He acquired the skills of modern university administration: raising money, recruiting faculty, creating new programs, interacting with lawmakers and listening to students while rarely conceding to activists' demands.
Since 1987, Rudenstine has been biding his time as executive director of the Mellon Foundation, and in the process gaining more experience with finance and government relations.
Becoming president of a university was the natural next step for Rudenstine, who had passed his apprenticeship in dramatic fashion.
The search committee's affinity for Rudenstine's background was no fluke. The man who may very well have been its second choice fit this professional mold as well. Gerhard Casper became dean of the University of Chicago Law School in 1979 at 41 before becoming provost there.
At one time criticism of Casper pointed to the relative weakness of his scholarly record--informed sources say that it probably would not merit tenure at Harvard Law School. But in the face of Casper's administrative experience, his lack of academic weight did not stop him from reaching the search's final stages.
Two candidates who fit the mold of many past Harvard presidents, Medical School geneticist Philip Leder '56 and Harvard chemist Jeremy R. Knowles, were each knocked out for the same reason--lack of administrative experience.
THE PROFESSIONALIZATION of the Harvard presidency is full of pitfalls and possibilities. On the positive side, it means efficient governance, sound finances and a strong faculty.
But the trend brings with it dangers as well. Immersion in well-tested, routinized administrative practices can make for inertia as well as efficiency. Layers and layers of bureacracy are inserted between the University's leadership and those it should be serving--namely students and faculty.
And the replacement of individualized, informal governance by professional administration makes it easy for those in power to avoid taking personal responsibility when they mess up. This trend is already apparent.
The University, whether cutting its ties with a for-profit financial aid overlap firm run by admissions officers or ending a massive police detail protecting a Saudi prince, will only admit to the "apearance" of misdoings--never to actual impropriety or conflict of interest.
. . . None other than a professional manager could have been picked to run it.
The initial reports about Rudenstine are cause for encouragement. He has said that he will work hard to gain student and faculty input into decisions and may even teach a first-year seminar as a way of keeping in touch with undergraduate education.
Only through such a directed, conscious effort can Rudenstine keep the presidency from becoming a highly efficient, highly distant office.
Joseph R. Palmore '91 was managing editor of The Crimson last year.