Students Hail Harvard President
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — If Harvard University President Lawrence H. Summers was worried about how the undergraduates would greet him Wednesday night at his first scheduled event since announcing his resignation, those fears quickly were put to rest.
He got a standing ovation after he walked in. He got a standing ovation before he left. A row of students with red letters painted on their chests spelled out "Larry."
Sarah Bahan, 22, was wistful as she left the meeting. She had kind words to say about Summers' emphasis on hard sciences.
Mark Hoadley, 21, said Summers' monotone speaking style was balanced by a "dynamic mind."
Troy Kollmer, 21, said "a lot of students feel bad for him and think he got a raw deal."
The show of student loyalty has come as a surprise to many faculty members and administrators at Harvard, who grew to loathe Summers during a five-year tenure that brought a raw blast of politics to the 370-year-old institution.
In the past, it had been Harvard's students who forced change. In the spring of 1969, amid unrest over the Vietnam War, students angered by a campus ROTC program raided University Hall and threatened to burn the card catalog at Widener Library. The turmoil hastened the resignation of then-president Nathan Pusey, a classics scholar who had little patience for such activism.
This time, students held back while the faculty fumed. Undergraduates were well-insulated from the tempestuous management issues between Summers and top administrators; and Summers had endeared himself to students by showing up at early morning rugby matches and by gamely boogieing at school dances.
But somewhere in the controversy surrounding Summers is evidence of a change in campus politics, one professor said: These days, it is not unusual for students to be to the political right of their professors.
"This is a sort of 'I'm-not-a-feminist-but' generation," said J. Lorand Matory, a professor of anthropology and of African and African American studies. "I don't know if the word is 'conservative' as much as 'careerist.' "
The move to oust Summers began in earnest last year after he gave a speech that questioned whether "issues of intrinsic aptitude" explained the shortage of female professors in Harvard's math and science departments.
Already, he had angered many African American faculty members by confronting the scholar Cornel West, who then left Harvard for Princeton. Some deans and top administrators followed.
