The Asia Connection

Where the money is, Harvard will go. By the end of this month, President Neil L. Rudenstine will finish his second trip to East Asia-two more than any other sitting Harvard president. While there he will cultivate wealthy Asian donors, wooing funds for the large number of Harvard projects related to the region.

While some have suggested that Chinese President Jiang Zemin and Rudenstine's meetings are a sign of China's democratization, the broad goals of the trip, say those who accompanied Rudenstine, are recruitment, opportunities for exchange programs--and fundraising.

The economic success of East Asia in recent years has drawn the University's attention: The Development Office aims to tap the region for 5 percent of the Capital Campaign's goal of $2.1 billion. So far it is only $20 million short.

To meet this goal, the University is making it clear to potential donors that it means business when it comes to Asian studies.

Along for the Ride

Ezra F. Vogel, director of both the Fairbank Center for East Asia Research and the University's Asia Center, joined the Rudenstines on their first trip and will be traveling with them on the second Asia tour.

The Ford Professor of the Social Sciences was one of several experts on Asia who traveled with Rudenstine, his wife Angelica, and officials from the Development Office.

Vogel says traveling to Asia helps the University maintain "good relationships" with people in the region who are interested in the school and are potential donors.

In the process of fostering ties and advancing Harvard's interest in Asia, representatives of the University, including Rudenstine, have had to negotiate cultural differences between the West and the East.

Kristin Sorenson, who directs East Asian operations in the Development Office, says the region lacks a "longstanding tradition of philanthropy," so that most donations to Harvard from Asia are "based on people's relationships with the institution."

One way the University has attracted giving, she says, is by stressing the connection between donations and Asia-specific programs on campus.

"The funds have an impact on issues that are of concern in the region," Sorenson says. "That makes a difference."

As an example of Harvard's attention to regional concerns, Sorenson cites environmental research directed at reducing carbon dioxide levels in China.

Though Sorenson says personal ties lie behind most contributions from Asia, Vogel explained that gifts from the region are more likely to be institutional in origin than U.S. gifts, which tend to come from alumni.

Vogel says the hope of "having their people come to Harvard in fellowship programs" and the realization that it is in the "national interest...to have research in our country" motivate the largesse of Asian foundations and corporations.

Regardless of whether the donors are institutions or alums, the list of programs in Asian studies at Harvard that might interest them is substantial. The Fairbank Center, the Reischauer Institute for Japanese Studies, the Korea Institute, the Harvard-Yenching Library, the East Asian Legal Studies Program and the Program on U.S.-Japan Relations are but a few.

Rudenstine wrote in an introduction to the first issue of the Asia Pacific Review last winter, "Students and scholars from East Asia have been coming to Harvard for more than a century, and never has the relationship been closer than it is today."

Back at Home

As the Development Office pursues a share of the wealth, connections between Harvard and Asia are growing stronger.

In the last few months, high-ranking Chinese education officials have met with Rudenstine, and the Graduate School of Education (GSE) hired as a professor an expert on Chinese primary and secondary school.

And this is just the beginning.

"We're at the early stages," says Jerome T. Murphy, dean of GSE. The focus on China and education will continue to expand, he says.

In the fall, Harvard plans to open an outpost in Hong Kong that will serve as a central resource for University activity in the area--activity that has skyrocketed in recent years as more Faculty research has been considered in the area.

Last week, Dean of the Graduate School of Design Peter G. Rowe was in China; earlier in the semester Dean of the Business School Kim B. Clark made his rounds in the region.

And students are catching the Asia buzz as well. Between 1985 and 1995, the number of East Asian studies concentrators quintuple from 30 to more than 150.

But the capstone of these efforts is the new Asia Center, headed by Vogel. This center coordinates the focal points of Asian study already in existence while fostering comparative work.

According to Vogel, it will also promote research on South and Southeast Asia, which he says has been lacking.

The University refers to it as "the centerpiece of Harvard's Asian initiatives in The University Campaign"--linking academic study with the pursuit of Asian funds.

Crossing Borders Without Crossing Lines

But fundraising in the East follows different mores from domestic efforts.

For starters, gifts from Asia are not being recognized publicly by the University.

Typically, when large contributions are made the Development Office responds by seeking the donor's consent and then publicizing the donation, Sorenson says. But, she adds, "this is not something we've focused on to date" with gifts from Asia.

News of contributions from American alumni regularly appears in the University fundraising newsletter, resources, and the administration's newspaper, the Gazette. Except for a feature in the summer 1996 issue of resources about Japan's Mitsubishi Corporation, however, Asian supporters have received little public attention.

The ethical implications of fundraising receive more attention as well, says Vogel, who from 1993 to 1995 served as a National Intelligence Officer for East Asia at the National Intelligence Council in Washington.

There are potential dangers involved in receiving gifts from foreign institutional sources, he says.

"There would be [a hazard] if we accepted funds for a very narrow or political purpose," Vogel says.

It's a controversial line to walk.

Last fall, the Turkish government endowed million dollar chairs at universities across the nation for the purpose of "revealing the truth about Turkey," says Turkish Ambassador Nusret Kandemir.

Critics accused the government of trying to influence scholars to support its view that Turkey is not responsible for the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians during the late nineteenth century in the wake of the Ottoman empire's disintegration.

Harvard accepted the endowment, but the University of California at Los Angeles did not.

Harvard has not always said "yes," however. Vogel recalls that a grant from Asia for a lecture series was returned when the source of the funds objected to a particular speaker on political grounds. While he refuses to divulge the gift's country of origin, Vogel stresses that Harvard chose to return the money rather than capitulate to its donor.

Harvard administrators say they take special care during campaigning not to sell-out the University's integrity for money. As Harvard makes the rounds in Asia, the ethics of academic neutrality will remain a series of delicate balances between obtaining funding for needed research and allowing wealthy donors to dictate Harvard's curricula.

In the meantime, Sorenson says the East Asian Operations division of the Development Office--the only separate geographic division listed in the University Directory of Professional Staff--will continue its work.

"We've been successful so far on a case-by-case basis," she says.

And so while Rudenstine's summer vacation will soon pass, Harvard's attention to the area will not. Sorenson says she anticipates a gradual, long-term build-up of Harvard's ties to the region.

"This is not a one-shot deal through Asia," she says.