In light of recent criticism for forcing out the university's top dean, Harvard University President Lawrence Summers is facing a no-confidence vote from Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences for the second time in a year.
Members of the FAS, which encompasses the university's undergraduate college and three other schools, will vote on the resolution at their Feb. 28 meeting. Unlike the previous no-confidence motion, which passed last March by a 218-185 vote, the new one calls for intervention from the Harvard Corporation, the only body with the power to fire Summers.
"The president should resign," said Judith Ryan, the professor of German and comparative literature who first introduced the motion on Feb. 9. "He had been given one year of notice that he should try to turn things around ... and he hasn't been able to. I think his time is up."
The new vote comes in the wake of the Jan. 27 resignation of FAS Dean William Kirby, whom some believe was forced out of office by Summers, Ryan said. She added that many other top administrators have resigned "allegedly at the urging of the president." A Feb. 6 Boston Globe article reported that more than half of Harvard's major deans and top administrators have resigned or announced their intent to resign since Summers became president in July 2001.
While the first no-confidence motion was triggered by comments Summers made last year that suggested women are innately inferior to men in the sciences, the new vote comes out of concerns about Summers' leadership skills, Ryan said.
