But Summers said that none of these four proposals constitutes a “silver bullet” that will end the underrepresentation of women among tenured faculty.

While the crowd quizzed Summers on an array of issues, the president conducted an informal poll at last night’s forum to identify students’ primary concerns.

A chorus of Matherites complained about the poor quality of academic advising and a lack of interaction between students and tenured professors.

When Summers asked the crowd whether “two senior faculty know you well,” barely a quarter of students raised their hands.

“There are a surprising number of students who would like to have more contact with senior faculty—and a surprising number of senior faculty who would like to have more contact with students,” Summers observed.

After the hour-long conversation, students praised Summers’ openness.

“I think he was receptive to student concerns,” said Rita Parai ’07. H. Francis Song ’06 added that Summers “showed more sensitivity to students’ needs than I expected.”

“I thought his answers were very stock,” said Alison C. Damaskos ’06. “But it still took a lot of courage for him to come out here tonight.”

Summers asked Crimson reporters during last night’s public forum if his remarks could be kept off the record. When The Crimson refused, Summers appealed to the Mather crowd, which responded with raucous cries of “off the record!”

But Summers later told the audience, “I can appreciate the logic of The Crimson’s position, and I don’t think that I’ve changed a lot that I would have said because of what they’ve decided to report.”

—Staff writer Daniel J. Hemel can be reached at hemel@fas.harvard.edu.