The Ed School Faces Life After Graham

It's not easy being among the poorer fish in a sea of well-endowed graduate schools, but over her nine-year tenure as dean of the Graduate School of Education, Patricia A. Graham used her limited resources to make a splash in education circles.

Graham announced in February that she would step down to become president of the Spenser Foundation, an educational research institution. Her decision leaves the Ed School at a crossroads--especially since her resignation coincides with the departure of President Derek C. Bok, who supported the development of many new programs under Graham's leadership.

Looking back on her tenure, Bok calls Graham "a real success story."

"Pat...came in as the first dean in well over 30 years who began with a real knowledge of education," Bok says. "What you have at the end of her tenure is a school with a very clear direction and a whole set of programs that had been put in place to accomplish that agenda, and with a much strengthened faculty to help implement those programs."

Professor of Education Richard J. Light recalls that Bok's attitude toward the School of Education took a sharp turn after Graham took office nine years ago.

Under Graham's predecessor, Paul N. Ylvisaker, "the school was more slanted towards broad policy research," Light says. "While [Bok] appreciated and respected it, he wasn't deeply involved."

But when Graham took over as dean, Light says, "she took the school quickly and quite dramatically in the direction of getting involved with American public education. I think that caught President Bok's eye very quickly and the result is he's been much more involved."

Chair of the Institute for Education Arthur H. Levin says that when he considered coming to Harvard two years ago, he had several discussions with Bok, and was duly impressed. "To find a president as knowledgeable about the issues and as involved in curriculum issues was a real surprise," Levin says.

Bok proved supportive of Graham's programs, which her colleagues say were innovative in merging educational theory and practice. After a 10-year moratorium of Ed School tenure appointments due to financial difficulties, Bok approved nine new appointments, allowing Graham to pack the Ed School with top-level faculty.

"The single action of his that I am most pleased about is that he approved every single ad-hoc professorial appointment that we brought to him," Graham says.

Bok also provided some help on the financial front--although he didn't always publicize it. One Ed School source says that several years ago, Bok shifted about $15 million to the Ed School to fund first-year doctoral fellowships. The information was never released because Bok publicly condemned the diversion of endowments from one part of the University to another.

In With the New

A new president means inevitable change for all of Harvard's faculties, but many Ed School scholars and administrators say they have confidence in President-designate Neil L. Rudenstine's commitment to the school and to issues of American education.

"He wants the Ed School to continue to be an absolutely first-class place," Graham says.

Rudenstine's pet project, the appointment of a provost, has met with support from Ed School administrators and scholars, who say the creation of a University-wide official for academic issues will benefit their school.

And many say they hope some sharing of resources might prove more financially helpful than Bok's "every tub on its own bottom" policy, which many officials say puts the Ed School at a disadvantage.

"We're one of the small tublets," Arthur Levine explains.

Larsen Professor of Education and Human Development Robert A. Levine echoes the complaint, frequently heard in Ed School circles. "Our grads don't go out and make a lot of money," he says. "A dean has to raise money from someone other than our own alumni, unlike places like the Business School and the Law School."

Rudenstine is familiar with the Ed School from his tenure as executive vice president of the Mellon Foundation. Under Rudenstine, Graham says, the foundation issued its first grant to any school of education--to Harvard.

In addition, Rudenstine should have some personal knowledge of the school; his daughter, Antonia, is a 1990 Ed School graduate, and now teaches in Quincy, Mass.

Yet Another Search

One of Rudenstine's first responsibilities as president will be to find Graham's successor. Eager to lend a hand, Bok appointed a five-member search committee in March. Rudenstine has met three times with this committee, which has developed a short list of six to eight names, according to committee member Catherine E. Snow, associate dean of the Ed School.

"I'm very hopeful we will have a decision by the end of the summer," Snow says.

Rudenstine says the search is time-consuming because a number of serious candidates currently work outside Harvard.

There are "at least as many [candidates] on the outside as on the inside, perhaps more. And they are also dispersed all over the country," Rudenstine says. "One would hope to be able to bring the process to a close fairly soon in the fall."

Speculation has centered on several names, including incoming President and CEO of the Massachusetts Higher Education Finance Group Daniel S. Cheever Jr. '64, Stanford School of Education Dean Marshall S. Smith '59, former Ed School Associate Dean Jerome T. Murphy, former Berkeley School of Education Dean Bernard R. Gifford and Professor of Education and Urban Studies Charles V. Willie, sources say.

Whomever Graham's successor may be, Ed School faculty and administrators agree that one of the new dean's main challenges will be raising more funds for the Ed School's programs.

"The Ed School's endowment per student is dramatically less than the endowment per student of any other faculty in the University by several times," Graham says.

But while the Ed School is among the poorest--and smallest--at Harvard, education professors inside and outside the University hail it as one of the nation's leaders, with a strong faculty that many say will make the new dean's job easier.

"The school's at a very good launching pad for a new dean to take it to greater heights," says Graham, who will continue to teach here part-time while she assumes her new duties at the Spenser Foundation.