It is fashionable to associate elected officials with mandates, a term that refers to tasks charged to that official by those who did the electing. Ironically, it’s a term that has also been applied to Harvard presidents (who are hardly elected in the democratic sense). Mandates, either dictated by the circumstances of the times or decreed by the all-powerful Corporation, have significantly shaped the tenures of past presidents of this University.

Ten years ago, with the Faculty of Arts and Sciences running an operating deficit, the Corporation wanted a fundraiser. And so, the capital campaign became the chief duty of President Neil L. Rudenstine. Derek C. Bok, Rudenstine’s predecessor, was charged at the outset with healing a wounded campus fragmented by the turbulent protest years of 1968-69. And with the selection of Nathan M. Pusey ’28 in 1953, Harvard consciously sought a president who would spend less time in the national spotlight, while defending the University from McCarthy-era attacks.

For President-elect Lawrence H. Summers, the mandate is clear: Reinvigorate undergraduate education. According to most reports, Harvard’s presidential search committee, in evaluating candidates for the post, placed undergraduate education as a top priority. And Summers has been outspoken about his commitment toward undergrads. For example, one prominent item on the new president’s agenda is an ambitious plan to hire more than 200 new faculty members. Moreover, with the University sitting atop a lavish $19 billion endowment, a shift in presidential duties from fundraising to education seems both logical and likely.

So far, this has all been well accepted. After all, a commitment to improving undergraduate education is usually popular with most alumni (who view the College as the darling child of the University), Faculty (who can regard the president more like a fellow educator than a distant administrator) and students (who are happy anytime someone throws a bone their way).

But mandates, while clear conveyers of goals, are hazy indicators of implementation. What is the best way to improve undergraduate education? The prevailing sentiment assumes the answer lies with structural reforms: Hire more Faculty, increase the number of freshman seminars, improve concentration advising, provide more research opportunities, loosen course requirements, revamp the Core, hire teaching fellows who can speak English, et cetera.

On the whole, these are good, if obvious, ways of improving the quality of undergraduate education. But what has gone largely unnoticed is the extent to which undergraduate education depends on the attitude that undergraduates take to their own education—namely, positive or negative.

A positive attitude toward education is the stuff that Admissions Office publications idealize. It is found in the student who sits in the front row of lecture hall, does all the assigned reading and attends office hours regularly. But more than being a hard-worker, this is a student who seeks knowledge because learning is a source of exhilaration and deep satisfaction. This attitude is the product of mind that is open and skeptical, analytical and creative, tireless and insatiable.

The negative attitude is the dark underbelly of academic life. It is sometimes a cynical attitude, taking the viewpoint that courses at Harvard constitute nothing more than a “system to beat,” leading to formulaic essays and other conscious efforts to give graders “what they want.”