Students already have a variety of resolution processes open to them and will be first directed to the proper resources within their schools, he said.
The question of whether Ehrenreich will become involved in tenure is a delicate one, he said, and his involvement would not go beyond “procedural issues.”
But at Harvard, where the tenure system is more secretive than at most universities, involvement in even procedural conflicts would be a major step.
Peter Berkowitz, a former assistant professor of government, sued Harvard alleging procedural improprieties in the denial of his tenure in 1997. The case remains unresolved.
Both Hyman and Ehrenreich cite conflicts over authorship of academic papers as an issue well suited to the new ombuds office’s purview. Conflicts often arise, they said, when contributors who are part of large working groups on a scientific project are left off the credits for a paper. After the Medical School ombudsperson noticed this problem several years ago, the school adopted specific policies in this area.
Ehrenreich said he anticipates tackling similar issues on a University-wide basis.
And on the issue of access to records and other information, Ehrenreich said that while he hasn’t discussed the question with administrators, he assumes it won’t be a problem.
“I would imagine that anything that I needed to know in relation to a particular case would be made available to me,” he said.
Ehrenreich said that since he has no previous experience in conflict mediation it will take time to establish the office’s operational scope.
He hopes to have the professional mediator hired and the office open by sometime this spring.
While the ombuds position would turn over from time to time, the professional staffer would serve for a number of years and develop “institutional memory about how discipline and disputes are handled at the University,” he said.
To the staffer’s expertise, Ehrenreich said he would add his own clout and connections as a faculty member.
“By being a faculty member, it gives the office a kind of prestige within the University,” he said. “I can call a faculty member just to try to get the other side of the story.”
Ehrenreich, a physicist in the Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences, jokes that he understands the Faculty of Arts and Sciences—“his solar system”—but is now being asked to understand a whole other galaxy: the full University.
A graduate of Cornell University, Ehrenreich has been a faculty member since 1963, when he became McKay professor of physics. He gave up teaching duties two years ago but remains active as a research professor doing work on the theory of condensed matter.
Ehrenreich served for a decade on the Core Curriculum steering committee and chaired the science subsection for three years.
“The University has been good to me,” he said, “and I’m trying to do my best for the University.”
—Staff writer David H. Gellis can be reached at gellis@fas.harvard.edu.