Summers avoids vote by faculty

Harvard University President Lawrence Summers avoided a vote of confidence in an emergency faculty meeting held Tuesday, but the controversy over his leadership continues to dominate discussion around the country and at Princeton, where professors are considering possible trickle-down effects.

At the meeting, Jeremy Knowles, former dean of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, proposed a three-professor committee to serve as a link between Summers and the faculty — but professors quickly rejected the idea as "undemocratic," The Harvard Crimson reported.

"There was consensus on all sides that further consultation is needed," Harvard psychology department chair Daniel Schacter said in an interview with The Daily Princetonian. "There's another meeting in a month, and there'll be a lot of discussion until then."

Discussions will be held for professors to air their concerns before the next faculty meeting March 15, when a vote of confidence may be considered again.

In the days leading up to the meeting, hundreds of students and professors rallied for and against Summers. About 450 students signed a supportive opinion article that was published in The Crimson on Friday.

Summers vowed at the meeting to take the faculty's concerns seriously and to work to alleviate them.

"I am committed to opening a new chapter in my work with you," he said, according to a copy of his prepared remarks. "To start, I pledge to you that I will seek to listen more — and more carefully — and to temper my words and actions in ways that convey respect and help us work together more harmoniously."

At the faculty meeting, physics professor Daniel Fisher became the first faculty member to publicly call for Summers' resignation, according to The Crimson.

Eyes and Ears Open

Some professors and administrators at Princeton and Harvard have suggested that frustration with Summers may open up possibilities for recruitment to Princeton.

Engineering school dean Maria Klawe said that Princeton has "been very proactive in the last several years looking for more outstanding scholars that can contribute to the diversity of the institution."

As "many [Harvard] faculty are upset," she said, they may be more willing to consider a move.

"I don't see all the departments saying, 'Who's at Harvard that we can steal?'" she said. "But we have our eyes and ears open."

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Physics department chair Daniel Marlow said his department is "always on the lookout for top faculty people, especially women."

"If an opportunity came along, we'd look into it and perhaps act," he added.

Physics professor Curtis Callan said in an email that a "mass exodus" is unlikely.

"Harvard has unique strengths and is a redoubtable competitor, so we are happy for any advantage we can get," he said. "However, I don't think the current 'situation' at Harvard is likely to benefit us in more than a marginal and temporary way, if at all."

Debate at Princeton

On campus, Summers' remarks were the topic of two events Tuesday afternoon.

At an Organization of Women Leaders student-faculty discussion, many of the two dozen participants expressed outrage over Summers' remarks.

"As a former dean of a medical school, I was appalled at his lack of wisdom," molecular biology professor Leon Rosenberg said at the meeting. "His comments were not only unwise, but uneducated."

The discussion focused mostly on the status of women in science and engineering, including what university administrations — and society — must do to increase the proportion of women in those fields.

Also on Tuesday, Kavita Ramdas GS '88, head of the Global Fund for Women, sharply criticized Summers in a talk titled, "From Summers to Sistani: Women's Rights under Attack in the 21st Century."

Speaking at the Wilson School, Ramdas drew comparisons between Summers and Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the most senior Shiite cleric in Iraq, who supports some traditional Muslim restrictions on women's role in society.

"Both of these men come from very different contexts," she said. "But the same question is being addressed: what role should women play in the structure of society? Both Summers and Sistani are trying to place boundaries around what women's role ought to be."