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Controversial Harvard President Resigning

After five years, Lawrence H. Summers tendered this past week his resignation as president of Harvard University, effective at the end of the 2005-06 academic year. Harvard`s president from 1971 to 1991, Derek Bok, will serve as interim president of the University from July 1 until the conclusion of the search for a new president.

A former U.S. Treasury Secretary in the Clinton Administration, as Harvard president Summers made several comments over the years that drew intense criticism. For example, last year he suggested that innate gender differences between the sexes might explain the few women in science and math.

Such talk prompted a 218-185 no confidence vote from Harvard`s Faculty of Arts and Sciences last March. Faculty votes are symbolic, because only the seven-member "Harvard Corporation" has sole authority to fire the University`s president. Another no confidence vote was scheduled for this coming February 28.