To the members of the Presidential Search Committee:

In February 1978, one of the worst Nor’easters on record struck New England, paralyzing all of Boston under several feet of snow and shutting down Harvard. Then-president Derek C. Bok was asked why he didn’t close the University as soon as the storm hit. According to Plummer Professor of Christian Morals Rev. Peter J. Gomes, Bok replied, “I tried to, but I didn’t know how.”

The Search for a President an editorial series

Such is one sign of a successful university: its institutional inertia has developed so completely that even its leader is utterly incapable of stopping its usual routine. If the Blizzard of 1978 is any indication, Harvard can essentially operate without any overarching guidance or direction. But merely allowing a university to trudge forward under its own power endangers the university’s long-term aims; mere repetition of the daily slog does not constitute a march forward.

And it is the president alone who has the power to ensure that the latter does not slow to the former.

At this moment in Harvard’s history, that danger is a very real possibility. In his short tenure as president, Lawrence H. Summers presented an audacious vision for the future of the University. While he had the passion to execute his plans, he had neither the tact nor the time to succeed. We worry that the University will quickly return to the stagnation that marked the years before his tenure as president.

We wish to articulate the exact challenges that Harvard’s next president must address. In a series of editorials, under the banner of “The Search for a President,” we will focus—as we believe you should—on the concrete issues that the next president will have to address.

Most broadly, Harvard’s march is slowing because it is failing to leverage its vast resources in two ways. While both of these seem to be obvious goals, the history of Harvard shows that neither of them can be pursued without significant internal opposition. First, Harvard must continue to improve the undergraduate experience. Second, Harvard must look for ways to bridge the talents and resources across schools, divisions, and departments in order to achieve a greater social good.

Student satisfaction surveys that show Harvard undergraduates are generally unhappy with several aspects of their experience, and these surveys should not be taken lightly. The changes of the last few years—improved peer advising systems, new social spaces, and a more student-focused College administration—have only begun to bring the College up to speed with its competitors. Current students find themselves trapped within a dying core curriculum, with no clear guidance of how to navigate the changes currently underway. There is still no student center. Undergraduate advising leaves much to be desired. And, perhaps most importantly, a large number of undergraduate courses continue to harbor sub-par instructors, and faculty-student contact is worse than it was 20 years ago. It is imperative, therefore, that you choose a president who will continue much-needed advocacy on behalf of undergraduate interests.

But the initiatives that have begun to address these shortcomings haven’t been cheap—and more will be needed to make further progress. Harvard’s president must compel the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) to spend its precious dollars on priorities that the Faculty itself might not share. (In addition, the president must be willing to spend his or her own discretionary funding on undergraduates, as Summers did on several occasions.) Conversely, FAS’ bleak financial outlook must not justify an attempt to cut existing programs, let alone hamper new ones—and the president alone has the ability to ensure that the Faculty is spending money on more than just faculty members.

This is not the only shortcoming of the Faculty that the next president must be willing to address. The departments of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences are marked by tribalist tendencies, hampering their willingness to collaborate with each other and with the University’s professional schools. Harvard’s research and scholarship add invaluably to the greater knowledge, skills, and decision-making of mankind, but in many cases individual departments and schools can accomplish more through interdisciplinary efforts. Already, we see some fruits of efforts to cross-pollinate the University. The Harvard Stem Cell Institute, the growing Broad Institute for genomics research, and the Harvard Initiative for Global Health have already begun to (or soon will) provide a forum for development and exchange that no pre-existing entity can provide. But finding such organizations requires convincing a broad spectrum of stakeholders that such a move is for the benefit of the whole University, and this is no easy task.

Our desire to see Harvard forge ahead as both a College and as an interdisciplinary cooperative stems not just from a wish to magnify the glory of Harvard. Sure, a university, like any other institution, has the duty to its constituents to, quite simply, be the best that it can be. But Harvard is prominently situated, in a way that few institutions are, to effect a tremendous amount of social good. The College, which attracts many of the most talented high school graduates in the world, can develop the ethical, well-informed global citizens who will lead the world through the next century. The tremendous concentration of financial and intellectual resources, spread through Harvard’s schools, uniquely enables and activates scholars in ways that other institutions cannot.

Harvard can stay on top, and staying on top is important for Harvard itself and for a greater social good. Your choice for the next president will help determine whether Harvard meets these challenges with the creativity and determination that the future will require or whether the era of our own preeminence will pass us by.