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December 08, 2007, 05:19 PM ET
Harvard Uber Alles?
What Harvard’s fine new president, Drew Faust, has just told Business Week set off my ever-more-sensitive Humanities Threat Detector. Faust was interviewed for a piece about “The Dangerous Wealth of the Ivy League” (well, the Ivy Plus schools like Stanford, MIT, and their ilk), and asked if the wealthy schools had an unfair competitive advantage these days in hiring faculty — there is plenty of evidence that public research universities are having a tough time hiring and retaining the most promising scientists. Her response was to acknowledge the purchasing power of Harvard and its peers: They’re going to be —we hope, we trust, we assume — the survivors in this race.” But she had consoling words for the hoi poloi, whom, she suggested, should “really emphasize social science or humanities and have science endeavors that are not as ambitious” as those of the rich kids on the block.
Really! Now Faust is herself a very distinguished humanist, one of the leading historians of 19th-century America, and she spent a few very fruitful years heading the Radcliffe Institute and burnishing its mainly humanities and social science credentials. But I am left with two questions for Drew, whom I have known and admired for many years:
First, is it really true that the publics and poorer private universities can compete for the Steve Greenblatts, Niall Fergusons, and William Julius Wilsons of the humanities and social science world? Do the rich kids not have an edge in all fields? Admittedly the cost of labs and the accoutrements of the physical and biomedical sciences will tilt science competition to the mega-rich like Harvard, but shouldn’t we suppose that Greenblatt and his Harvard peers earn more and are better supported than their peers in the boondocks?
Second, what does this say about what six months has done to the Weltanschauung of a historian turned mega-university president? Is my Humanities Threat Detector malfunctioning when it thinks that Drew’s academic value system is slipping?
I wonder.
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