Harvard president steps down
KRT CampusAfter the second-shortest tenure in Harvard’s history – five years – Lawrence H. Summers will be resigning as its president on June 30.
“Working closely with all parts of the Harvard community, and especially with our remarkable students, has been one of the great joys of my professional life,” wrote Summers in a letter posted on Harvard’s Web site. “However, I have reluctantly concluded that the rifts between me and segments of the Arts and Sciences faculty make it infeasible for me to advance the agenda of renewal that I see as crucial to Harvard’s future.”
Summers sparked public controversy last year when he suggested that innate differences between the sexes accounted for the dominance of males in science.
After these comments, he received a 218-185 no confidence vote from Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Another no confidence vote had been scheduled for Feb. 28 in response to the recent resignation of Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean William Kirby, who some believed Summers had pushed out.
In his letter, Summers explained his much-criticized style of leadership.
“Believing deeply that complacency is among the greatest risks facing Harvard, I have sought for the last five years to prod and challenge the University to reach for the most ambitious goals in creative ways. There surely have been times when I could have done this in wiser or more respectful ways. My sense of urgency has stemmed from my conviction that Harvard has a special ability to make a real difference in a world desperately in need of wisdom of all kinds,” wrote Summers.
Former Harvard president Derek Bok, who served from 1971 to 1991, will be filling in beginning July 1 until a new president is found.
Before serving as Harvard’s president, Summers was a U.S. Treasury secretary during the Clinton administration as well as the World Bank’s chief economist from 1991-1993.
After a sabbatical, Summers will return to the Harvard faculty, teaching and researching in the areas of national and international economic policy.
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