FROM PR TO POLICY
While policies directly affecting undergraduates generally fall to College administrators in University Hall, Summers has spearheaded several initiatives and enacted changes that directly effect Harvard College.
In February 2004, Summers unveiled a financial aid initiative that eliminated the family contribution portion of aid packages for families making under $40,000 a year and dramatically reduced the contribution for families making between $40,000 and $60,000 a year.
This year, Summers played a more direct role in undergraduate education, sitting as an ex-officio member of the General Education Committee for the ongoing Harvard College Curricular Review, though he said in May that he would cease formal involvement in the Curricular Review.
But not all of Summers’ decisions have earned him student support.
Four months after Summers was installed and 10 months after students occupied Mass. Hall as part of the Living Wage campaign under Rudenstine’s tenure, Summers announced a new official interpretation of the University’s policy on acceptable forms of student protest.
Summers promised stricter and more uniform punishment for students who occupy University buildings in protest, calling for mandatory suspension of any student involved in such a protest.
Some students have pointed to Summers’ hard-line stance on sit-ins and ROTC as evidence of a top-down, corporate leadership style.
But Summers’ penchant for random instances of student interaction have only added to the love-hate relationship students seem to have with students. Following his appearance at a Currier House study break this spring, Summers took time to bat a wiffleball with the undergraduates present, while still wearing his suit.
And in what has become a freshman year tradition, Summers broke out into dance at a freshman study break in Annenberg in January 2003.
But after that fateful first shimmy, Summers made it apparent that his dance was not just pleasure, but business, too.
“Let me be very clear. There was no individual student with whom I danced for more than 15 seconds,” Summers told The Crimson in 2003. “I danced with groups of students several times.”
—Staff writer Joshua P. Rogers can be reached at jprogers@fas.harvard.edu.