“Like many half-time jobs it ends up being more than half-time, but that’s out of my own interest,” Rudenstine says.

Rudenstine says that many of the skills he uses in his work at ARTstor are skills he honed as a university administrator—particularly institution-building within the framework of teaching, learning and research.

“There’s hardly a week that goes by when some sort of a policy issue doesn’t have to be sorted through,” he says. “When you’re inventing an institution every step matters. You’ll make some mistakes, but if you make too many mistakes you’ll end up in a place where you don’t want to go.”

The Mellon Foundation is familiar territory for Rudenstine, who served as its executive vice president for three years before he was tapped for Harvard’s top job.

Not everything Rudenstine does at ARTstor, however, is old hat.

“Starting up an institution is new for me; every other institution I’ve been involved with has always been a formed institution, so yes, there were always new things to do, but it wasn’t as if everything was riding on what you did…Here there’s only one program, one institution, one mission.”

But after years of dealing with university bureaucracies, that can be refreshing.

“I can just literally walk down the hall and talk to anybody I want to talk to and they can do the same. And that’s the whole institution. I don’t even have to go into another building,” he says.

When Rudenstine announced that he would be heading to ARTstor at the end of his Harvard tenure, many were surprised to see him take on a venture so closely entwined with technology. After all, Rudenstine didn’t even have a computer in his Mass. Hall office. He was known for his hand-written thank-you notes; he left e-mail and typing to his assistants.

In his new office, however, Rudenstine has managed to cross the digital divide. A PC—turned off—sits on his desk amidst piles of papers and books.

“Don’t ask me how often I use it,” he laughs, noting that he still has his e-mails printed out for him every morning and relies on his assistant for most of his computing needs.

Though his personal use of technology is limited, Rudenstine says he has grown to appreciate it.

“I’ve had to learn conceptually a lot more about technology, and conceptually I’m interested in it,” he says. “From a practical point of view, it’s not anything I do, and I wouldn’t pretend to be able to get down to the level of thinking out how this program should be designed or should work.”

From Crimson to Orange

Though his work at the Mellon Foundation is largely administrative, Rudenstine has not left the classroom behind.