Now, the task of hiring has fallen to Summers, who discussed with Harvard’s governing Corporation during the presidential search last year the need to hire dozens of new professors in the years ahead.
“The major task ahead of Summers is faculty building, as members of this generation of faculty retire,” Gomes observes. “He has to appoint faculty responsibly for the next decade.”
To attract faculty, Summers will offer them research funds, office space and the other basic trappings of tenure. However, he will also have the so-called “H Bomb” on which to draw.
Harvard’s reputation for excellence—built up president by president over the preceding centuries—has developed into almost mythic proportions.
“People buy myths, they don’t buy facts,” Gomes says. “Harvard is a name brand recognized all over the world—it may not be the best education, but when all is said and done the myth will support you twenty years from now and you will never have to explain it.”
—Staff writer Nicole B. Usher can be reached at usher@fas.harvard.edu.