Harvard President Vows to Temper His Style With Respect

um....I am more than very skeptical~~


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/23/education/23harvard.html?th


February 23, 2005
Harvard President Vows to Temper His Style With Respect
By SARA RIMER and PATRICK D. HEALY

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Feb. 22 - With his faculty threatening open revolt, the president of Harvard, Lawrence H. Summers, promised Tuesday that he would temper his management style and begin treating people more respectfully.

Professors, gathered at an overflow meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences to hear and discuss Dr. Summers, appeared so dissatisfied with the state of his leadership that they rejected a proposal to have three senior Harvard scholars mediate the furor between the faculty and its president.

After five weeks of mea culpas for his remarks about women in the sciences, Dr. Summers issued yet another apology. He promised professors that they would no longer experience the intimidation, anger and hurt feelings that many of them have reported in his three-and-a-half-year tenure.

"I am committed to opening a new chapter in my work with you," he told some 500 faculty and staff members, according to a copy of his remarks. "To start, I pledge to you that I will seek to listen more and more carefully and to temper my words and actions in ways that convey respect and help us work together more harmoniously."

"No doubt I will not always get things right. But I am determined to set a different tone."

This doesn't even bother me.

Why is it so hard to believe there are differences in the sexes?

The President also explained several other contributing factors inclcuding sexism, social, and educational as contributing to the lack of women in science.

Couldn't care less is the correct way to indicate that you don't care at all. (Just a nitpicking female here--used to correcting the English of my betters as I typed up their work.)

His comment on gender differences is not the only reason his underlings dislike him. Actual hiring practices & a high-handed manner are among their complaints. Academic freedom is one thing--administrative incompetence is another.

I accept your grammatical correction gracefully.

Yes I understand there are other factors involved, such as the lack females in the faculty and his incompetence.

I couldn't care less about his comments.

He would not know "respect" if it walked up and clubbed him.

I was bitterly disappointed in Leon Wieseltier's New Republic piece supporting Summers. Wieseltier is a true intellectual and I usually admire his writing. I was expecting a LTTE with this latest issue of TNR on his piece but there was nothing. I know, I know, I should have written one. Maybe I will yet.