning with the Grim Reaper.

But it seems to me that part of honoring life is accepting that death—preferably death with dignity—is a part of the human narrative. And the Schiavo protesters want to deny her that death.

Anyway, don’t these folks believe in heaven? After all, they’re the same people who don’t want evolution taught in schools….

Tom Scocca has a smart piece on the Summers presidency in this week’s New York Observer (and not just because he quotes yours truly). Scocca looks skeptically at some of the much-touted Summers “accomplishments”—Allston, the curricular review—and compares his management style to that of Howell Raines, late of the New York Times.

Key quote: “Mr. Raines lamented ‘the destructive power of a change-resistant newsroom.’ What he—and Mr. Summers—overlooked was the constructive power already in place. The procedures, structures and habits of Harvard or the Times had been built up by generations of smart people, trying to figure out the best way to do their jobs. They worked.”

I think Scocca’s on to something: All the talk about how Summers was supposed to “shake things up” has obscured any meaningful discussion of what, exactly, needed shaking up, and whether shaking up was really the best means of effecting whatever change was required. There are lots of smart people at Harvard—not just the president.

…and it’s Summers by a nose. As the Crimson reports, Harvard graduate students rejected the vote of no-confidence by 699 to 608.

Tough to know what this vote means, if anything, which was part of the reason why some students were not entirely supportive of having it. Ninety students abstained, and 146 said they “need more information.”

But certainly, when you’re down, you take your victories where you can, and Summers should be pleased by this outcome.

My prediction: It won’t be a day before a conservative pundit uses this vote to proclaim that the professors are more out of touch than the students, just a bunch of aging ’60s radicals….

It’s worth noting that the grad students also voted on the second resolution, the milder censure originally proposed by Theda Skocpol. They passed that overwhelmingly, by a vote of 945-362, with 149 abstaining and 87 saying they needed more information…

Last night I watched the long-delayed film “Prozac Nation” on Starz (how I hate to write those five letters), and this morning I read Dana Steven’s review of it in Slate. I liked the movie less than Stevens did, but I agree with her that the movie’s fundamental problem is that protagonist Elizabeth Wurtzel is wholly unlikeable.

(Full disclosure: I know Elizabeth and don’t find her wholly unlikeable at all. Yes, she has a penchant for saying things that get her in trouble, but she’s also a very talented writer; I published an excerpt from her book, Bitch, in George because it was the most insightful essay about Hillary Clinton I’d ever read.)

Part of the movie’s problem is that the impact of Wurtzel’s collegiate environment is absent. There’s no sense of why being at Harvard was such an important part of her story. (There are some shots of the campus in the film, but most of it is set at some other bucolic university.)

An important element of Prozac Nation was the contrast of feeling like a train wreck at a place filled with overachievers….a feeling that many Harvard students can still understand.

Here’s my favorite part of today’s Crimson story on Ellen Lagemann’s resignation:

<Lagemann said she left yesterday’s faculty meeting 25 minutes early to discuss public relations strategy with University Provost Steven E. Hyman.>

Oh, my. Where does one start with that?

The Crimson also points out that the five ed school deans preceding Lagemann each served at least eight years, rather than Lagemann’s three…..

The Times runs its take on the Dormaid story—”At Harvard, An Unseemly Display of Wealth or Merely a Clean Room?”

The article hinges on whether Dormaid is a legitimate campus business or a way of reinforcing class distinctions at Harvard.

Key quote from a Dormaid founder: <<"There's so many ways in which on our campus you're able to display wealth in so much more obvious a fashion than having someone quietly clean your room," said Mr. Eisenberg, 20, a psychology major from Westfield, N.J.. He said class differences were evident in clothes, cars and entertainment, even in a campus laundry service that would wash, fold and place students' clothes in a "very noticeable" yellow bag.>>

I love the use of the word “quietly” there. Doesn’t he actually mean “meekly”?

Harvard has made a huge mistake in sanctioning Dormaid. Everything about it appalls: that it allows students to pay others to pick up after themselves; that if one roommate can afford it and the other can’t, Dormaid will happily accept money from the former and leave the latter’s room untouched (as co-founder Michael Kopko hilariously puts it, “to avoid stratifying people, if one roommate does not want the service, DormAid will clean only the rooms of those who do”); that one reason Dormaid was approved was that the founders agreed to appoint one student to “oversee” the adult cleaning crews.

Forgive my class consciouness, but this is exactly how Harvard students are trained to oversee the workers of the world.

If you don’t believe me, just look at the picture that accompanies the article.

The photo shows a white male student—it’s an unfortunate bit of symbolism that he happens to be German—happily striding through his (filthy) apartment, while below him two women, one black and one Latina, are literally on their knees cleaning.

But Harvard is not the only elite institution which has a problem with classism. Guess which participants in this debate the Times didn’t think important enough to interview?

It’s almost too easy: the people doing the cleaning.

Or were they afraid that their boss, the Harvard sophomore, would fire them if they spoke to the press?

The Daily Pennsylvanian’s article on Larry Summers advances the story with quotes from Richard Summers, one of Larry’s younger brothers.

Key quote: “There is a national, increasing tension in large universities between [the] corporate needs of a complex institution and the old-style university governance, a community of scholars,” Richard Summers said. “Larry’s found himself in the crosshairs of that kind of conflict. The faculty at Harvard want to be in charge.”

Some caveats: Richard Summers neatly skips over the role of his brother’s personality and leadership style. And I think he overstates the case. The faculty at Harvard doesn’t want to be “in charge.” Go to any faculty meeting and see how low the attendance is, and you’ll see just how involved in university governance the faculty wants to be. They don’t want to run the place…but they do want to be involved in running the place. The difference may be subtle, but it’s real.

Still, Richard Summers does put his finger on something that’s true at Harvard and elsewhere: the corporate model versus the community of scholars model. You might even call it the struggle for the soul of a university.

Shots in the Dark, March 16, 2005: “In a year or so, once the dust settles, Summers [may resign] in a way that allows him to claim some measure of success as a ‘change agent.'”

The Daily Pennsylvanian, March 22, 2005: “I think he was asked to be president of Harvard to be a change agent,” said Richard Summers, the president’s brother and associate director of the psychiatry residency program at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

Marcella Bombardieri in the Boston Globe picks up on Ellen Lagemann’s departure. Bombardieri writes that tensions with Larry Summers might have had something to do with it. Howard Gardner, a friend of Lagemann’s and a Summers’ critic, tells the Globe that “by all accounts their relationship was very rocky.”

But Lagemann denies it. Key quote: “[Summers] is more interested in K-12 education than possibly any president of Harvard has ever been,” she said in a phone interview. “No dean of the education school before me has had the kind of support I’ve had from Larry. We have a wonderful time arguing about issues in K-12 education, and I would say he has been very supportive of this school.”

Lagemann adds that she’s 59, she’s “not going to live forever,” and she has a book she wants to write.

Hmmm. Let’s parse this.

It’s my impression that Lagemann is right: Summers is indeed interested in K-12 education. He talks about it frequently, often using his daughters as examples of educational phenomena. (What their textbooks said about the Industrial Revolution, for example.) And he knows that for Harvard to find low-income students who are truly capable of doing the work there, public schools around the country have to improve.

However, it’s also my impression that Gardner is also right. Stories about an argumentative relationship between Summers and Lagemann have been floating around campus for her entire 2.5-year tenure.

It wouldn’t surprise me if Summers’ interest in lower education (is that the right term? sounds too politically incorrect, but I like it) were, in fact, the reason for Lagemann’s departure. When Larry Summers takes an interest in your subject, it’s a mixed blessing. On the one hand, you have the president’s interest. On the other hand, you have the president’s interest. And when Summers is watching over something, he’s not shy about telling you what you should do.

It’s worth noting that Lagemann’s politic statements might have something to do with the fact that she’ll now be teaching at the ed school while she writes her book.

As she put it, she’s almost 60. If she makes nice now, she can comfortably teach at Harvard for five years while she writes—a nice transition into retirement. At the same time, she knows that people in the community will suspect that there’s more to the story than the fact that she wants to write a book.

Saying the gracious thing in public seems like the smart play here…..and who knows? Maybe it’s even true.

A high-profile woman at Harvard is on her way out. Ellen Condliffe Lagemann, dean of the school of education, has announced that she will leave at the end of the school year. The timing is curious, to say the least. With just about two months to go before commencement, Lagemann’s not exactly leaving a lot of time to find a successor—these searches take time. Also, you’d think that Larry Summers would do everything in his power right now to keep one of his three female deans (the others are at the law school and the Radcliffe Institute) from leaving.

Somehow I have a feeling there’s more to this story….