Dean of Harvard College Evelynn M. Hammonds took a golden parachute to 'lead a new program on race and gender in science and medicine, as a Harvard faculty when she step down as the Dean of Harvard College.
Dean Hammonds made a number of contradictory statements surrounding an email search scandal exploded last year. She ordered multiple searches of over a dozen junior faculty's email to find out the source of a Harvard Crimson report on academic fraud at Harvard. Part of the search was co-authorized by Michael D. Smith, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. When the scandal was revealed in March, Dean Hammonds swore that was the only search she ordered. However, with the investigation furthering a few weeks later, she admitted to other secret email search that she ordered on herself. Even if it's already a norm to find an administrator lying in public, it should have been sufficient to kick her out of the academia.
Harvard faculty expressed loss of trust, and The Crimson called on Dean Hammonds to resign.
Now, when she did step down, Dean Hammonds told the press, 'I was never asked to step down'.
Could that be considered another lie in public? Or is she blind and deaf? When faculty and students called on her to resign, does that mean something to a Harvard administrator?
Perhaps the message Dean Hammonds attempted to convey was that only the President's opinion matters, and that those of alum, faculty and students do not. Dean Hammonds incidentally revealed a deeper problem at Harvard.
When Dean Hammonds collect information for her new program, she could use her own example as how to ruin a most respected institution in five years. Thanks to Dean Hammonds, we see the fall of a once great academic shrine.
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