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Key Harvard Dean Will Leave Post

January 30, 2006

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A year after Harvard University became embroiled in a debate over its president, he remains firmly in place. But a key dean -- whose major project was a curricular review that in some ways was sidetracked because of the presidential controversy -- is out.

William C. Kirby announced Friday that he was resigning as dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. A historian of China, Kirby will become director of Harvard's John King Fairbank Center for East Asian research.

Kirby and Lawrence H. Summers, the president, released letters pointing to progress Kirby had made on a variety of fronts. But even the letters could not hide the extent to which the university has been consumed with debate over Summers, not Kirby's original agenda. Kirby's letter to the faculty noted that "the events of the past year have posed serious challenges" and the reply letter from Summers noted that the dean had worked in a "not-uncomplicated time."

Kirby has been in a difficult position for much of the last year -- as a key intermediary between Summers and professors who were fed up with the president. Kirby also led the effort to come up with a plan for reforming Harvard's undergraduate education -- a topic Summer expressed considerable interest in, but on which he largely pulled back after he became such a lightening rod for criticism. The panel Kirby led recommended giving students much more control over their courses -- a move that was (not surprisingly) popular with students, but that has attracted considerable criticism from others. Many believe that Harvard is missing a rare opportunity to make significant improvements in undergraduate education.

For some time now, The Harvard Crimson has been reporting that Kirby was on the outs with Summers, and that the president wanted him to leave his position. The Crimson reported this weekend that the resignation was originally planned to be announced next month, but was moved up after the student newspaper told Harvard officials it was getting ready to publish an article on the resignation plans.

— Scott Jaschik

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Comments on Key Harvard Dean Will Leave Post

Harvard and General Education
Posted by Anne Neal , President at Americn Council of Trustees and Alumni on January 30, 2006 at 9:25am EST
In the midst of the Second World War, Harvard president James Bryant Conant decided education was more than just taking courses. Witnessing the onslaught of the Nazis, Conant sought to define a unified concept of general education –a broad vision of education for all Americans. The outcome of this commendable effort was the so-called “Red Book” of 1945 which described general education as “that part of a students’ whole education which looks first of all to his life as a responsible human being and citizen.”
As a result of that effort, institutions across the country took Harvard’s lead and subsequent generations benefitted from a cohesive and rigorous core curriculum.
That’s why Harvard’s recent report on its curricular review is so disappointing. At a time of breathtaking change in our society, Harvard had the opportunity – just as it did in 1945 – to establish a vision of general education in the 21st century.
Instead the elephant has produced a mouse –a report with many good ideas but lacking in the courage and foresight of Conant’s Red Book. Harvard’s explicit focus on international study and science are to be commended. But by allowing choice to be a lodestar for curricular design, the faculty has opted for the path of least resistance when it comes to general education. The great promise of the proposed Interdisciplinary Courses – what appears to be a sort of optional core curriculum – is severely undermined by the faculty’s insistence on retaining distribution requirements as an alternative approach to general education, something that we address more fully in our report, The Hollow Core.
This does a disservice to those of us who care deeply about general education and who hoped that Harvard’s efforts would prompt a penetrating national conversation on the nature, structure, and importance of “general education” in free society.
I don't know whether Kirby's departure will make a difference. But I hope that his departure will provide an opportunity for the faculty and President Summers to revisit the very valid criticisms which have been raised about the curricular panel's efforts to date.

Anne Neal's Superb Insights
Posted by Chuck on January 30, 2006 at 11:06am EST
It's a pity that space limitations here precluded Ms. Neal from elaborating on her shrewd insights about the ongoing curricular disappointments at Harvard.
If her reminders can miraculously help President Summers recapture his acdemic spinal cord and to openly challenge the political advocacy that so characterizes interdisciplinary offerings in ethnic and women's studies, then ACTA will once again have shown its timeliness and importance in these debates.

Posted by savitri on January 30, 2006 at 5:30pm EST
Chuck,
Please make your thoughts more clear.
Has it come to your notice that Ms. Neal, Mr. Summers, and Mr. Kirby are in favor of interdisciplinary studies? Do you share their commitment to the idea of interdisciplinary studies as a whole? Or is it (just) ethnic studies and/or women's studies to which you object? Or do you mean something specific by the "political advocacy" that you feel sullies these fields?
If you object to interdisciplinary studies as a whole, surely you cannot feel sympathetic to Ms. Neal's concerns. If you object to internecine tensions within the fields mentioned, your bone to pick is surely not with Harvard, but with the practitioners within the fields themselves (faculty, student activists, etc.). If you have other challenges to raise, I for one would be interested to hear them.

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