Larry Summers follow up

In the past couple of weeks since Harvard President Larry Summers left his position, I've been following the matter in the news, in op-eds, on blogs and in conversations with people in the Harvard community. Not a single thing I've read nor a single person I've talked to has been in favor of his forced resignation.

Though my poll is hardly scientific (for instance I didn't get a chance to speak with my friend the female scientist with a Harvard PhD), I think the results point out a serious flaw in the system. I was expecting conservatives to sieze this as an example of campus liberalism gone wild and they have. In either response to the right-wing or solidarity, I expected liberal voices to defend the A&S faculty who were largely responsible for pushing him out. They didn't. From the NY Times opinion pages to my liberal (Kucinich voting) friends on staff, they all expressed concern over what happened. The basic sentiment is along the lines of "well, his management style left much to be desired but he was accomplishing the things that needed to be done; it's too bad the faculty couldn't get past their ingrained points of view and recognize that."

My hope is that the University and American academia in general take note of what happened here and correct itself. The issue isn't liberalism or lack of opposing viewpoints but the inability to see past the campus walls to how things work in the world beyond. They may be responsible for teaching but there is much they can learn. As important as their work is to them, the development of future generations is more important, a fact that is lost to many who are so narrowly focused on their area of expertise that their contributions to education are diminished. As I said in the earlier post, the very presence of higher ed is a valuable asset of civilization, the trick is in maintaining its value through self correction and adaptation to changing needs in society.