Drew Faust in the FT
Posted on April 27th, 2007 in Uncategorized | 12 Comments »
In the Financial Times, Rebecca Knight has a piece about the challenges lying ahead for Drew Faust.
Some interesting quotes:
Thomas Cech gives his first interview about Harvard (that I know of) since the presidential search:
He says Harvard has not paid sufficient attention to undergraduate education. “Just like deferred maintenance on your buildings, you can live with it for a long time,” he says. “When you are really that great, and have a great reputation, you don’t pay much of a price for certain things â like undergraduate education â going downhill.“
Former Princeton president William Bowen praises Faust:
“Her challenge will be to get people to work together, to think â and act â across traditional disciplinary lines,” says Mr Bowen, a senior research associate at the Andrew Mellon Foundation, where Ms Faust is a trustee. “The power of persuasion is very important. She will need to encourage [the faculty], and to inspire. She will be good at that. She has a good sense of interÂpersonal relations.“
Mr. Bowen, as I reported in 02138, did not support the choice of Drew Faust as president.
Also, some blogger pops off.
“Harvard needs to start a capital campaign because: one, it’s overdue, and two, Allston is expensive,” says Richard Bradley, author of Harvard Rules: The Struggle for the Soul of the World’s Most Powerful University. Mr Bradley says that because Ms Faust is “not a celebrity academic, not a larger-than-life personality, or Harvard alumna”, her appeal to donors is uncertain.“
That’s true, I did say that. Please note that I did not say she will not be good at it; my quote is purely a “remains to be seen” kind of thing.
12 Responses
4/27/2007 12:10 pm
I think the NYTimes’ standard is to refer to men as Mr. and women as Ms. after citing the full name, unless the individual requests otherwise: see the ubiquitous citing of “Dr. Condi Rice.”
Presumably Rice asks to be cited as Dr? Does that mean that others like Faust do not make a similar request? Would love to hear more on this. I wonder, does it indicate a kind of understatedness of those who forego the Drs., or perhaps rather an ostentatiousness on the part of those who ask to be cited as Dr?
4/27/2007 12:17 pm
Anon 12:10âI think that’s correct. Hence, “Dr. Kissinger.” Also, “Dr. Summers.”
It is an interesting style choice to describe a married woman as “Ms.” I can see the argument for it, but I’m not sure who else does that… We don’t see, for example, “Ms. Clinton.”
4/27/2007 12:28 pm
(12:10 again, gotta find a name, clearly)
Thanks for the follow up. I wonder then what the default is: Ms. or Mrs. My question is whether Hilary Clinton requests Mrs. (so interesting) or Faust requests Ms. It didn’t occur to me that Ms. vs. Mrs. might be the source of Anon 10:20s comment!
4/27/2007 12:47 pm
From 10:20 am:
Ms. or Mrs. wasn’t the concern.
It was more along the lines of Dr. Kissinger, Dr. Summers, Dr. Rice. Why not use a gender-neutral address? Why not Professor Faust, President-elect Faust, or Dean Faust (technically she’s still the Radcliffe Dean). Why not use a gender-neutral address?
Was the use of Ms. meant to undermine her intellectual/administrative authority on the sole basis of gender.
Dean/Dr./President-elect Faust has most certainly earned some nod of respect.
4/27/2007 12:50 pm
Dr. Faust would have been kind of fun, too.
4/27/2007 12:51 pm
âWas the use of Ms. meant to undermine her intellectual/administrative authority on the sole basis of gender.â
As to this…I think that’s being paranoid. Why not ask the writer of the articleâMs. Rebecca Knight?
4/27/2007 3:21 pm
So, we’re back to the question of whether “Ms.” Faust reflects house style or whether it might suggest something on the author’s part (I, like Richard, doubt that it is meant to undermine her authority) or indeed on Faust’s part. Assuming that the subject cited has a potential say in the matter, did Faust not avail herself of an option to request the title “Dean/Professor/President-elect,” so the author used the default of “Ms.”; or, might Faust have specifically asked that the piece use “Ms.”?
I’m not sure what we can necessarily conclude from these choices, if they are choices: but my sense is that depending on the context, it can seem pretentious to use Dr. (when not a medical doctor), understated if someone like Faust decides to forego Dean/Professor/President-elect, and to choose Ms. over Mrs. hardly seems radical or unusual to me. (Did Larry Summers ask for the Dr. then?)
On Richard’s comment about using “Ms.” in reference to a married woman: I believe that the point of “Ms.” is to be agnostic with respect to marriage status. But I’m not sure whether most newspapers have adopted this usage, with Ms. as the default. (Do others know more?)
12:10, a.k.a. Professa Vanessa
(carefully avoiding Ms., Miss, and Dr.)
4/27/2007 3:27 pm
I do know that Faust didn’t cooperate with the article, so I doubt the “Ms.” part came from her.
I’m just curious: Does anyone have any larger thoughts about the FT piece?
4/27/2007 7:21 pm
Boy, this is a boring discussion today. Sam Spektor, where are you when we need you? feel like talking to yourself on the blog?
4/27/2007 8:56 pm
Once upom a time it really was radical to choose Ms over Mrs.
KangaTwo
4/27/2007 9:00 pm
Standing Eagle, care to chime in?
Not Standing Eagle
4/28/2007 11:19 am
See the Minutes of the April 10 FAS meeting. You will find the president referred to as Mr. Bok and the secretary as Mr. Fithian.