Forst and Faust in a Lovefest
Posted on May 28th, 2009 in Uncategorized | 5 Comments »
Harvard Mag interviews both Drew Faust and Ed Forst on the subject of Forst’s departure, and they are both very complimentary of the other!
Forst on Faust: “From before I started, through today, and through August 1, Drew Faust has been a big supporter of me, of me coming here, of what we tried to do together, what we have in motion.”
Faust on Forst: “He was enormously important to me this year…he’s been great to work with.”
But who’s on first?
(Sorry, couldn’t resist.)
In all this mutual cooing, the question is never answered: If Forst is really leaving of his own volition, isn’t it kind of crummy to bail on an exec v-p job after less than a year? Crummy enough so that it’s hard not to suspect reasons for leaving other than the need for a decent bagel?
5 Responses
5/28/2009 10:48 am
Forst was butting his head against a wall (actually, many walls). He was having profound effects, but not necessarily deep effects — and he has thus far not been able to effect the kind of change that Harvard desperately needs right now (whether or not you agree with Forst on what changes those should be).
I happen to believe the lovefest and think that Forst decided this wasn’t an environment where he could do the things that needed to be done. It’s certainly possible that the people he was butting against rose up and convinced Drew to toss him out, but I doubt that.
Now, is it crummy for him to give up after a year? Maybe. But maybe it would be crummier to keep at it for another year, if he’d already come to the realization that he wasn’t going to be able to make enough progress. Better to get the next EVP in as quickly as possible, so as not to lose any more time.
5/28/2009 10:51 am
I happen to believe the lovefest too-that’s what I heard while reporting my story cited below. And your suggestions sound logical to me.
So the question is (questions are): Who was he butting against? And why wasn’t he able to effect the kind of change that Harvard needs?
5/28/2009 11:54 am
He quit. After ten months. Was good but screwed Harvard by quitting. Crummy. Really crummy. But no one will admit it.
Some good people took early retirement because they didn’t want to work for him.
Head butt. Dean right across the river. Just over the footbridge.
5/28/2009 12:04 pm
And some people I’ve spoken to love working for him. He’s a complex man, by all accounts.
5/28/2009 5:02 pm
Professor Light certainly has some explaining to do. He sits on the all powerful investment committee of HMC and watched passively as the liquidity crisis unfolded; in fact, you could argue that the investment model was in many respects his baby. It certainly didn’t help that an investment pro with real world experience was critical of what Light helped design. Mr. Light and Mr. Rothenberg were a little thin skinned when it came to the correctly directed criticisms of their investment mess. Does anyone know how these two allowed Harvard to incur $11 billion in capital call obligations? I don’t suppose Forst was particularly quiet about citing the enormity of the risk. And I don’t suppose Rothenberg and Light wanted him constantly whispering to Faust about the peril they had created for the University.