THE FIRST 5 YEARS

When he arrived in Cambridge five years ago as the 26th president of Harvard University, Neil L. Rudenstine was enthusiastically welcomed by all: professors cheered the appointment of an academic; Overseers rejoiced the coming of a master fundraiser; students spelled out "We love Rudy" in pizza boxes.

But honeymoons always end. The early enthusiasm would give way to exhaustion and, like any vision, his would prove hard to implement.

Rudenstine's tenure has certainly been eventful. He has launched the largest fundraising drive in the history of higher education, recruited numerous luminaries as faculty members, attempted to increase the coordination of the units of the University and fought to retain funding for higher education.

But he has also been faced with crises he never could have envisioned--including a faculty outraged over benefits cuts, top aides resigning out of frustration and students furious over his handling of the Reserve Officer Training Corps. At the same time, Harvard has been in the news like never before--for Gina Grant, the Dunster murder-suicide, the Unabomber and Rudenstine's own battle with exhaustion.

On this day, Rudenstine sits on a small hard-backed chair tilted dangerously on its two back legs and props his feet on the armchair in front of him. Putting aside a crystal tray holding the half-eaten fruit salad he has ordered for lunch, he sips a Diet Coke and fidgets slightly while his eyes roam from the ceiling to the reporters to the elegant furniture in his spacious Mass. Hall office.

"I'm not used to talking about myself," he explains.

After five years as president, Rudenstine seems to have become used to talking about one thing--Harvard. Those who work with the president say his greatest talents lie in his ability to spread his enthusiasm about Harvard to anyone willing to listen: donors, prospective faculty, administrators or lawmakers.

Deans and professors marvel at his ability to find superstar academics and persuade them that Harvard should be their home. Fundraising staff say they have never seen someone more talented at personally soliciting donations.

Having previously served as provost of Princeton, a more centralized university than Harvard, Rudenstine hoped upon his arrival at Harvard to foster more inter-faculty coordination, cross-school initiatives and a greater role for the central administration in fostering this interaction.

As one administrator put it, Rudenstine wanted "to put the 'uni' back in 'university.'"

The talents Rudenstine possesses are not coincidental. Much as Derek C. Bok was named president 25 years ago with the hope that he could defuse the crises rocking the University, Rudenstine was undoubtedly chosen with the University's pending $2.1 billion capital campaign in mind.

Bok was skilled at sitting above the fray and pulling the strings attached to all parts of the University. Rudenstine, however, subscribes to a very different leadership philosophy, emphasizing the personal over the institutional.

"Bok and Rudenstine lead in very different ways," one administrator says. "Rudenstine works in a much more hands-on, personal way."

This style, which contributes to Rudenstine's preference for behind-the-scenes leadership, makes him a natural for fundraising.

But the years have clearly shown the limitations of this style.

In his first job heading a major institution, critics charge that the president has not provided the top-down leadership necessary to ensure that the academic and financial resources he brings to Harvard go to the right places. As a result, they say, he has had trouble implementing his vision for the University.

After five years, Rudenstine is attempting to weigh his charismatic personality against his shortcomings in leadership, while his legacy as a Harvard president hangs in the balance.

The University Campaign

The greatest test of Rudenstine's abilities has been the capital campaign, as Rudenstine says the first years of his tenure have mainly focused on its planning, execution and utilization.

The campaign officially kicked off May 12, 1994, and already the total goal appears a sure-fire success. Today, at the midway point of the campaign, most graduate schools are well ahead of schedule. The University as a whole is slightly more than halfway towards its goal.

Some of the success can be attributed to Rudenstine's personal qualities. According to outgoing Vice President for Development and Alumni Affairs Fred L. Glimp '50, Rudenstine "loves" traveling throughout the world playing his fundraising game.

"Many people raise money out of a sense of duty, but Neil truly enjoys it," Glimp says.

After arriving at Harvard, Rudenstine postponed the start of the campaign and began an intensive academic planning process to determine how the more than $2 billion would be spent.

A chief aim of his comprehensive academic plan was to bring the University closer together by getting the satellite schools to understand each other--a novel approach for the "fiendishly decentralized" Harvard, as Rudenstine puts it.

The president drew some criticism for trying to coordinate different parts of the University, but nobody-could fault his thoroughness. Deans met with each other to learn about parts of other schools they never knew existed, and vice presidents went on retreats together.

The campaign's ultimate goal was to "bring Harvard into the next century" by raising substantial funds for teaching, physical improvements and technological upgrades.

Rudenstine put his personal stamp on the drive by establishing the President's University Fund with a goal of $235 million in "unrestricted central money to help fund ventures."

For the first time, money would be raised for the central administration so Rudenstine could fulfill his vision of bringing Harvard together.

These funds are designed to create University-wide professorships and cross-disciplinary initiatives, as well as to aid administrative efforts like Project ADAPT, which was created to revolutionize the way the University collects financial data. Some of the money will also serve as presidential discretionary funds to help lagging projects.

Although most of the capital campaign's beneficiaries are well on their way to reaching their goals, Rudenstine's innovation has barely gotten off the ground and is lagging far behind all other parts of the campaign.

Fund-drive officials attribute the poor response to the natural inclinations of donors, not poor administrative leadership.

"There are no graduates of interfaculty programs and there are no alumni of the central administration," says Thomas M. Reardon, director of development, who will succeed Glimp as vice president for development and alumni affairs.

Reardon adds that the administration has thus far not emphasized this aspect of the campaign, but he believes that donors will respond if they are asked to give.

At the same time, however, fundraising veterans are quick to admit that the second half of any campaign is more difficult because the most reliable donors have already contributed large amounts of money.

"I don't know how this will all work," Reardon says.

But some directly blame Rudenstine for the poor performance of his initiatives. It reflects a persistent lack of effort on the part of the president to solicit donations for central initiatives, according to former provost and Leverett Professor Jerry R. Green.

"I have not seen a major gift to the central fund in three years," Green says, adding he does not believe Rudenstine will increase his efforts. Rudenstine has chosen not to promote the central fund and has lost a number of potentially major donations for the central adminisstration as a result, Green says.

The only parts of the center's efforts which have met with any success are a few inter-faculty initiatives, such as the new Mind, Brain and Behavior (MBB) concentration, and some university-wide professorships.

The future of Rudenstine's initiatives is now in doubt. According to Vice President for Finance Elizabeth C. "Beppie" Huidekoper, a few of the projects can be undertaken without major additional funding, but central funding will be critical for the implementation of most of Rudenstine's goals.

Coordination vs. Centralization

The center's fund-raising woes are symptomatic of the immense problems Rudenstine has faced in the attempt to create a more unified Harvard, problems which have sometimes been traced to the president himself.

Rudenstine always articulates his vision of a more closely-knit university with words like "coordination" and "cooperation" but never "centralization"--a word that many here fear. Even though the schools are now encouraged to work together, the idea of a strong central authority is still taboo.

Some believe Rudenstine has succeeded in walking the fine line of cooperation.

"I think it's going to go down as Neil's legacy," says Joseph S. Nye Jr., dean of the Kennedy School of Government. "Before, the whole has been less than the sum of its parts. Only with the emphasis on the University will Harvard achieve its potential."

But in other ways it is unclear how much change there has been in terms of cooperation between the schools.

Some of Rudenstine's attempts at coordination--the litany of new meetings required between schools, University-wide financial reforms and the planning of Project ADAPT--have created a bureaucracy that stifles change, critics charge.

Allen J. Proctor '74 stepped down from his post as vice president for finance this spring, saying that Rudenstine's attempt to 'coordinate' made his job impossible.

"To me, it's usually pretty apparent what the solution should be," Proctor said the day he announced his resignation. "I feel like we should implement it and move on. Financial decisions here are University-wide and involve 20 or 25 people."

Not necessarily through any fault of his own, Rudenstine has had to fill 13 top administrative openings during his tenure, an extremely high number.

Adding a Provost

In addition to hiring aides, Rudenstine has created a new post at the University--and had to fill it twice.

Part of Rudenstine's difficulties in implementing his vision of a more unified University has certainly been the rapid change and even turmoil that has been associated with the position of provost.

Drawing on his experience at Princeton, one of Rudenstine's first actions was to give the central administration more muscle and relevance in coordinating University activities by recreating the position of provost--a central administrative authority just below the president which had been vacant for 50 years.

Today at Harvard, the provost's jurisdiction changes frequently, according to Rudenstine's needs. In general, Provost Albert Carnesale focuses on administrative and interfaculty issues. The provost has at times been asked to deal with fund-raising, lobbying in Washington, labor negotiations and information technology improvements.

But the post has proven a sore point for the president and, in some ways, one of his greatest failures.

When Rudenstine appointed Green to the newly-created provost position in 1991, he could not have envisioned that Green would resign abruptly and mysteriously in April 1994, just as the capital campaign was about to launch.

Green says he suspended his career as an economist to become provost because he thought his main duty would be to engineer the University-wide activities Rudenstine at the time talked of creating.

"It made sense to Neil and it made sense to me," Green says. "Not because there should be a second academic leader, but because of the need to bring the University together."

Green says he gave up the job because he wasn't able to get Rudenstine's support on issues he felt to be critical, such as seeking donations for the central administration, preparing a University-wide science policy and creating a retirement policy for professors.

Green's recommendations on science policy were largely ignored in the policy issued last year. That policy lacked the comprehensiveness and enforcement mechanisms that Green had envisioned. And despite the repeal of the mandatory retirement age, which has made the need for a retirement policy even more pressing, one has not been crafted.

"[Rudenstine] said all the right things in the first six months but was not willing to act on them," Green says. "He needed to be more forward. I don't see enough leadership."

When Green stepped down in April 1994, Rudenstine chose then-dean of the Kennedy School Carnesale as the next provost. Carnesale would later act as president during Rudenstine's 1994-95 leave of absence.

The contrast between the two provosts is clear.

Green was a very optimistic choice. A true academic, he was enticed into the position with the promise that he would be given power to implement the idealistic goals he felt he shared with Rudenstine.

Carnesale, on the other hand, is the consummate administrator. Where Green was interested in blazing new ground, Carnesale was appointed mainly to ease Rudenstine's administrative burden, sources say.

The shift in choice of provosts could be seen as an illustration of how Rudenstine's initial optimism gave way to pragmatism as the realities of the University overwhelmed him.

The Bully Pulpit

But administrative tasks are only part of a president's job. The president of Harvard has unmatched visibility to influence American higher education.

Bok was renowned for his stature in the world of higher education. Rudenstine, however, has only recently begun to use his power, possibly, some speculate, because of his preference to operate one-on-one.

According to Vice President for Government, Community and Public Affairs James H. Rowe III '73, Rudenstine has preferred to make his influence in Washington known in a behind-the-scenes manner through writing letters to, calling and meeting with representatives and their aides. By working on a personal level, Rudenstine has had a great deal of success in influencing national issues such as federal funding for higher education, Rowe says.

This style of influence is clearly different from Bok's. The former president maintained a high public profile in Washington, testifying repeatedly in front of Congress.

This winter, Rudenstine abandoned his behind-the-scenes role and entered the national education debate, speaking out on affirmative action in college admissions through his 1993-1995 annual report titled "Diversity and Learning."

In the report, Rudenstine articulates his vision for the University philosophically and in terms of education in general, continuing his theme of integration by focusing on how the interaction of diverse individuals aids education.

Some academics laud the report as an important statement coming at a critical time for affirmative action. Henry Louis Gates Jr., chair of the Afro-American Studies Department, says Rudenstine gets an "A+" for his efforts in promoting diversity, adding that he believes Rudenstine will one day be considered a truly great president.

"[Scholars being recruited] can sense insincerity a mile away," Gates says. "They can see he's committed to diversity and affirmative action and he's written a philosophical treatise to support it."

This vocal foray onto politically sensitive ground, although done in the context of past scholarship, has shown Rudenstine the dangers of public leadership. Although Rudenstine says he cannot imagine how anyone could disagree with his basic idea that diversity fosters a positive learning environment, he has come under attack from all sides.

Kenan Professor of Government Harvey C. Mansfield Jr.'53, quickly labeled the report nothing but a highly politicized attempt to justify admitting less-qualified students.

Even Green, an avowed supporter of affirmative action, says Rudenstine's historical references left him open to criticism on all sides.

"He needed to say it was an important social policy, not think about how it has been currently practiced," Green says.

Appointments

Rudenstine has been much more successful in advocating diversity through channels that do not tend to receive national attention. He has made diversity a major priority in recruiting new faculty and has, as a result, achieved much renown within the University for his skills in bringing the best professors to Harvard.

"He has a vision for the University and how minorities fit in," Gates says. "He gets them excited about being part of the team."

James S. Hoyte '65, assistant to the president for affirmative action, says recent reports on affirmative action indicate that Harvard has made great strides in diversifying its faculty. But Hoyte admits the University has a long way to go.

One success story has clearly been in the Department of Afro-American Studies. Working with Gates since the beginning of his tenure, Rudenstine has amassed a "dream team," arguably the most impressive list of Afro-American scholars in the world.

Diversification of the administration has not been as impressive, however. Deluged by a wave of retirements and resignations after Bok's departure, Rudenstine has hand-picked virtually an entirely new roster of deans and vice presidents.

Women have fared well in these appointments--three of the University's five vice presidents are now female--but the top echelon of leaders remains all white. "The emphasis on faculty diversity has borne fruit," Hoyte says. "But I would certainly like to see more progress with administrative staff diversity."

At the heart of Rudenstine's diversity attempts has been his involvement in the faculty tenure process, for which he receives many laurels.

Those who have served on ad hoc committees with Rudenstine say he puts an enormous amount of time into understanding the needs of Harvard's departments. All seem to marvel at the level of intellectual rigor he brings to the proceedings.

"People from the outside are staggered that the president could know so much about an individual," says Dean of the School of Education Jerome T. Murphy.

Even in this apparently superlative area Rudenstine has not been without his critics. Some have charged that the immense amount of time he puts into the proceedings detracts from the time he has to invest in managing the University. And within 10 years, that part of the job could be removed from the president's jurisdiction.

Exhaustion

Rudenstine's hallmark of intense personal involvement eventually took its toll. On November 28, 1994, the University announced Rudenstine was suffering from severe fatigue and would be on medical leave for at least several weeks.

"He was just exhausted," Glimp says. "He was trying to do too much, spending too much personal effort."

The level of personal involvement had gone beyond what any manager could hope to expend. For example, administrators say he would get letters from people who would suggest changes--like moving the University to the Southwest where heating bills would be lower and respond with multi-page handwritten letters.

Rudenstine says it was the unusually harsh demands of the agenda during his first years in office that brought him to that point. He points to a number of extremely time-critical decisions that had to be made--particularly the rash of top appointments and the official beginning of the capital campaign.

"I see in retrospect that I still thought I was 35 years old and could go three or four years without a vacation," Rudenstine says. "I've realized I'm no longer 35 years old."

Rudenstine says he now feels he has "gotten through" the entry shock and will be able to continue the relaxed schedule he has kept since his leave.

"I think he was just trying to do too much.... His normal tendency to work hard had gone out control," says long-time friend and Whitehead Professor Dennis F. Thompson.

"He's got more balance now," Thompson says. "He has a team of people he is now very comfortable with."

The Next Five Years

Rudenstine says he has completed the tasks he thought were absolutely necessary and is now looking down the road toward new goals.

After five years in office, Rudenstine's desire to make the University more cohesive has come across loud and clear, but his ability to achieve that goal is still in doubt.

While observers universally praise the personal commitment of the president, some say his time could be better spent with more high-level tasks.

"Neil is a quiet, inside guy," Green says. "But after he articulates his vision, he doesn't push it through to completion."

Five years from now, Rudenstine says he envisions himself at Harvard, in the midst of another capital campaign, encouraging inter-faculty cooperation.

The next five years will be critical. Now that Rudenstine is no longer an outsider, observers will place even higher expectations upon him.

If Rudenstine can harness his personal talents within an institutional environment and pursue focused goals with "his team," he will almost certainly be successful.

If he cannot, frustrations will mount and exhaustion will return. And with it perhaps the search for Harvard's 27th president.

1990 1991

March 21, 1991

Neil L. Rudenstine is appointed the 26th president of Harvard University.

June 1991

Jeremy R. Knowles named to head Faculty.

1991 1992

Rudenstine announces the creation of the office of provost and subsequently appoints Jerry R. Green to the post.

Relations with the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers (HUCTW) begin to break down.

1992 1993

December 8, 1992

Environmental Science and Public Policy is born as a concentration, a tangible result of Rudenstine's interfaculty focus.

April 1993

Protests begin over the choice of Colin L. Powell as Commencement speaker because of his stance on gays in the military.

1993 1994

April 8, 1994

Green resigns as provost.

May 12, 1994

The $2.1B capital campaign kicks off.

1994 1995

October 18, 1994

First of two meetings at which faculty attack Rudenstine's position on benefits.

November 28, 1994

Rudenstine requests medical leave of absence. He returns in February 1995.

1995 1996

Febrary 1996

Rudenstine releases his second annual report, "Diversity and Learning."

March 20, 1996

Vice President for Finance Allen J.Proctor '74 resigns, citing bureaucratic frustrations.Colin L. Powell

The future of Rudenstine's initiatives is now in doubt. According to Vice President for Finance Elizabeth C. "Beppie" Huidekoper, a few of the projects can be undertaken without major additional funding, but central funding will be critical for the implementation of most of Rudenstine's goals.

Coordination vs. Centralization

The center's fund-raising woes are symptomatic of the immense problems Rudenstine has faced in the attempt to create a more unified Harvard, problems which have sometimes been traced to the president himself.

Rudenstine always articulates his vision of a more closely-knit university with words like "coordination" and "cooperation" but never "centralization"--a word that many here fear. Even though the schools are now encouraged to work together, the idea of a strong central authority is still taboo.

Some believe Rudenstine has succeeded in walking the fine line of cooperation.

"I think it's going to go down as Neil's legacy," says Joseph S. Nye Jr., dean of the Kennedy School of Government. "Before, the whole has been less than the sum of its parts. Only with the emphasis on the University will Harvard achieve its potential."

But in other ways it is unclear how much change there has been in terms of cooperation between the schools.

Some of Rudenstine's attempts at coordination--the litany of new meetings required between schools, University-wide financial reforms and the planning of Project ADAPT--have created a bureaucracy that stifles change, critics charge.

Allen J. Proctor '74 stepped down from his post as vice president for finance this spring, saying that Rudenstine's attempt to 'coordinate' made his job impossible.

"To me, it's usually pretty apparent what the solution should be," Proctor said the day he announced his resignation. "I feel like we should implement it and move on. Financial decisions here are University-wide and involve 20 or 25 people."

Not necessarily through any fault of his own, Rudenstine has had to fill 13 top administrative openings during his tenure, an extremely high number.

Adding a Provost

In addition to hiring aides, Rudenstine has created a new post at the University--and had to fill it twice.

Part of Rudenstine's difficulties in implementing his vision of a more unified University has certainly been the rapid change and even turmoil that has been associated with the position of provost.

Drawing on his experience at Princeton, one of Rudenstine's first actions was to give the central administration more muscle and relevance in coordinating University activities by recreating the position of provost--a central administrative authority just below the president which had been vacant for 50 years.

Today at Harvard, the provost's jurisdiction changes frequently, according to Rudenstine's needs. In general, Provost Albert Carnesale focuses on administrative and interfaculty issues. The provost has at times been asked to deal with fund-raising, lobbying in Washington, labor negotiations and information technology improvements.

But the post has proven a sore point for the president and, in some ways, one of his greatest failures.

When Rudenstine appointed Green to the newly-created provost position in 1991, he could not have envisioned that Green would resign abruptly and mysteriously in April 1994, just as the capital campaign was about to launch.

Green says he suspended his career as an economist to become provost because he thought his main duty would be to engineer the University-wide activities Rudenstine at the time talked of creating.

"It made sense to Neil and it made sense to me," Green says. "Not because there should be a second academic leader, but because of the need to bring the University together."

Green says he gave up the job because he wasn't able to get Rudenstine's support on issues he felt to be critical, such as seeking donations for the central administration, preparing a University-wide science policy and creating a retirement policy for professors.

Green's recommendations on science policy were largely ignored in the policy issued last year. That policy lacked the comprehensiveness and enforcement mechanisms that Green had envisioned. And despite the repeal of the mandatory retirement age, which has made the need for a retirement policy even more pressing, one has not been crafted.

"[Rudenstine] said all the right things in the first six months but was not willing to act on them," Green says. "He needed to be more forward. I don't see enough leadership."

When Green stepped down in April 1994, Rudenstine chose then-dean of the Kennedy School Carnesale as the next provost. Carnesale would later act as president during Rudenstine's 1994-95 leave of absence.

The contrast between the two provosts is clear.

Green was a very optimistic choice. A true academic, he was enticed into the position with the promise that he would be given power to implement the idealistic goals he felt he shared with Rudenstine.

Carnesale, on the other hand, is the consummate administrator. Where Green was interested in blazing new ground, Carnesale was appointed mainly to ease Rudenstine's administrative burden, sources say.

The shift in choice of provosts could be seen as an illustration of how Rudenstine's initial optimism gave way to pragmatism as the realities of the University overwhelmed him.

The Bully Pulpit

But administrative tasks are only part of a president's job. The president of Harvard has unmatched visibility to influence American higher education.

Bok was renowned for his stature in the world of higher education. Rudenstine, however, has only recently begun to use his power, possibly, some speculate, because of his preference to operate one-on-one.

According to Vice President for Government, Community and Public Affairs James H. Rowe III '73, Rudenstine has preferred to make his influence in Washington known in a behind-the-scenes manner through writing letters to, calling and meeting with representatives and their aides. By working on a personal level, Rudenstine has had a great deal of success in influencing national issues such as federal funding for higher education, Rowe says.

This style of influence is clearly different from Bok's. The former president maintained a high public profile in Washington, testifying repeatedly in front of Congress.

This winter, Rudenstine abandoned his behind-the-scenes role and entered the national education debate, speaking out on affirmative action in college admissions through his 1993-1995 annual report titled "Diversity and Learning."

In the report, Rudenstine articulates his vision for the University philosophically and in terms of education in general, continuing his theme of integration by focusing on how the interaction of diverse individuals aids education.

Some academics laud the report as an important statement coming at a critical time for affirmative action. Henry Louis Gates Jr., chair of the Afro-American Studies Department, says Rudenstine gets an "A+" for his efforts in promoting diversity, adding that he believes Rudenstine will one day be considered a truly great president.

"[Scholars being recruited] can sense insincerity a mile away," Gates says. "They can see he's committed to diversity and affirmative action and he's written a philosophical treatise to support it."

This vocal foray onto politically sensitive ground, although done in the context of past scholarship, has shown Rudenstine the dangers of public leadership. Although Rudenstine says he cannot imagine how anyone could disagree with his basic idea that diversity fosters a positive learning environment, he has come under attack from all sides.

Kenan Professor of Government Harvey C. Mansfield Jr.'53, quickly labeled the report nothing but a highly politicized attempt to justify admitting less-qualified students.

Even Green, an avowed supporter of affirmative action, says Rudenstine's historical references left him open to criticism on all sides.

"He needed to say it was an important social policy, not think about how it has been currently practiced," Green says.

Appointments

Rudenstine has been much more successful in advocating diversity through channels that do not tend to receive national attention. He has made diversity a major priority in recruiting new faculty and has, as a result, achieved much renown within the University for his skills in bringing the best professors to Harvard.

"He has a vision for the University and how minorities fit in," Gates says. "He gets them excited about being part of the team."

James S. Hoyte '65, assistant to the president for affirmative action, says recent reports on affirmative action indicate that Harvard has made great strides in diversifying its faculty. But Hoyte admits the University has a long way to go.

One success story has clearly been in the Department of Afro-American Studies. Working with Gates since the beginning of his tenure, Rudenstine has amassed a "dream team," arguably the most impressive list of Afro-American scholars in the world.

Diversification of the administration has not been as impressive, however. Deluged by a wave of retirements and resignations after Bok's departure, Rudenstine has hand-picked virtually an entirely new roster of deans and vice presidents.

Women have fared well in these appointments--three of the University's five vice presidents are now female--but the top echelon of leaders remains all white. "The emphasis on faculty diversity has borne fruit," Hoyte says. "But I would certainly like to see more progress with administrative staff diversity."

At the heart of Rudenstine's diversity attempts has been his involvement in the faculty tenure process, for which he receives many laurels.

Those who have served on ad hoc committees with Rudenstine say he puts an enormous amount of time into understanding the needs of Harvard's departments. All seem to marvel at the level of intellectual rigor he brings to the proceedings.

"People from the outside are staggered that the president could know so much about an individual," says Dean of the School of Education Jerome T. Murphy.

Even in this apparently superlative area Rudenstine has not been without his critics. Some have charged that the immense amount of time he puts into the proceedings detracts from the time he has to invest in managing the University. And within 10 years, that part of the job could be removed from the president's jurisdiction.

Exhaustion

Rudenstine's hallmark of intense personal involvement eventually took its toll. On November 28, 1994, the University announced Rudenstine was suffering from severe fatigue and would be on medical leave for at least several weeks.

"He was just exhausted," Glimp says. "He was trying to do too much, spending too much personal effort."

The level of personal involvement had gone beyond what any manager could hope to expend. For example, administrators say he would get letters from people who would suggest changes--like moving the University to the Southwest where heating bills would be lower and respond with multi-page handwritten letters.

Rudenstine says it was the unusually harsh demands of the agenda during his first years in office that brought him to that point. He points to a number of extremely time-critical decisions that had to be made--particularly the rash of top appointments and the official beginning of the capital campaign.

"I see in retrospect that I still thought I was 35 years old and could go three or four years without a vacation," Rudenstine says. "I've realized I'm no longer 35 years old."

Rudenstine says he now feels he has "gotten through" the entry shock and will be able to continue the relaxed schedule he has kept since his leave.

"I think he was just trying to do too much.... His normal tendency to work hard had gone out control," says long-time friend and Whitehead Professor Dennis F. Thompson.

"He's got more balance now," Thompson says. "He has a team of people he is now very comfortable with."

The Next Five Years

Rudenstine says he has completed the tasks he thought were absolutely necessary and is now looking down the road toward new goals.

After five years in office, Rudenstine's desire to make the University more cohesive has come across loud and clear, but his ability to achieve that goal is still in doubt.

While observers universally praise the personal commitment of the president, some say his time could be better spent with more high-level tasks.

"Neil is a quiet, inside guy," Green says. "But after he articulates his vision, he doesn't push it through to completion."

Five years from now, Rudenstine says he envisions himself at Harvard, in the midst of another capital campaign, encouraging inter-faculty cooperation.

The next five years will be critical. Now that Rudenstine is no longer an outsider, observers will place even higher expectations upon him.

If Rudenstine can harness his personal talents within an institutional environment and pursue focused goals with "his team," he will almost certainly be successful.

If he cannot, frustrations will mount and exhaustion will return. And with it perhaps the search for Harvard's 27th president.

1990 1991

March 21, 1991

Neil L. Rudenstine is appointed the 26th president of Harvard University.

June 1991

Jeremy R. Knowles named to head Faculty.

1991 1992

Rudenstine announces the creation of the office of provost and subsequently appoints Jerry R. Green to the post.

Relations with the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers (HUCTW) begin to break down.

1992 1993

December 8, 1992

Environmental Science and Public Policy is born as a concentration, a tangible result of Rudenstine's interfaculty focus.

April 1993

Protests begin over the choice of Colin L. Powell as Commencement speaker because of his stance on gays in the military.

1993 1994

April 8, 1994

Green resigns as provost.

May 12, 1994

The $2.1B capital campaign kicks off.

1994 1995

October 18, 1994

First of two meetings at which faculty attack Rudenstine's position on benefits.

November 28, 1994

Rudenstine requests medical leave of absence. He returns in February 1995.

1995 1996

Febrary 1996

Rudenstine releases his second annual report, "Diversity and Learning."

March 20, 1996

Vice President for Finance Allen J.Proctor '74 resigns, citing bureaucratic frustrations.Colin L. Powell