Even at Harvard, in fact, many say diversity has been the subject of more rhetoric than real action.

"No one would say the University is anywhere near where it needs to be" in the realm of tenuring female faculty, says Renee M. Landers '77, former president of the Board of Overseers and a strong Rudenstine advocate. "The numbers of senior women in the faculty are not much better than when I graduated."

Rudenstine's Role

Morton Keller, a professor of history at Brandeis University who is currently writing a history of Harvard, says Rudenstine's weakness is simply part of a cycle in the 20th century Harvard presidency.

Presidents come in pairs, he says. The first is an innovator, changing the mission and modus operandi of the University, the second making those plans possible.

For example, James B. Conant '14, who was a Crimson editor, sought to make Harvard more open and meritocratic during his presidency and attempted to change the University from a playground for Boston Brahmins to a more serious academic institution.

But his vision could not be realized until his successor, Nathan M. Pusey '28, could raise money and bring the affluence to Harvard that Conant's vision required.

Bok imagined the "worldly university," Keller says, but he was not a successful fundraiser.

It was Bok who began the internationalization that Rudenstine is now involved with. It was Bok who created the University vice presidencies that gave Harvard a real, centralized bureaucracy. It was Bok who inaugurated the first "interfaculty initiative," Harvard's program on ethics in the professions.

"If pressed, I think we can say that [Rudenstine] has gone far to raise money and increase the infrastructure that Derek Bok envisioned of the worldly institution," Keller says.

Fundraising, not ideas, has been Rudenstine's greatest achievement for Harvard. The capital campaign's unimagined success is "75 percent" Rudenstine's doing, says Vice President for Finance Elizabeth C. "Beppie" Huidekoper. The powers that be are pleased--according to Daniel, Rudenstine has been "very effective" as a fundraiser.

And so, some say, instead of truly unifying the University, Rudenstine chose a different path to make his mark.

"His only notable success has been the campaign," Keller says. "But the economy has been so damn good anyway..."

What might be seen as "passivity," the former official says, "is just limited objectives. The main one is to raise a lot of money."

But some say that Rudenstine's time in officehas called for exactly his kind of presidency.Frankfurter Professor of Law Alan M. Dershowitz, astauch Rudenstine supporter, describes the 1990sas "a quiet season" that calls for a quiet leader.

"I feel confident with him as the presidentthat nothing really wrong will happen," Dershowitzsays. "He hasn't been somebody who has shaken therafters but that's not a bad role to play."