But other observers found Summers’s analysis misleading at best and insisted that the Corporation had given Summers too much. Sources familiar with the negotiations believe that Rubin refused to agree to Summers’s exit unless Summers got what he wanted, and the Corporation was leery of appearing divided on such a public affair. “Most of the Corporation wanted Summers gone immediately, and Bob said, ‘Over my dead body,’” claims one prominent alumnus privy to the deal-making.

Some community members were reassured by the Corporation’s handling of the situation. “Their most important task is to hire the president and at some point bring the president’s term to a conclusion,” says one former dean. “In the end, they did that. You can say they should have done it sooner, but that’s a difficult question.”

Others insist that the Corporation bungled Summers’s exit. “They allowed him to run, not a victory lap, but a marathon,” says an alumnus who serves on the executive committee of Harvard’s Committee on University Resources, a high-level fundraising group in close contact with university officials. “They gave him a platform, and he’s used it.” This alumnus and other sources say that Summers has criticized the Corporation in meetings with friends, faculty, and alumni, and recent news reports have suggested that several wealthy donors are withholding multimillion-dollar gifts out of anger over Summers’s ouster. “Houghton is fit to be tied,” says the alumni source, who knows both men. “He hates Summers, and Summers hates him.”

In one exit interview with the Associated Press, Summers took a parting shot: “The university does need to reflect on questions of governance,” he said. “The university’s governance structure was set at a very different time when universities were investing much less than they’re able to invest today, when the demands on them from a larger society are much less than they are today.” Summers, who declined a request to elaborate, is said to be considering writing a book on university governance.

As it looks ahead, the Corporation has two challenges. It must hire a new president, and it must consider whether Harvard’s governance structure needs to change. The Corporation knows that its reputation has suffered in the past five years. “They are sensitive to criticisms of them as a body in a way that they were not a year and a half ago,” says one professor who has dealt with the group. Another source close to the body adds, “The members feel embattled,” whipsawed between those critics who say the board betrayed Summers and those who feel it allowed Summers free reign to criticize Harvard.

Partly as a result of this pushback from both sides, the Corporation fellows have come together. Derek Bok has thrown himself into his one-year stint as president while the other fellows focus on the presidential search. Though one source claims that Rubin carries some “lingering resentment,” there is no outward tension in meetings now. Everyone knows that Harvard’s future—and their own reputations—are at stake. An example of the new consensus: Last spring, incoming president Bok decided to name chemist Jeremy Knowles interim FAS dean. Summers vehemently opposed the move. Knowles is considered a skeptic of Summers’s plans for the new Allston campus and a vigorous proponent of faculty prerogatives; an angry Summers warned the Corporation that Knowles’s return would jeopardize all the progress that Summers felt he’d made. The Corporation rejected Summers’s complaint and approved the appointment unanimously.

The next president, the fellows agree, must have experience at a comparable institution—there will be no gambling on a celebrity politician or businessman. That gives substantial weight in the search to two-time university president Keohane. “She is able to take charge and knows how institutions work,” says a colleague. While allies of Summers have portrayed Keohane as a polarizing figure, sources close to the Corporation say that Keohane isn’t interested in dominating the search process. She would like to see a woman president—Drew Faust, dean of the Radcliffe Institute, and Harvard Law School Dean Elena Kagan are frequently mentioned names, along with University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann and Cambridge University Vice-Chancellor Alison Richard—but is not adamant on the point. Her style, says a professor who knows her well, is “subtle and consultative.” Meanwhile, Rubin has been more involved in the presidential search than many expected. He is surprisingly “dug in,” says one observer. Another calls him “very engaged and relaxed.” To advise the presidential search, the fellows have created two committees to involve faculty and students, an unprecedented gesture. They have even tried to figure out what went wrong the last time, launching an informal review of the 2001 presidential search. After talking with participants in that process, they and Corporation secretary Marc Goodheart concluded that the search committee had “frontloaded” the process, spending too much time considering candidates who were clearly not viable and not enough time vetting the truly plausible candidates. After months of winnowing, the Corporation spent only weeks examining its choice, which ultimately depended on a handful of phone calls with Rubin. The awkward conclusion: That was a mistake.

The Corporation has also signaled recently that it intends to work more closely with the Overseers, and it may have to: One source close to the Overseers suggests that the group’s majority is so frustrated, it might exercise its veto power over a presidential candidate it found unsuitable. But most feel the possibility is slim given hints of a more consultative search process.

As for Harvard’s system of governance, structural change is unlikely. Because the Corporation is a construct of Massachusetts law, any attempt to revise the charter of 1650—to, say, enlarge the number of Corporation fellows, or designate that alumni could elect some of the fellows—would require action by the state legislature, inevitably opening the door to state involvement in Harvard’s affairs. In any case, such reforms can create problems of their own: After several divisive campaigns by activist alumni to win election to its governing council, Dartmouth is now trying to make it harder for alumni to be involved.

But at Harvard, change would not have to be structural to be significant; it could simply be cultural. In recent months senior Harvard officials have been seriously discussing how to make the Corporation more transparent. The Corporation’s secrecy may have some advantages, they say, but it breeds conspiracy theories, distrust, and even hostility toward the governing board. One step might be to replace Marc Goodheart, known as both an enforcer and facilitator of the corporation’s insularity, with someone who advocates transparency in corporate governance. The senior fellow could write an annual letter; monthly minutes could be released. Small gestures, but symbolically important. Other reform-minded proposals include having the Corporation conduct a regular performance review of the president. Some Harvardians say the best solutions are intangible ones: Get the fellows out and around more, in the model of Bob Stone. Such changes wouldn’t require a new charter, but they would require a president who genuinely seeks not only the endorsement of his or her advisory board but also its informed counsel.

Still others think that Harvard should consider the creation of new governing bodies, such as a faculty senate composed of professors from all of Harvard’s schools. “Harvard is an extremely complex institution now, and the question that someone is going to have to face up to is whether the way Harvard is governed is appropriate in the 21st century,” says Jay Lorsch, a professor of human relations at the business school. “It’s not that I’m opposed to staying with tradition; there’s a lot of value in that. But by the same token you’ve got to look at this institution and understand that it’s immensely complicated.”

Not everyone, however, thinks that such a conversation would be helpful. There are people “who feel that we would be well served to have a thorough and public discussion about what happened in order to clarify the history, repair damage, and move forward,” says Overseer Paul Buttenwieser. And then there are “those who feel such a public discussion would likely have the opposite effects.” Buttenwieser adds, “I’m in the latter camp.”

Complicating the matter is the fact that the Corporation will likely see more turnover soon. It recently welcomed Georgetown University law professor Patricia King as Conrad Harper’s replacement and the board’s second African-American fellow. Most around Harvard believe that Rubin will resign after the next president is chosen.

The 70-year-old Houghton is also expected to step down soon. Both Rubin and Houghton could depart at the end of the 2007-2008 school year, the end of a new president’s first year, leaving Bob Reischauer, named in just 2002, as the Corporation’s senior fellow. It would be hard to find another time in Harvard’s history when the Corporation has had so little institutional memory.

Will the Corporation finally become more inclusive and less secretive? History is not encouraging. “After every crisis, the Corporation becomes more visible,” says one Harvard historian. “And then, as things go back to normal, the Corporation reverts to anonymity.”

It would perhaps be the greatest irony, if not the greatest mistake, of the Summers era if the board that wanted Harvard to change so radically that it hired Larry Summers remained stubbornly, defiantly the same.

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Richard Bradley is the former executive editor of George magazine. He is the author of Harvard Rules and the New York Times bestseller American Son; his current project is a book about the 1978 baseball season.

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