Black Tuesday
Posted on June 23rd, 2009 in Uncategorized | 63 Comments »
It was predicted here and elsewhere that Harvard would wait until after Commencement to announce firings, so as not to risk disruption of the fundraisers’ graduates’ big day.
Well, the university didn’t wait very long.
Scooping the Crimson, Harvard Mag reports that Drew Faust this morning announced that 275 employees have been sacked. Many others will lose hours or work an academic schedule.
The layoffs will be announced in most of the professional schools first; they will be followed by reductions in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), Harvard Medical School, the central administration, and several allied institutions next week. Affected employees are being offered 60 days of pay from the time of notification; lump-sum severance payments of one to two weeks per year of service; an additional four weeks of pay; and the opportunity to purchase health benefits for 18 months (including the first year at subsidized rates).
This does sound like a generous severance package—although it’s slightly hard to tell from the description if employees get all of those things, or just some—but still….painful.
The real question is, Will it be enough? Or will the ax continue to fall?
…these staff-workforce reductions will make an impact on the looming budget pressures in several of the schools and allied institutions. But they do not nearly close the biggest gaps, such as the $220-million deficit looming over FAS.
That sounds like your answer, right there.
Update: The Crimson has the story now.
63 Responses
6/23/2009 3:38 pm
Having heard the news, I immediately checked this blog, expecting there to be lots of comments, perhaps expressions of concern for those whose jobs might be on the line. Not a word from anyone. Does this absence mean anything?
6/23/2009 4:29 pm
In 1973 and 1974 there was a very severe bear market in the stock market. I was an employee at a medium size investment management firm in New York. We managed money for individuals, pension funds and non profits, including university endowments.
My firm’s bear market actually started in 1970 because we were value investors and value investing wasn’t in vogue between 1970 and 1973, even though “growth stocks” were going to the moon at that time.
Our profits in 1973 and 1974 were severely impacted, negatively of course. We could have let lots of personnel go, but we were a cohesive group with a good “culture” and looking toward the long term, we didn’t want to disturb that aspect of the firm.
Here’s what was done. The partners (and I was not one of them yet) let go some marginal employees. Rather than terminate any other employees, the partners took a big hit on their compensation. Furthermore, almost all other employees took some reduction in pay. Unsaid was that when things stabilized or turned around, employees would benefit from the firm’s upswing. That is exactly what happened. Those who were in it for the long run (almost all as it turned out) stayed. The few who weren’t, left.
The fact that 275 employees will shortly be laid off doesn’t begin to move the needle toward eliminating deficits at Harvard. There are more than 2300 FTE faculty (last reported number) and almost 13000 FTE non-faculty staff.
Here is a suggestion. Reorganize the university IN A SANE WAY. Cut out the enormous (enormous!) waste, no matter whose fiefdom you step on. That will save some money. Then, rather than cutting to the bone and beyond, something that will severely diminish the institution in the long term, institute pay cuts for the duration of the university’s fiscal crisis. State that once the crisis is over, everything that can possibly be done, will be done, to benefit those who sacrificed when times were tough. Why not think in these terms for example: the highest 10% (in compensation) of university employees takes a pay cut of 20%.The next 25% takes a cut of 10%. The rest, 4%. This is where the large savings can be made to balance the budget. If not, Harvard will have to gut whole areas that shouldn’t be gutted.
There is absolutely no reason why compensation had to have gone up each year (but that seems to be the way things have worked). Things are cyclical. Today, and for the past several years, inflation has been low. Compensation, particularly at the higher levels has outstripped inflation. Does anyone ever think that compensation should ever go down? Probably not, although it should, particularly when times are tough.
Let the arrows fly. I promise not to answer any reply that doesn’t have a Harvard name and affiliation to it.
6/23/2009 5:07 pm
My heart goes out to the 275 Harvard employees who are to be laid off, and I hope Harvard’s outplacement services can help. This is obviously a terrible situation for anyone involved, but the sobering fact is that it doesn’t get anywhere near solving the problem, particularly in FAS.
So let me state the obvious, that it is impossible, without new thinking, to cut e.g. a further $19 million from my Division (Humanities) without destroying the excellence of that part of the institution. I therefore tend to agree cutting compensation on some equitable and absolute basis makes sense.
This will lead to the departure of some colleagues, but probably fewer than one would at first think.
But again, yes, my heart goes out to those who have been laid off.
I end with the same promise Sam made.
6/23/2009 7:13 pm
On “Greater Boston” tonight, Emily Rooney spoke with the Crimson’s editor and another person. Emily was critical of Drew Faust for not speaking with the media - at least, not appearing on her program. The video will probably be posted on the GB website tomorow (http://www.wgbh.org/gb/).
6/24/2009 6:04 am
I was dealing with a family matter yesterday when this bombshell was announced, and so I couldn’t log in right away. It’s very shocking. Harvard should be working to keep the community stable rather than laying people off left and right. I’m particularly distressed to hear that some librarians will be let go: surely this cuts into our key mission.
I can think of some very highly compensated people at Harvard whose salaries could easily be reduced. The Boston Globe writes of “an associate professor in anthropology [who] is organizing a campaign to ask faculty to donate 1 percent of their salaries to avoid staff layoffs.” Strange that the professor’s name was not mentioned. Does anyone know who it is?
6/24/2009 6:34 am
Sam Spektor idea above is brilliant, on its technical merits. It is exactly what a rational organization would do. In a profit maximizing firm partners would have incentives to cut their own income first because they know this is in the long interest of the institution.
The problem with implementing this idea at Harvard is political. The most highly compensated employees, who would take the deepest cuts in Sam’s proposal, are not really ‘partners’ in any sense. To the extent they care about the future of the institution their horizons extend until their own retirement. Many of them are within 5-10 years of retirement, so Sam’s proposal is asking these Mandarins to sacrifice their lifetime incomes to save Harvard from becoming a third tier institution as a result of the way in which this fiscal crisis is being managed.
There was a time when doing what Sam is describing was the norm. The exhibit about the Titanic in the Widener Rotunda has newspaper clippings that speak of such times. Widener and his father drowned because most men let women and children take the boats first.
There are obviously still people who understand self-sacrifice to serve an institution. Think Derek Bok stepping in to temporarily clean up Summers’ mess and refusing to take any compensation. But I’m affraid there are not many of them at the helm at Harvard or among the senior faculties who would have to approve a proposal such as the one Sam has put forth.
I predict, instead, that we will see calls for an across the board salary cut, a uniform 5% for all faculty, and to do this in every school. This is obviously akin to asking the least well compensated faculty in order to subsidize those best paid as the marginal difference of 5% on a $60,000 income is much greater than the difference 5% makes on a lifestile of those earning $200,000 or more.
Sadly my expectation is that, as this ship sinks, the captain, the crew and those with most knowledge and power, will run for the boats first…
6/24/2009 8:26 am
that is exactly what happens in government when things get really tight - the bureaucrats you all despise get together to donate part of their salaries to keep the lowest paid staffers on board…..saw in the 1980’s and 1990’s because I donated salary to keep things going….even if Harvard didn’t pay its fair share to local and state govt- the workers picked up the tab…so good luck with all your problems over there it is of your own making.
6/24/2009 9:04 am
Dear Ya Know,
Many thanks for the cordial message.
Perhaps you misunderstood something from my post of 6:04 this morning. I’m actually trying to find out the name of the anthropology professor who is organizing salary donations to help keep some layoffs from happening.
And please don’t blame me for any risky financial ventures that may have occurred on Larry Summers’ watch.
6/24/2009 9:58 am
The university’s communications plan and the messages from senior leadership are consistently inadequate. Woefully inadequate. As a result, Harvard again looks petty, reactive, and selfish, despite the fact that the severance package is extremely generous and the overall numbers spread out across the entire institution are smaller than I expected. Many people in and out of the university will uncritically put some notional cost of a “mere” 275 personnel next to the value of the budget gap or the “Endowment” or the compensation figures for President Faust and tenured faculty, and conclude either that the jobs could be saved by finding the money for them elsewhere or that the jobs are being cut to preserve high levels of compensation for the top levels. Or they will callously welcome the lay-off as an overdue adjustment for an overstaffed operation that coddles its privileged faculty and students. Just look at the many idiotic and venomous comments posted in response to the Boston Globe’s online article about the lay-off. Given what I know of the math involved, this is no silver bullet and can only be a prelude to more cuts next year. For example, the so-called priority committees in the FAS have barely begun their work in reshaping and resizing, so more job cuts will likely follow in 2010—how can staff levels not be further dropped if programs are cut and the faculty size is reduced? And they surely will have to be in order to close the budget gap.
This latest public relations nightmare for Harvard also severely damages the fragile faculty-staff culture that makes up the daily work life of the place, and further damage can be expected as people adjust to what is happening now and wait around for what will happen next. And with the new calendar starting this year, there is less time for getting ready for the new reality. Forthright acts of generosity and credible words of compassion will be needed for and from everyone involved, and alas I expect they will be in short supply. Good luck to those still around in September!
6/24/2009 11:48 am
It is not a public relations nightmare. It is a financial crisis that Harvard is dealing with openly, responsibly and with every consideration and financial support for the staff who are being displaced.
Everyone agrees that we have a structural financial imbalance because of the GLOBAL recession, and its impact on markets, and our endowment, but people catastrophize, sensationalize, and politicize every proposed cut that is made to protect their own turf.
Everyone wants their stuff protected, and cuts made to “others” — whether the others are “dead wood”, “bureaucrats”, “pampered faculty elites” or any of the other tired stereotypes people hurl at each other through the media or this blog.
I can be as critical as the next person (and more critical than most, trust me) but I believe Harvard has handled this situation in a way that is the least damaging organizationally, morale-wise, etc.
Those who are want executive pay cuts may get their wish eventually — but it won’t close the structural gap, and the anger at Harvard and its leaders is in this case misplaced.
There are some really fine people here who are killing themselves to help the institution and its employees get through the financial crisis. The constant sniping and attribution of ill-intent just makes the whole place joyless, cynical, and toxic.
Just because Harvard is the subject of endless tabloid-like public fascination, as well as a target for class resentment and anti-intellectuallism [see foul, mean-spirited Globe postings] doesn’t mean we need to buy into it.
Here’s a thought — ask what you can do! Take the high road. Be constructive. Help a displaced staff member get a new job by using your connections on their behalf. Stop scaring the rest of the staff witless with uninformed rumor-mongering. It’s damaging and irresponsible.
Rant over. For now.
And no, my name is not Pollyanna.
BTW, should not have been “shocking” or a “bombshell” — HU has been saying for months that a workforce reduction was increasingly likely.
6/24/2009 11:56 am
“Had enough” should write under his or her real name. Otherwise, we will never know whether these noble sentiments are actually accompanied by actions. Yes, I understand that sometimes good deeds are best done anonymously, but in the current atmosphere it would be helpful to see who is stepping up to the plate.
6/24/2009 4:48 pm
I am not a tenured faculty member, and I have a mortgage to pay and children to educate. I am a long-term staff member, and my sentiments are accompanied by actions every day. I’ve really had enough of the Harvard bashing. Larry is gone. Turn the page. Let’s get adaptive, not stuck in an endless feedback loop of why we shouldn’t have to cut costs…if only there were less of THOSE people…if only we hadn’t made certain investments…if only we didn’t have institutional aspirations for expansion…for science…to students who can’t pay full freight…everyone’s ox is gored, no matter what decision gets made. Can we start assuming some reasonable level of good intent and competence? Every day, all day, I meet great people, capable, well-intended, mission driven. I am not naieve about the flaws, the elitism, the wacky outcomes of personality and decentralization. I am not noble. I am a realist. But there is a point when the cynicism and negativity is an over-reaction, and unrealistic perspective, too. And I don’t particularly mean you, Judith….this was a more broad-gauged rant.
6/24/2009 6:22 pm
Fair enough, on the identity issue, Had enough.
So here is the issue, in microcosm (this sort of thing is going on throughout the system):
Yesterday Harvard laid off its Widener Bibliographer for English-language X Division, offered a half-time appointment (or layoff) to its Bibliographer in Y half-continen,t and abolished the position of Z-continent Bibliographer, offering that Bibliographer a half-time position or a full lay-off. These were just three cases among many.
Unless Yale, Princeton, Columbia (which have been catching up to or passing Harvard in library collecting) follow suit, at some point in the future serious faculty and graduate students, and ultimately undergraduates, interested in the fields represented by those areas (collecting is done by country of publication) will find those and other institutions superior places to be teaching and researching.
Further dismantling will have further similar effects on other fields, chiefly in the Humanities and Social Sciences. This is a certainty, not a matter of speculation. Under the current constraints, absent some change in the payout expectations for FY 10 and FY 11, funds for materials and the wonderful librarian colleagues who toil to identifty those materials (and catalog, provide access to, etc, etc.) will be insufficient to provide what is expected by a top-rank scholarly community.
In short, Harvard will become less excellent in areas in which it has been excellent. This case study could be applied to many other parts of the University.
I think a lot of the anger being aired here has to do with the issue of whether the Corporation or some in the Administration quite realize what is happening.
The reason Summers’ name keeps coming up has to do with the narrow priorities of his presidency and recklessness as it now emerges with which he pursued those priorities, not to mention that he was a terrible leader.
But sure, he’s gone, having enriched himself, and having contributed to the decline as a politician in 1999 (Gramm-Leach-Bliley), as a Harvard president in 2001-6, and who knows about now?
So, what to do? I myself would rather see Harvard (from which I have no degree save the MA which Harvard in its arrogance awarded me so as to make me qualified to be a tenured faculty member here) stay where it is than see it become a very good school. So I believe compensation reduction, progressively applied as Sam sets out (or some other version) should go into the mix. Someone above (a tenured anon I would guess) claims that mandarins 5-10 years from retirement would not stand for such a move. So what will they do? Leave? Fine. The age of the mandarins should be emphatically over. That is also why “stars” should be ignored in any and all cutting that occurs.
Any across the board pay cut should be strenuously opposed
Sorry to go on, and sorry if I SEEM not to be focused on the human issue, which obviously underlies everything.
6/24/2009 6:25 pm
Penultimate paragraph:
i.e. across the board % pay cut.
6/24/2009 6:53 pm
Indeed Professor RT your case against a uniform across the board % pay cut should be avoided at all cost. By whom? By the least paid faculty members who would in effect be sharing a greater burden of the adjustment than those highest paid? Isn’t the very reasons they are less paid symptomatic of the fact that they have less power and influence over the administration? Why should Drew Faust be more responsive to the needs of the less powerful 75% members of the institution, at the risk of enraging the most powerful 25%?
It just doesn’t add up. Sorry.
6/24/2009 8:17 pm
I understand your position, “Had enough.”
RT, I’m very upset to hear about these layoffs of Widener bibliographers. This will result in further decline of what has been one of Harvard’s jewels: the great attraction for many scholars, and one that has kept many distinguished faculty members here.
As for “Professor RT is correct but he does not make sense,” I think we should bear in mind that Drew Faust is probably not entirely her own agent, but is subject to direction from the Corporation. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
6/24/2009 8:20 pm
I’ll make an exception to my promise. The pay cut I was envisaging, as was Sam Spektor’s I believe, was across the board, not just for faculty, i.e. president down to food service worker (c. 20% down to 4% cut). I’d be somewhere in the middle.
I otherwise find the language of your post odd, since I don’t know who the 25% powerful (and selfish) faculty might be.
6/24/2009 9:03 pm
Interesting and ungenerous take on your honorary AM, RT - that it is the fruit of Harvard’s “arrogance.” Might others not see it as a courtesy, or more than that a sign of affection and welcome, Harvard’s saying to a new tenured colleague “You are a part of us, now and for always.”
6/24/2009 9:37 pm
OK, Dean/alum/whatever 9:03, I retract (sort of), and wouldn’t want to seem ungenerous, since the point was that I care about WG(for now)U in spite of lack of (real) degree. But does any other place do it I wonder?
6/24/2009 9:42 pm
The 25% most powerful members of the faculty are those with the highest salaries. Why do you think they get paid as much? And the very same reason they are treated with more distinction than the rest is the reason they will be protected above all else.
Indeed part of Harvard’s style is to keep who those faculty are secret to most people -except, obviously, those who know of their special privileges, including not having to teach for some of them. But again, this is an institution where the most important decisions are also made secretely, by a self-appointed and self-perpetuating board, leaving no record of their deliberations.
6/24/2009 10:15 pm
Powerful because overpaid or overpaid because powerful? What if reality caught up with things?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWyCCJ6B2WE
6/24/2009 10:55 pm
I too think some kind of salary reduction, with more burden falling on those who are more highly paid, should be seriously entertained, and is certainly preferable to, e.g., the marked reduction in HCLibrary personnel that has occurred and is continuing. But I wonder how much of the money that would be saved by such a tactic is actually useable, since many of the most highly-paid faculty are paid out of restricted funds (i.e., endowments).
6/24/2009 11:24 pm
Warren,
We already know there was no endowed funding behind the $500,000 p.a. salary extorted (just a metaphor!) by Summers so he could set up shop as (invented) ‘Charles W. Eliot University Professor Lawrence H. Summers’ and pick up $100,000 lecture “honoraria’ — perhaps to the actual detriment of Harvard’s endowment!
So my guess is that if there is a will to work around restricted fund issues, a way will be found.
6/24/2009 11:33 pm
“Had enough” says that Summers is gone. But as I’ve said in earlier posts, from where I sit, I don’t think the Faust administration differs significantly from the Summers regime, especially in its exercise of power. Many Summers appointees are still in place and in charge. I’m among those RT refers to who are concerned that the Corporation and the higher levels of the administration have failed to grasp the problem. The problem is not simply financial in nature, it’s about what sort of organization a university is supposed to be. There’s an excellent volume titled “Harvard Rules” which explores this issue in detail.
Despite the harm done by adopting this view, decision makers at Harvard appear to persist in seeing it and treating it as a business. Some of the anger sparked by the layoffs may be a byproduct of the lack of transparency and the phony consultative gestures that the universities-are-businesses philosophy inspires. Consequently, there’s no open debate about possible solutions to Harvard’s financial problems. We do not know what ideas have been considered, and are being considered. And it seems that the Faust administration does not believe we are entitled to know. Lately I’ve been thinking about the Malden Mills story and wish that this example had made an impression on those who run Harvard.
I’ve been at Harvard nearly twenty years (as proof of affiliation, I will simply note that in the HARVie classifieds there is a “White Kenmore 14.8 cu. ft. Top Freezer Refrigerator” for sale) and I’m not bashing Harvard, I’m only doing what little I can in “the struggle for [its] soul” while trying to avoid being squashed like a bug.
6/24/2009 11:41 pm
I expect the odd creation of an unfunded “Eliot University Professorship” was an anomaly, and there is no person being paid under this name today.
There are several issues about a salary reduction: how much could be freed up without controversy from unrestricted funds (administrators, mostly, I would think); how much that looks like it’s being funded from restricted funds could be freed up, because in fact there’s a subsidy going on from unrestricted funds (underfunded endowed chairs, e.g., as mine was in the late 90’s), and how much could be squeezed from endowed funds in other ways. I suspect the last is going on already, so I suppose if it is decided that it’s legal to charge the endowment of my Chair for the rent on Emerson 301 (my office), which it might well be, then they can reduce my salary, charge more for the rent, and so free some money for restricted use to support the unendowed tasks we need to support.
By the way, when Henry Rosovsky did this kind of thing in the big crisis of the mid’70’s, he was not received nicely by the faculty. I hope our colleagues understand this is a much bigger crisis, and will be willing to give up some things to which we have become accustomed.
6/25/2009 3:54 am
1. I would wager that very shortly you will see President Faust take a sizeable pay cut (35%, 50%?). This will be great PR for the university because it will be the largest cut in the “Ivies plus” (e.g. President Skorton of Cornell took a 10% cut). The newspapers will trumpet it in bold headlines. PR aside, it will be great for the university because it will be the catalyst for the other compensation cuts that have to be made. Of course, there will be an implicit understanding that at some future date (upon retirement?), out of the glare, all will be made up to The President. My understanding is that this in fact has happened in the recent past, though not for the same reasons that exist today.
That is the way it should be. Take the cut now and when things eventually get better in several years, The President will be made whole.
2. Warren .You said “But I wonder how much of the money that would be saved by such a tactic is actually useable, since many of the most highly-paid faculty are paid out of restricted funds (i.e., endowments).” Here are some things to consider (and this is not a criticsm of anything you said):
a. Many highly paid faculty are paid out of endowment funds; most faculty are not. I don’t know the absolute dollars involved in the one or the other, but non endowed faculty are very significant.
b. Endowed faculty. Yes, some of the money will have to remain in the individual endowment (if compensation cuts are made), but so what! That just means that the endowment will build so that it will be easier to fund future needs. Some of the money, however, could be used now, and in fact could be used to mitigate the university’s financial problems and alleviate the “cut to the bone and beyond” that everyone wishes to avoid. All it takes is a little imagination. For example: there is a tenured professor in German. It is decided that there is to be a 25% cut in salary. Under the terms of the endowment, that 25% can’t be used for anything but salary and support for that professor. However, why wouldn’t that professor in the next fiscal year, order 10 times the number of books she would ordinarily order and put them on loan to the university libraries which has cut back the number of German language books it will purchase in the coming year. Perhaps this example won’t work for whatever reason. My point is that the powers in the university should use their imagination and look at things from a different angle than they have done in the past.
3. As President Faust has said, personnel costs are a very large part of the operating budget. Why then, the delay in making the reductions in compensation for everyone (except union staff)? It’s going to happen sooner or later (unless there is either a miracle in the financial markets or a decision made to “gut” whole areas). Why hasn’t the university cut back or eliminated the match for retirement accounts? This doesn’t affect current cash compensation. Many other entities have already reduced or eliminated the match on a temporary basis.
4. Warren: You said “expect the odd creation of an unfunded “Eliot University Professorship” was an anomaly.” I don’t believe that is correct (again, not a criticism of you). It is my understanding (from a friend, not my wife) that one of the university professorships that you mentioned in another post had little or no funding. It was to be a deferred gift, but the “name” wanted the chair named before the gift was made … and so it was.
5. The example I gave near the top of this topic (some people left my firm, but those who had a long term view stayed and they were very well compensated for both their loyalty when times were difficult and their willingness to stay and make sure the culture was intact), is applicable to both faculty and staff at Harvard. If senior Harvard faculty are unhappy making a temporary shared sacrifice, let them go. The few that want to go and have the opportunity to go, will have said all you need to know about what is important to them …a temporary cut in compensation or continuing to be part of a department at a great university.
6. The numbers I gave in my earlier post as far as possible compensation cuts and the size of the cuts relative to compensation levels, were nothing more than an offhand example and were not meant to be a definitive proposal in any way.
7. Will save it for another topic at some future time, but I hope that with this crisis, The Corporation (at least I hope my friends there) will see that the model for endowment payouts is broken and therefore the budgeting process is broken. Unless that is fixed, expect the current situation to repeat itself in the next downturn. Harvard (and other universities) was very fortunate that there was a tremendous bull market in almost every asset class during the last twenty- five years. As someone who saw other types of markets (and not of the bullish kind), the part twenty- five years were an anomaly.
8. There is still a tremendous amount of waste in non- essential areas. The university should put a stop to it immediately.
6/25/2009 6:37 am
To all the commentators calling for reductions in faculty salary… There is a lot of posturing here and moral preaching but a failure, in my opinion, to appreciate the lack of trust in what the central administration would do with said savings. Until faculty have a more direct say in addressing inequalities that define the current system, why should they sacrifice to the center for further unwise policies? President Faust could eliminate much of the deficit by rolling back the financial aid program, for example. Faculty are supposed to cut their salaries to underwrite well-off middle-class kids attending Harvard? Stem cell institutes? SEAS promises that were secretly made? I could go on and list any number of policies that cost a lot and which are allegedly “off the table.” To label faculty who balk at blanket salary reductions as “selfish” and unwilling to contribute to the greater good is just plain silly and betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the mismanagement and policy choices the administration chooses to maintain. Change the latter and you will see faculty change their commitments. Until then please stop the preaching.
PS. Those who were “shocked” at the layoffs are also posturing. This has been obvious in its realization for months.
6/25/2009 6:44 am
Sam, it would be good to have some examples of existing waste in non-essential areas. The university has cut food from meetings (thank goodness!-those enormous cookies were too tempting; and having less food around may reduce the number of incidents where a mouse suddenly runs across the floor during an oral exam), decided not to recarpet areas where the carpeting is a bit down at the mouth but not worn totally thin, not to repaint walls just for the sake of changing the color, and so forth. I’m relieved that, so far, Harvard is not reducing the frequency of garbage pick-up, as Carleton College is (my reason: reduction of mice at oral exams, as mentioned above).
6/25/2009 7:58 am
Missing the Point has it right. Self-sacrifice might be a fine idea but only if the right jobs get saved. There have got to be(as Sam Specktor must be suggesting) plenty of JOBs Harvard doesn’t ned, try these for example:
http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/09/harvard-diversity-lamont-oped-cx_hd_0110donald.html
I am sure the staff in these offices are all super human beings and it would be awful for them to be unemployed. But the problem is not with cutting jobs, it’s the fact that jobs like these will probably survive while the bibliographers go, whatever gets said about preserving Harvard’s core mission. So this really is a moment where the struggle for the soul of the university is being played out in public for all to see — just watch which jobs are “inessential” to learn what Harvard stands for today.
6/25/2009 8:46 am
“Only if the right jobs get saved?” Just what are those ‘right jobs’ you speak of, and who gets to decide which ones qualify as such?
6/25/2009 9:17 am
That’s what is so defining about the moment. The president and the people who work for her, deans and so on, are the ones responsible for those decisions, so they are going to be judged on what they cut and what they don’t. In spite of the noble suggestions in this comment thread, I can’t see a movement for self-sacrificing pay cuts gaining much momentum among people who aren’t happy with the way the administration has become bloated in recent years and are waiting for Faust and Smith to cut it back.
6/25/2009 9:28 am
Judith,
A few examples of waste off the top of my head:
1. lack of a single university supplier for each of the following: office supplies; computers; building supplies (e.g light bulbs).
Huge, huge waste because buying things like this in size is substantially less costly than having individual fiefdoms buying these things.
2. While we’re on the subject of light bulbs… why can’t lights in buildings be turned off when rooms are not in use? Just as we used to have lamplighters, hire a student as a “lampoffer.” Have you ever seen HLS at night. HBS? Some of the FAS buildings? The President’s house (maybe I shouldn’t have said that, but it is true). Waste of money; electricity and bulbs. Speaking of lights. Go past the athletic fields some nights in the fall. No one on the fields, but all aglow. Huge, huge sets of lights wasting money that could go to bibliographers.
3. How Green Was My Valley? No, not the dated movie ( but with the superb acting of Walter Pidgeon). I’m referring to the immaculate grounds on the main campus, HLS and HBS. How often is the grass cut? Well, cut it less often. The grass at Harvard doesn’t have to be like the grass at Winged Foot. Beautiful plants and hedges constantly being planted (particularly at HBS). In a crisis, do without. Alums will still come back to campus even if it is not pristine. Applications to The College won’t drop off sharply if the grass is somewhat longer.
6/25/2009 10:23 am
Interesting to see the at risk and therefore anonymous dept. administrators and staff coming out against salary reductions for highly paid, not at risk, administrators and tenured faculty!
Obviously any salary reduction would have to be tied to cutting of waste and elimination of the eliminatable. That’s where the seven FAS working groups, if they proceed methodically and honestly, can do their job.
If they do their job properly they will get the institution to a trimmed down position that is still not able to sustain its excellence while eliminating the deficits. That’s when salary cuts should kick in. Before that happens however, there would need to be a working group, made up of representatives from a number of faculties, to look at waste in the central administration.
Sam, at least in FAS there have been very good advances in the savings you mention. Lighting motion sensors turn lights on and off in Boylston Hall, and — ahem — there are two flush functions in the latrines, though I experimented with both modes the other day and wasn’t sure there was a difference.
SEAS and its unfundedness is a huge part of the problem, but how to reverse — and should we?
I was wondering when the new financial aid would come up. My salary or your kid’s tuition? My kids were in college 2000-2008, so I just missed out on the new deal, and am paying Harvard $1700 a month for the next nine years, for 16 semesters of interest-free loans, which meant they could actually go to college. Oh well, it’s worth it I guess and my job-seeking younger daughter’s Brooklyn rent is only $650 a month so that could be worse (she’s looking for NGO stuff, housing, education, health care, etc., so any tips welcomed).
In other words, this deal would have to be on the table if salary reduction is be on the table. The improved financial aid situation is desirable, and not just for PR purposes, but maybe it is too generous and predicated on a different world, so in need of scrutiny.
6/25/2009 10:26 am
The grass in Harvard Yard only looks like that around June 5-8, for obvious reasons. Given the growing zone Cambridge MA is in, I will be interested to see how we get it to look that nice by May ?22.
6/25/2009 10:26 am
That was me.
6/25/2009 11:26 am
Reasonable points in RT response above. But some questions arise in turn, along with a request not to make assumptions about identities, in this case incorrect. (The quality of the argument should matter not the status of the person, a desirable rule in any intellectual debate, although a rule that seems rare at Harvard). Who is “highly paid” and how would that be defined? And by whom? What about disciplinary inequities — to take one example, economists are paid way more than historians for reasons that have nothing to do with intellectual values or scholarship. Leave this all intact while we tithe? Make economists take a bigger cut? Do you trust, or is it wise, to try and engineer the “market” based on less than full information? Are you going to analyze the financial debts of all faculty? What about long termers, for example, who bought into Boston area housing before it boomed – they are much more advantaged than recent arrivals, controlling salary. Are you going to “tax”each equally and is that fair? A faculty arriving recently could make twice as much as a long termer and still be poorer, in effect. 40K purchased Cambridge houses now worth 2 million, for example?
More importantly, my point about control and transparency is not addressed. What can it mean to say: “Obviously any salary reduction would have to be tied to cutting of waste and elimination of the eliminatable.” Tell us how. This is like Republicans who always say budgets can be reduced by “cutting waste”– sure, but who cuts and where? No procedure has been proposed to make this work equitably; just moral calls for salary cuts that are meant (presumably) to stave off cuts to lower paid workers. How do you rebut the proposition that the salary cuts would instead go to support causes that would enrich programs or areas I (or you) do not deem central to the mission of Harvard at this point? How would it be enforced? Do you really think janitors are going to be saved with your salary cut? With all due respect, I believe it is naïve to think that the money would flow “downward.” And the truth of the matter is that when you take the size of Harvard employment, and consider what has happened in the rest of the country, 275 layoffs is not draconian. I would guess our percentage reduction in the work force is much below the mean, as it should be.
Yet another point is missed, one that a long tradition of research supports. Punitive measures rarely work and usually have self-reinforcing negative qualities. In this case, forced salary cuts- in the absence of true reform and in a culture of fiefdoms and secrecy- would likely yield resentment and pullback among many faculty, especially since faculty demands on time are enormous and they have already seen an effective cut with the salary freeze. This cycle would in turn further undermine the culture and university quality.
Finally, there is the obvious point that unless competitors reduce salaries, which is not in the cards from what I can tell, the long term effect would be clearly negative for the university. Better to make selective cuts in initiatives and retain a world class faculty. I would argue that the university could get out of this mess by pulling back on previous commitments that were unsustainable (largely in science and financial aid), and by borrowing. The endowment is still 28 billion or whatever, losing a bit of Moody ranking to ensure long term quality is a bet I would make. By contrast, making individual faculty sacrifice for poor policy choices is not an argument I find compelling and nothing I have seen in the posts convince me otherwise. A voluntary pool, yes. I would contribute myself if I saw concrete evidence of reform and exactly how money would be spent relative to other commitments (of course it would be easy for the university to make a show of channeling salary reduction money to poster child cases, while at the same time funneling equal amounts to favored causes, which could have been used to stave off cuts, and in which case we would then have been duped). Signed, not paranoid.
6/25/2009 11:50 am
Richard,
I’d love to know what you mean by “SEAS and its unfundedness is a huge part of the problem.” My understanding of SEAS finances is limited, but I know they are anomalous. We are heavily dependent on endowment income and research funding, and receive limited income for undergraduate teaching while we pay GSAS substantial sums for our PhD students’ tuition. There may be an open secret out there that I don’t know — I’ve just never heard us referred to as an “unfunded” unit.
SEAS was for years managed in an extremely frugal way — “faculty lunch” used to mean buying our own sandwiches from the truck before sitting down together. We have been less frugal the past few years to be sure, but the net effect of our good financial management (and vigorous recent fundraising) is that we built up a modest reserve that has made layoffs unnecessary here. Now I have no doubt that FAS would love to get its hands on more SEAS money, and we conversely are quite skeptical over here about the wonders of having mother Harvard manage everything for us, savings on bulk purchases of paperclips notwithstanding. All of that (as well as intellectual developments, etc.) is in the background of the administrative separation of SEAS from FAS.
Finally, not just with respect to SEAS but in general, a comment about the suggestion that imaginative use of endowed funds will be one way to help solve our problems. All those piggy banks were shaken so vigorously over the years that FAS was falling into deficit that donors have started to notice. I have started to hear from some who are getting worried about whether the terms of gifts are really being respected. As it happens, engineering at Harvard was the focus of an important case concerning donor intent. In 1917 the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled against Harvard when Harvard tried to repurpose part of the income from the Gordon McKay endowment for questionable ends. So we probably want to be careful about going down that path as the solution to our problems. (And the formation of SEAS is really the fulfillment, a century or so delayed, of the commitment to which the SJC was trying to hold the university.)
6/25/2009 11:54 am
Richard,
Perhaps you are thinking of big, costly science buildings with their enormous debt service. Those are not SEAS buildings.
6/25/2009 12:01 pm
Sam, thanks for your suggestions about reducing waste. Harvard has already been moving in some of these directions, but obviously not rapidly enough. Offices in my building (Barker Center) now have lights that turn off when no motion is detected. So if I sit quietly at my computer for a while, the light turns off and I have to wave my arm furiously to make it turn on again. A small price for the savings on both electricity and money. The recent “Green is the new Crimson” campaign may have introduced more things like this. In my corner of the campus, office supplies must be ordered from a specific vendor. I don’t know if the separate faculties still use different vendors; if so, that would be a clear area where savings could be made. As for the grass, the measures taken to make it immaculate for Commencement are indeed extravagant and could easily be reduced to something more sensible.
6/25/2009 12:04 pm
Sorry, I see that RT made some of the points I make above.
6/25/2009 12:21 pm
Harry,
I thought there had been a pretty large FTE expansion around the time DEAS went to SEAS, but it seems that was wrong from what you say, or at least it was actually funded, so I take that back. And yes, quite so about science building — and the aforementioned CGIS buildings.
I’m with you on creative uses of endowments. I was approached last week by a potential donor (modest amount) and because of the piggy-bank shaking of recent years was very cautionary about the language he should employ in his bequest.
Not paranoid: I’m not talking about tithing. That’s the point of a progressive cut. which at least addresses the difference between the economist and the historian
6/25/2009 12:37 pm
Judith,
Believe it or not, there is not a “single university vendor” for supplies. Yes, paperclips are mundane, but tens of millions of dollars have been wasted.
Paperclips or bibliographers?
6/25/2009 12:43 pm
RT,
You are correct about the growth over here. We do our own grumbling to our own deans about administrative growth in the context of cuts we are having to make (fewer TFs, etc.), but our administration has managed to avoid layoffs.
6/25/2009 6:58 pm
Fascinating, Sam. I imagine that each faculty wants a different kind of paperclip. I understand that in a certain weird way because I much prefer American paper clips to European paper clips, although both are equally good at holding papers together. At least department administrators are no longer going out on extended lunch breaks to purchase paper clips, postage stamps, and so forth, as was the case when I first arrived at Harvard. At one point, I wrote an entire series of “departmental ditties” about paperclips, postage stamps, and other bizarre aspects of Harvard life. Things have changed since then; but alas, progress is still very slow. You’re right that this would be a good time to start unifying the choice of vendors across the spectrum at Harvard.
6/25/2009 10:06 pm
To make a sound judgment on any of the things being discussed, we’d really need to have the books opened, so we could understand the tradeoffs. Take mowing the lawns. How much money would you really save by cutting the grass less often (and, by the way, laying off some of those much-discussed lowest-paid workers)? And how do you line that up against the cost of having the place look shabbier, which would be fine for those of us who are not models of good couture anyway, but might have a cost in the recruitment of students and faculty, who, like it or not, take the appearance of public spaces as an indicator of what they are going to experience if they choose to come?
And I really would love to know how much we’d save by centralized purchasing (we already are supposed to use Harvard preferred vendors for office supplies, which which the university has centrally negotiated favorable pricing deals). The balancing cost on this one is that localized decision making is sometimes more efficient (if it were a slam dunk that centralized was always better, we’d all be in favor of the federal government taking over not only health care but schools, police, and pot-hole fixing too). Not knowing the numbers, I’m going to remain a bit skeptical that putting one person in charge of lots of purchasing inevitably saves money. Not if they’re not good, and not if they don’t understand the legitimate differences between different parts of the university. (Forget paper clips; think PCs.)
Sam is certainly right about shutting off the lights, and I think Fed Abernathy was the one who got SEAS started on those motion-sensing light switches, which also serve as reminders of when meetings are really, really dull and should be ended. But even with the lights, let’s not go overboard about shutting down exterior lights where someone might be leaving the office or gym lat at night. They improve safety.
6/26/2009 2:11 am
Harry,
Two things.
1. You said: “(we already are supposed to use Harvard preferred vendors for office supplies, which which the university has centrally negotiated favorable pricing deals).”
The phrase “supposed to” is key. That was exactly my point, but perhaps I didn’t state it properly when I said “single university vendor.” I wasn’t implying that there should be centralized purchasing, but only that a preferred vendor be used.
I think the university wants everyone to use a preferred vendor (or perhaps vendors), but my understanding is that that is not the case. People can and still do buy paperclips from non preferred vendors.
Question: For you, does that change things?
2. You said ” let’s not go overboard about shutting down exterior lights where someone might be leaving the office or gym lat at night. They improve safety.”
I agree with you on safety. However, have you passed by the empty outer athletic fields at 11 on a Saurday night and seen bank upon bank of huge lights still on? I have. Have you seen HBS lit up like a Christmas tree, even though the school is on break? I have. Have you passed by The President’s house late at night and seen the number of lights on outside? I have ( it is two blocks away from where I live).
Yes, all these things are bupkis. It is the mindset that is important. Paperclips or bibliographers?
6/26/2009 5:38 am
Sam,
Your citizen vigilance is admirable. But is it really the mindset that it’s important, or the hard numbers? Here is the question on the mind of many faculty, a version of the one Bob Putnam asked in the FAS town meeting. How much has the FAS administration grown in the past decade, and how much has the central administration grown in the past decade? (Maybe make some adjustment for growth directly related to increases in external funding, which is a cost of generating the new income.) Of course shut off the blazing lights, but I would guess that the bigger savings would come from downsizing offices that have mushroomed in the past decade or so. And I stress that it’s only a guess because I don’t know any of the numbers. Perhaps you do.
By the way, every office I know about buys its paperclips where it is supposed to, but I don’t pretend to know much about that either.
6/26/2009 7:46 am
More significant than paperclips, but less significant than FTEs, is redecoration and “entertainment”-meals upon meals with good wines that midlevel administrators have treated themselves & their guests to; nice pictures, fresh paint, new furniture other “improvements” to the office. Huge levels of waste, all over FAS and the whole university too, I bet.
6/26/2009 8:01 am
Redecoration and entertainment have already been drastically reduced in the new regime. See my post of 6/25/2009 6:44 am for the new rules about food, carpeting, and painting.
6/26/2009 10:21 am
For a more interesting contrast, go back a little further to more than one decade: one (yes, you read that right) one HR person for FAS; all FAS financial types (payroll, invoice paying, etc.) fit in University Hall. And then, in biblical terms, the growth began: a dean begat an associate dean who begat an assistant dean who begat a special assistant to the dean, all of whom had staff assistants.
6/26/2009 10:39 am
As a midlevel administrator who expects to get whacked, I’d like to make a few parting remarks.
In flush times, it’s easy to add personnel to do a great number of different things that presumably need doing by someone. However, in an unprecedented financial crisis like this one I think it’s a valid move to drop personnel if “unessential” activities are going to be discontinued. (Though, imagine what it must feel like to learn that, in effect, what you do is not a true and valued part of the place.)
Most faculty work very, very hard at what they do to earn their paycheck. As do most staff. That said, having been at Harvard for nearly fifteen years, I have observed that, if anything, there is still a dearth, rather than a superabundance, of talented administrators who are empowered to work directly with and on behalf of faculty and students. The complexity of this place is truly mind-boggling and very easy to forget even if you work here. For example, I have heard it said that in the FAS alone it takes about 250 senior faculty annually (that is about 1/3 of its faculty population) just to fill all the administrative posts and committee assignments that faculty should fill: deans, department chairs, center directors, directors of undergraduate and graduate studies, house masters, etc. Throw in the generous sabbatical policy, the decentralized culture, the “graying” of the senior faculty (by which I mean the increasing percentage of active faculty nearing or beyond the normal retirement age), the normal complement of professors temperamentally unsuited to perform administrative duties-and you have a very challenging task just getting the “core” bureaucratic infrastructure in place and maintaining it year in and year out. It takes a reasonably robust contingent of administrators to deal with this part of it. Then think about the financial side of things, again just in the FAS: tens of thousands of discrete funds, hundreds of thousands of budget lines, decades of subpar accounting and management, little knowledge or communication of the real cost of any given program, no transparency, little comprehensive strategic thinking, widespread financial ignorance about how Harvard operates, a weak work culture in which many faculty and staff reflexively think of the “FAS” as, paradoxically, something other than themselves. Add to this a tremendous concentration of power, knowledge, and duties in a few senior staff hands who do not delegate or indeed manage people very well, a deep discounting of staff wisdom, perspective, and involvement, and a hierarchy that isn’t very good at or even particularly interested in maximizing the contributions of the staff—performance management and yearly feedback are not implemented as a matter of institutional priority, guided professional development is utterly absent, there’s no routine mechanism to get administrators and faculty on the same page, no cross-training, no meaningful involvement of staff in shaping the administration. And let’s not forget that most departments consider themselves, probably correctly, as being too small in comparison to peer institutions or even in relation to their own basic curricular needs. I could go on.
My point is that this is the context in which comments about administrative bloat should be made and considered. I know there are wasteful practices, illogical bureaucracy, and many unexploited opportunities for efficiency. But I also believe that it’s not obvious that recent administrative growth has been unwarranted or a bad thing.
6/26/2009 10:40 am
I agree with Judith here. A lot of this has changed and that’s all for the good, and will perhaps have beneficial effects in less tangible ways. Btw the nice pictures (I have one in my office) are probably loaners from the vaults of the Fogg.
It seems to me very hard to argue with Sam’s point about centralized vendors, or with Harry’s about decentralized ordering.
6/26/2009 10:59 am
Harry,
I have no idea how much the administration has grown in the FAS or the center. I would imagine the growth has been quite large.
Annie told me the number re waste that I mentioned above; literally tens of millions of dollars of supply purchases… all because everyone, metaphorically, wanted to buy their own paperclips from their own source.
I want to get back to something you said above (and RT touched on). You said “I have started to hear from some who are getting worried about whether the terms of gifts are really being respected.”
I’m really shocked that as a very important Dean, you weren’t been required to take Donor Gifts 101 before assuming The Deanship. The core of Donor Gifts 101 emphasizes that the intended recipient must really work to convince the donor to give the gifts with the broadest possible terms.
The University is very fortunate to have THE expert in the field, someone who has had experience in New Haven, Ithaca and Durham. Very good Q Guide evaluations re the professor’s ability to engage students and get them to learn the finer points of the process
6/26/2009 12:54 pm
Sam,
We seem to be talking past each other again; if you’re shocked I must have been unclear again. Here is what I was referring to: a guy I had never met but who wound up next to me at a dinner party recently started telling me about his worries about donor intent issues with gifts he had given Harvard. I mentioned this story to someone else a few days later and that person came back with his own worries. All that has nothing to do with anything I did or learned as dean. Indeed, I explained to both these guys not only about Gordon McKay but about the Arnold Professor of Science, which Mr. Arnold wanted at first to be a chair in radiotelescopy. So I think we are in agreement, except that the other part of the course deans should get is about sticking to the terms once they have been accepted, no matter how far in the past.
I’d also like to second the sentiments of Waiting (and whoever it is, sounds like s/he knows a lot and would be a loss, so here’s hoping). Which is why (pace Anonymous 7:46 am) I did not stretch my comparison back to the stone age (though I was here even then). That was a wonderful and far more personal Harvard, but it’s gone forever. I put my benchmark as the university of only a decade or so ago because that takes us back roughly to when the endowment was the same size it is now, and you can look at all the offices (not individual positions) that have come into existence since then and wonder if they are really contributing to our essential, core mission. It’s not a nice thing to think about, because people took these positions in good faith and have worked hard at them. But it makes more sense to reconsider units have recently been added to the administration than to leave the structures in place and just shrink them all.
6/26/2009 1:11 pm
I think Harry (and others) have chosen the right place to begin looking to cuts; despite our terrible record of coordinated buying, adherence to preferred vendors would not save enough to avoid layoffs altogether. So, what has Harvard added in the last decade and are those things necessary. If so, do they make other things unneccessary? (Duplicative advising and administrative offices come to mind.) The question is whether the things added were really nice-to-haves when the money was there. Although given that tuition has continually increased more than inflation, perhaps the money was never there. One other thing, I’ve been here more than 25 years, and FAS human resources was never in all that time staffed by a single person. That was never true — I remember back as far as Ann Campion and a staff of at least 5 or 6.
6/26/2009 1:36 pm
Harry,
We’re not talking past each other. I could care less about the subject of donor intent. That wasn’t aimed at you in any way. It was meant to add a little levity.
Next time I’ll make that more explicit.
Best,
6/26/2009 2:07 pm
Sam,
Got it. Narrow bandwidth again (maybe only inside my brain). Levity is definitely needed, so thanks.
6/26/2009 3:03 pm
Pre-Ann Campion, there was indeed just one HR person: Bob Ginn, who had an office in an attic in U. Hall. Granted this does go back a bit, and I’m not suggesting that this was ideal. Just letting people know how the empire has expanded.
6/26/2009 3:23 pm
And George Bishop got a lot done back then too, though that was before the 33 digits. I’d be interested to see how that contributed to the bloat. Good luck, Waiting, and like Harry I hope you’re wrong, for the same reason.
6/27/2009 6:32 am
I know that genuine, and doubtless quite substantial savings can be effected through some of the strategies that have been proposed in this thread. (Are we close to beating the record for thread length in this blog, as set during the Summers debacle?) But sometimes this discussion reminds me of the “housekeeper’s economies” that were made by people of my mother’s generation. You know the kind of thing: spread the butter more thinly on the bread, use fewer eggs in the cake, save used lengths of string, grow some vegetables in the garden, and after a while you’ve saved enough money to buy fabric and make children’s pajamas on the treadle sewing machine. My mother had, after all, held her first school-teaching job in the Great Depression. So I don’t mean to make fun of the skim-off-the-top method of saving. Still, I suspect that Harvard will also need to do something more substantial in order to achieve what the Corporation seems to desire. The question remains: how necessary are really deep cuts with potentially damaging long-term effects, such as those that may be happening in the library system? Why couldn’t we dip a little further into the endowment? (Yes, I know, a lot of it isn’t liquid at the moment-but do we know how much?)
Eating my breakfast gruel, and trying hard not to ask for more…
6/27/2009 7:34 am
Judith, always on target. Of course single buyer purchases and people switching off the lights at night will not resolve the problem.
The Corporation, and the President, are faced with choices among very difficult alternatives, all with serious drawbacks.
1. Substantial fund-raising of unrestricted funds for current use in hopes that the storm will last 3-5 years. In effect ask donors to bail out Harvard’s current account deficit in the short term. While there is that kind of money there, not sure Harvard’s problems elicit the kind of sympathy necessary to raise it, especially because some of these donors may wonder about whether the inability to pursue some of the other options on the table are indicative of problems with leadership.
2. Serious slashing of programs and perhaps even departments. Much more severe than the 275 layoffs announced last week. This is an option that should be on the table, make difficult decisions about which programs should really be protected and let some programs go. This will obviously be opposed by those employed in those programs and departments and perhaps by some students. It would require very serious academic leadership, much more than the discussions about the core.
3. Significant administrative restructuring to cut down much of the growth of the last 20 years, or even of the last 10. This will be very hard to do because many of these admin are really powerful voices with the President, Provost and Deans. In most cases they are closer to those who would be making decisions than the faculty.
4. Seriously cut the payroll. There are two ways to do this. One, a uniform salary reduction for all Harvard employees, or for all senior faculty and administrators. Two, a reduction proportionate to income, with higher cuts for the most highly compensated employees. Both of these options are painful and will generate opposition from those who would see their income shrink. Sam proposed a cut proportional to income. This is what would be involved:
1. The President asks payroll to rank order all salaries of everyone on the payroll and to identify the point that cuts the top 10% or top 15% or top 20%.
2. The salary of those above that cutoff point (faculty as well as senior administrators) is brough exactly to that point. Hence capping Harvard salaries at what is currently the ceiling for 80% of those on the payroll.
This option would generate substantial savings, and most importantly, recurrent savings. Hence it will contribute to closing the structural deficit in ways option 1 -a one time fundraising effort- could not.
But this option would be opposed by some of those whose income would shrink. As Sam mentioned many of them could go, or retire -in fact it may be a good incentive to stimulate retirements of people who are hanging on way past retirement age.
These are times for tough leadership. If Sam is right and President Faust is preparing to announce a reduction of her own salary, followed by similar announcements from all Deans and senior members of the President and Provost office, this would place her in a very strong position to pursue any of these options. The alternative is slow bleeding and continued erosion of morale.
6/27/2009 9:02 am
Why does Sam think such an announcement is comiming?
6/27/2009 2:38 pm
Discussion of possible damage to Harvard in this thread has tended to focus on the cuts rather than factors that influence the cutting process (which “Missing the point?”, “Missing II”, and “Spread the butter” [item 3] have mentioned).
It’s not only what you do, but the way you do it, that matters. If decisions about cost-cutting measures are influenced by secret agreements, bias, and hidden agendas, and if Harvard demonstrates inconsistencies in its reaction to the problem, then the damage to Harvard will go well beyond diminished programs-the damage will go to the bone. And it will take a very long time for these wounds to heal.
The report of the discord fostered by Provost Hyman’s favoritism toward the Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology (see Science 10 April 2024) is an example of bias. The employment of outside consultants from for-profit organizations while at the same time speeches are delivered about belt-tightening and Harvard employees are laid off is an example of inconsistency.
A preventative strategy might be the adoption of an extraordinary level of transparency in the decision-making process. But that assumes a level of understanding and an ability to forgo bias, hidden agendas, etc., that the higher levels of the administration may not possess.