Twenty-five years after he left Cambridge in cap and gown, Vice President for Government, Community and Public Affairs James H. Rowe III '73 will announce his resignation next week and leave Harvard later this summer, sources confirmed yesterday.
The move has been anticipated in Mass. Hall for at least a month. Rowe declined comment yesterday, but sources said he is headed for a private-sector job in Washington, D.C. Rowe worked in government and media inside the Beltway before coming to Harvard in 1994.
Rowe is the sixth vice president to resign during Rudenstine's tenure. Harvard will likely launch an extensive and lengthy search for his replacement starting this summer.
Rowe succeeded John Shattuck, now U.S. assistant secretary of state, as the head of Harvard's lobbying and public relations arm three years into Rudenstine's tenure.
Rowe had a trying first year at Harvard, dealing with onslaughts of media attention triggered by the Dunster House murder-suicide, the reversal of Gina Grant's admission to the College and Rudenstine's sudden leave of absence for exhaustion.
"There simply isn't a playbook" for turbulent months like those," says Terry W. Hartle, senior vice president of the American Council on Education (ACE), a Washington lobbyist who has worked extensively with Rowe over the past four years. He cites Rowe's "strong set of nerves...and not a little bit of humor" as keys to Rowe's survival and success.
In addition to dealing with controversy on campus, Rowe has taken a central role in Harvard's lobbying activities on Capitol Hill.
Rowe has adjusted well to Rudenstine's preferred method of lobbying. Though past presidents have used Harvard's name as a bully pulpit to publicly call for change, Rudenstine and Rowe have been more likely to work behind the scenes and within coalitions like the ACE.
In an interview last month, Rowe said one of his proudest accomplishments at Harvard has been the founding of the Science Coalition, an alliance of universities aimed at increasing funding for basic science research.
"He stimulated desire to increase spending," Hartle said of Rowe.
Other focuses of Rowe's lobbying efforts have included diversity in college admissions, greater federal aid to students and changes in intellectual-property laws.
Another product of Rowe's tenure has been the growth of the University's official weekly, the Harvard Gazette, which in the past four years has become "the best publication of its kind," Rowe said in a recent interview.
Before coming to Harvard, Rowe served as vice president of the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), managing their corporate office in Washington.
Before working at NBC, Rowe served as general counsel to several Congressional committees, partner in a Washington law firm and President Jimmy Carter's Chair of The only son of James H. Rowe Jr. '31--anoriginal member of the New Deal Brain Trust underPresident Franklin D. Roosevelt '04--Rowe was bornand raised in Washington. Rowe married Yale graduate Lisa Adams in 1981and has two children, Lucia and Christopher.Anticipating Rowe's return to Washington, Adamsand their children moved back earlier this year sothat she could launch her own interior designfirm
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