College students don’t often make a habit of assuming an active role in supporting school administrators for high office. While many undergraduate students across the country may seem oblivious to the people running their school, the same cannot be said of Harvard University this month.
Harvard’s students and faculty are currently embroiled in an intra-campus debate regarding the direction its new school president should take.
In light of President Neil Rudenstine’s upcoming retirement in June, many students and faculty see this period of transition as an opportunity to institute radical change in the school’s traditionally rigid practices.
Over the past decade, Harvard’s endowment coffers have seen a growth rate of 400 percent, translating into approximately $19.2 billion available to be spent in expanding the campus, improving housing, allocating resources for student organizations, improving recreational and varsity athletics, recruiting of professors and a more generous financial aid policy.
Some students are hardly shedding a tear as a result of Rudenstine’s departure. According to The Crimson, the school’s student newspaper, Rudenstine’s tenure “has been marked by relative disinterest in issues of undergraduate education in favor of fundraising and administrative activities.”
“The new president must not squander the opportunity to invest in the undergraduate experience, especially in areas where Harvard may be falling behind, such as science and technology,” the paper added.
It said the next president should be a nationally recognized figure who would have great clout in influencing political issues “commensurate to Harvard’s stature in the nation and the world.”
Rudenstine’s reluctance to meet with students did not endear himself to campus leaders such as Paul Gusmorino, president of the Harvard-Radcliffe Undergraduate Council.
“Many students joke that they’ve met him once during Freshman Week and that’s it,” he said. “The Undergraduate Council has not worked very closely with President Rudenstine. I hope that we’ll work much more closely with the new president. Hopefully, the [new] president will be much more focused on the college and on the undergraduate experience than President Rudenstine has been.”
The school’s Search Committee has whittled down the list of possible candidates to four: University of Michigan President Lee Bollinger, former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, Princeton professor and Harvard alumna Amy Guttman, and Harvey Fineberg, a professor at Harvard’s School of Public Health.
Students have been frustrated at the Search Committee’s tight-lipped policy and its reluctance to either keep students informed or ask for their input in the selection process. Consequently, students say they cannot make informed opinions about any of the candidates.
“I don’t know any more than anybody else,” Gusmorino said. “But we look forward to working with the new president to focus on these issues that are important to undergraduates.”
Despite the clamoring, administrators said there is no campus-wide consensus on dramatically altering school policy. Much like an election campaign, students find themselves wrestling with issues that normally do not dominate the agenda in everyday discourse.
“It doesn’t surprise me that people have opinions on where they think the University should be going or how it should act,” said University spokesman Joe Wrinn. “A change in leadership is often a catalyst for that kind of discussion.”
“You probably could find an equal number of people saying the opposite thing,” he said. “The University is filled with lots of diverse opinion. I’m sure there are many people saying that we’re too liberal and we should scale back. It’s all conjecture at this point.”
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