This interview was edited for length and clarity.
While the Harvard Corporation exercises fiduciary responsibility for the University, the Board of Overseers plays an oversight role. Last summer, the tax on Harvard’s endowment income was raised from 1.4 percent to 8 percent, and the FAS is staring down a $365 million structural deficit. In the face of financial instability, how should Harvard approach cost cutting?
My general impression is that Harvard has an opportunity to be more financially efficient. It’s clearly one of the wealthier colleges and universities in the world. I’ve been to many other colleges and universities with far fewer resources that managed to figure it out, and I believe that Harvard can do this. By efficiency, I mean simplifying its management and structural approach, and using those efficiencies to keep the important things but maybe be a little less wasteful in the way it’s managing its resources.
The Overseers, I think of them as the people looking at the quality of the institution and the Corporation being responsible for paying the bills, in essence. If the Corporation is too aggressive in cost cutting and that impedes on the quality, then I would think the Overseers would be defending quality, but also being cooperative with the Corporation, because the financial realities are what they are. Clearly there is a gap, and that’s exacerbated if the government grant funding is withheld.
I don’t have the specific numbers in mind. I’m not an expert on it yet, but my career has been running a business which is a creative organization, about an $800 million business in terms of revenue, and we deal with these kinds of issues every day. You make business decisions that align with quality expectations, management expectations, cultural issues. It’s the same sort of decisions that will need to be made at Harvard, where you’re making trade offs or finding ways to do things more affordably but still sustain the qualitative objectives and values of the school.
In December, President Garber’s term was extended indefinitely in a bilateral decision by the governing boards. What are your thoughts on the presidential search process and the decision to bypass it? Should faculty or other stakeholders have more of a say?
First of all, if I’m elected, I look forward to meeting Alan Garber. I understand he came into his role sort of reluctantly. He didn’t intend to be president and ended up in that role. Given all that’s happening on the campus, I think it was a wise decision to extend his tenure, and that he seems to be a good person for the school at this point in time.
But clearly the school in the next few years needs to have another election process. If I am elected to the Overseers, I understand that I would be involved in that. I think leadership is extremely important for the school, although I also understand that the President has more symbolic power than actual power. It’s a difficult role in that regard. I think we’ve got a good person in Alan Garber for the next few years, but exactly the type of person we need next will depend upon the kinds of problems we’re dealing with. I believe that Harvard needs to get back its confidence with all of the challenges it’s had in recent years. It feels to me that the school is struggling a bit on certain levels, even though I understand from talking to students and faculty that it’s still Harvard, it’s still the place that I remember. But just from the media stories and a lot of the different groups on campus being quite critical of the institution, and then the broader societal lack of faith in higher education.
The kinds of attributes I’ll be looking for in Garber now and in the future would be leaders who truly lead from a pursquoe-minded, principled standpoint, to take the whole organization to a place of greater confidence and aspiration and take away some of the vicissitudes of the moment, which are real and need to be addressed, but I feel like we’re sort of playing defense a lot of the time. We need to shift towards getting back to a principled, confident approach, which will get the school back to being a bolder, more creative, more inspired environment, and so that fundamental leadership paradigm is super important.
In terms of faculty involvement, I’m not that familiar with this specific governance. I need to get to know exactly how that works better. But I think that many things on campus should be done more cooperatively. Things like code of ethics or anti-discrimination policy or bullying policies, I think that students, faculty, staff, the Corporation, the Overseers, should openly debate these kinds of things, and there shouldn’t be a Wizard of Oz, man behind the curtain, sort of approach towards how decisions are made on campus.
Any healthy organization has a degree of cooperative leadership. So things like selecting a new president, there should be a forum for faculty and students to speak up and talk about what they’re looking for in a leader, as there should be for some of the more divisive issues on campus.
Let’s agree how we’re going to protest on campus, and let’s do it based on the way we agree, as opposed to having some decision handed down and then having a debate about whether protest is okay or not, or how you do it. Generally, cooperative decisions are a good way to go for many things on campus without completely slowing down all decisions. You need leadership, but you should have inclusive governance as well.
In October, a planning body proposed a set of bylaws for a University-wide faculty senate to play a deliberative and advisory role with respect to the governing boards. The proposed senate would be a relatively weak body compared to many other elite institutions. What do you make of the recommendation, and of faculty input to governance more broadly?
Note: Interviews were conducted before the announcement of negotiations between the faculty senate planning body and representatives of top University administrators.
I don’t know anything about that, I’m sorry. I think that there should be mechanisms for all stakeholders on campus to participate. On the other hand, Harvard already has a fairly complicated governance structure by having two boards, and it strikes me that it shouldn’t further complicate its governance structure, making it that much harder to make decisions.
The financial question you asked before &emdash; if no one feels like they’re empowered to streamline the school in terms of its financial management because it’s overly complicated in terms of its organizational structure, then it may not be able to solve its financial issues. And that’s a bad place for Harvard to be.
A private company has to make those decisions to survive. I think Harvard should be able to come up with a way to make efficient decisions while also being inclusive. I would be looking for ways to make that happen. Every school’s got its own bottom line. It’s a very complicated place, and whether that’s serving the school well or not, I think is worthy of debate. Simplicity, efficiency, while you’re being inclusive, would be the kind of characteristics I would hope to achieve.
Over the past year, Harvard has faced escalating political pressure from the Trump administration. Do you think a deal with the administration, perhaps including a cash settlement, is a practical solution?
It’s a really tricky time, and I think we need to be pragmatic and principled at the same time. So yes, I think some sort of a deal should be struck, and at the same time, the school necessarily has to defend itself in court.
However, I think neither of those will win the long term issue, which is more to do with Harvard clearly articulating its values and the contribution the institution has made to the country and the world at large. To me, going on offense means being that much more confident about the value that Harvard brings to the United States. And things such as grant funding from the government, to me, is one of the smartest and best investments the United States could make in society at large.
At the moment, the problems between the government and Harvard need to go away, because, really, Harvard is acting in the country’s interest, and the government needs to understand that. So there might need to be a pragmatic deal, but I sense that there’s going to be friction regardless, and Harvard needs to get to a place of confidently telling its story in terms of its contribution, its principles, and how it’s administering itself.
I don’t think a fine should be paid because I think that’s setting a poor precedent. It’s a shame that some of the other peers of Harvard have had to make that decision. That being said, there may need to be some sort of compromise that the lawyers figure out that isn’t called a fine, that makes the issue go away, because it’s clearly a massive distraction for the entire Harvard community, and it keeps us from focusing on things that are much more important.
I’m hopeful that in a year, we’ll be thinking about this in the past. I’m not involved or that particularly aware of the specific machinations between the lawyers and the negotiators and, like any negotiation, there’s going to need to be some degree of compromise. But I hope that the Harvard community leaves this stronger than it went into it, as opposed to having compromised in some way that makes the institution weaker in the future. To me, that’s the most important thing. We need to get back to a thriving, successful institution which is contributing not only to the students and faculty, but to the country and the world at large.
Last semester, Harvard instructed alumni interviewers to not mention applicant race, ethnicity, or national origin in written evaluations, and it was revealed that the Undergraduate Minority Recruitment Program had quietly ended. This followed the renaming of the University’s Office of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging and the closure of offices at the College for minority students, LGBTQ students, and women. Finally, the Department of Justice sued Harvard last month, one of the latest offensives following the 2023 Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard decision. What do you make of the recent changes, and of Harvard’s approach to diversity more broadly?
They’re making some pragmatic decisions, which I suppose they need to make, especially given some of the Supreme Court judgments. But I also wish they’d made some of these decisions differently.
I’ve been interviewing Harvard College applicants for over 30 years, and there’s many instances where talking about a student’s background or is super relevant to their story, and you can’t really tell their story without talking about their background. The whole point of the interview process is to talk about the person. You can read their essays, you can see their grades, you can read their SAT scores. But the interviews add a lot of personality, and how can you talk about a personality if you can’t really talk about their life story? So I think they’ve gone too far, and we should be able to comply with the Supreme Court ruling, but still talk about an individual’s background and their life story.
I get that it’s a super heightened time, and maybe the school had to err on the side of being too conservative in terms of these issues, and then the pendulum will swing back in the other direction. I wasn’t in the room when those decisions were made, but I did have to interview students this year, and I love that process. It’s super rewarding. But when your hands are tied, you don’t feel like you can really properly reflect that student’s character.
More broadly, I think that Harvard is a diverse institution. It has to be. Where people are from, their socioeconomic background, their ethnicity, their religion, their viewpoint diversity, these are all things that Harvard must have. In a liberal arts context, we can’t all be the same. It would be a boring, unsuccessful educational environment if everyone came into Harvard with very similar attributes, and so seeking all levels of diversity should be absolutely part of the admissions process and part of the school’s culture.
I believe Harvard has done a very good job of this in recent years, but it’s pulled back. Some of the changes you’re mentioning to the DEI offices, if it was a streamlining of multiple DEI teams into one consolidated team, I could see that being a good idea, but if they’ve dismantled it so that you can no longer do some of the functions that were important to the institution, then that’s a problem.
I’m disappointed that the school seems to become more divisive and more factionalized. Harvard needs to get back to an inclusive culture, that people all feel like they belong, that students are not threatened, people feel like they can participate openly in constructive discourse, that people respect each other no matter where they’re from, that you can disagree on issues, but you still respect each other as fellow members of the community. We’ve lost some of that, is what I’ve learned. To me that’s quite sad, because I think if people don’t feel comfortable and safe at the school, no matter who they are, then that’s a problem.
So we need to get back to a unified culture on campus. And I think there’s some fundamental practices of DEI which get you that. Inclusivity, the “i,” is a real thing. It has to be how you listen to someone when they disagree with you and how you acknowledge who they are. And those kinds of practices are actual practices. It’s not just a slogan. If DEI becomes a slogan, as opposed to serious practices around diversity, equity, and inclusion, then we’ve lost something.
I’m not saying the DEI office hasn’t done a good job. I think Harvard, in many ways, is a victim to a societal trend, but it’s a leading institution. It needs to figure out a way to lead through adverse situations. Clearly, this is a difficult time for DEI across the entire world, and in particular in the United States, and Harvard should confidently lead through this.
I believe Harvard has the resources, the capability, the intellectual capacity to have DEI and have it be an integral part of the school, and not give up too much. I don’t know for sure if they’ve given up too much, or if they’ve just streamlined a little bit because they felt like they needed to for efficiency reasons. If it’s for political reasons, I have a bigger problem with it.
As a follow up, should the College end legacy admissions and preferences for children of donors?
I don’t think they should end it. It should be like anything else. If you’re admitting athletes or legacy students or children of donors who are unqualified, then that’s a problem regardless. But all other things being equal, it should be considered, but not heavily, especially with regard to legacy or donors.
I think that multigenerational commitment to the school is a part of what has made Harvard. Families who have made a commitment to the school for a long period of time have actually contributed and made it so that Harvard has the resources to do other things extremely well. But like anything, you can do it too much, and if you just let in all legacy kids, that’s a deep problem. So only if students are equally admissible, should that then be an additional factor.
The Intellectual Vitality Initiative was introduced in 2024 to foster free exchange of ideas and combat self-censorship. What do you make of the state of campus speech, and how can Harvard best promote open discourse?
To me, Harvard has been historically a place where debate was alive and well for years, and unfortunately, in particular after October, the Hamas and Israel issues a few years ago, things have sort of unwound a bit, or a lot, in some cases. So I think we need to get back to a cultural value of people coming to the school fully aware that you should be able to debate anything respectfully and constructively, knowing that you’re going to disagree with people, but you can debate in a healthy way and and have that without disrespecting the person or resorting to things which are which are nonconstructive, such as shouting people down or doxxing people or posting videos on social media.
We’re human beings who have our faculties, and we should be able to sit together and disagree and debate, and so I fully support what the school is doing in terms of its written policies, and I’m happy to see they’re implementing curriculum around constructive discourse, and I think the school can rapidly get back to a positive place. More than that, Harvard should be able to set an example for the rest of the world. Harvard is not the only place where there’s nonconstructive discourse going on and divisiveness.
The world needs to get better at this. I think Harvard should be, again, a leader in the world to talk about the values of why constructive debate leads to people learning, leads to the world being a better place, leads to solving more complex problems. And you can’t solve everything in a really short tweet or a really short social media post. Ultimately, what Harvard people do is they’re leaders who get broadly educated, and they solve very complex problems in the world. You can’t do that if you’re thinking overly simplistically. And so I hope that we not only repair, but we actually get to a point where Harvard is leading a global discourse, or defining new paradigms for how constructive discourse can take place.
This relates to everything about academic freedom on the campus, and I don’t think the government should have a role in this whatsoever. I think Harvard is actually much more likely to self govern in this way, again, collaboratively. I think constructive discourse should be something that itself is debated. What are the acceptable norms of protests, what are the acceptable forms of disagreement?
It should be almost like a social contract that students and faculty and staff have with each other, so that the norms are there. So that when I disagree with you, and I do it in a certain way, that you know that I’m not judging you as a person or being hateful, but that you’re free to then disagree with me. On the other hand, if I cross certain lines and I’m physically violent, or I’m blocking you from getting to class, or shouting you down in a debate, or making it so you can’t constructively have discourse, then that’s a line that’s crossed. There should be clear lines about how the school deals with those kinds of situations.
The kinds of issues that have been debated on campus are major global topics and very emotional for communities, and we should be empathetic with each other. We should understand that Israeli students feel deeply upset, and Palestinian students also feel deeply upset. This is not just an intellectual issue, but an emotional one, and so empathy is part of this, it’s not just like you write down a set of rules and follow the rules. There have to be ways for people to express themselves in terms of their feelings as well as their ideas. That’s vulnerability, but Harvard should be a safe place where people should be willing to be vulnerable and express themselves intellectually and emotionally.
Things got, I’m learning, worse than they should be. We need to get to a place where we’re treating each other with respect. These are obviously easy to say, harder to do, and that’s one of the issues I want to dive into early on in my tenure. If you don’t have that, you’re not a thriving educational institution. Creativity only happens when people feel comfortable to take risks, and if you don’t feel comfortable to speak up, you’re definitely not comfortable to take a risk. I think Harvard should be a highly creative, highly inspired, highly engaged community, and to do that, you have to first be safe. So to me, a high priority, if I’m elected, is to work with other Overseers and the various administrative groups to do everything we can do to recover that sense of intellectual and emotional safety on campus.
One of the primary roles of the Board of Overseers is to periodically assess Harvard’s schools and departments. What do you see as the key challenges and opportunities for growth in Harvard’s current academic environment?
I know a lot about the architecture school, where I’ve been involved for years, and I know a good bit about the College, having gone there myself. I don’t have an in-depth awareness of each of the graduate schools. So there’s a lot to cover here.
There should be some things that unify the entire school in terms of broad philosophy, pedagogy, attitudes about the world, leadership, intellectual freedom &emdash; all that stuff should be shared. But then there’s also going to be a lot of academic diversity in the school. There are going to be big powerhouse departments, there’s going to be new areas of study that are fledgling, small departments. There’s going to be struggling graduate schools like the Divinity School or the architecture school that are chronically underfunded. And there’s going to be thriving schools like the Business School or the Law School that are powerhouse schools.
All of that should be able to coexist in the ecosystem. Inclusivity is where all of the departments have a place &emdash; and they’re not all equal, because there’s big schools, little schools, all that &emdash; but they should all be respected and should be held to commonly high standards. Harvard is already an amazing academic institution on so many levels. But as far as knowing are there things that are broken that need to be fixed? I just don’t know that yet.
There is the sense that Harvard is somehow broken. My impression is that’s not at all the case. It’s just not thriving as much as it has in the past, and there’s an opportunity to get back to where it’s been and then to take off again.
As far as if they’re new departments or new growth areas, I was asked by the Coalition for a Diverse Harvard if ethnic studies should become a new concentration, for example. I said, if there’s a curriculum, there’s students, there’s faculty, then, why wouldn’t we have it? But that being said, I might find out that those subjects are already covered in another concentration, and having more departments is actually against the financial situation at the school.
I would be looking for ways to be as inclusive as possible while working within the practical limits of the school’s platform, and what it could afford, and how it can grow. I’m hopeful on the academic side. It’s a school, after all. It’s not a political environment. It’s not a real estate strategy, it’s not an endowment. Harvard exists to be a school where teaching and learning happen, and those are the biggest priorities of all. Sometimes it feels like the Corporation is mostly focused on the endowment. Those are enabling functions for teaching and learning. So I do actually think the Overseers are one of the more important governance groups, because they’re ultimately responsible to advise the president and the provost on the academic mission of the school. So I’m hopeful.
In recent months, the University has had to reckon with its ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey E. Epstein, who donated over $9 million to the University, which helped fund one of its departments. With that in mind, what are your thoughts on Harvard’s current donation policy?
I don’t know exactly how the policy works, and so I need to know more about it, but I understand that donations from individuals or families create problems. This was an issue with the Sackler family and the whole opioid crisis and their naming of multiple museums on campus, I believe.
Harvard exists because it has an amazing endowment. It only has such a great endowment because it’s had very generous alumni and donors over the years, so you need that. You can’t be overly restrictive, but you don’t want to accept donations from people who are compromised in any sort of ethical way. I’m pretty sure if Harvard knew what Jeffrey Epstein ended up doing, they wouldn’t have accepted that $9 million. I don’t know that they could have foretold that the Sackler family would be involved in the opioid crisis.
My impression is the school is a highly ethical place, and they should comport themselves in ethical ways, including the donation policy. But again, I don’t know all the details of exactly what they accept and don’t accept, and more problematic than either one of those two examples are alumni who are trying to use their donations in political ways. That, to me, is something the school needs to grapple with. There have been some high profile donors who want to tell the school how it should be run. I don’t think there’s any place for that at all.
It’s one thing to give money to a department versus another department because you like economics and you don’t like, you know, psychology or something like that. But if you’re saying you need to have 50 percent conservative faculty and 50 percent liberal faculty, I think that’s a very impractical way for a donor to direct their gifts. Harvard, I’m sure will have to deal with that, because even if Harvard is able to become a less divisive place, the world around us is still an extremely divisive place.
Donors, it seems to be, have different political positions, but there’s more activist donors, I would say. Harvard is going to have to deal with that. And at a time of financial crisis, they’re going to be tempted to accept donations, but I think they need a clear policy and to act in an ethical way because any sort of short term, pragmatic compromise of their values will not be a good decision for the long term. Harvard is strong, it should make the right decisions for the long term that are rooted in ethical decisions, and I believe it generally has done that, and I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be able to continue to.
In a similar vein, we’ve heard calls for consequences for association with Epstein, including revocation of tenure. When, if ever, should tenure &emdash; or for that matter, University professorship &emdash; be revoked?
There should be a clearly articulated code of ethics that people agree to. When you enroll, when you agree to work for Harvard, whether you’re tenured or not, or if you accept admission, you should say, I’m going to agree to these rules or code of conduct. These pieces and parts exist, but my impression is it’s not totally clear on some of the recommendations being enforced consistently.
I think that if Harvard has a policy and a faculty member breaches that policy, there should be consequences, including losing tenure, just as a student might have consequences for doing something that’s against the code of conduct.
As far as the Epstein matter, being mentioned in it versus being proven to have done something is a difference. There’s a lot of people mentioned in those files that we don’t know did anything wrong. The world is already overly judgmental and overly divisive and so simply being mentioned in the Epstein files shouldn’t be grounds for something there. There should be a process that looks to see whether someone actually did something unethical. Simply knowing someone who’s a convicted felon is not itself ethically problematic, unless you yourself participated in those things.