AP interviews former Harvard President Larry Summers. Two money quotes. First, you can tell he remains unrepentant on the merits of the comments about gender difference that started the process that culminated in his departure:
At the same time, no subject should be off limits for academic research in a university, and at a time when 30 percent more women are graduating from college than men, I think we ignore the whole topic of gender differences in learning styles very much at our peril.
Unfortunately, ignoring it is precisely the message his case sends to anyone for whom discretion is the better part of valor.
Second, he reflects on university governance:
Summers: I think the university does need to reflect on questions of governance... The university's governance structure was set at a very different time when universities were investing much less than they're able to invest today, when the demands on them from a larger society are much less than they are today.
And so I think particularly after a period of some tension between a president and members of the faculty, I think it would be appropriate for there to be reflection on institutions of governance at Harvard.
AP: But to what end?
Summers: I think the university needs to be more prepared to change and adapt itself. I think that the veto power is too widely distributed within the university. There's too much stove-piping into individual disciplines and individual departments. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences hasn't created or eliminated a department in more than 35 years.
Harvard is bigger than most corporations, yet-like most universities-its governance remains mired in 19th century models better suited for much smaller institutions. Summers recognized that when an organization's constituents have competing interests, asymetrial information, and are numerous enough to introduce significant collective action problems into the decision- making process, efficiency demands centralized decision making. Unfortunately, he bumped up against too many groups with vested interests in the current inefficient system and then handed them a weapon tailor-made for the politics of the modern university.
