While discussing a wide range of issues in higher education on Friday's Bloomberg broadcast “Wall Street Week,” Larry Summers, professor emeritus and provost of Harvard University and former president of Harvard University, said, “Including Harvard University, In many cases, universities have been failed by their boards.”
Professor Summers said: “I think this is certainly a challenging time for universities unlike any other time since the Vietnam War era, and perhaps even beyond that.'' We're under investigation from both the administration and the Department of Education. There's a level of division on campus that I haven't seen since I first came to Harvard's campus in 1975. So we're seeing a level of division on campus that I haven't seen since I first came to Harvard's campus in 1975. I think there are very serious challenges. Universities have to stand up to some vitriolic forces on the populist right who seem to support everything down to book burning…[a]At the same time, there is no question that they have been threatened from within by a repressive orthodoxy that has led to the cancellation of speakers and made people uncomfortable by discussing issues such as crime and education. I do not think. A specific prescribed method. And finding a way between those damning extremes will be a challenge for university leaders. ”
He went on to say, “I have to say this goes way beyond the individual. I think in many cases, including at Harvard, universities have been failed by their boards of governors. We call them legal entities, and in many ways their job is, among other things, to maintain a healthy interface between the university and wider society.”
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