Overseer Candidate Philip Harrison Calls Alumni Interview Guidance ‘A Shame’

Board of Overseers candidate Philip L. Harrison ’86 criticized Harvard’s recent guidelines barring alumni interviewers from discussing applicants’ race, calling the policy “a shame” and “a step backwards” that limits interviewers’ ability to fully understand prospective students.

Harrison — the chief executive officer of the global architecture firm Perkins&Will — has conducted alumni interviews for roughly three decades. He said that while Harvard may have had pragmatic reasons for adopting the rule, restricting discussion of applicants’ backgrounds risks obscuring important context about their experiences.

“You should be able to talk about a student’s background,” Harrison said in an interview. “Part of the value of Harvard’s community is that interviewing is a fundamental part of the admissions process.”

“Certain pragmatic decisions may need to be made at certain times, but ultimately, we need to get back to thinking about the totality of the people that we’re admitting to the school,” Harrison added.

Harrison, who also graduated from the Graduate School of Design in 1993, was nominated in January as one of nine candidates for the Board of Overseers, Harvard’s second-highest governing body. Alumni will elect six of the candidates in an April vote.

He said that maintaining a diverse campus community — including diversity of viewpoints — is essential to Harvard’s mission as a liberal arts institution.

“It can’t be a great educational institution unless it has viewpoint diversity, unless it has diversity of citizens,” he said of Harvard. “That means diversity of backgrounds, diversity of ethnicities, geographic differences, everything that makes Harvard a rich place.”

But Harrison said efforts to foster viewpoint diversity should come from within the University rather than through government intervention, criticizing proposals from the Trump administration that would tie federal funding to oversight of hiring or curriculum decisions.

“I do not think that it’s appropriate for the government to manage anything on the campus in terms of curriculum, hiring decisions or viewpoint diversity,” he said.

Instead, Harrison said Harvard should focus on cultivating a campus culture that encourages civil discourse and allows people with differing perspectives to speak openly.

“Harvard should be open to all viewpoints,” he said. “It should absolutely advocate academic freedom, but it should also have a culture and education pedagogy that ensures that there is psychological safety on the campus.”

Harrison also weighed in on a recent controversy involving students who recorded remarks by former University President Lawrence H. Summers about his relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey E. Epstein during a class session. Harvard College policy prohibits recording in classrooms without permission, and the students’ actions prompted an investigation by the College’s Administrative Board.

Harrison said recording in class can undermine the atmosphere of open discussion but suggested that discipline should be measured.

“Videotaping in-classroom is problematic for many reasons,” he said. “If people agree not to do it, and they do it — then there should be consequences.”

“I don’t think they should be kicked out,” he added. “I think they should be warned and given a chance to not do it again.”

Still, Harrison said the episode illustrates broader tensions affecting universities nationwide and said Harvard could play a role in demonstrating how institutions navigate those conflicts.

“It can’t be just black and white on these issues,” he said. “It has to have a healthy, productive way to be supportive of students and faculty, to get back to a positive discourse.”

Harrison argued that Harvard is uniquely positioned to lead other schools through a period of growing skepticism about the value of college.

“Harvard has to shift from being one of the many victims in the higher education world to being a leader,” he said. “It has the resources — and it has the track record — to redefine those sets of issues which seem to be weakening the education system, and to flip the conversation around.”

That shift will require Harvard to more confidently articulate its values and mission, he said. In recent years, Harrison argued, Harvard has sometimes appeared reactive rather than proactive in responding to controversy.

“I kind of feel that the University has been a bit passive over the years,” Harrison said, adding that the institution appeared “caught somewhat flat-footed” during the turmoil surrounding former University President Claudine Gay’s short tenure.

Harrison said his experience leading Perkins&Will — a global architecture firm with thousands of employees — would inform his approach as an Overseer. While universities differ from private companies, he said, large organizations often face similar challenges.

“Ultimately, it comes back to fundamental values,” he said. “I would seek to lead from a core principles approach, as opposed to a circumstantial approach.”

During his time at the College, Harrison sang with the Krokodiloes, Harvard’s oldest a capella group. Fellow Krok member Peter F. Miller ’85 said Harrison helped shape traditions that continue in the group today and said he would bring the same commitment to the Board of Overseers.

“I have no doubt that he will bring his energy to it,” Miller said. “The energy and values that he brings to it will be core to what we’ve talked about, which is preserving and extending many of the great things about Harvard as an institution.”

—Staff writer Hugo C. Chiasson can be reached at [email protected] or on Signal at hcc.35. Follow him on X @HugoChiassonn.