In the NYT, Jenny Anderson explores why Mohamed El-Erian has quit his job as head of the Harvard Management Company.

Clearly even the best-run endowments have trouble holding onto talent. Harvard produces presidents, chief executives, doctors, lawyers, politicians and money managers (the money managers that come from Harvard’s endowment are called the Crimson puppies). Brand Harvard is so hot that there is an independent magazine dedicated to it, whose title is simply the institution’s ZIP code. And yet it has lost two endowment managers in less than three years.

…Maybe Pimco gave him more love. Or maybe it was just more money.

Here is a suggestion for a concerned alum or FAS member: To convene a panel discussion in, say, Memorial Hall about how enormous wealth is changing (corrupting?) the identity and mission of Harvard, and what to do about it.