Rudenstine's predecessor, former HLS dean Derek C. Bok, was known as a headstrong and legal-minded leader and often chose to govern by decree. He used public statements and open letters to set a course for particular schools and then stood by those directions.

Rudenstine chose an entirely different way to deal with the "tubs." Administrators and alumni say an attempt to create collaboration between the different schools has been one of the defining features of his presidency, a commission spelled out by the presidential search committee that named him.

"One important ingredient that the search committee was looking for was for a president who would pull the University together," Armstrong says. Under Rudenstine, she says, "A quantum leap has been made in that regard."

In the eight years of his presidency, Rudenstine has attempted to centralize everything from the University's accounting to its international programs, and it is, in part, for these efforts, says Provost Harvey V. Fineberg '67, that Rudenstine will be remembered.

Recognizing the power of the Harvard deans, Rudenstine felt the best way to bring influence to the central administration would be to inspire collaboration among the deans. He frequently meets with all 10 of them, and this year went so far as to bring the entire group to meet with the Harvard Corporation. It had never happened before. Rudenstine did it twice this year. For the president, the deans are becoming a sort of cabinet, thinking not only about their own schools but also about the good of the entire University--at least some what.

"Now," says one University source, "if you get two or three deans in a room together, they behave themselves."

Bringing the deans together led to the first University-wide academic planning process, in which each school took a look at its future and tried to figure out how to get there. The plans were expensive and gave rise to the first-ever University capital campaign, pegged at the stupefying goal of $2.1 billion. The campaign, which has met with astonishing success, has given the deans a common goal that they have been pursuing in concert for more than five years.

The sheer amount of money Rudenstine has been able to raise stands as his other major achievement as president. With six months remaining, the University expects to exceed its goal by at least $100 million.

The campaign is not the only centralized effort to come out of Rudenstine's tenure. Project ADAPT, a $100 million overhaul of the University's bookkeeping systems, is scheduled to be completed in 2001. ADAPT will centralize accounting across the University, coordinating Harvard's financial records and setting up an on-line expense reimbursement system that the whole University will subscribe to.

Rudenstine has also pushed a series of "interfaculty initiatives," academic programs that jump from tub to tub in pulling together their faculty. The initiatives, in such areas as the environment and ethics in the professions, are run by the provost's office, which Rudenstine directly presides over, rather than by the deans.

Outside Harvard, Rudenstine has been visible on a few issues--diversity and affirmative action and funding for scientific research and student aid, primarily. Affirmative action, in particular, has been his signature song.

"He's the leader on fighting for diversity," says James H. Rowe III '73, Harvard's former vice president for government, community and public affairs. Rudenstine has given congressional testimony, lobbied lawmakers and pushed the issue even within the University, setting up a challenge fund to help departments hire "underrepresented groups."

And so Rudenstine, as any top official will testify, has not been sitting on his hands.

In the remaining years of his presidency, he says he still has three goals left to accomplish: several building projects--the Widener library renovation and the construction of the Knafel center for government and international affairs--must be finished. A planning process examining information technology and distance learning must be completed. And Rudenstine plans to coordinate post-campaign academic planning with the deans. He also wants to make sure FAS' $200 million science initiative and the merger with Radcliffe continues to go smoothly.

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