At the most vulnerable juncture of his half-decade at Harvard’s helm, Summers now faces a fuming Faculty with few vocal supporters by his side.
And many of his longtime allies are expressing disaffection with what they see as the president’s ineffective leadership.
“If he’s going to be like every other college president– just a caretaker, fundraiser, and a mouther of platitudes– then why do we need someone who’s also going to offend people?” said psychologist Steven Pinker, who was one of Summers’ most prominent supporters last year….
Pinker, while saying he wasn’t sure if the Corporation should take any public steps, said he hoped the board would, at least, intervene privately with the president.“I would like them to give some guidance to Summers and to say, ‘Things aren’t going well. You’ve got to either bring back some leadership and make sure that trains run on time and start new initiatives that you originally wanted to bring– or else get out of the way,'” Pinker said.
— Anton S. Troianovski
Who’ll be my role model
Now that my role model is
Gone, gone?
— Paul Simon