In his three years at the helm, Dean of the College Benedict H. Gross
’71 has overseen a dramatic reorganization of the College
administration that has left one longtime professor saying, “I hardly
know anyone in University Hall nowadays.”
Nine of the 10 members of Gross’s senior staff took their
current posts after Gross took charge of Harvard’s undergraduate
branch, and at least seven senior College administrators have either
quit or been forced to leave during his tenure.
Gross, his staff, and top Harvard officials say that bringing
fresh faces into University Hall has helped reinvigorate the
College—which ranked near the bottom of a 2002 student-satisfaction
survey the year before Gross took office. But several professors and
former administrators contend that the high level of turnover has
eroded institutional memory and may be hindering cooperation between
the administration and the Faculty.
Classics Department Chair and Faculty Council member Richard
F. Thomas says he is troubled by how the administrative restructuring
might affect the undergraduate experience.
“If this pattern of departures and arrivals continues, I think
we’re going to find a college that’s very different and far inferior to
the one we had before,” Thomas said in an interview after Associate
Dean of Freshmen Rory A. W. Browne announced his decision to leave the
College last week.
Gross counters that “bringing in people from other
institutions and on the Faculty brings in a wealth of new ideas to the
College.”
“I think we have plenty of faculty and administrators who have
been around for a long time and provide institutional memory,” Gross
wrote in an e-mail.
Newly hired Associate Dean for Advising Monique Rinere echoed
that she does not think that the College risks losing institutional
memory.
“There are quite a few people in the administration who have
been here for many, many years, and they are consulted often,” she
wrote. “And the new people have a great deal of respect for the history
and traditions of the institution.”
Outgoing Dean of the Faculty William C. Kirby, who appointed
Gross, and outgoing University President Lawrence H. Summers both
support Gross’s efforts to restructure the College.
“[Gross] has searched for talent wherever it lies,” Kirby
wrote in an e-mail. “What he has set in motion in a very short period
of time will have an impact on the College for years and years to
come.”
Plummer Professor of Christian Morals Peter J. Gomes, who
teaches a class on Harvard’s history, says that he believes that
faculty members should have been consulted more widely before the
administrative overhaul was undertaken.
“It amazes me that this whole level of ‘deaning’ has been
created out of nothing,” Gomes says. “I hardly know anyone in
University Hall nowadays.”
Gross responds that, while he makes efforts to reach out to
professors, “consultation does not always imply agreement. But it’s
good to be aware of the issues in the debate.”
Professor of Biological Anthropology Daniel E. Lieberman ’86,
who helped form the new interdisciplinary life science courses in
conjunction with the College, says that professors are growing
increasingly concerned about the high number of departures.
“I have noticed in the last few years that many of the
‘servants of the College’ have disappeared,” Lieberman says. “I think
the Faculty do notice that, and I would say that there is a widespread
concern among the Faculty.”
But Lieberman adds that many members of the Faculty are not
especially attuned to the business of the College, since professors
tend to focus on teaching and research.
A ‘CORPORATE’ COLLEGE?
Some professors and former administrators say that a change in
the working atmosphere inside University Hall has accompanied the
change in personnel.
Elizabeth Doherty, a former associate dean who left for Brown
early last year, told The Crimson in an e-mail last month that she saw
a “growing tendency...to describe education as a ‘product’ in the
College”—a trend that she called “antithetical to the central values of
an academic community.”
But Gross wrote in an e-mail that he thinks the new administrative structure fosters communication.
“I think the offices of the College have actually become more
collaborative in the past two years,” Gross wrote. “I have always
encouraged staff to share their concerns.”
Eight professors and former administrators who spoke with The
Crimson, however, say they have heard claims that the new
administration has taken on a “corporate” tone.
Gomes says that, within the College administration, “there’s
a sense of intimidation, a sense of anxiety—a watch-your-back feeling.”
“I’ve heard from a number of people that University Hall now has the worst of a corporate culture,” he says.
But many of Gross’s senior staff dispute that sentiment.
“People are using the word ‘corporate’ without any real
meaning,” says Associate Dean of the College Judith H. Kidd, who notes
that she has worked in the “corporate world” before.
Rinere, the advising dean, wrote in an e-mail that “the atmosphere of the administration is collegial and collaborative.”
“Have you ever been in a corporate environment? I have, and
this doesn’t resemble that in any way, shape or form,” she explained.
And, in an e-mail, Gross wrote: “I’ve been called a number of things, but ‘corporate’ is not a description that comes to mind!”
Gross, who rarely wears a tie to the office, added: “For one thing, I would need a new wardrobe.”
‘REGIME’ CHANGE
The staffing changes in University Hall began in March 2003,
when Kirby consolidated the academic and social sides of the
College—once divided between the Office of the Dean for Undergraduate
Education and the Office of the Dean of the College. The move also
forced Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis ’68 from his post, and Kirby
tapped Gross, then dean for undergraduate education, to lead the newly
merged administration.
Kidd says that the turnover within the College is not “surprising,” given the major administrative restructuring.
“When you start to merge functions, you start to have new
needs,” she says. “I don’t denigrate the fact that change is often
difficult for people, but I see change in the long run as a good
thing.”
Kemper Professor of American History and former Faculty
Council member James T. Kloppenberg suggests that the change in the
College’s top level of leadership might be one of the causes of the
high turnover in other posts at University Hall.
“Often when there’s a shift from one ‘regime’ to another, many
of those who had positions in the old regime leave or are pushed out so
there can be new blood, people not wedded to the old ways,” Kloppenberg
wrote in an e-mail.
Thomas A. Dingman ’67, a longtime Harvard administrator who
was associate dean of residential life until he became dean of freshmen
in 2005, says that some institutional memory has been lost in the
transition, but notes that new administrators can forge relationships
with faculty.
“When I see Dean Rinere reaching out and creating new,
collaborative relationships with the faculty, it’s clear it can happen
and can happen quickly,” Dingman says.
But Lewis—whose book abut Harvard, “Excellence Without a Soul:
How a Great University Forgot Education,” will be published next
month—says that the relationships between faculty and veteran
administrators are difficult to recreate.
“It’s very hard for less experienced advisers, no matter how
good-willed they are, to have the right instincts about helping
students understand how to solve their own problems,” Lewis says.
TRADING SPACES
By the end of 2004, at least four top administrators had
announced their plans to leave their posts at the College. Associate
Dean of the College David P. Illingworth ’71 left in the summer of 2003
after 22 years at Harvard. In September 2004, Dean of Freshmen
Elizabeth Studley Nathans announced the end of her 12-year tenure at
Harvard after being forced from her post, and, that same month,
Associate Dean of the College Jeffrey Wolcowitz, who helped guide the
College’s curricular review, abruptly stepped down from his University
Hall position after 16 years in the building. In December, Doherty, a
10-year Harvard veteran who was associate dean of the College at the
time, announced her intention to leave.
The College was not the only part of the University that saw
turnover among its staff during that time. At least five major
administrators in FAS but not in the College stepped down during the
same period.
Since 2001, the year that Summers was appointed, deans at
seven of Harvard’s 10 schools have resigned. During that time, FAS and
the Graduate School of Education have seen two different chiefs
announce their plans to quit their posts.
Turnover within the College administration has continued, albeit at a slower pace since winter 2004.
Secretary of the Administrative Board and Assistant Dean of the
College John T. O’Keefe left for Wellesley last summer, and the
creation of the Office of Advising this year—led by recently appointed
Rinere—has displaced the duties of three deans.
Assistant Dean Deborah Foster was told in February that she
had been fired, but, after students, faculty, and alumni protested her
planned dismissal, Gross announced the following week that he would
create a new post for her at the College. In addition, Assistant Dean
of the College Julia G. Fox will no longer handle her duties as manager
of the Ann Radcliffe Trust and coordinator of transfer and visiting
student programs, although Gross has not said whether she will remain
in University Hall.
And just last week, Browne announced that after 15 years at
Harvard he has opted to take a job at Boston College’s new advising
center under Nathans, who now leads the center. Browne declined an
offer to switch to an assistant deanship in Rinere’s Office of
Advising, a move several professors identified as a demotion.
FAS Registrar Barry S. Kane said that he thinks that turnover
within the administration is not only normal, but helpful in running
the College.
“I happen to believe that some turn-over of staff is always a
good thing. I like to say that all of us need to be ‘re-potted’ from
time to time,” Kane wrote. “I have a colleague who has said to me that
‘if you can do your job with your eyes closed, it’s time to move on to
new challenges.’”
But Nathans, the former dean of freshmen, calls the recent level of turnover in University Hall “extraordinary.”
“There’s always changeover, especially in the junior positions,
because people move on. It’s the senior people leaving that’s unusual
at Harvard—and the number and the reasons for it,” she says.
PRIORITIZING SATISFACTION
Gross wrote in an e-mail last month that he and his senior
staff use survey results to “inform our priorities.” And, he says, the
College is focusing on improving in the areas that student surveys have
shown need the most work: faculty contact, advising, and social life.
Besides creating the Office of Advising, the College has
continued during the past three years to expand the Freshman Seminar
Program that had begun under the previous administration.
Gross and his staff have also pushed to expand student space.
The administration, which has already begun renovating the Quad
Library, plans to build a pub in Loker Commons and remodel some of the
freshman dorm basements.
Funding from the Office of the President has helped the
College undertake efforts to build an undergraduate community, such as
hiring a campus life fellow to plan community events.
Deputy Dean of the College Patricia O’Brien, whom Gross
appointed in 2004, says that “the wonderful aspect of the merger of
academic programs and the College is that we now have one big team that
thinks about the student holistically.”
Critics of the administration’s data-focused
approach—including Lewis and other former College administrators—say
they are concerned that satisfying students might be at odds with
educating them.
Writing in the Chronicle of Higher Education last month,
Lewis connected the departures to what he perceives as a trend in
higher education.
“Many long-serving educational administrators have
inexplicably left Harvard in recent years,” Lewis wrote. “They left
Harvard, or were forced to leave, because they did not fit into the
new, retail-store university, in which orders are taken, defects are
papered over to get the merchandise out the door, and the customers are
sent home happy by ‘student-service professionals.’”
Gross responds that he has “no idea what a student-service
professional is,” adding that “no one on my staff could conceivably be
described in that way.”
—Staff writer Liz C. Goodwin can be reached at
goodwin@fas.harvard.edu.
—Staff writer Daniel J. T. Schuker can be
reached at dschuker@fas.harvard.edu.
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