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How to Run Harvard

by Jacob Hale Russell
May/June 2007

Photo by Bill Ray/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images

Twice now a desperate Harvard has turned to Derek Bok to restore harmony. In 1971, Bok was named president after Vietnam-related protests left the university demoralized and divided. Long before he stepped down in 1991, Bok had deftly mended the rifts on campus. So respected were his peacemaking skills that, when Harvard plunged into turmoil in 2006, the Corporation asked him to come out of retirement. With Lawrence Summers resigning amidst controversy, Bok, then 76, agreed to serve as interim president.

Twelve months later, the wounds of the Summers era are healing and the University is recovering its momentum. Now, as Derek Bok prepares to exit Massachusetts Hall for the second time, Drew Gilpin Faust is preparing to move in. What lessons can Faust learn from her predecessor? Bok is far too self-deprecatory to answer the question, so 02138 asked some of his closest friends and colleagues.

1. When controversy strikes, act decisively.

In the 1980s, Bok confronted a particularly difficult problem: Two female professors—Clare Dalton of the law school and Theda Skocpol of the sociology department (Skocpol now teaches government as well as sociology)—had been denied tenure. Both were alleging gender discrimination. “Derek was disturbed by what he heard and set up a process,” says Harvard law professor Charles Fried, a longtime friend of Bok’s. After meeting with the relevant parties, Bok upheld the decision on Dalton, but eventually granted tenure to Skocpol. Both moves caused uproars—but only short-lived ones. Because of his decisiveness, combined with the sense that he had listened to all sides, Bok resolved the situations in a manner that allowed everyone to move on.

2. Listen carefully and frequently.

Bok was usually more interested in other people’s words than his own. “I remember going to see him in 1973,” says Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Jeremy Knowles. “I was a chemist then, and when he valiantly wrapped his tongue around the name of the enzyme I was working on—triosephosphate isomerase—I was touched.” Being accessible is also crucial. “A couple of years later, there were questions being raised about technology transfer that concerned me,” Knowles adds. “I called his office and, the very next day, I had a full hour with him.”

3. Take risks for what you believe in.

In 1991, many scholars thought African-American studies a stagnant field. Harvard’s department had just one professor—and he was white—along with one student major. But Bok thought that having a strong African-American studies program was the right thing to do. Rather than fold or merge the department, he decided to expand it, recruiting Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Anthony Appiah, two of the field’s foremost scholars, from Duke. “It was his idea to bring us to Harvard and his idea to invest in a moribund department,” Gates says. Harvard’s African and African American Studies department now has nearly 30 professors, and no one seriously questions its legitimacy. In fact, other universities have scrambled to catch up. “Stanford just created 10 new full professorships in African-American studies, and Princeton created 11,” Gates says. “That’s all these years later. Derek had the vision in 1991.”

4. Have confidence in the written word.

Bok thought constantly about how to improve higher education, and his fondness for analyzing related issues—teaching methods, divestment, commercialism in higher ed—led him to write countless papers and speeches, including a yearly letter to the campus. “Every January, he would disappear for a few weeks and write a thoughtful analysis—almost an encyclical—on the nature of medical education, or the role of an art museum in a university,” says Knowles. Sidney Verba, a government professor whom Bok appointed university librarian, recalls Bok giving speeches on matters of principle even though they were potentially unpopular. “One was a commencement speech on income inequality in the United States. It may not have resonated much with a lot of the alumni in the audience, who were in the category he was criticizing, but it was a strong and a well put-together statement on something that he really cared about.” Bok’s public thinking showed that he was confident enough in both himself and the University to spark a discussion whose conclusion he could not guarantee.

Bettman/CorbisDerek Bok, 1971, upon being named President of the University.

5. Be well-rounded.

Although a lawyer by training, Bok has always loved music. It runs in the family: His grandmother founded a conservatory in Philadelphia, and his mother was trained as an opera singer. He had a keen interest in expanding music and arts programs, so he created the Office for the Arts (OFA), brought the American Repertory Theatre to Cambridge, and approved a plan—now known as Learning from Performers—to bring artists to campus. Myra Mayman, the OFA’s first director, recalls that Bok was willing to experiment. “Late in his tenure, the OFA had gotten very involved with public art installations, and I asked Derek if he would mind hosting a dinner for distinguished people in the field. His response was, ‘You want me to host an expensive dinner for a bunch of people who are going to tell me how to do things that will get me into a lot of trouble? Okay! I’ll do it.’” The OFA, Mayman notes, “is still doing public art projects every year.”

6. Never lose your sense of humor.

Being president of Harvard is stressful; the gentle application of humor can cut tension and help keep things in perspective. At one recent faculty meeting, Knowles recalls, “I was asked a slightly arcane question, which, I’m afraid, I answered rather ramblingly. At the end of my answer, the faculty member sat down, and Derek simply said to me, ‘Expertly dodged!’ Of course, the faculty roared with laughter. But after a time of tension in Harvard Yard, Derek felt that the tone had to change. With only two words, he told the faculty that we’re not merely colleagues, but friends.”