Word: ombudsman
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Harvard is no place for the meek. Strong opinions and strong wills clash in newspaper columns, journal articles, public debates and private arguments. Last Monday’s appointment of Clowes Research Professor Henry Ehrenreich as University ombudsman is an effort to replace some of this acrimony with compromise. The newly created office will be a resource for conflicts between faculty, students, employees and the administration. Ehrenreich will provide informal mediation and advice to parties in a disagreement, but will lack the authority to impose mediated solutions. While the exact parameters of this potentially vast role remain undefined, there...
Impartiality is the hallmark of an effective arbitrator. Opposing groups will be suspicious of any mediator they believe to have biases or conflicts of interest, and less willing to accept his proposals as fair. By unilaterally appointing a professor as ombudsman, the administration risks undermining the impartiality and thus legitimacy of the arbitrator’s position. To avoid conflicts of interest, the ombudsman should be an outsider who has no personal stake in the University. Ehrenreich’s position as a tenured faculty member could make students and employees wary of his ties to the already powerful University...
Beyond mediating individual disputes, the ombudsman must watch closely for common themes underlying specific conflicts. Identifying and reporting these themes—and the larger problems they represent—is a responsibility uniquely suited to the ombudsman because of his or her University-wide role as a conflict resolution resource. But of course the confidentiality of individual disputes must be preserved—otherwise the credibility of the ombudsperson as an impartial arbitrator will vanish...
...close business associate. Police arrested 16 leaders of the MST landless movement after a 600-strong invasion of a farm belonging to Cardoso's sons. Within 24 hours, 150 members of the mst invaded the farm of a presidential business associate in retaliation for the arrests. The national ombudsman resigned in protest at police heavy-handedness...
...latest airport-security scandal is the groping of female flight attendants and passengers during patdowns. Not to worry. The Transportation Security Administration chief is right on it. "We're going to fix that right away," he said recently, announcing the appointment of an ombudsman...