| ashu |
Posted
on 13-Mar-01 02:10 AM
What follows is an editorial from The New York Times.
This article is posted here because how Larry Summers
decides Harvard's role in global affairs will affect, in
ways tangible and intangible, the number of international
(including Nepali) students and scholars attend Harvard
University in the future.
Personally, I'd like to see more Nepalis being admitted
to all the Harvard schools (from the College to the
B-School to the law school to the Ed school and so on).
For some time now, I've been informally urging some members of the not-so-active Harvard Club of Nepal to make more info about the Harvard admissions available to potential Nepali applicants of ALL backgrounds.
oohi
ashu
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March 13, 2001
Harvard's New President
Harvard could not have picked a president whose personality is more different from his predecessor than Lawrence Summers, the economist who served as treasury secretary at the close of the Clinton administration. The departing president, Neil Rudenstine, though a spectacularly successful fund-raiser, was a private, soft-spoken man. Mr. Summers is so willing to express strong opinions that for years even his supporters fretted that his bluntness and arrogance offended more people than they persuaded. Yet his formidable attributes make him a fitting choice, especially at this point in history.
The precociously brilliant Mr. Summers got his doctorate at Harvard, became the youngest tenured professor in the university's modern history and won the nation's top prize for young economists. His government experience included stints as chief economist of the World Bank and as undersecretary, deputy secretary and ultimately secretary of the Treasury Department.
This diverse background gave Mr. Summers a leg up on the other finalists. It could also help make him a strong voice on educational issues that resonate far beyond Harvard. The number of top educators who speak out today seems distressingly small, either because they are swamped raising money and running complex institutions or because they fear offending key constituencies. Richard Atkinson, president of the University of California, showed what can be done by focusing on the inadequacies of SAT exams. Mr. Summers, with his bluntness and familiarity with the public arena, would seem well suited for this role.
Mr. Rudenstine, who raised $2.6 billion and helped drive the endowment above $19 billion, is leaving the university in a very healthy state, so Mr. Summers may have some breathing room before he will need to raise a lot more. His own priorities include improving undergraduate education and strengthening the sciences, two areas where some academics feel Harvard has lost ground. He also stressed the need to recruit younger faculty and maintain diversity. In an era of globalization and the Internet revolution. Mr. Summers hopes to help define how major universities can reach wider audiences without diluting their quality.
Mr. Summers has never run an academic institution. But he has run a department with 150,000 people, and according to friends has softened the sharp edges that irritated some people. His experience suggests he may also have the vision to lead Harvard through an era of global and technological change.
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