After Seven Years, Lewis Calls Shots At College

McKay Professor of Computer Science Harry R. Lewis ’68 says he never wanted to be dean of Harvard College.

“I did it because I love Harvard and I considered it my duty,” Lewis says. “I was afraid to imagine who number two on the list would be if [Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles] had come to me.”

Despite Lewis’ self-deprecation, it did not shock anyone that he was tapped to replace L. Fred Jewett ’57 in 1995.

Lewis was an obvious candidate for the deanship after having co-written an influential report in 1994 that listed 45 specific recommendations on how to improve the structure of the College.

He entered the job with a head full of steam, carrying out an unpopular randomization of House assignments as well as an equally unpopular overhaul of the Phillips Brooks House Association—both reforms that he had advocated in his 1994 report.

More surprising than Lewis’ selection as dean is the fact that nearly seven years later it is hard to imagine anyone else in the role.

Since his trying first term—which will be remembered for the fierce battle over randomizing the Houses—Lewis has steadily revamped the College administration with an eye toward making the College more efficient and consolidating his own power.

Seven years later, Lewis has appointed the current Masters of nine of the 12 Houses, hired countless senior tutors and reformed the deanship so he is clearly first in command.

The College now runs like a well-oiled machine, with reviews of residential tutors, senior tutors and Masters now a routine part of House administration. Senior tutors and Masters serve three-year and five-year terms, respectively, whereas undefined and lifelong appointments used to be the norm.

As power has been centralized and administrative practices standardized, Lewis has been able to assume more and more of the control his colleagues say he covets.

The Masters who protested randomization and the dean of students who played foil to Lewis have left the scene. Senior tutors who steppes out of line with University Hall have been axed.

Lewis has revolutionized the office of the dean of the College, though not everyone is convinced that all the changes have been for the better.

On his road to a powerful deanship, Lewis has not shied away from confrontation, frankly telling people when he disagrees with them and firing those who do not fit into his plan.

As chair of the Administrative Board, Lewis runs meetings with a heavy hand, according to several former senior tutors, who say members of the Ad Board are forced to passively follow the lead of the man to whom they owe their jobs.

Lewis declines to speculate on when he will retire from his job, but when he does, he will leave behind a College that bears his indelible imprint, from Adams House to Phillips Brooks House to the University Hall offices that house the deanery. Both in his controversial reforms and in his behind-the-scenes maneuvering, Lewis has left his mark as an administrative genius and autocrat, depending on whom you ask.

An Academic First

Within the ranks of the College administration, Lewis has built up a vast empire of loyal subordinates—a group that one former senior tutor says is full of frightened “minions” in the Houses and “meek folk” in University Hall.

But at the same time, he has garnered the sincere respect of many colleagues for his dedication to students and his organizational wizardry.

“He is someone who is indefatigable in his work ethic and puts an in enormous time both as dean and still teaching his course,” says former Quincy House Master Michael Shinagel.

His status as a senior professor of computer science—he teaches Computer Science 121: “Introduction to Formal Systems and Computation”—has won him academic legitimacy among the Faculty that his purely administrative predecessors did not enjoy.

“The previous deans—Fred Jewett particularly comes to mind—were highly respected by the Faculty, but coming up through the administrative route you just don’t have the same oomph,” says former Lowell House Master William H. Bossert ’59.

Lewis says that when he first assumed the deanship, faculty were worried that their world “had gotten divorced” from the part of the College that dealt with residential and extracurricular student life. He has sought to bring together undergraduate, academic and residential lives by hiring academically distinguished Masters and senior tutors and by attempting to improve academic advising in the Houses.

And Lewis has managed to direct professors’ attention toward student life because he embodies the ideal he promotes: the Faculty member concerned with the College.

“When I speak to the faculty about extracurricular activities or the way the College thinks about gender [or] ethnicity, I’m speaking as a member of the Faculty, not someone who can be thought of as speaking from the outside,” Lewis says.

Serious Business

Almost all of Lewis’ colleagues say his devotion to the College is unparalleled.

“I’m impressed with how he has concern for students and students’ welfare at the forefront of what he does,” says Assistant Dean of the College Karen E. Avery ’87.

Associate Dean of the College Thomas A. Dingman ’67 says Lewis is a prolific note-taker and thorough memo-writer, always careful never to miss a detail of any given issue.

While Lewis does not possess Jewett’s friendly and outgoing demeanor, he has translated his compulsion to write into a means of keeping in touch with the College community.

Lewis has said that while he is willing to meet face-to-face with just about anyone, he will respond to e-mails from absolutely anyone—and he will do so within minutes of receiving them.

“Since he’s a phenomenal user of e-mail he’s been very in touch with students,” says Associate Dean of the College Georgene B. Herschbach. “I tend to get to my desk earlier in the morning than he does. If there’s a lag time, it’s between five and six in the morning.”

Lewis truly does reply to all e-mail he receives—and though it is not his most apparent trait, he does have a sense of humor. Fifteen Minutes, The Crimson’s weekend magazine, reprinted an e-mail he sent to a Yale student last November in response to an inquiry titled “bitch ass harvard.”

“I suspect you sent this to the wrong person,” Lewis wrote back promptly. “I’m the dean of that bitch ass school!”

But while Lewis cracks an e-mail joke now and then, his manner is generally not so irreverent around the office.

Former senior tutors describe him as a “control freak” with a nasty temper that flares up occasionally.

Some say Lewis is so eager to be in control because he feels a personal responsibility to the College with which he has been affiliated for nearly 40 years.

“Harvard is all he knows—he is Harvard,” says a former senior tutor. “It’s as if he thinks there are barbarians at the gate just waiting to rip the place up.”

Mastering the Houses

When Lewis arrived in 1995, the dean of the College was not the strong position it is today. In particular, power in the College was more widely dispersed, with House Masters wielding considerable authority.

Jewett was universally liked but had let many of the dean’s duties slip away, and then-University President Derek C. Bok had taken a particular interest in College life.

University presidents had long been formally responsible for appointing House Masters, and Bok played the primary role in selecting Masters during his tenure. Those handpicked by Bok were thus accountable to Mass. Hall as well as University Hall and were endowed with a certain prestige as a result of their ties to the president.

Bossert says Bok not only chose him and his wife to be Lowell House Co-Masters but would also meet with them three or four times per year to ask their opinion on College matters.

“In the original group of Masters, the president probably viewed the Masters as the president’s little spies on Harvard College,” Bossert says. “I remember occasional calls from the president asking my opinion on this or that regarding College policy. I have a feeling that doesn’t happen anymore.”

But when Neil L. Rudenstine succeeded Bok in 1991, his busy schedule of fundraising and an inter-faculty initiative precluded him from being as involved in College decisions as Bok.

By the time Lewis became dean in 1995, the task of selecting Masters fell almost exlusively to the College administration.

Jewett had continued the tradition of life-long appointments for Masters, leaving Lewis with three Houses presided over by the same Masters for more than 20 years.

The old Masters were powerful leaders within the Houses—and some, notably then-Adams House Master Robert J. Kiely, led the opposition to Lewis’ plan to randomize housing assignments.

Lewis decided to bring in new blood.

He instituted a five-year renewable contract for new Masters and an annual review process in which he meets with each of the Masters to discuss their year.

Currier House Master William A. Graham says the five-year rule makes it easier for Masters who want to retire to do so gracefully.

But Bossert says that while he was happy to step down as Master in order to concentrate on his academic research, he felt pressure from University Hall to give up his long-time spot.

“The dean of the Faculty wanted very much to get some of those of us who had been in for a very long time replaced with people under the five year rule,” Bossert says.

Bossert stepped down in 1998 after 23 years as Master. Kiely called it quits in 1999 after 26 years.

No Weak Links

Only three Houses remain under the leadership of Masters appointed before Lewis became dean.

Dingman says Lewis has had to take more control over the appointment process because multiple Masters have chosen to depart at the same time.

“He’s had to coordinate things more centrally in that you don’t want the Masters candidates going at one another in a hugely competitive way,” Dingman says. “He’s been good at hearing from candidates what they like and then figuring out where the best matches might happen. In that regard it’s been more streamlined.”

Because Lewis has had the chance to appoint almost all of the current Masters and can choose not to renew their contracts after five years, some say it has given him an unprecedented power over the College administration.

“I would worry about too much power being concentrated in one person and one office, especially when there’s been some drift from the president appointing,” Shinagel says.

Lewis typically consults with undergraduates, tutors and House administrators to discuss the candidates for Master. But in the end the decision is his.

One former senior tutor says he doubts these committees have much influence on who Lewis appoints, while another claims that Lewis tries to pick only those candidates who share his philosophy on the College—a charge that Dingman denies.

“I don’t think there’s any litmus test or that he would float some balloons and try to see if people are all on the same page,” he says.

But Dingman, who has worked at Harvard for over 30 years, says the willingness of potential Masters to work as a team with the College administration may be more of a priority to Lewis than to past deans.

“There’s more done to try to ensure the strength of the necklace,” Dingman says. “A necklace is only as strong as its links.”

Whether or not Masters are selected to fit into a certain mold, former Masters agree that Lewis’ policies have sapped some power from the Mastership.

“It doesn’t have the same glamour that it did,” Shinagel says. “What’s the difference between the Master and the senior tutor? I think there has been a perceived lowering in status.”

Former Leverett House Master John E. Dowling says the Masters’ appointment by Lewis rather than the president narrowly defines Masters as employees of the College.

The shift in power has not been lost on the current Masters, says one former senior tutor.

“They’re positively afraid of [Lewis],” he says. “This is the code they used: ‘It’s very important we have a good relationship with University Hall.’ That’s code for: ‘Don’t piss Harry off.’”

Lewis, the former senior tutor adds, does not see the Masters as colleagues.

“They work for him,” he says. “He has a very strong idea of the dean—the dean is in charge.”

An Academic House

If Lewis has weakened the position of House Master, senior tutors have become virtual pawns of the College dean’s office, according to some former occupants of the post.

While the dean of the College has always had a hand in appointing senior tutors, Jewett let that duty fall mostly to the Masters.

Lewis, characteristically, has centralized the process of hiring senior tutors.

And he has been the first to enforce a policy by which senior tutors are normally hired on a three year contract and can spend a maximum of five years at the job.

In line with his penchant for feedback, Lewis has instituted a more comprehensive review system for the senior tutors.

Cabot House Master James H. Ware says he was on a subcommittee that reviewed the implementation of the residential tutor evaluations and concluded they had been a positive step towards defining the role of senior tutor in the Houses.

Lewis also started an initiative to hire only faculty members for the position.

Graham says Lewis and Knowles moved to add funds to pay for a half appointment in a department for the senior tutor. This gives incentive for departments to bring in potential senior tutor candidates, increasing the depth of the applicant pool, according to Graham.

Lewis’ commitment to assuring that every senior tutor also has a teaching position at the University speaks to his theory that students’ academic and residential lives are not separate.

“It’s sometimes overlooked that senior tutors are all teaching members of the faculty. We’re scholars and educators, not simply administrators,” says Winthrop House Senior Tutor Courtney Lamberth. “Over dinner we can talk about Flannery O’Connor.”

Lewis has not taken this commitment to increasing the academic seriousness of the senior tutors lightly.

One former senior tutor says she was fired because she had not secured a teaching position by a deadline Lewis had imposed, but of which she says she was unaware.

Though residents in the tutor’s house petitioned Lewis to let her stay, Lewis refused to reverse his decision.

Lewis acknowledges that he has been “hard-nosed” about sticking to his initiative.

“We should have advisers who understand the holistic nature of the undergraduate experience,” Lewis says.

Ad Board ‘Bully’

But four former senior tutors—tutors who have either just spent their last year at the College or left previously—say Lewis’ increased control over their appointments and dismissals has been detrimental to the College.

They say Lewis has created an administration in which disgreeing with him is unacceptable.

“As he’s worked to gain more control over who becomes Master, what happens is the senior tutors realize it’s not as much about being a presence in the House but pleasing University Hall and the Ad Board,” says one former senior tutor.

Former senior tutors say Lewis’ autocratic style of leadership is most apparent—and harmful—in Administrative Board proceedings.

“People would say things and he would get visibly angry and cut them off,” says one former senior tutor. “He comes in there with an agenda, and if it doesn’t go his way, he gets upset. People don’t feel free to say what they want.”

Another former senior tutor says that Lewis’ approach to Ad Board cases was overly punitive and that he frowned on Ad Board members expressing desire for leniency.

“I thought they threw out kids for absolutely nothing,” she says. “I would literally come home on Tuesday night and go to bed with a splitting headache because of the leadership.”

Former senior tutors say that senior tutors are averse to speaking against Lewis during Ad Board proceedings for fear of losing their jobs.

“The senior tutors are treated like children,” he says. “I disliked intensely when [Lewis] bullied people on the Ad Board, but I couldn’t do anything.”

Former senior tutors say they think Lewis does not listen to senior tutors due to a perceived intellectual superiority, though they say his style may be effective from an administrative standpoint.

“To his credit, he wants things to run efficiently,” one says, “but sometimes that efficiency precludes a variety of opinions.”

Assistant Dean of the College David B. Fithian says Lewis presides over the Ad Board in a fair manner. Fithian, secretary of the Ad Board, points out that the decision-making process of the Ad Board is democratic—one man, one vote.

Lewis, as chair, does not vote.

Herschbach, who is a member of the Ad Board, says she considers Lewis’ work on it one of his major accomplishments, particularly with regard to the recent change in sexual assault policy.

Deans Over Easy

Lewis’ centralizing reforms have been felt perhaps most powerfully within the walls of University Hall itself, as Lewis has moved to strengthen the deanship by reorganizing the small circle of associate and assistant deans with whom he works.

When Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III retired in 1999, Lewis declined to name a successor. Instead, he created an entirely new position to deal with student groups and named Illingworth to it.

Whereas Epps was independent of Lewis and often vocally disagreed with him on issues like the need for a student center (Epps supported the idea), Illingworth reports directly to Lewis and has never publicly questioned his policies.

Secretary of the Faculty John B. Fox Jr. ’59, a former dean of the College, says Lewis’ decision to replace Epps with an associate dean made sense.

“Having two senior administrators who were dean of students and dean of the College confused the outside world and students,” he says. “Lewis has put a structure in place that is reflective of reality. There is a dean of the College and he is in charge of these activities.”

Lewis expanded the number of College administrators with the “dean” title to eight—excluding those in the Freshman Dean’s Office—when he named Fithian to a new assistant deanship in 2000.

In addition to serving as secretary of the Ad Board, Fithian holds “responsibility for training and orienting new members of the College administration.”

In effect, the former Adams House senior tutor serves as a go-between in Lewis’ relationship with senior tutors.

One former senior tutor says he got calls from Fithian almost daily when Lewis was unhappy with his service on the Ad Board.

While former senior tutors say they consider this sort of treatment demeaning and annoying, Lewis’ insistence on covering all his bases—and on having Fithian work the University Hall phones overtime if necessary—does make the College run smoothly.

Since randomization, Lewis points out, student satisfaction with their Houses has increased, despite fears that the reform would depersonalize the residential experience. Instead, the Houses are more standard in their administration and the services they provide to students.

And even the former senior tutor who complains about Lewis’ temper and Fithian’s phone calls admits to the effectiveness of Lewis’ sometimes overbearing leadership.

“This might be exactly what the College needs,” he says.

Dingman, who is in charge of the House system, agrees that Lewis has brought a whole new level of competence to the deanship.

“We have a steady stream of visitors from other universities and they all are struck by how much Harry knows about what’s going on in the Houses,” he says.

Lewis has mastered his job so completely, in fact, that one may wonder when he plans to step aside and give someone else a chance to figure out the College.

Lewis says his main objective now is to ease the College’s space crunch, particularly for extracurricular facilities like the Malkin Athletic Center (MAC).

But whatever space reforms Lewis makes in his remaining time as dean will most likely be a mere footnote to his legacy of revolutionary randomization of the House system and his expedient consolidation of power.

With Knowles leaving University Hall next month and Geisinger Professor of History William C. Kirby taking over as new dean of the Faculty, it is conceivable that Kirby will ask Lewis to step down so he can pick a new dean of the College.

It is impossible to predict whether Lewis’ successor will seek to emulate his meticulous attention to detail and craving for organization.

Some former colleagues hope not.

“If you’re in the military, fine,” says one former senior tutor. “But we’re not in the military.”

Yet others say Lewis has merely restored a modicum of order to a College where power had become too decentralized after years under less assertive deans.

“It seems to me that we do have a reasonable balance now between autonomy and the need to refer back to the College for major decisions,” says Eliot House Master Lino Pertile. “This is the only system that I am familiar with, and I find it perfectly congenial.”

Pertile was appointed by Lewis in 2000.

—Staff writer Anne K. Kofol can be reached at kofol@fas.harvard.edu.