CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) – Harvard President Lawrence Summers faced another round of tough questions from disgruntled faculty Tuesday, but avoided a no-confidence vote in a meeting participants described as collegial.

“I think everyone has calmed down,” said Ruth Wisse, a literature professor who has supported Summers, as she emerged from the two-hour meeting of about 500 Faculty of Arts and Sciences members on the Harvard campus.

Faculty rejected a proposal that a three-person committee of administrators and faculty mediate between Summers and university professors, according to attendees and an online account by the Harvard Crimson, the student newspaper and only media outlet allowed at the meeting.

Summers’ management style and recent controversial remarks about women in science sparked opposition at a faculty meeting last week that Summers described as “searing.”

This time, in his opening remarks, which were released by the university, Summers said he was “committed to opening a new chapter in my work with you,” and pledged to “seek to listen more – and more carefully – and to temper my words and actions in ways that convey respect and help us work together more harmoniously. No doubt I will not always get things right. But I am determined to set a different tone.”

Afterward, he issued a statement calling the discussions “candid and thoughtful” and said he hoped they “will help all of us move forward together in the most collegial ways possible.”

Attendees said Summers faced more sharp questions and complaints, though some in attendance voiced support. According to the Crimson, physics and applied sciences professor Daniel Fisher said Summers “must resign or the (Harvard) Corporation, for the good of Harvard, must fire him.”

Another professor said he would put a vote of “no confidence” on the docket for the next faculty meeting March 15.

Summers, however, has the support of the Harvard Corporation, the university’s governing body, and attendees said there was no talk of a no-confidence vote at Tuesday’s meeting. Some faculty had suggested beforehand that such a vote be taken.

Most of the attention seemed to focus more broadly on Summers’ famously blunt management style rather than the controversy over his remarks on women in science.

“I think … he has heard the message of discontent,” said historian James Kloppenberg. “His response was very different from the responses he has given in the past. It was much more conciliatory.”

Asked if the talks were constructive, Harvard brain expert Steven Pinker, who has supported Summers, said: “It wasn’t destructive. It was better than last time.”

The latest controversy over Summers’ leadership style dates to his Jan. 14 remarks at a National Bureau of Economic Research conference – remarks he thought were off the record.

At the request of faculty, Summers released a full transcript of his comments last week, which show him arguing – with repeated qualifications – that innate differences partly explain why more men than women score in the highest ranges of math and science tests and rise to top science jobs.

Students – some calling on the Harvard corporation to “lay off Larry,” others supporting him – lined the route attendees followed into the lecture hall where the meeting took place.

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