Out of Office, Back in Business

On May 2, Lawrence H. Summers stepped to the podium in Science Center Lecture Hall B. It had been 14 months since his last showdown with professors in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and his audience this time couldn’t have been more different.

Summers, who has been on sabbatical this academic year, was a guest at the final meeting of Psychology 1002, “Morality and Taboo.” The popular undergraduate course was inspired by the reaction to his 2005 remarks about women and science, and he had been brought in to give a first-hand account.

“I can’t for the life of me figure out why anything in my past could cause me to be invited to an event like this,” Summers joked after being introduced by the course’s two professors, Johnstone Professor of Psychology Steven Pinker and Frankfurter Professor of Law Alan M. Dershowitz.

“Well, maybe that was the problem,” Dershowitz quickly shot back.

In his tenure as president, Summers was dogged by his insistence on speaking freely about controversial issues. And while on sabbatical this year, he has not receded into obscurity—despite having his burger taken off the menu at Bartley’s Burger Cottage. He has kept up a busy schedule of world-wide speaking appearances, penned columns for the Financial Times, and took a job in finance, all while maintaining a quiet presence on campus. The difference is the pressure and the expectations—colleagues say that Summers has been able to shed the weight of his high-profile presidency and emerge as a new man.

“It has been wonderful to have more family time than I had as Harvard president or in Washington.” Summers wrote in an e-mail to The Crimson last week—fittingly, while traveling. “Professionally, it was very exciting to re-immerse myself in economic issues and to see how much had changed around the world since I left the Treasury in 2001.”

Summers’ wife of two years, Elisa New—who met Summers in 2001 when he was already president—says that he has not rolled back his energetic schedule since stepping down.

“Knowing him as non-president was something I only found out about after I married him,” New wrote in an e-mail to The Crimson this week. “If I thought Larry would slow down, I’d have been a very disappointed bride.”

‘A LITTLE BIT OF SEPARATION’

Richard J. Zeckhauser, the Ramsey professor of political economy at the Kennedy School of Government and a long-time friend of Summers, says that Summers’s level of involvement at the school has been impressive, considering that he is on leave.

“I think he’s having the time of his life. I think he’s enjoying doing what he enjoyed most as president—engaging people intellectually. Now he can do it without anyone worrying about what he says,” Zeckhauser observes.

Summers moved out of Elmwood, the presidential residence, last summer, and he now lives with his wife, Professor of English Elisa New, in Brookline—out of the unrelenting public eye that followed him during his presidency. Even when he is on campus, Summers has managed to avoid the scrutiny of the Faculty members who played a defining role in his demise as president.

Martin Peretz, the editor-in-chief of The New Republic and a close friend of Summers, said that Summers must be relieved to not always feel like he has a target on his back.

“Can you imagine the last two years of his presidency, when he would go into a room and he would have to figure out, are these people friends, neutrals, or enemies? And for someone who is intellectually so open, the calculation of, because this person is in the room, you can’t say something, must have been mortifying,” Peretz says. “He seems quite fulfilled without having to watch for snipers behind Massachusetts Hall.”

Peretz adds that Summers’ renewed enthusiasm and reaffirmed intellectual engagement has manifested itself physically, both in the former president himself and those close to him.

“You can hear it in his voice,” Peretz, a former Harvard lecturer, says. “You can hear it in Lisa New’s voice.”

Time away from the public scrutiny has also allowed Summers to rebuild relationships with the people he works with at Harvard and to put the crises of his tenure behind him.

“I imagine he needed a little bit of separation, a little bit of time so that when he interacted with his colleagues the only topic of conversation wouldn’t have been the various controversies he was embroiled in,” says Pinker, who publicly supported Summers during the initial furor over his women-in-science remarks.

STAYING BUSY

In addition to guest lectures in “Morality and Taboo” and Social Analysis 10, “The Principles of Economics,” Summers has been active at the Kennedy School, where he now has an office. He delivered a fall lecture in a faculty luncheon series, and has been giving his colleagues feedback on their work. Zeckhauser drops by Summers’ office regularly to grab a Diet Coke and to talk shop—the two are currently working on a paper on global warming.

“We have this implicit agreement that I get Diet Coke for life in exchange for my having to go entertain him and write papers with him,” Zeckhauser jokes.

Even while maintaining an office in Cambridge, Summers has made a whirlwind tour of the globe, hopping back and forth from coast to coast, and making frequent international appearances, including a trip to Asia and back in one day, according to New.

“Larry travelled more days and to more places than I’d have thought possible,” New wrote. “He is not great at holding on to belongings, however, so I bought him a super-duper carry on for his birthday that holds his laptop, around 600 pages of reading material and clean shirts and socks too.”

With the 2008 presidential election approaching, Summers—a former Treasury Secretary—has also dipped his feet back into the political waters he once inhabited. Colleagues say he has been giving advice to multiple presidential candidates.

“Larry is always advising people. Anyone who will be a leading candidate will want to get his ideas,” Zeckhauser says. “I know he’s talking to candidates, but...my suspicion is that he’s not firmly committed to one person or another.”

Summers—remembered for his funding of several College social events—has found time for undergraduates as well, hosting a dinner in his backyard for seniors who had taken popular freshman seminar on globalization three years ago.

Zeckhauser says that Summers’ intellectual drive also motivated his entrance into the private sector—Summers joined the hedge fund D.E. Shaw & Co. as a part-time advisor last October, and says he plans to continue next year. Summers was likely attracted to D.E. Shaw in particular, Zeckhauser said, because of its quantitatively oriented approach to investing and the opportunity to surround himself with particularly intelligent co-workers.

“It’s got a combination of intelligence, excitement, convenience, and financial reward,” Zeckhauser said, adding that Summers probably advises the company on general global issues and trends in addition to specific investment opportunities.

Summers will return to teaching this fall—he says he will be co-teaching a course on globalization that will be cross-listed under the economics department and the Kennedy School and open to undergraduates. He also hopes to offer a seminar on international finance.

While Summers was forced to leave the presidency earlier than planned, friends say he may learn to love his new role even more.

“My guess is that he’ll tell you three years from now, ‘I didn’t realize how much fun I could have being a university professor,’” Zeckhauser says.

—Staff writer Claire M. Guehenno can be reached at guehenno@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Laurence H.M. Holland can be reached at lholland@fas.harvard.edu.