COLLEGE SHORTS

Author: Daniel L. J. Phillips

Harvard faculty force resignation

Harvard University President Lawrence H. Summers announced on Tuesday that he will resign from his role on June 30 due to mounting pressure from the undergraduate College faculty who have criticized his leadership style and his handling of a government fraud scandal that implicated economics professor Andrei Shleifer, reported The Harvard Crimson.

Summers was scheduled to face a vote of no-confidence - which Summers failed last March - at next Tuesday's meeting of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and a separate motion was passed for the University's governing boards to intervene. In his letter of resignation to the Harvard community, Summers cited divisions between him and the faculty that made it infeasible for his presidency to continue.

Summers received a $563,000 base salary in the 2004-5 academic year and received a three percent raise last July. Derek C. Bok - who was University president from 1971 to 1991 - will serve as interim president beginning July 1 until a permanent successor is chosen. Summers plans to return to teaching after a year-long sabbatical.

Harvard professors speculate that the search for a new dean of the faculty to replace William C. Kirby will be postponed until another president is selected. Following ongoing tension between the two administrators, Summers fired Kirby from his post earlier this month, leaving the school with a budget deficit and upsetting the curricular review process.

Summers came to office with plans to expand the campus and further integrate the disparate schools of the University, but angered professors with faults like his statement from last year that women may lack an intrinsic aptitude for math and science.

Summers's five-year tenure is the shortest held by a Harvard president in over 150 years. According to a Crimson poll conducted last weekend, the student body is in favor of Summers retaining his post by a margin of three-to-one. -The Harvard Crimson



U of Ill. reprints Muhammad image

The editor in chief and opinions page editor at the University of Illinois were suspended when The Daily Illini republished the cartoons satirizing the Prophet Muhammad that first appeared in a Danish newspaper last September and resulted in violent protests throughout pockets of the Muslim community. Muslim students and other members of the University of Illinois staged a protest on the main quadrangle of campus last Tuesday following the publication of the cartoons in the Feb. 9 issue.

The cartoons ran on the opinions page beside a column by editor in chief Acton Gorton explaining why he published them. Last Wednesday's edition of The Daily Illini contained an announcement that the editor in chief and opinions page editor, Chuck Prochaska, had been suspended.

Most major American newspapers - such as The New York Times - have not printed the stirring images, while some college publications - including The Harvard Crimson and the University of Wisconsin newspaper - have printed some of the cartoons.

Fellow Illinois student editors say Gorton and Prochaska did not properly consult members of the newspaper before printing the cartoons.

In the days that followed publication, the newspaper ran an apology and met with Muslim students to promise more complete coverage on the issue.

-The New York Times