Talk:Harry R. Lewis

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Sources

Lesser sources

Notes

  • Students who ended up on Harvard CS faculty: Shieber, Seltzer, Leitner, Malan, Vadhan, Mitzenmacher, and Rush. All but Shieber were TFs.[citation needed]

Images

COI-maybe declaration

The subject was my academic advisor in my undergraduate days. EEng 19:55, 30 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review

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Reviewer: MjolnirPants (talk · contribs) 16:21, 31 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I only have three comments, really.

  1. His mother was the head of a school for intellectually disabled children. Even if they used to call them "retarded," we really shouldn't use that word anymore. Of course, if "retarded children" is in the school's name, I wouldn't object to naming it. But I didn't see that in the sources I could check.
  2. The third paragraph of the Education and career section consists of two sentences. The first is a long run-on sentence with two parenthetical asides. I'm a big fan of parenthetical asides (ahem, QED), but I understand that they're best for informal text. I would try to break that up into two or three sentences with one or fewer parentheticals.
  3. Need more pics. Just one or two more, illustrating some aspect. It really doesn't matter much what aspect of the article, either. When I read it, it reads professionally enough that I'm a little surprised not to see an image of Harvard, or the cover of one of his books, or possibly a chart or illustration showing one of his contributions to CS. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:14, 31 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I greatly appreciate the rapid review. Most if the professional quality, especially in the Research section, is due to the redoubtable David Epstein. To your points above:
  1. The source says retarded but I'm fine with your change.
  2. D.E. has fixed this, I believe.
  3. Images are in the pipeline but there will be a delay while getting them CC-released. In the meantime I'm gonna have to ask you to overlook their lack based on [6]. (I don't like stock images with no specific relevance e.g. of the Harvard campus.)
EEng 06:44, 1 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
In the meantime I'm gonna have to ask you to overlook their lack based on [7] Yeah, the last point was more of a personal preference (I've never thought images to be necessary to make a good article in most cases, but they help). Knowing that some are coming eventually satisfies me, and everything else looks awesome. I'm happy with the way the article looks now, and I'll update the talk template. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:35, 1 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Again, thanks for the quick work, and it's good to know that your perverted mind can still be used for good as well as evil.[FBDB] I'll wire the funds to the usual account. EEng 19:26, 1 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
it's good to know that your perverted mind can still be used for good as well as evil. You only say that because you don't realize I'm playing the long game. MUAH HA HA HA HA !!! ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:10, April 1, 2017‎ (UTC)
[FBDB]You forgot to sign your post, Mr. Evil Genius. EEng 02:36, 2 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
D'oh! ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:19, 3 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Horn clause illustration

Google image search turned up this image from this page... —David Eppstein (talk) 22:33, 31 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Shame it's already April 1. EEng 15:03, 1 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed text

Because it's the only bit so far that even approaches controversy, I'm asking my esteemed fellow editors to review the following proposed additional text. I'll be happy to supply the relevant passages from the two offline sources (Lewis, Bradley) if desired. Before anyone asks, I spent a lot of time reviewing sources before settling on the word peremptorily – sources (and there are plenty of them) all emphasize that the removal was sudden, unexpected, and unilateral.

As dean, Lewis emphasized the importance of extracurricular activities; his annual advice to incoming freshmen urged that "flexibility in your schedule, unstructured time in your day, and evenings spent with your friends rather than your books are all, in a larger sense, essential for your education."[1][L06]: 86–90  By 2003 this and other disagreements had brought him into increasing conflict with Harvard's new president, Lawrence Summers, who had characterized Harvard College as an insufficiently intellectual "Camp Harvard". A month after issuing what The Harvard Crimson called "a scathing indictment of the view that increasing intellectual rigor ought to be the [College's] priority" – pointing out, for example, that prospective employers show less interest in grades than in personal qualities built outside the classroom – Lewis was peremptorily removed as dean.[2][3] [4]
Cites
L06.
Lewis, Excellence without a Soul

References

  1. ^ [1]
  2. ^ [2]
  3. ^ [3]
  4. ^ Bradley pp.229-242

Pinging Hertz1888, Tryptofish, FourViolas, ElKevbo, David Eppstein. EEng 18:28, 6 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know enough about the specifics of this individual or this college to be of much help (I sometimes feel like one of the few people in the U.S. who is not obsessed with every tiny thing that happens at Harvard). I would only quibble with the last sentence in that it's written in passive voice and obscures precisely who removed Lewis from his position as dean e.g., was this unilaterally done by the president or another individual? ElKevbo (talk) 18:32, 6 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
"Peremptory" seems fine to me as a concise way of distinguishing at-will dismissal (which is always possible for deans and chairs but rarely happens) from the more common term-expired-and-not-renewed type of dismissal. But ElKevbo's concerns about passivity are sound. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:38, 6 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the ping. I will "third" the recommendation against the passive voice: maybe something like "Summers peremptorily removed Lewis as dean." I have a second point as well. It's not immediately obvious what is meant by "By 2003 this and other disagreements had...". A minor issue is that the "other" ones are not specified. More importantly, "this disagreement" would obviously refer back to a disagreement that had just been described. But of course, it wasn't. What we have read so far is just the description of the kinds of things that Lewis liked to encourage. That does not make clear how there would be any sort of disagreement, and it actually sounds rather cheery, so that it's jarring to suddenly see it called a disagreement. It becomes clearer as one goes on to read about Summers' (who, by the way, was a PhD student and resident tutor in Lowell House when I was there – if anyone wants to ask me, I can provide some BLP-violating anecdotes) opposition to non-classroom activities, but that only comes after the reader wonders what the disagreements were. My suggestion would be to change it to "By 2003 these beliefs had brought him into...". If you prefer, it could be "By 2003 these beliefs (along with other disagreements) had brought him into...", although I'd probably prefer the shorter version. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:27, 6 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The wording "By 2003 this and other disagreements had brought him into increasing conflict..." begs the reader's question "what about this is a disagreement?"; the what and with whom of the disagreement are only discernible by reading on. I would change the quoted text to something along the lines of "By 2003, this emphasis [already spoken of], along with other controversial attitudes [or actions], had brought him into increasing conflict..." Hertz1888 (talk) 20:38, 6 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

V2

  • I was aware of these problems ("disagreements", passive voice) but figured I'd let you guys help me figure out what to do about them. The "disagreements" problem isn't too hard to fix:
After the 2001 inauguration of Harvard's new president, Lawrence Summers, Lewis and Summers came into conflict over the direction of the College and its educational philosophy.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7] Lewis, for example, emphasized the importance of extracurricular pursuits, advising incoming freshmen that "flexibility in your schedule, unstructured time in your day, and evenings spent with your friends rather than your books are all, in a larger sense, essential for your education", while Summers, complaining of an insufficiently intellectual "Camp Harvard", told students: "You are here to work, and your business here is to learn."[8][L06]: 86–90 [9] In March 2003, soon after issuing what The Harvard Crimson called "a scathing indictment of the view that increasing intellectual rigor ought to be the [College's] priority" – pointing out that prospective employers show less interest in grades than in personal qualities built outside the classroom[5] – Lewis was peremptorily removed as dean.[5][10][11][2][L06]: 86–90 

Cites
L06.
Lewis, Excellence without a Soul

References

  1. ^ http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2003/6/2/a-worthy-adversary-when-i-joined/
  2. ^ a b Bradley pp.229-242
  3. ^ Finder, Alan; Healy, Patrick; Zernike, Kate (February 22, 2006). "President of Harvard Resigns, Ending Stormy 5-Year Tenure". New York Times.
  4. ^ "Lewis Deserved Better". The Harvard Crimson. March 18, 2003.
  5. ^ a b c http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2003/3/18/lewis-departure-may-mean-shift-in/
  6. ^ http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2003/6/5/dean-ousted-in-college-shakeup-last/?page=single
  7. ^ http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2003/6/5/constructing-the-deanship-one-mans-job/?page=single
  8. ^ http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2003/4/8/a-168-hour-week-it-came-as/
  9. ^ http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/harrylewis/files/slowdown2004.pdf
  10. ^ http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2003/3/21/debunking-camp-harvard-harvard-college-is/
  11. ^ http://harvardmagazine.com/2003/05/deconstructing-the-colle.html

Now stand by while I formulate what to say about "passive voice". EEng 00:56, 7 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies if I'm missing something obvious but isn't it as simple as changing it to "Summers summarily removed him as dean" ? ElKevbo (talk) 12:27, 8 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
No need to apologize. It's something not-obvious. Stay tuned, I've been distracted. It's good to see you back, BTW. EEng 12:48, 8 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
No wonder the NYT link doesn't work—it's missing a URL. Hertz1888 (talk) 06:22, 9 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed now. Tomorrow I should have final text ready and then I'll ping you all again. EEng 08:02, 9 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

OK, here's the thing: Summers denied having anything to do with Lewis' ouster, but absolutely everyone knew he was behind it and (except for the official announcements) said so:

With [the appointment Benedict Gross, a friend of Summers', as the new dean of the College] Summers had not only an FAS dean [i.e. Kirby] who was under his thumb, but also a friend who was about to become the second most powerful person in FAS [i.e. Gross as the new dean of the College]. And then Summers wouldn't have to worry about Harry Lewis anymore.

For those who knew of Summers' record in Washington, the incident felt like deja vu. In 1999 Treasury Secretary Larry Summers has apparently engineered the ouster of dissenting economist Joseph Stiglitz from the World Bank, but so skilfully that his fingerprints could never be found. Now it appeared that history had repeated itself. Summers wanted Lewis gone, but he would never admit it and would never take responsibility for it.

...

Nor did anyone believe Kirby's claim that he was acting of his own volition. A Crimson cartoon showed Summers as a puppeteer, pulling strings attached to Bill Kirby as Kirby gave Harry Lewis a kick in the pants. Kirby and Summers, meanwhile, were said to be furious that Lewis would not deny that he had been "forced out"...

Plus two more sources listed a couple of posts down...

The only other things I found – I encourage my esteemed fellow editors to make a search of their own in case I missed something – are ambiguous statements like Lewis "stepped down" or "ended his service". No source I found (other than Summers' and Kirby's own statements) that addresses the question of Summers' possible involvement asserts that it wasn't Summers' decision.

My uncertainty was how to express all this. At the time I opened this thread I hadn't marshaled all the above sources so I took the coward's way out with the passive voice. So what do we say?

I think Kirby is deadweight i.e. I don't think it helps the reader to explain Lewis was peremptorily removed as dean by his superior, Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean William C. Kirby, though [something something Summers was behind it something]

Given the sources, I believe we're justified in simply saying either

Lewis was peremptorily removed as dean at Summers' behest.

or maybe (but not my preference)

Lewis was peremptorily removed as dean at Summers' behest (though Summers denied any involvement).

I really don't want to get into more explanations and he said/she said because I think that will sound like a boring conspiracy theory or RIGHTGREATWRONGSish. Of the two above, I prefer the first. Thoughts, please? Again pinging Hertz1888, Tryptofish, FourViolas, ElKevbo, David Eppstein. EEng 22:15, 9 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I understand the difficulties. Given the sources that you've provided, I'm not comfortable attributing this to Summers; I think that
WP:BLP demands much better evidence than a few student newspaper articles. While I understand that many people have strong suspicions that Summers engineered this dismissal, it still seems factually accurate to say that the FAS dean fired him since that is still the objective fact of who exactly pulled the trigger (apologies for the poor metaphor!). If anyone ever comes up with some solid evidence linking Summers to this decision then of course we can and should revisit this. (And for what it's worth, I don't have any ethical problems attributing this decision to the FAS dean; even if it was done at the president's behest, the dean ultimately carried it out so he certainly bears a huge amount of any ethical and legal blame and responsibility for the action.) ElKevbo (talk) 23:02, 9 April 2017 (UTC)[reply
]
Well, let's ignore the first two (The Crimson) if you want. The third (also The Crimson) relays the opinions of multiple administrators, and is certainly reliable for that. (The Crimson has many times been judged reliable for current Harvard events.) Bradley [8] is a full-length book on Summers' tenure, and the last link is the Globe – certainly reliable. If it was just the Crimson saying "Assistant Dean of the College Karen E. Avery '87 echoes several administrators..." then we might need to say something like "According to some inside the administration", but Bradley and the Globe simply state it as fact. Isn't that exactly the kind of secondary source we use for stuff like this? I'd be with you if there was anything contradicting this (other than Summers himself) but there isn't.
Now you see why I chose the passive voice (with no actor specified i.e. Lewis was peremptorily removed as dean, period) in the first place. I'd be happy to just go back to that, which avoids the whole problem. EEng 23:42, 9 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
P.S. Here are a few more sources -- and again, I can't find anything taking the contrary view:
  • [9] Boston Globe review of Lewis' Excellence book (2006): You expect Lewis's villain to be Lawrence Summers, who forced him out after tussles over internationalization, grade inflation, and curricular balance (And lest you think the review got this idea from the book he's reviewing, he doesn't -- Excellence doesn't talk about Lewis' removal, as far as I recall and as far as I can find now.)
  • Dalbanco, New York Review of Books (2006): Harry Lewis, for instance, former dean of Harvard College (he was fired by Lawrence Summers) EEng 23:42, 9 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Perhaps it would be simplest to retain the material about what Lewis encouraged students to do, and to leave the firing out, and say merely that his deanship ended in whatever year it was. Per BLP, we don't need to be a scandal rag. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:59, 11 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Simplest but (if I may say) completely inappropriate. Take a look at (ironically) the coverage of how later Summers lost his job -- Lawrence_Summers#Summers.27s opposition and support at Harvard. I'm OK with omitting the attribution of the actual firing to Summers (i.e. just saying simply Lewis was peremptorily removed as dean, period, as in V2 above) but omission of the conflict and the peremptory firing (which all we editors have agreed should be includee) would glaring. EEng 03:48, 11 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's worth including. And your detailed explanation excuses the passive voice — we don't really have clear enough evidence for Summers' hand and who cares who else actually took the fall for it. There's a different, more minor issue of passivity that I think could use better wordsmithing, though: "soon after issuing" comes quite far before its subject, making it take more effort than it should to figure out that Lewis was the issuer. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:10, 11 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

V3

Per David Eppstein's comment, a slight rewrite of the last sentence (no change in meaning). This still leaves the question of whether ElKevbo and Tryptofish can get on board with the no-actor passive, and where in the world are Hertz1888 and FourViolas? EEng 05:08, 11 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

After the 2001 inauguration of Harvard's new president, Lawrence Summers, Lewis and Summers came into conflict over the direction of the College and its educational philosophy.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7] Lewis, for example, emphasized the importance of extracurricular pursuits, advising incoming freshmen that "flexibility in your schedule, unstructured time in your day, and evenings spent with your friends rather than your books are all, in a larger sense, essential for your education", while Summers complained of an insufficiently intellectual "Camp Harvard" and told students: "You are here to work, and your business here is to learn."[8][L06]: 86–90 [9] After Lewis issued what The Harvard Crimson called "a scathing indictment of the view that increasing intellectual rigor ought to be the [College's] priority" – pointing out that prospective employers show less interest in grades than in personal qualities built outside the classroom[5] – he was peremptorily removed as dean in March 2003.[5][10][11][2][L06]: 86–90 
Cites
L06.
Lewis, Excellence without a Soul

References

  1. ^ http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2003/6/2/a-worthy-adversary-when-i-joined/
  2. ^ a b Bradley pp.229-242
  3. ^ Finder, Alan; Healy, Patrick; Zernike, Kate (February 22, 2006). "President of Harvard Resigns, Ending Stormy 5-Year Tenure". New York Times.
  4. ^ "Lewis Deserved Better". The Harvard Crimson. March 18, 2003.
  5. ^ a b c http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2003/3/18/lewis-departure-may-mean-shift-in/
  6. ^ http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2003/6/5/dean-ousted-in-college-shakeup-last/?page=single
  7. ^ http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2003/6/5/constructing-the-deanship-one-mans-job/?page=single
  8. ^ http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2003/4/8/a-168-hour-week-it-came-as/
  9. ^ http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/harrylewis/files/slowdown2004.pdf
  10. ^ http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2003/3/21/debunking-camp-harvard-harvard-college-is/
  11. ^ http://harvardmagazine.com/2003/05/deconstructing-the-colle.html
Looks ok to me now. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:55, 11 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The Crimson is the campus paper of record, of course, but it would be ideal to have the "Camp Harvard"-"personal qualities" dialectic more explicitly stated in the Times. Still, they have that Summers thought the College was "complacent" and that Lewis "disagreed frequently" with Summers; that wouldn't be enough to get past SYNTH on its own, but reading it next to the Crimson narrative makes it clear they're talking about the same thing. The Freinberg article is also not ideal, but delicately appropriate to indicate the conflict as perceived at the time (inferred backwards from the position he took on the conflict). Slow Down is suspiciously primary (as much as I enjoyed the chance to reread it--you know they still include it in admissions packets?), but turns out to be appropriately contextualized and cited. Overall I think it correctly identifies the undisputed facts of the conflict, as well as the flavor of who took which sides and why, while staying within NPOV. FourViolas (talk) 16:00, 11 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Just to point out: the quote from "Slow Down" is from one of the Crimson articles cited; I only included the PRIMARY document itself as a supplement. EEng 01:21, 12 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I don't feel too strongly about any of what is being discussed here, so I'll offer a useless comment. As we go through successive Vs. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:10, 11 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
That's pretty good! I will definitely add that to my toolbag of jokes to use without crediting the person I got it from. So after FV's analysis, are you on board with "passive (no actor)" i.e. V3 exactly? EEng 01:21, 12 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not entirely on board but if I'm the only one then please don't let me a stick in the spokes of the wheels of progress. ElKevbo (talk) 01:57, 12 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Well, think of it this way. You had a BLP concern with saying that Summers was behind Lewis being sacked i.e. it might be unfair to Summers to say he told Kirby to do it. OK, but on the other hand, it might be unfair to Kirby to portray him him as being solely responsible, so maybe that's a BLP violation. So maybe we really can't say anything about either of them as the prime mover, absent better evidence either way. But we can't just say Lewis "stepped down" -- he was clearly pushed out somehow. Thus the no-actor passive "perfunctorily removed".
Based on the consensus of 3/4 editors (counting ElK and Tfish each as 0.5) I'm going to install V3. ElK, if you find you just can't sleep at night, feel free to bring it up here again. I'm going to move the dean stuff to a separate section, too, because I think now it overdominates the main bio section.
EEng 05:24, 12 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Plans

We are told that Lewis plans to retire in 2020. This might be true, but Wikipedia does not refer to the future. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.166.102.132 (talk) 10:46, 17 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't refer to the future. It refers to what bus plans are today. EEng 11:21, 17 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The word "bus" might be a mistake for "his". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.166.102.132 (talk) 12:12, 17 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed it might. EEng 22:22, 17 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
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