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Lawrence H. Summers
很优秀的经济学家,专业是宏观经济学和金融学。当年他当选Harvard校长,很为经济学家高兴,不想该老兄也是“大嘴朝天”。
下面是转载的国内帖子:
哈佛大学校长萨默斯将为自己的惊人之语“女子学理逊于男”付出“下课”的代价。2月21日,哈佛大学在其网站上宣布,校长萨默斯将辞职,而其辞职的最主要原因就是哈佛职员对其投下了不信任票。(2月22日《中国日报》)
哈佛大学校长的辞职,最根本的动因在于他的“大放厥词”,但最直接的原因却是来自哈佛大学员工的不信任票,而非行政强制性命令或者压力。无法得到员工的信任恰恰成了校长职务难以为继的“责任承担路径”。
不同的责任承担路径意味着不同的权力来源,在自上而下的授权体制中,责任的承担来自上层权力的权威式命令;但在自下而上的自治性授权体制中,责任的承担来自“选民”的不信任案。在哈佛大学校长辞职的“责任承担路径”中,我们看到的是后者而非前者。虽然不同的路径可能在结果上是“殊途同归”,但正是这“殊途”折射出完全不同的理念,哈佛大学校长的辞职至少可以证明以下两点:一是哈佛大学是自治的,即校长的权力来自“选民”———教职员工和学生,而非行政任命;二是身处自治团体中的“选民”有权利也能够决定被授权者的“权力寿命”,而这恰恰是民主政治的题中之义。
反观中国的大学,自治化的缺席与行政化色彩的日益浓烈,使得“自由之精神,独立之思想”成为了大学一种难以言表的梦想。行政体系化的运作模式以及行政权利对本应该自治的大学精神的侵袭,其最终的结果不仅仅是大学机构的臃肿、产业化的横行,更为关键的是,本应该由大学自治发育并且向全社会辐射的民主政治的精神,在行政权力的威压下,不幸沦为丧失自己独立人格的附庸。这才是最为可怕的后果,当然也是哈佛大学校长为什么辞职给予我们最大的启示。
下面是http://www.news.harvard.edu/的今天的消息:
Summers to step down as president at end of academic year
Bok agrees to serve as interim president starting July 1
President Summers at a Feb. 21 press conference in the Yard. (Staff photo Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard News Office)
Lawrence H. Summers announced today that he will conclude his tenure as president of Harvard University at the end of the 2005-06 academic year.
Since his appointment five years ago, Summers has spurred attention to renewing the undergraduate experience, guided the launch of innovative interdisciplinary initiatives in the sciences and beyond, and strongly expanded Harvard's international agenda. Under his leadership, the University has reached out to many more undergraduates from low-income families and also strengthened financial aid for graduate and professional students pursuing careers in public service. During his presidency, Harvard has achieved dramatic faculty growth, undertaken major investments in an array of new facilities, and taken the first concrete steps toward building Harvard's extended campus in Allston.
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Letter from President Summers
Letter from the Corporation
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\"Harvard's greatness has always come from its ability to evolve as the world and its demands change - to educate and draw forth the energy of each successive generation in new and creative ways,\" said Summers. \"Believing deeply that complacency is among the greatest risks facing Harvard, I have sought for the last five years to prod and challenge the University to reach for the most ambitious goals in creative ways. As I leave the presidency, my greatest hope is that the University will build on the important elements of renewal that we have begun over the last several years.\"
Summers began his presidency by calling for systematic attention to the quality of the undergraduate experience at Harvard. (Staff file photo Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard News Office)
\"Since his appointment five years ago, Larry Summers has served Harvard with extraordinary vision and vitality,\" said the Fellows of Harvard College, members of the University's executive governing board, the Harvard Corporation, in a letter to the Harvard community. \"He has brought to the leadership of the University a sense of bold aspiration and initiative, a prodigious intelligence, and an insistent devotion to maximizing Harvard's contributions to the realm of ideas and to the larger world. Through his tenure as president, Harvard has both invigorated its academic programs and engaged more keenly with the complex challenges facing society. Harvard's paths forward will long bear the imprint of his vision.
\"While this past year has been a difficult and sometimes wrenching one in the life of the University,\" the Fellows continued, \"we look back on the past five years with appreciation for all that has been accomplished and for the charting of an ambitious forward course. We look ahead with confidence in the capacity of our faculty, students, staff, and alumni to embrace a future full of possibility and opportunity. Whatever our differences in perspective, and wherever we study or work within the University, all of us share a commitment to the progress of an institution whose aims are noble, whose traditions are strong, whose spirit is always restless, and whose promise - as embodied in the thousands of men and women who form the Harvard community - knows no bounds.\"
Derek Bok, Harvard's president from 1971 to 1991, has agreed to the Corporation's request that he serve as interim president of the University from July 1 until the conclusion of the search for a new president, which the Fellows said would begin promptly.
\"I will do my best to carry out the Corporation's request,\" said Bok. \"There is no institution I care about more deeply, and I will make every effort to work with colleagues to further the University's agenda during this transitional period.\"
Shortly after the announcement of his resignation, President Summers speaks to a group of reporters and well-wishers in the Yard. (Staff photo Justin Ide/Harvard News Office)
Following an expected year-long sabbatical, Summers plans to return to the faculty to pursue his distinguished academic career in economics, public policy, and international affairs. The Fellows' letter said that the Corporation intends to appoint Summers as one of Harvard's select group of University Professors.
\"From the day he took office, Larry Summers has worked tirelessly to provide Harvard students, particularly its undergraduates, with the best education possible,\" said Patti B. Saris, president of the Board of Overseers. \"He has committed himself to strengthening Harvard's place as a world leader in the sciences, expanding its borders not only into Allston but internationally, and ensuring that Harvard is a place that all students can afford. Harvard has benefited from his energy and out-of-the-box thinking, and will no doubt continue to do so when President Summers again becomes Professor Summers.\"
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Summers' presidency has been marked by an ambitious agenda of growth and change across Harvard.
The Undergraduate Experience
Summers began his presidency by calling for systematic attention to the quality of the undergraduate experience at Harvard. Beginning in 2002, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences undertook the first comprehensive review in a generation of the undergraduate curriculum. While broad-based proposals for curricular reform remain to be decided, the College has already achieved notable progress in a number of areas:
Opportunities for small-group instruction have increased markedly. The number of freshman seminars (small, discussion-based courses of no more than 14 students) has risen from 34 in 1998-99 (including less than one-quarter of the freshman class) to at least 141 this year - enough to accommodate almost the entire class. Small seminars in large departments such as History and Government are being taught by senior faculty for junior concentrators.
A new year-long introductory course sequence, Life Sciences 1a and 1b, developed by the Life Sciences Education Committee, integrates materials from five departments, reflecting the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of the life sciences. And faculty in a number of other areas have ambitious plans for new introductory courses.
Faculty committees reviewing the curriculum have proposed a number of changes to give students more flexibility both in choosing concentrations and in fulfilling general education requirements, and they have recommended strengthening the advising system to support this greater degree of flexibility.
Many more students are studying or working abroad during their undergraduate years. The number of students who study abroad as part of their college experience has more than doubled, from 164 in 2001-02 to 451 in 2004-05. A comparable number do research, internships, or volunteer work abroad - a total of 482 in the summer of 2005. Thus, over half of Harvard undergraduates are choosing to pursue a significant international experience as part of their Harvard education. |
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