Harvard Says Summers Resigns as President

BOSTON - Harvard University President Lawrence Summers has resigned after a turbulent five years of leading the prestigious school.

In a statement on its Web site on Tuesday, Harvard said Summers would conclude his tenure as president at the end of the 2005-06 academic year and be replaced by an interim leader, Derek Bok, who was Harvard's president from 1971 to 1991.

Summers, whose abrupt style has won praise and contempt since he became president in 2001, sparked controversy last year when he said innate differences between men and women may help explain why so few women work in the academic sciences.

He has since apologized repeatedly for his remarks.

But the abrupt resignation of the arts and sciences dean William Kirby, on Jan. 27 deepened opposition against Summers. Several faculty have accused Summers of pushing Kirby out and called for his resignation at a faculty meeting this month.

Next week he was to face his second no-confidence vote in 11 months.

Lou Tanyu (L) of Stamford, Connecticut, and her sister Leslie Tanyu (C), a Brown University student protest along with Harvard students and other supporters by holding signs and chanting to demonstrate against Harvard President Lawrence Summers February 22, 2005 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (Jodi Hilton/Getty Images)

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"Believing deeply that complacency is among the greatest risks facing Harvard, I have sought for the last five years to prod and challenge the university to reach for the most ambitious goals in creative ways," Summers said in a statement.

"As I leave the presidency, my greatest hope is that the university will build on the important elements of renewal that we have begun over the last several years."

The confidence vote was to be symbolic because only the seven-member governing board, the Harvard Corporation, has the power to appoint or remove the university's president. The faculty body first approved a no-confidence measure in March 2005 after Summers' remarks on women.

Summers also was embroiled in a public feud with the African-American Studies department that erupted shortly after he became president. The once-vaunted department has seen an exodus of top faculty.

Summers -- a Harvard alumni and former faculty member -- had pledged to change his tone, better listen to the Harvard community and do more to draw women to science and engineering.