Administration Turns Its Back on Students

Former dean of the Faculty Henry Rosovsky is famous for saying that the students are here for four years and the Faculty are here for life, but the institution is here forever. This statement implies that the University should not consider the desires of students as important in long-term planning. We could not disagree more. Students are Harvard: Students are what Harvard brags about, and students are the key to its success.

This year has been especially discouraging in terms of the impact of student input. On issue after issue, the administration has not consulted students on decisions of critical importance to their future. And if they have been consulted, their suggestions most often were not heeded. Current Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles has said there is a significant difference between listening to students and doing what they want. Although we understand that distinction, we have noticed this year far too many students speaking without any administrators even listening. In fact, in an interview with The Crimson, President Neil L. Rudenstine admitted he did not even know the Undergraduate Council was holding campus-wide elections this year, despite the many posters visible from his office windows.

Some of the greatest controversy has been generated by Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68, who took office in July. His predecessor, L. Fred Jewett '57, made a decision just before he retired to randomize the first-year housing lottery for the sake of "diversity." Unfortunately, randomization is effectively destroying the character of many houses. Although Lewis has agreed to reconsider the decision in three years if asked, he has thus far completely supported the misguided policy. A poll last spring by the Undergraduate Council showed that 81 percent of students opposed randomization. Jewett knew that fact when he made his decision, and Lewis is fully aware of that fact now; yet both favor ignoring student voices and fragmenting the student body.

An even larger battle this year has concerned public service at Harvard. Lewis' August 1994 Report on the Structure of Harvard College, co-authored with Administrative Dean of the Faculty Nancy L. Maull, recommended restructuring public service partly by creating a new position of assistant dean of public service. Last summer and this fall, students from Phillips Brooks House, Inc. (PBHA), the House and Neighborhood Development Program (HAND) and other public service groups spoke at length and repeatedly with Lewis and the search committee about their preferences. Neither person from PBH who applied received the job; in fact, it went to the students' fourth choice out of four, Judith H. Kidd.

The public service controversy continued this spring in the newly-created Standing Committee on Public Service, composed of six faculty members (including the chair) and three students. The Undergraduate Council sponsored a resolution to raise the number of students from three to five in order to have equal representation on a committee that overlooks an activity in which a quarter of Harvard students participate. The Faculty defeated the proposal, prompting two of three students on the committee to resign. The committee continued meeting without the students. We are not sure where public service is going at this University (we don't think it's anywhere good), but we urge the powers-that-be to keep it in the hands of the students and integrate it into the curriculum; after all, it is the students and not the administrators who run the programs and spend dozens of hours each week with needy children and adults.

Lewis has been guilty of not consulting students at all on other key issues, such as a proposal--recently approved--that will allow him to put students on medical leave. Fortunately, the proposal was criticized by both faculty and students for putting too much power in the hands of one person; but nevertheless, we are appalled at the decision to implement the change.

Randomization, public service and medical leave are three areas that will directly affect student life outside the classroom. With curricular issues as well, student opinions are often shunted aside.

A long-standing grievance is that student evaluations of teaching ability are not adequately considered in tenure decisions. We are pleased that the number of internal tenures of good teachers seems to be rising; we wish, however, that students had something to do with that trend. A perennial joke is that winning the student-nominated Levenson Award for exemplary undergraduate teaching is a sure way not to get tenure. Students and good teachers deserve better than that.

We wish that the Core Review Committee, designed to examine every area of the Core Curriculum, contained more than a paltry two students. The Core makes up a quarter of our curricular requirements, and it should not be changed without extensive student representation. Letters from students about changes are one thing, but listening to them in person is quite another. Last year's rejection of a proposal to make History 10a and 10b: "Western Societies, Politics, and Cultures" part of the Core does not hearten us on that front; neither does the fact that a Core reform petition signed by more than 4,000 undergraduates has received little attention.

And we are concerned about the administrative "searches" that search no farther than around the corner of University Hall Last year, Dean Lewis was appointed with a search committee of one--Dean Knowles--and this spring, the future dean of undergraduate education, William M. Todd III, was appointed the same way, by the same man. These "searches" are farces; while we understand that the best candidates for University Hall administrators often are those who understand Harvard from the inside, that is no excuse for not involving students in any aspect of the search. After all, these two administrators drastically affect student life.

We suppose we should not be surprised at the lack of student input at a university where President Neil L. Rudenstine holds only one office hour per month. We chose to come to Harvard knowing that it has been around since 1636 and does not pay that much attention to its students. But we did not know it would be this bad. We implore the administrators to stick their heads out of University and Massachusetts Halls and actually take a look at the students who go here; students can only be ignored for so long.