While Rudenstine’s predecessors were powerful speakers and shakers, Rudenstine was a listener—and generous with his time.

“He doesn’t work in a vacuum,” says his assistant, Beverly Sullivan.

“He’s thorough, and he’s conscientious. He’s solicitous. He really does get input. He listens to all sides,” Huidekoper says.

But Rudenstine was by no means a passive president, friends and colleagues say. He was a master of persuasion and consensus-building, a useful skill when one must juggle the often-conflicting interests of Harvard’s tubs.

“The president of Harvard cannot command people to do anything,” Gomes says.

Thompson says Rudenstine displays a “deep intelligence and broad understanding” which “has won him the respect of the faculty here who’ve come in contact with him.”

At the same time, some have criticized him for listening too long and hard, seeing his willingness to listen as an inability to act on his own.

Theodore Roosevelt, Class of 1880, is famous for saying “speak softly, but carry a big stick.” With its position at the forefront of national education, the mantra might as well be about Harvard. Historically, some of the nation’s most important education reforms have emerged from Harvard’s own bully pulpit.

James B. Conant ’14, the 23rd president of Harvard was both a leader in national education reform and an international figure, serving as the High Commissioner to Germany under U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Class of 1904, during the final year of his Harvard tenure. Rudenstine’s predecessor, Derek C. Bok, was also a prominent national figure, frequently writing op-ed pieces in national newspapers and testifying before Congress.

Rudenstine, in contrast, was generally quiet on the national front, shying away from the media and what many believed was his duty as the president of one of the foremost institutions of higher education.

Rudenstine is the first to admit that media relations are not his number one priority. Aside from regular interviews with campus journalists, he rarely interacts with the media. It’s important, he explains, to focus on his job at the University.

“Otherwise,” he says, “you really begin to substitute communications and media relations for the true business of the institution. That would be a disaster.”

According to Rudenstine, there has been a historical shift in the meaning of the bully pulpit in relation to university presidencies. Over the last 50 years, he says, the number of institutions of higher education has rapidly increased.