Phelan has lived in New York throughout her time at Harvard, and her attendence at the Carpenter Center was erratic. When she was not teaching in the fall, she was absent for several days at a time.

A staff member said Phelan’s absenteeism also prevented her from even seeing much of what staff called her colleagues’ unruly behavior and made it impossible for her to discipline them.

Phelan says that her position at Harvard “was sold to me as this three days-two nights commuting thing,” but that as time went on, the frequency of her commutes decreased dramatically.

“She didn’t make it a secret she didn’t want to be here,” said Wells, her assistant. “She was never here, and what she knew was just what people bothered to call her and tell her about. You can’t solve problems on the phone all the time.”

Catch-22

According to VES Events and Publications Coordinator Melissa W. Davenport, the new staff expressed their concerns about the work environment at length to Foster, hired last summer, who relayed the concerns to Phelan.

Foster says she told Personnel that she planned to quit if the department’s atmosphere did not improve, and according to Wells, Davenport, Lawrence, Wells and manager of finances Laurie Snow met with Ervin and Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs Elizabeth Doherty at the Sumner Road office of FAS Personnel in January to voice their complaints.

Two weeks later, the same staff met with Doherty again in University Hall. There, Wells said, Doherty asked them if they were willing to express their concerns as formal written complaints that would require University investigation if Knowles saw fit to request them. All agreed, and Foster urged staff members to keep their concerns confidential.

The next the staff heard of the matter, Phelan was gone. After meeting with her on March 15, Knowles removed her without consulting the staff or the department faculty, and made no public statement. And ten days later, according to President-elect of Harvard’s Board of Overseers Richard E. Oldenburg ‘54, Knowles cancelled the department’s visiting committee, which was scheduled to do an external review of the department.

The faculty were shocked. In an April 4 meeting requested by Hooker Professor of Visual Arts Alfred F. Guzzetti, Knowles described to the VES permanent faculty the general tenor of the complaints but refused to give them specific examples of misconduct.

According to Guzzetti, Knowles said the staff’s right to confidentiality prevented him from either identifying the source of the complaints or discussing individual incidents.

The day after the meeting, Killip says he asked Knowles on behalf of the VES faculty asking him to formalize the charges so that they could be investigated before Phelan was forcibly removed.

Knowles referred Killip to General Counsel Anne Taylor, who told him there was no requirement that the complaints be written and investigated, and that there was no reason the staff should come forward if they did not wish to.

Because, according to FAS policy, chairs serve at the pleasure of the Dean, Knowles was not required to articulate any reasons for Phelan’s removal. As Taylor explained to Killip, he certainly didn’t have to launch a formal investigation or identify the anonymous sources of information to justify what she called an “administrative adjustment.”

Taylor says she warned Killip that if he were to ask the staff about their concerns, he might put himself at legal risk.