The central administration has hired the consulting group McKinsey and Co. to advise Summers and Hyman on how to best restructure the position.

“The central administration is really too small,” Hyman says. “We really want advice as to how best to approach certain complex tasks effectively but without getting bloated.”

The provost’s office is still reviewing the report, according to Hyman’s assistant.

SECOND IN COMMAND

Despite his professed preference for the quiet life, Hyman may be forced into the spotlight soon as the development of science in Allston gains momentum.

Summers has made interdisciplinary science one of the top priorities of his tenure, but his non-science background means that Hyman spends a lot of his time implementing the details of the team’s vision.

“I’m a scientist, and Larry set out to find someone with complimentary academic interests,” Hyman said in an interview in his tidy office last November, reclining in an armchair with one foot on the glass table in front of him, his cell phone on one hip and a PDA on the other. Pictures of his three children decorate his bookshelf.

Greg P. Gasic, an instructor at HMS and editor of the scientific journal Neuron, to which Hyman has been a contributor, calls the Summers-Hyman relationship “synergistic.”

Hyman “puts the flesh on Summers’ vision because Steve is closer to the natural sciences,” Gasic says.

“I do spend more time with scientists,” Hyman says. “In terms of schools, I certainly spend more time with the Medical School and the School of Public Health than Larry. He spends more time with the Business School and the Law School.”

Hyman chairs the Allston Science and Technology task force, which will determine what science projects and departments will move to Allston.

Like Summers, Hyman believes that the future of science will be the “very substantial breakdown in the insularity of departments.”

“The most time is still spent at this point on vision, where are we going, what are our priorities, how do we galvanize the faculty,” Hyman says of Allston planning. “At the same time, if we don’t focus on the mechanics of how this is going to work, we’re going to really disappoint our faculty and our students.”

His science background has also helped Hyman with one of the first major changes he made as provost—overhauling the structure of the University’s mental health and counseling services.

The Bureau of Study Council and University Health Services (UHS) Mental Health Services were consolidated under one roof, following the recommendation of the Student Mental Health Task Force that Hyman convened along with Dean of the College Benedict H. Gross ’71.