Brian Casey moved out of his University Hall office in early January to become associate dean for academic affairs in another University Hall - at Harvard University. He now sits in the former office of Vincent Tompkins '84, who left his position at Harvard to come to Brown and who, coincidentally, now resides in Casey's old office.
The two men did not actually switch jobs. Casey left his post as assistant provost at Brown to take over for Tompkins, and Tompkins became deputy provost here. Casey and Tompkins are good friends, Casey said, having attended graduate school together at Harvard.
Having spent significant time at each university, both men have become familiar with the different administrations as well as each school's general overall atmosphere.
Harvard in fluxLike Brown, Harvard is undergoing many changes, including a review of its undergraduate curriculum and the departure of several high-level administrators, including President Lawrence Summers.
Both administrators have been involved with Harvard in the wake of the controversy surrounding Summers and the recent announcement of his resignation. In January 2005, Summers made comments regarding women's innate ability in the sciences that raised eyebrows nationally and sparked protest from the university's own faculty, among others.
"The act of a president stepping down is considered a very big deal up here," Casey said.
He added, "The feeling I picked up is that people were weary, that this has been a long, noisy, public, painful process and after the president resigned there was just this sense of weariness."
Because Summers announced his resignation only five weeks after Casey arrived, Casey said he did not feel quite so affected by the departure. "I didn't really have enough time to work with him," he added.
Casey said aside from the departing president's statements in early 2005, he did agree with most of Summers' ambitions.
"He called for a rigorous look at the undergraduate curriculum, improving multidisciplinary sciences, planning (the expansion of Harvard's campus), all of which were very important institution goals," Casey said.
Tompkins, who was at Harvard during the Summers crisis, said it "was certainly a significant distraction, but everyone was doing their best to focus on the principle tasks at hand, which are always teaching and research."
"I think it affected the morale of some of the faculty," Tompkins added. "My way of coping in moments like that is to keep my head down and get my work done."
Casey compared the situation at Harvard to former Brown President Gordon Gee's departure in 1999.
"After a president leaves, there's this moment when a university just catches its breath," Casey said.
Cambridge and ProvidenceThough Casey left Brown, he has "only very kind things to say" about the University.
"Harvard is much bigger as an institution," Casey said, citing the large number of graduate and professional students. "You can be anonymous here in a way you can't be at Brown."
Tompkins also commented on Harvard's large-scale feel, particularly from an administrative standpoint.
"It's a much more complicated institution, in terms of the administration making decisions that affect the university, so it's harder to get things done," Tompkins said.
Casey echoed this thought, saying, "you can get things done more quickly at Brown - from my old office I could confer with the president, the dean of the faculty, etc., and all in one day. You really have to understand the system here to get things done. I miss Brown's scale."
Casey said his responsibilities have shifted from dealing with "large, institutional initiatives" in the provost's office to the more specific task of faculty hiring and appointment. He added, however, that the two tasks are not actually all that different.
"A lot of what I was doing at Brown was helping to implement the Plan for Academic Enrichment, the most important part of which was to hire faculty," Casey said.
Casey and Tompkins both commented on the enthusiasm surrounding the Plan for Academic Enrichment, something else that Casey has missed since leaving Brown.
"You saw Brown as participating in a national and intellectual conversation in ways it might not have before. The growth of the faculty, the development of Ship Street and the Life Sciences Building - all these changes showed Brown as an institution with extreme ambitions," Casey said.
Commenting on the non-academic atmosphere at Harvard, Casey said, "The Main Green at Brown is always filled with students, whereas Harvard Yard is never filled with students. You just don't see that here."
Harvard does have some advantages over Brown, Casey said, mostly relating to its greater resources and more esteemed reputation.
"Harvard's better resources do allow you to be very ambitious with the quality of faculty that you're trying to hire," Casey said. "It does have a place on a national stage so when you're recruiting faculty one of the things you're offering them is to play on that stage.
An avid swimmer, Casey said Harvard also has a better swimming pool.
Overall, Casey and Tompkins said the universities are actually quite similar.
"The basic similarities derive from the fact that they are two of the finest institutions of high education in the world. They are very comparable in terms of quality of students, faculty and basic values that they are both here to promote," Tompkins said.
Tompkins said the main difference stems from the type of curriculum that is offered. Harvard's curriculum has a broader focus, Tompkins said, but "both institutions are striving to produce an outstanding education, even though they go about that in a different way."
Casey suspected that students who choose to attend Brown are choosing "a different kind of academic experience."
Nonetheless, "it's amazing how many connections there are between the two institutions," Casey said.
