A New Oldie Comes to Town.
The year was 1971. Dean of Harvard Law School Derek C. Bok had just succeeded the embattled Nathan M. Pusey ’28 as president of Harvard University. John Updike ’54 topped the bestseller list, a war dragged on in Vietnam, and conservative President Richard M. Nixon governed from the Oval Office.
On July 1, 2006, newly appointed interim President Bok will again take the reins of the University. Although more than 35 years have passed, the current state of affairs seems to be much the same. Another conservative president sits in the White House, another far-away war drags on, and, strangely enough, John Updike continues to write bestsellers. But perhaps more importantly, the University that Bok will face today is in many ways similar to the one he led three decades ago.
ASCENT TO POWER
“Now, after a period of readjustment and phenomenal growth,” said then-President Pusey in a speech a year before his 1971 departure, “there comes for another president an era of radically altered conditions, sharp change, and formidable obstacles.”
These words could serve as a first draft for outgoing University President Lawrence H. Summers’ final address.
Much like Summers, Pusey was criticized for his rigid leadership style. The president of Union College, Harold C. Martin, once called Pusey “obdurate”, but Pusey said he preferred the term “intractable.”
In addition to his stodginess, Pusey was heavily criticized for his inability to control student unrest after the 1969 University Hall sit-in, and the Harvard Corporation turned to Bok to settle the waters.
Law Professor Emeritus Detlev F. Vagts was not surprised by the choice, noting that Bok’s specialty in labor law made him an ideal candidate for the job.
“If you’re doing any of these kinds of negotiations the first thing you need to do is understand where the other side is coming from, not to assume that they’re just you turned around,” Vagts says. “A union activist comes from a very different place than an employer.”
Bok’s specialty in mediation was seen, both then and now, as an asset in reorganizing a University marred by internal strife.
“The situation today seems to be similar in some respects,” Bok writes in an e-mail. “The faculties are at least to some extent divided, trust seems to be in short supply, and strong emotions have been in evidence.”
LEADERSHIP 101
Vagt’s favorite memory of Bok is from his tenure as law school dean. Agitated students threatened to take over a room where the faculty was scheduled to have a meeting. Instead of reacting with force, Bok took a surprising tack; he declared an open meeting and invited the students to join in the discussion, serving them coffee and donuts.
Professor Emeritus Richard A. Musgrave says Bok saw himself as “an instrument of serving the community effectively, being trustworthy, and really appealing to everybody.”
However, Bok was not just a good listener; he frequently offered up his own opinions, too.
“The most distinctive feature of Bok’s presidency was...his habit of addressing controversial and divisive issues by publishing public letters to the community at large which analyzed the issues, addressed the range of opinion, and defended his own conclusion,” Morton Keller, co-author of “Making Harvard Modern,” writes in an e-mail. “He set an example and a standard of reason that was (and is) uncommon at the time.”
DIVESTMENT: ROUND ONE
Perhaps the issue that best characterized his interaction with students was the issue of divestment from American-owned companies with financial ties to Apartheid-era South Africa. Many criticized the University for continuing to invest in companies that implicitly supported a morally reprehensible regime. Students marched, held rallies, and even constructed a replica shantytown in protest.
Despite all the pressure, Bok continued to argue against divestment. In one of his infamous open letters, Bok wrote that “blanket divestment” was a dubious policy in which the University would “deviate from its proper role, jeopardize its independence, and risk its resources with no realistic prospect of success.” However, Bok simultaneously allocated a million dollars for black South Africans to study at Harvard and for Harvard affiliates to work for the public interest in South Africa.
Upon his return, Bok will again face the issue of divestment, this time with Sinopec, a business with ties to Sudan. Vagts says that the cases are extremely different, at least from a moral perspective. He explains that the South African companies—while taking part in an oppressive regime—also allowed black workers to receive an education they would otherwise be denied, making Bok’s decision a lot more difficult. The Sudan case—a case of genocide—might be less nuanced, at least according to Vagts.
“Having dealt with divestment issues in 19 of my 20 years as president, I felt that I had paid my dues,” Bok writes. “I have had nothing to do with these issues since.”
WE DON’T NEED NO
(GENERAL) EDUCATION
In 1978, Bok likened the task of reforming the curriculum to that of “moving a cemetery.” Summers would be hard-pressed to disagree with that.
Bok, who oversaw the appointment of Core founding father and former Dean of the Faculty Henry Rosovsky, again faces the specter of curricular reform three decades after his first go-round. Bok has already said that he plans only to preside over faculty discussions and listen rather than give his own views.
“He’s only here for the interim.” Vagts says. “He’ll see himself more as a caretaker.”
Indeed, Bok writes that he seeks as much faculty input as possible, minimizing his own role in the process.
“On curricular reform, I have always favored actively involving as many faculty members as possible,” writes Bok.
“Since they must ultimately carry out a new curriculum, it is important that they have a sense of ownership.”
But many faculty members and observers note that Bok’s writings on the subject, most notably in his book “Our Underachieving Colleges,” may be useful starting points for debate.
SUMMERS TO BOK::APPLES TO ORANGES
The differences, though, between Summers and Bok are no secret. Bok’s former colleague, Weld Professor of Law Charles R. Nesson ’60, makes the distinction by comparing their relative fields of expertise.
“Derek is a humanist...you have to have a humanist at the core of the university...someone who thinks that truth is transcendental,” Nesson says. “The pure economist doesn’t have a handle on a transcendental type of truth.”
Yet different as the two may seem, Summers’ stance on contentious issues is oddly reminiscent of the opinions of his replacement.
According to Keller’s “Making Harvard Modern,” “when it came to faculty appointments, [Bok] rejected quotas in favor of seeking out ‘qualified’ women and minority candidates: a stance that grated on critics who attacked his position as a prime example of ‘racism disguised as meritocracy.’”
When it came to women and tenure and black academics, Summers was often criticized on the same grounds.
Summers was blamed for the departure of star Professor Cornel R. West ’74 after he criticized the academic’s foray into spoken-word stardom. Similarly, Bok took his faculty to task for pursuing lucrative asides at the expense of more academic endeavors.
Bok was also the president who first purchased land in Allston—a project that Summers was intimately involved in.
Perhaps the most unlikely similarity lies in the two leaders’ reaction to controversy. On the surface, Summers is depicted as brash and opinionated while Bok is lauded as a talented negotiator.
However, “it is a mistake to think of Bok mainly as a mediator,” Whitehead Professor of Government Dennis F. Thompson writes in an e-mail. “As president, he actually encouraged controversy. His annual letters (and many of his speeches) boldly challenged many powerful constituencies of the university.”
In fact, Harvard psychologist Richard J. Herrnstein published a 1971 article in The Atlantic Monthly that argued that differences in mental ability were largely inherited and partly attributable to income inequalities. Despite the storm of criticism that Herrnstein received, Bok stood by him, condemning the attacks at a faculty meeting and re-affirming that the First Amendment was and should always be Harvard’s standard. Again, Summers would almost certainly agree.
STICK TO THE TRUTH
Yet herein also lies the most important difference between Summers and Bok. It is not that Bok would disagree with Summers’ ideas, but rather with his methods. Bok, both in 1971 and today, seems most comfortable playing a parental role—supporting the sometimes revolutionary ideas of his tenured children from the shadows.
“Others will have to comment on my image. I try not to worry about it,” writes Bok. “Trustworthiness is another matter. University presidents have to persuade in order to accomplish much. Without trust, it is very hard to persuade.”
The words of his first annual report in 1971 are almost more salient today. “In the end,” he wrote, “the President must recognize that the progress of the University will always depend fundamentally upon the imagination and ability of the faculty, students, and staff.”