BOSTON – Harvard University’s largest faculty group approved a no-confidence motion against President Lawrence Summers following his comments that women may lack the aptitude to excel in science and engineering.

The vote by secret ballot by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences was 218 in favor and 185 against, with 18 abstentions, said J. Lorand Matory, a professor of Anthropology and African-American studies who wrote the proposal. The 421 individuals who attended a faculty meeting today represented a quorum of the 690-member group, making all the votes official, Mr. Matory said.

“There is no noble alternative to his resignation,” Mr. Matory said in an interview after the meeting. “He should resign as president of Harvard University.”

The undergraduate faculty organized three meetings since Mr. Summers, 50, made the comments about women at a conference on January 14. They used his remarks as a focus for complaints about the president’s management style since he was appointed in 2001 by the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based school’s seven-member ruling authority, Harvard Corporation. The no-confidence vote may help erode support for Mr. Summers by the board, the only group that can fire him.

“Even if the board really likes the president, the drag on the institution gets to the point where you almost can’t talk about anything else,” Stephen Nelson, an education research associate at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, said before the meeting. “Then even the board may decide that this is a losing affair.”

The faculty also approved a second motion by Government and Sociology Professor Theda Skocpol that expressed regret for Mr. Summers’s statements and the “adverse consequences” they had for individuals and the school. This proposal praised his pledge to try to improve relations with the staff. Mr. Summers reiterated that commitment after today’s meeting.

“I have tried these last couple of months to listen carefully to all that has been said, to learn from it, and to move forward, and that is what I will do,” Mr. Summers said. “My hope now is that our faculty will be in a position to move forward strongly and in a united way on the important issues that face us.”

Harvard Corporation issued an unprecedented letter backing the president through its senior member, Corning Incorporated Chief Executive Officer James R. Houghton, on February 17.

Mr. Summers was hired to bring more centralized authority, expand America’s oldest educational institution into Boston, and reshape its undergraduate curriculum. As part of that effort, Mr. Summers appointed new deans, including Harvard Business School’s Kim Clark; the Divinity School’s William Graham; John F. Kennedy School of Government’s Dean David Ellwood; and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, William Kirby.

“I value the views of the faculty and of President Summers, and I believe we are all committed to moving forward in a constructive fashion,” Mr. Kirby said in a statement today after the meeting.

Mr. Summers also has spearheaded plans to overhaul the undergraduate program’s core curriculum. Proposed changes include a bigger emphasis on math and science studies and studying overseas. Professors also would be required to spend more time with students through such activities as holding more office hours.

Such high-profile moves are bound to upset the status quo and draw some ire to those members of the faculty who don’t want things to change, Professor of Yiddish Literature Ruth Wisse said in an interview before the meeting.

“The president of the United States of America can speak out on unpopular subjects and does not get shot down. The president of Harvard gets pilloried,” Ms. Wisse said after the session. “This reflects badly not on President Summers but on the faculty of Arts and Sciences.”

Professors complained at the first faculty meeting on February 15 that Mr. Summers had an autocratic approach to management and was dismissive of their views, Mary Waters, chairwoman of the sociology department at Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Harvard, said after the session.

Criticism of Mr. Summers on campus got a boost on March 1 with the publication of Richard Bradley’s “Harvard Rules.” The book examines Mr. Summers’s first three years in office and details several conflicts he has had with faculty, including the defection of former professor Cornel West to rival Princeton University in New Jersey.

Mr. Summers battled Mr. West about the level of scholarship in the professor’s writings, the amount of time Mr. West spent in the classroom, how much he spent campaigning for Democratic candidates, and a spoken-word compact disc that was characterized as a “rap” recording, Mr. Matory said. Mr. West didn’t immediately return calls and e-mail seeking comment.

Faculty grievances also have included Mr. Summers’s appearing bored at meetings with staff, rolling his eyes to show his disdain for speakers, or picking up a newspaper and reading it while people were talking, according to Mr. Bradley’s book.