Robert E. Rubin ’60, a Corporation member appointed one year into Summers’ presidency, preceded Summers at the Treasury. Robert D. Reischauer ’63, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office, has been a Corporation member since 2003.

THE GROWING BUREAUCRACY

The number of administrative functions now centered at Mass. Hall has increased under Summers, prompting questions of whether increased bureaucratization is further dividing the administration from the faculty.

He has overseen the consolidation of the University’s administrative activities in areas ranging from the enforcement of research policies to media relations.

Summers was the first president in Harvard’s history to appoint a personal spokesperson, and under his tenure, the University has exercised much more vigilance over its public relations.

“The old patriarchal Harvard where all the faculty talked directly to the President, or in the 1980s when the faculty talked directly to the dean, has been replaced by more of a bureaucratic situation where there are many levels of deans and now soon to be provostial levels” between the faculty and the administration, Comparative Literature Department Chair William Mills Todd III says.

At the recommendation of the Task Force on Women Faculty, a senior vice-provost position has been created and will be filled next year. Two additional vice-provosts—in the areas of international affairs and research policy—have also been created on the recommendation of another McKinsey & Co. study that analyzed Mass. Hall’s activities.

The other positions also represent a consolidation of activities formerly done at the tub level. The internationalization of Harvard, in particular, has long been a Summers priority, shifting power from schools—especially from Jane Edwards, the director of the Office of International Programs at the College—to the central administration.

HAVES AND HAVE-NOTS

The question of whether centralization under Summers has been beneficial to the University depends on who you ask, according to university governance and management experts.

Richard P. Chait, professor of higher education at the Graduate School of Education (GSE) and an expert on the politics of university structure and governance, says that it’s not clear that the “have-not” schools—which he defines as SPH, GSE, and the Divinity School—have been well-served by decentralization.

“What [decentralization] does is allow the rich to get richer. It’s just a trade off. What you’re hearing is from people who would draw the line at a different place,” Chait says.

“The presidency that Summers inherited is a somewhat limited position,” Lorsch says. “You can understand the frustration of being president when you don’t have very much control.”

But Lorsch also says that Summers’ style of centralization threatens to displace faculty’s role in decision-making, which is detrimental to the University as a whole.

“Certainly you can try to lead from the center, but it’s also how you do that,” Lorsch said. “President Summers really has been very abrasive to some people. Perhaps someone else could have done this in a different way, which is sad, because he has great ideas. But you can’t jam things down people’s throats.”