Document 14

"Thompson Named Associate Provost," in the Harvard University Gazette, September 19, 1996, pp. 1, 6

Dennis F. Thompson, the Alfred North Whitehead Professor of Political Philosophy in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) and the founding director of the University-wide program in Ethics and the Professions, has been named to fill the newly created post of associate provost.

A leading scholar of political ethics and democratic theory who holds appointments in both the FAS Government Department and the Kennedy School of Government, Thompson will devote approximately half of his professional time to his new responsibilities, while continuing his leadership of the Ethics and the Professions program.

"I am delighted that Dennis Thompson has agreed to take on this new and important role," said Provost Albert Carnesale in announcing the appointment. "He is a person of excellent judgment, keen intelligence, and unusual breadth, with a demonstrated talent for creating connections across the University. His presence will strengthen our capacity to plan thoughtfully and act effectively on University-wide matters that have a significant academic dimension. It has always been a pleasure towork with Dennis, and I'm excited at the prospect of working even more closely with him in the future."

Thompson said he looks forward to his new role with enthusiasm and an appreciation of both the challenges and opportunities that confront Harvard and higher education. "I hope to be able to bring my perspective as a faculty member to the discussion of University-wide academic issues that Harvard is now facing," Thompson said. "I welcome the challenge of combining my teaching and research with these new administrative responsibilities, and I am pleased to have the chance to work with Al and his colleagues, who have already done much to bring the parts of the University closer together."

"Everyone who knows Dennis Thompson knows he is someone who can not only think through larger issues in all their complexity, but also help people work together collegially and purposefully to make things happen," said President Neil L. Rudenstine. "He is an unusually insightful citizen of the university, and all of us will benefit from having him apply his many talents to broader issues of University-wide concern."

Thompson joins Rudenstine and Carnesale as one of only three academic officers based in the University's Central Administration. Carnesale said that Thompson's activities as associate provost would extend to a variety of programs and planning efforts that involve substantial academic issues or are otherwise of particular concern to members of the faculty.

"We have a good deal of work to do on everything from intellectual property to international studies to the Interfaculty Initiatives and other promising collaborative efforts going on around the University," Carnesale said. "Dennis will bring the essential perspective of an experienced scholar and teacher to a number of cross-School academic pursuits, as well as to several major administrative challenges in which faculty across Harvard have important interest."

Thompson joined the Harvard faculty in 1986, and soon took the lead role in the University-wide effort to encourage more and better teaching and research on ethical issues in the professions and public life more generally. In the decade since, more than distinguished scholars have participated as Fellows in the Program in Ethics and the Professions--12 of whom now serve as faculty members at Harvard.

In addition to his scholarship, teaching, and leadership of the ethics program, Thompson has served on committees in several Harvard Faculties: the Faculty of Arts and Sciences' Committee on Affirmative Action, as well as its Core Curriculum Subcommittee on Moral Reasoning and Social Analysis; the Kennedy School Curriculum Committee, the Committee on Professional Responsibility, and Committee on Teaching Evaluation; the Law School's Advisory committee on the Program in the Legal Profession: and the Medical School's Executive Committee of the Division of Medical Ethics. In addition, he has been a consultant to the appointments committee and other groups in the Business School. A fellow of Leverett House, and earlier of Dunster House, he also served, along with his wife Carol, as a head resident in South House (now Cabot House) as a graduate student at Harvard in the 1960s.

Thompson holds a B.A. from the College of William and Mary, a first-class honors degree in philosophy, politics, and economics from Balliol College, Oxford University, and a Ph.D. in political science from Harvard. From 1968 to 1986 he taught at Princeton University, where he served several terms as the chairman of the Department of Politics and also wrote a report on university governance.

A Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and past president of the American Society of Legal and Political philosophy, Thompson is most recently the co-author (with Amy Gutmann) of Democracy and Disagreement (1986). His numerous other works include Ethics and Congress: From Individual to Institutional Corruption (1995), and Political Ethics and Public Office (1987), which won the American Political Science Association's award for the year's best political science publication in the field of U.S. national policy.