Fitting the Faculty’s Bill

When he chose William C. Kirby as the next Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), University President Lawrence H. Summers selected a man who shares many of his own visions—from improving undergraduate education to turning Harvard into a global university.

But compared to Summers’ assertive, authoritative style, Kirby’s reputation for extensive consultation and “low-key affability” couldn’t be more different.

When Kirby becomes the leader of the Faculty on July 1, he will replace its charismatic and widely popular leader of the past 11 years, Jeremy R. Knowles.

And while Kirby may not have a British accent, he does share one thing in common with his predecessor besides his predisposition for tea—the overwhelming respect and admiration of his colleagues.

The roughly two dozen of Kirby’s current and former colleagues, both at Harvard and at his previous academic home at Washington University in St. Louis, contacted over the past several weeks offered nothing but praise for the new dean.

It even came from those hardly predisposed to praising Kirby, including professors who left the department he chaired and those who rejected tenure offers during his term. Few could even think of others who might have harsh feelings toward Kirby.

The selection of Kirby came without great surprise in the Faculty. From the first days after Knowles’ Feb. 11 announcement that he would step down as dean at the end of this academic year, Kirby was seen as a frontrunner for the post.

Many speculated that in selecting the new dean, Summers would try to balance the academic fields of the University’s top administrators, as Summers is an economist and Provost Steven E. Hyman is a neuroscientist.

As former chair of the history department, director of the East Asian Center and popular professor of Chinese history, the selection of Kirby succeeds in bringing such a balance to the top of the University.

In his previous roles, Kirby has earned a reputation as a skillful conciliator and visionary, which his colleagues say will allow him to lead the Faculty well.

“He succeeds in balancing the pragmatic with the programmatic and the visionary. He will get [us] somewhere,” says Susan G. Pedersen ’81-’82, Kirby’s colleague in the history department and dean of undergraduate education.

And people can’t help but be impressed by his friendly nature.

“He will have a soothing effect on the savage beasts of the Harvard Faculty,” says John Coatsworth, a personal friend of Kirby’s and director of Harvard’s David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies.

The Scholar

Kirby came to Harvard as a graduate student in history after earning his undergraduate degree from Dartmouth.

He earned his doctorate in 1981 for a dissertation on Chinese modernization in the first half of the 20th century.

Kirby joined the Harvard history department 10 years ago, serving as history department chair from 1995-2000 and becoming director of the Asia Center in 1999. He current holds the Geisinger professorship of history.

Krupp Professor of History Charles S. Maier ’60 says he is confident that Kirby’s experience as a history scholar will carry over to his role as dean.

“He’s done a lot of work with the Chinese [government]. If he can cooperate with them, I’m sure he can even work with the Harvard Faculty,” Maier says.

Before coming to Harvard, Kirby was a professor for 11 years at Washington University and served four years as dean of that school’s division for part-time, evening and summer-school students.

According to his former colleagues in St. Louis, Kirby was largely responsible for starting Washington University’s graduate programs in East Asian studies and international affairs.

“He was known for everything—a great teacher, scholar and administrator,” says Richard Walter, chair of the history department at Washington University when Kirby was hired in the late 1970s. “Everyone at Washington University has the fondest recollections and highest opinion of Bill,” he says.

The Consultant

The dean of the Faculty is solely responsible for shaping the FAS budget and appointing lower deans, departments chairs and the ad hoc committees that consider tenure offers.

Knowles assumed the position of dean in 1991 and established himself as a well-liked, consultative yet powerful figure. He quickly became known for pursuing his own agenda—even if he did it in more of a collaborative way than previous deans.

What limited criticism of Knowles that did exist typically resulted from decision he made without broad consultation, such as his top-down restructuring of the linguistics department in the first years of his term and the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies last academic year.

And such a propensity toward consultation is likely to increase under Kirby’s leadership.

Colleagues closely associate consultation with Kirby’s style of leadership.

“He is a strong believer in process—consultation with appropriate committees so that everyone has a say,” says Government Department Chair Roderick MacFarquhar. “I think that will be a very important part of his management style.”

And Kirby’s colleagues say his amicable personality helps him to resolve those conflicts that do develop.

“He’s a hell of a nice guy,” says David Konig, professor of history and law at Washington University. “In international affairs, you’re dealing with people of many different opinions, but he was a great conciliator. He could build programs because everyone trusted him.”

As early evidence of the collaborative approach Kirby will take as dean, he says he is strongly considering appointing “area deans” to closely work with each of the Faculty’s broad academic areas—humanities, natural sciences and social sciences. These deans would come directly from the Faculty and retain their academic appointments.

In considering such a proposal, Kirby questions whether the dean of the Faculty’s job may be too large for a single person, noting that FAS is roughly the size of Princeton.

While diffusing the power of the dean through such reliance on consultation will give Kirby less ability to make unilateral decisions than his predecessors, those who have worked with him note that this leadership tendency has actually bolstered his authority in the past.

“He values consultation to understand a variety of perspectives. After listening to all sides, he is able to make informed and decisive judgements,” says Benjamin B. Bolger, a teaching fellow (TF) in Kirby’s Historical Study A-74, “Contemporary China: The People’s Republic and Taiwan in the Modern World” class this spring.

Working With Mass. Hall

While the dean of the Faculty has always been one of the University’s top administrators, the dean has acquired more power, discretion and autonomy over time as Harvard has burgeoned into a gigantic institution the president cannot run on his own.

Kirby inherits a position that not only helps achieve the president’s vision for the University, but helps shape it as well.

“I used to say I’m the captain of the ship with the admiral on board,” says former Dean of the Faculty Henry A. Rosovsky.

Despite Knowles’ great power as dean of the Faculty, he and former University president Neil L. Rudenstine—who began his job the same day as Knowles—remained close friends throughout their terms.

Knowles stayed in his post one year longer than Rudenstine remained in his, placing him under the leadership of Summers—a much more assertive figure than his predecessor.

Regardless of differences between Summers and Rudenstine’s administrative styles, Knowles and Summers say they have gotten along this year.

As Kirby takes the helm, he inherits a powerful position but faces a president who, in his first year, has made headlines for clashing with faculty members and has strong interests in matters falling under FAS.

One long-time administrator says that a dean of the Faculty under Summers is less likely to have the degree of autonomy Knowles had under Rudenstine.

But with Kirby’s goals matching Summers’ stated priorities, administrators don’t expect a conflict.

“I think we already have a very good relationship from Bill’s past role and will remain in frequent communication,” says Hyman.

Kirby also says he expects to work in cooperation with Mass. Hall.

“If we’re at the heart of the University that means we’re connected to the rest of the University as part of an intellectual circulatory system,” he says.

And further decreasing the likelihood of conflict is Kirby’s view that he doesn’t need to relay faculty members’ complaints to Summers.

“We have 644 strong and individual voices. I don’t worry about the ability of professors or students in making known their opinions about a wide range of issues,” Kirby says.

The Reality Before the Vision

In defining priorities for his term as president, Summers has expressed the need to grow and reinvigorate the Faculty, improve the undergraduate experience and expand the global reach and concern of the University.

And in his administrative accomplishments at Harvard, Kirby has built a set of credentials that closely match Summers’ priorities.

In his October installation address, Summers called for “strengthening and expanding our distinguished faculty to embrace new areas of learning.”

But well before Summers uttered these words, Kirby had taken such measures on a smaller scale.

Colleagues characterize Kirby’s tenure as chair of Harvard’s history department as a period during which key and numerous appointments strengthened faltering areas of the department.

While Harvard’s history department had traditionally been a powerhouse in the field, internal tensions in the 1970s and 1980s caused it to become a “department in crisis,” according to a 1990 report of the department’s visiting committee cited in Making Harvard Modern.

The American wing of the history department, prior to Kirby’s leadership, had not tenured a professor in 20 years.

Following the lead of former chair Thomas Bisson, Kirby made rebuilding the department a top priority.

He offered tenured positions to many American historians and oversaw the department’s first tenure of a female in the American field, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, as the Phillips professor of early American history.

In addition, Kirby’s 1999 hiring of James T. Kloppenberg, a leading intellectual historian from Brandeis, provided a new leader in that area of the department to replace the retiring Trumbull Professor of American History Donald H. Fleming.

The number of tenured female professors further increased under Kirby’s watch when Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham joined the department as an American historian and Pedersen was promoted from within the department.

Such changes in gender distribution were noticed by the few—if quickly expanding—female history professors.

“We joked that the number of women [in the department] more than doubled under Kirby,” Ulrich says.

The influx of specialists in American history under Kirby’s leadership resulted in what Ulrich characterized as a “turn-around period” for the department.

And Kirby’s diplomatic skill is credited with pushing these appointments through a department whose faculty was notoriously balkanized.

“It is fair to say there was a paralysis in making appointments, but Kirby’s exceptional diplomatic skill brought together...a Faculty that rarely agreed,” says Stephan A. Thernstrom, Winthrop professor of history.

Even those historians who decided not to accept Harvard’s tenure offers cite Kirby’s recruiting efforts as one of the University’s main draws.

“I was really impressed with how he went about it,” says Laura Kalman, professor of history at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “He went about it in a very gracious way,” says Kalman, who declined the offer in order to stay with her husband.

Jones Professor of American Studies Lizabeth Cohen, who accepted a tenure offer during Kirby’s term, agrees that his recruiting tactics were incredibly effective.

“The wheels of the Harvard system go slowly and many senior candidates get discouraged. But Bill kept in touch every step of the way,” Cohen says.

However, such efforts to grow the history department’s faculty did not mean an end to the notorious difficulties junior professors face in obtaining tenure.

In 1997, students protested the history department’s denial of tenure to Ellen Fitzpatrick, an associate professor of American history who was very popular with students and received high marks for her teaching.

Summers cites Kirby’s dedication to faculty recruitment as a key factor in his decision to appoint Kirby.

“He has demonstrated a commitment to recruiting the best faculty to Harvard,” Summers says. “He led the history department, particularly American history, into a period in which many strong appointments were made and the department was in many ways rejuvenated.”

Teaching the Undergraduates

And his time as history chair showed a commitment to undergraduate education. Kirby helped implement the reform of the department’s tutorial system begun under his predecessors.

By getting senior faculty more directly involved and restructuring the tutorial sequence in order to better prepare students to write theses, the history tutorial serves as a pedagogical model for other departments.

Kirby has also been directly involved in undergraduate education by teaching a pair of classes in the Core Curriculum.

In addition to teaching Historical Study A-74 this year, Kirby taught Historical Study A-13, “China: Traditions and Transformations” in past years.

His TFs say that unlike many professors, he held weekly meetings to advise them on classroom instruction.

“He pays a lot of attention to the academic and holistic well-being of undergraduate and graduate students at Harvard,” says Shaun L. Rein, a TF for Historical Study A-74 and president of the Graduate Student Council.

Again, such actions parallel Summers’ stated visions for the entire University.

“We will need in the years ahead to ensure that teaching and learning are everything they can be here, especially at the very heart of the University—Harvard College,” Summers said at his installation.

Thinking Globally

Kirby’s reform efforts didn’t just focus within Robinson Hall, the home of the history department. They also reached half-way around the world to bolster the University’s commitment to Asian studies.

In 1999, he became director of the two-year-old Asia Center, a hub for scholarship and research in the field.

Such globalizing efforts match the calls of Summers for the future of the University.

“A century ago, Harvard was becoming a national university. Today, while strongly rooted in American traditions and values, it is becoming a global university,” Summers said in his installation address. “Our goal will be to extend excellence without ever diluting it. “

As director of the Asia Center, a post he will leave when he becomes dean, Kirby has expanded the center’s offerings by reaching out to faculty from other departments and schools.

He has also focused on South Asia initiatives by providing funding and support for undergraduate and graduate conferences.

“He certainly increased [the center’s] presence at Harvard and the number of people from different faculties involved in programs here,” says Deirdre Chetham, executive director of the Asia Center.

She adds Kirby’s successor as director will inherit a center greatly strengthened by his leadership.

As the leader of the Asia Center, Kirby traveled extensively, strengthening Harvard’s influence in foreign countries.

Kirby, as part of a group of 13 professors, accompanied Summers on a visit to China merely a week before his official selection as dean. The trip included a meeting with Chinese President Jiang Zemin and visits to several leading Chinese universities.

Kirby’s commitment to international studies was concretely displayed this past year when he co-authored a report on undergraduate study abroad with Anthropology Department Chair William L. Fash.

The recommendations contained in the report, which were approved by the Faculty last month, removed many of the impediments faced by students wishing to study abroad, including a lengthy petition process and language proficiency requirements.

Harvard will now provide to students a list of pre-approved study abroad programs.

The report marks the first major step in recent years to support international study, a goal that had been given significant lip-service but hadn’t been acted upon.

Setting Priorities

Kirby says he has much to learn, but he clearly has a vision for FAS.

He says that, along with making sure that Harvard’s football team remains undefeated, initiating a thorough review of undergraduate education and striving to increase the size of the Faculty will be top on his agenda.

While he says it is too early to discuss the “structure and timing” of his goals as dean, Kirby notes the upcoming reform of undergraduate education is likely to be broad and involve the creation of new committees to review the experience as a whole.

Kirby says the Core, already due for review next year, will likely undergo intense scrutiny as well.

Having taught in the Core, Kirby says that though it has broadly succeeded in its aim of exposing a whole range of students to senior faculty, he has heard more complaints about it this semester than ever before.

And his own feelings about the Core are mixed.

“I personally worry that not all foundational education should be through large lecture classes,” he says.

Kirby says he will examine implementing non-binding pre-registration for classes, as one solution to reduce class-size.

In addition to issues of Core reform, Kirby will inherit the debate over the incorporation of ethnic studies into the curriculum.

This past year, students and faculty met with Summers and Knowles, seeking increased resources for identity-based intellectual fields such as Latino studies and queer studies.

Kirby says there is no single model for how to deal with these issues, but that he plans to examine the requests.

Coatsworth says he believes that Kirby will be more “flexible” on these issues than previous deans.

In any effort to reform the experience students in the College, Kirby notes the new dean of undergraduate education will have a large role.

Pedersen will leave this post at the end of the month, leaving Kirby with the responsibility of finding her replacement.

Kirby also says he plans to continue Knowles’ efforts to increase the size of the Faculty. Knowles set a goal in 2000 to add six new positions to FAS for each of the following 10 years.

While Knowles did succeed in increasing the number of tenured faculty by roughly 10 percent during his term, he fell far short of his goal of endowing 40 new professorships.

As part of this effort to increase the number of tenured faculty, Kirby says he is dedicated to supporting junior faculty members and cites the history department’s record of internal tenure as a good model.

“We have to make it clear to our own junior faculty that we are committed to their development so that they do their best work during their time here,” Kirby says.

He also stresses the need to work to retain these professors, whom he calls “the best junior faculty in the country.” Typically, many junior faculty leave Harvard for tenured positions elsewhere, given the traditional strong odds against internal tenures.

But despite all the tasks that lie ahead, Kirby says he is excited for the future.

“It’s a marvelous time to be asked to be dean of the Faculty,” he says. “It’s one of the great jobs of American higher education.”

—David H. Gellis, Kate L. Rakoczy and Dan Rosenheck contributed to the reporting of this story.

—Staff writer Jenifer L. Steinhardt can be reached at steinhar@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Jessica E. Vascellero can be reached at vascell@fas.harvard.edu.