One senior faculty member said Summers’ charge in the convocation speech is having little impact at the Divinity School.

“I’ve never heard anyone here on the faculty discuss it,” the faculty member says.

HDS Dean of Academic Affairs David C. Lamberth—who is largely responsible for overseeing the curricular review—says Summers has allowed the Divinity School to handle its own review, as promised in his speech.

“He’s not a micromanager,” Lamberth says.

But to some extent, by reinforcing the faculty’s deliberations with his own charge, many professors say Summers has invigorated debate at the school. As a result, Summers’ formulation of the school’s challenges has crept into Graham’s approach, some say.

“An acute listener to the deanspeak would hear Summers’ voice here and there,” says David D. Hall, Bartlett professor of New England church history. “I think we assume we’re hearing the voice of the president, but what that means we don’t know.”

And Summers agrees, insisting that while he has a larger vision for the school, he has let Graham work out the details.

“He and I share in the broadest terms a common vision,” Summers says. “But the real work of making that concrete is Dean Graham’s.”

New Commandments?

Graham began the current curricular review last May, when he was serving as the school’s acting dean. The need for a review was so compelling, he said last August, that he proceeded despite his potentially temporary presence in the Divinity School’s top job.

But the review did not begin in earnest until Graham’s official appointment in August. And HDS professors and administrators note that it has been difficult to accomplish anything at a school that has seen three deans in four years.

“The absence of leadership in recent years has put an awful lot of work on hold,” says Ralph Keen, a Divinity School professor. “In creating a vision for the school, you kind of need to be 100 percent dean to have that kind of power.”

Graham convened three committees to evaluate the master of theological studies (M.T.S.), master in divinity (M.Div.) and master of theology (Th.M.) degrees.

The committees presented draft reports nearly three weeks ago recommending reforms in the curriculum of each of the three degrees.

They expressed ambivalence about the role of the Th.M. degree.