A New Twist on Summers

The Chronicle of Higher Education has published juicy sections of the conclusion to former Dean of Harvard College Harry R. Lewis' forthcoming book Excellence Without a Soul: How a Great University Forgot Education. Lewis, the Dean from 1995 until he was forced out by Larry Summers because of "organizational restructuring" in 2003 (though still a computer science Prof.), sheds important new light on the recent Summers fiasco. Lewis' insider/outsider perspective comes across as both reliable and sharply critical, especially in passages where he excoriates Summers for what most people think of as his saving grace: his intellect. In Lewis' opinion:

"Summers presented no imaginative program, envisioned no educational ideal, carried no flaming torch that students or faculty members wanted to follow. Because whatever agenda he had was advanced so ineffectively and unconvincingly, Summers will be remembered as a weak president, not a strong one."

"The reality is that the ideas summers offered did not meet the Harvard standards. He expressed his "controversial" ideas as one-liners in brief talks, not in essays in which ideas struggled against contrary ideas. There was in his presidency a striking absence of the balanced, thoughtful, and informed analysis that characterizes the academy at its best."

"Lawrence Summers's principal failing was not that he was too strong or too uncongenial, but that the wisdom, knowledge, and judgment he lent to faculty affairs were too feeble…his intellectual contributions as president failed to meet Harvard's high standards and to bring honor to the institution."

Ouch.

But seriously, this is an angle that has gone totally unreported because most pundits think his downfall was due either to the fact that he was an un-pc politician or the notion that he was a brilliant guy done in by the power-hungry leftist faculty ($).

As a member of Harvard class of 2005, the first class to have Summers as president for all four years, I have to admit that Lewis' points feel surprisingly true. Like most other folks, I don't really know what went on between Summers and the faculty, but there was never a time when I thought, gee, that Larry cat's one inspirational leader. As Lewis points out, most of the big ideas attributed to Summers (expansion into Alston, curricular review, raising financial aid support for poor students) were conceived before he came and often suffered from chronic and debilitating mismanagement in how they were brought to life.

So why does this matter to the vast, vast, vast majority of people who don't go to Harvard? Harry Lewis would be glad that you asked. After all, his book is not about Larry Summers; it is about the way that higher education is becoming less interested in the business of educating and more interested in the business of business. Harvard is a brand, and Larry Summers was its rock star icon: the product of this culture, not the cause of it.

Lewis' says, "Universities did not create the consumer culture, but they have been overtaken by it. What universities have not done is to resist societal forces where resistance would be right and proper." Lewis' note to university leaders across the country: Don't forget that all the fundraising, glad-handing, politicking, and sound bite manufacturing is for a larger purpose, and that larger purpose has a lot to do with good ideas – something Larry Summers apparently didn't have that many of. What institutions need "more than anything" Lewis argues, "are ideas and idealism, and those have to be articulated from the top."

- Posted by Ethan Gray