"[It's about being] someone whodialogues...someone who listens," says VicePresident for Finance Elizabeth C. "Beppie"Huidekoper. "[Rudenstine] is not someone to makequick judgments, and I think that's so healthy."

In an attempt to solidify his centralizingtendencies, Rudenstine has focused on tangible andobvious examples of inter-school collaboration.

These include ADAPT and the unprecedentedUniversity-wide campaign, which for the first timecentralized the demands of all the schools andcreated one fundraising apparatus to coordinateall of them.

"The culture of this place has changed," saysVice President for Alumni Affairs and DevelopmentThomas M. Reardon.

"[Rudenstine has] made the place a great dealmore interactive--before there was very littlesharing of information or ideas," he says.

Other signs of collaboration between differentschools include the Hong Kong center, a jointoperation between the Business School (HBS),Kennedy School of Government and the Faculty ofArts and Sciences; as well as inter-departmentalcentralizing efforts like the Barker Center forthe Humanities.

More curricular results of Rudenstine's"knitting the University together" includeprograms in Mind, Brain and Behavior;Environmental Science and Public Policy; and thegraduate program in Ethics and the Professions,all of which combine the resources of severaldepartments in one course of study.

"Clearly, he's the first president who's triedunifying the University," Rowe says. "That's beenreflected in academic planning, fundraising...in avariety of ways across the University."

But there are problems with this collaborativeleadership approach. All goals must be private orvery vague, so as to allow his cabinet to acceptand amend them successfully.

And the presidential authority to decree policyhas all but disappeared. Bok proposed the Corecurriculum in detail in one President's report.Now it seems that even a decision to affectFaculty hires would run into strong resistancefrom the appropriate dean.

Knowles says it would be nearly-impossible forRudenstine to make a concrete change in aparticular school without consulting and winningover the dean.

"It's not a command-and-control basedinstitution," says Provost Harvey V. Fineberg '67of Rudenstine's Harvard. "[It relies on] the powerof ideas and engagement."

Coda: The Legacy Thing

And as he approaches the post-campaign futurewithout even the appearance ofcommand-and-control, Rudenstine may also be facinga comparison with his predecessor in Mass. Hall inwhich his hidden achievements may lose out.

First, Rudenstine stands in the shadows ofpresidents like Bok, who made personal goalspublic and started the University towards aconcrete--though often unachievable--set of futuregoals.