The writer is a resident scholar in architectural history in Kirkland House.
Who's In the Know?
We are told that the presidential search committee is operating in strict secrecy (News, "400 Make List For Next Univ. President," Oct. 16). Yet The Crimson in the same article refers to Provost Harvey V. Fineberg '67 as a "top contender" for Harvard's presidency, as it has in numerous articles on the search ever since it began last spring. In June, for instance, The Crimson claimed that Fineberg and Harvard Business School dean Kim B. Clark '74 "are currently considered the top contenders to succeed their outgoing boss" (News, "Filling Rudenstine's Shoes," June 8), without saying just who is doing the considering.
What university pundits have anointed this pair the front-runners? I am not suggesting that their whole candidacies are no more than your newspaper's idle speculation; but The Crimson ought to explain to its readership its reasons behind what might otherwise be considered a blas assertion--one that, while perhaps obvious to editors and reporters, is by no means so to the rest of us.
Rick DuPuy '03
Oct. 16, 2000