With the departure of Charles P. Slichter '45 as a member of Harvard's highest governing board, the University had the opportunity to define the direction to take into the next millenium.

Slichter's resignation from the Harvard Corporation, announced on November 16, was particularly significant as he was the only outside academic on the seven-member board. Many at the time expressed their hope that the University would select an academic to take Slichter's place.

As the University prepares to welcome James R. Houghton '58, named this week as the latest addition to America's oldest corporation, those faculty who harbored such hopes are surely shuddering.

Like most academics, Houghton's name has been in print and his work has been critiqued--not in the scholarly journals, however, but in corporate publications such as Business Week, due to his work as a top business executive.

As the chair and chief executive officer (CEO) of Corning, Inc., Houghton received an MBA from the Harvard Business School in 1962. In June he will become one of four members of the Corporation who hail from the corporate world.

As a member of the Corporation, Houghton will be in a position to wield immense influence over Harvard's basic operations, particularly fiscal management and policy concerns.

More powerful than its alumni-elected Board of Over- seers counterpart, the Corporation consists offive Fellows of Harvard College as well as thepresident and treasurer of the University.

Houghton's qualifications and experience in hisfield are garnering praise from top Universityofficials.

After Corning in 1964 as the European areamanager, Houghton has since worked his way upthrough the corporate ladder. He served as thevice chair of the board of directors for 12 yearsbefore becoming CEO in 1983.

In addition to his duties at Corning, Houghtonis a director of Dow Corning Corp., MetropolitanLife Insurance Company, J.P. Morgan & Co., Inc.and Exxon Corp. He also serves as a trustee of theCorning Museum of Glass, the Pierpont MorganLibrary and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

But Houghton's business experience certainlyisn't unique on the Corporation. When he assumeshis post in June, the number of businessexecutives serving on the Corporation will betwice the number of academics on the board.

And some observers regard the replacement of anacademic with a business executive--especially inthe face of raised concerns over a lack of facultyinput--as a slap in the face to members of theFaculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS).

Indeed, Houghton joins a growing cadre ofbusiness leaders on the Corporation, whichincludes University Treasurer D. Ronald Daniel, anofficer at McKinsey & Company, Inc.; Richard A.Smith '46, CEO of Harcourt General, Inc.; andRobert G. Stone Jr. '45 of the Kirby Corporation.

The lone academics on the governing board areRudenstine, who has spent most of his career as anadministrator, and Geyser University ProfessorHenry Rosovsky, a former dean of the FAS.

Judith R. Hope, a lawyer in the Washington,D.C. firm Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker,rounds out the Corporation as the fifth Fellow ofHarvard College.

Absence of Scientists