"It seems as though we were being treated moreand more as employees of a business than membersof a community," McKay Professor of ComputerScience Barbara J. Grosz said last fall.
Mallinckrodt Professor of Applied Physics andProfessor of Physics William Paul, who has been onthe Harvard faculty for four decades, told TheCrimson in November that he has noticed adisturbing trend to exclude faculty fromhigh-level decision making.
"You have to understand what consulting is allabout. If you don't tell them what you propose,you're not really consulting," Paul said at thetime. "It is quite clearly a change from thepast."
But faculty members have not yet expressedcriticism towards the University's appointment.
Most interviewed say that they have yet to meetHoughton, adding that they haven't thought aboutthe possible effects of the new imbalance betweenbusiness executives and academics on the dynamicsof the Corporation and its ultimate impact on theUniversity.
Others say that this fall's outcry over benefitcuts should not have been the major factor in theappointment of a new Corporation member.
"I wouldn't have thought it would be prudent tobase a change on that incident in particular,"said Gund Professor of Economics and of BusinessAdministration Richard E. Caves, who co-authoredthe FAS investigation on Harvard's benefits reviewtask-force.
Indeed, at least one professor says that theloss of an academic voice might not produce anegative impact--so long as FAS succeeds inconvincing the Corporation to rescind benefitsreductions.
"We'll have to wait and see whether theCorporation is sympathetic to the present benefitstask force," Paul says. "We'll have to see whatthat reaction is. I think the thing to look outfor is that now that the FAS committee [has madeits] report, what is the reaction of the powersthat be that report. That will be the test."
An Historical Lack of Academics
Though many would like to see one of their ownon the committee, academics have historically beenthe exception rather than the rule on theCorporation.
Slichter was one of two academics appointed tothe Corporation in the late 1960s, Rosovsky says.
As the first two outside academics appointed tothe board in decades, they were named to deal withthe problems sweeping across college campuses atthe time, Rosovsky says.
"It was a time of turmoil, Rosovsky has said."The idea was to put people on the Corporation whoknew how universities function from the inside."
Caves likewise notes that academics have beenthe exception rather than the rule, and says thatit's too early to pinpoint any movement away fromacademics.
"It's difficult to see that as a trend," Cavessays. "In the past...there hadn't been academicson the Corporation."
"It better be a business or it'll go broke witha budget over $1 billion every year," Hesburghsays in response to faculty complaints about theCorporation's corporate make-up. "Trying tobalance the budget is pretty important at both auniversity and in a business."