Summers was quieter about his priorities for the Law School as he picked Elena Kagan to be its new head, but in his choice signalled that the school needs to seriously consider—as she has—the prospect of a move to Allston.

As Summers considers the College the heart of the University, he has been far more involved in FAS than other schools and articulated many of his priorities from the time of his arrival. Still, Summers used the appointment of Kirby to once again insist on the need for the College to revitalize itself.

On a more concrete level, Summers lists the creation of a heavily touted program to improve graduate student financial aid as among his successes of the year.

Summers will use $14 million in central administration funds to pay for fellowships primarily aimed at encouraging public service, in doing so fulfilling one of his installation speech pledges.

Though Summers communicated with deans to determine how each school would use its new aid money, the creation of the plan mainly required Summers’ prerogative and finances—not school-wide consensus or faculty support.

The plan bears Summers’ imprint—and title: the roughly 70 Presidential Scholars received his congratulations this spring.

Meanwhile, a more authoritative style than his predecessors has allowed Summers to make progress on the perennial goal of dealing with the fierce independence of the University’s autonomous schools.

In what would seem a relatively minor move, Summers implemented a change to fundraising policy that will encourage the University’s wealthiest alums to donate to priorities determined by the president. But the alteration to the so-called “class credit” system—which determines whether a given gift counts toward the total donation pool of a reunion class—was one proposed and beaten down in previous administrations. Schools with wealthier alums objected to the idea of sharing them with other parts of the University.

In pushing through an expansion of credit to “presidential priorities” he both brought the University closer together and increased his own power.

Summers cites as an accomplishment another unilateral move—the introduction of a new system of junior faculty appointment reviews by University Provost Steven E. Hyman—that will give the central administration a check on the academic direction of each school.

At the Kennedy School of Government, where the hiring of junior faculty was previously reported only to the Harvard Corporation, such appointments will now go through the Provost’s Office, Kennedy School Academic Dean Stephen Walt said.

Walt said he was unsure of the reasoning behind the shift.

“This was a decision taken between the Corporation and Massachusetts Hall,” Walt said. “The precise reason behind it, you’d have to ask them.”

Hyman said his new role in appointment reviews will depend on the school, but he will have the final approval for all junior appointments. The change allows him to “gather information on larger patterns, priorities, and challenges in faculty appointments,” he wrote in an e-mail.

These developments coming out of Mass. Hall are the successes of Summers’ direct style. But they also set Summers up for the future, putting in place mechanisms for further centralized and authoritative decision-making. He’ll have the money—next year will see a 10.4 percent jump in funding for the president and provost offices, and if it is successful, the class credit change will funnel more money his way. And his people are already in place—he has appointed a full one-third of the top deans in only two years and will have a close friend, rather than the rivaling strongman Lewis, in place as Dean of the College.