A Letter to the Harvard Community

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December 09, 1999

SEARCH THE GAZETTE

HARVARD GAZETTE ARCHIVES

From President Neil L. Rudenstine
December 1999

Dear Members of the Harvard Community:

As we enter the winter holiday season, I want to report on some recent University events and mention at least a few of the issues that we must focus upon as we look to the future. In particular, I’d like to share with you some of my thoughts about several areas — the University-wide campaign, the creation of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and various community initiatives — in which there has been a great deal of activity over the course of the summer and fall, thanks to the effort and vision of innumerable members of the Harvard family: students, faculty, staff, graduates, and friends.

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As you know, the University Campaign will draw to a close on December 31. It has been, by any standard, a remarkable success. In early October, we were able to announce that the goal of $2.1 billion has been exceeded, and that we hoped for a strong finish in the final weeks.

More than 150,000 graduates and friends have already contributed to the Campaign — a level of participation that includes thousands of individuals from every generation, with gifts ranging from a few dollars to many millions. And every gift, whatever its size, has mattered. Every additional dollar for financial aid, for the purchase of another library book, for a piece of scientific equipment, or for a n undergraduate arts group or athletic team has had a direct impact on some student, faculty member, or member of the staff. Altogether, the Campaign has strengthened the University immeasurably, and has made the educational experience at Harvard more challenging and stimulating in every way — richer, deeper, more effective, and more profound.

We owe an incalculable debt of gratitude to all who have brought us to this point. There will be opportunities — during the coming spring — to honor and celebrate those who have been so very generous, and to offer a full report on all the accomplishments of the Campaign. For the moment, I simply want to highlight, very selectively, a few of the Campaign’s achievements, recognizing that much will be omitted from this brief letter.

• Keeping Harvard doors open to students of talent and promise, from a diversity of backgrounds, and across the entire economic spectrum.

Donors to the Campaign have given more than $200 million in new endowments for undergraduate financial aid alone, and approximately $100 million for graduate and professional school aid. As a result of the Campaign – and of exceptional endowment growth – we were able, in 1998, to increase by more than $2,000 the average financial-aid package for College students who receive scholarships, representing a 20% growth in the financial-aid budget.

To place this in context: in 1993-94, the College awarded $35 million in scholarships to undergraduates, and the average scholarship was approximately $11,700. This year, the total aid budget has reached $53 million, and the average scholarship – with nearly 50% of the undergraduate body now awarded scholarships – stands at $16,700.

• Reducing the rate of tuition increase. Each year since 1993, tuition and fees have increased at a lesser rate than the previous year, and we fully expect that trend to continue next year. The Campaign – and the growth in the endowment – have allowed u s to sustain this pattern. Clearly, economic circumstances will not always be so favorable. For the moment, however, the combination of progressively lower fee increases and progressively higher financial-aid increases has allowed the University to have a considerable positive impact on the effective cost of a Harvard education for all students.

"Access" and "affordability" will always be difficult issues for any society that aspires to provide genuinely excellent higher education for a large proportion of its young people. And for private institutions the challenge will remain formidable. But the Campaign has demonstrated that establishing clear priorities for endowment and current-use gifts in this crucial area can indeed make a significant difference, and we will need to continue this effort into the future.

• Extending the University’s reach as a worldwide international institution – while also remaining a firmly rooted, residential, campus-centered community in Cambridge and Boston.

During the Campaign, the University exceeded its goals for the support of many international programs. For instance, approximately $100 million in new endowment funds have been raised to strengthen and expand the work of Harvard’s international centers – including the creation of the new Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, the new Asia Center, the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, the Davis Center for Russian Studies, the Korea Institute, the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, and the new Center for Islamic Legal Studies. In addition, plans are under way – supported by an exceptionally generous "lead gift" from Sidney Knafel – to create a new cluster of linked buildings and facilities that would provide unprecedented opportunities to integrate the work in many of our international units, in the study of government, and in related programs based in the professional Schools.

Complementing these initiatives , the University has recently established a physical presence abroad. The Business School has led the way by establishing small research facilities in Hong Kong and Buenos Aires, with a third – probably in Europe – likely to follow in the near future. On campus, meanwhile, approximately 3,000 of our 18,500 full-time degree students (University-wide) are from more than 150 countries and territories outside the United States. And the number of visiting scholars and mid-career practitioners coming to Harvard from abroad is greater than that at any other university in the United States.

• Encouraging cross-disciplinary and interfaculty collaborations in fields that require different perspectives and different forms of expertise.

Making more of what we already have – while simultaneously creating a more vital intellectual and human University community – has been one of the signal goals of the Campaign. Whether at fundamental levels of knowledge or at more "applied" or practical levels – where the University may be able to contribute more directly to the solution or amelioration of major societal problems – this effort has succeeded in significant ways. For instance, several of the international centers (just described) are consciously cross-disciplinary and University-wide in nature. In addition, we have created new interfaculty programs and strengthened existing programs in areas such as Environmental Sciences and Public Policy; Mind, Brain, and Behavior; Ethics and the Professions; the Children’s Initiative; and Health Policy. Other new University-wide centers and initiatives have also been created as a result of the Campaign, including the Hauser Center for Non-Profit Organizations; the Initiative on Social Enterprise, established by John Whitehead at the Business School; the Center for International Development, based at the Kennedy School; the Native American Program; and complementary programs in the broad field of human rights, including the well-established Law School program, the Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights in the School of Public Health, and the recently created Carr Center for Human Rights at the Kennedy School.

The Campaign has also allowed us to enhance programs in the humanities, social sciences, and the arts – and, increasingly, to house them in facilities designed to shape an environment that helps to overcome barriers to joint work, while also creating a stronger sense of academic community for students, faculty, and staff. The Barker Center is now home to 11 programs and departments in the humanities, and plans are progressing for the proposed new center for government and international studies, mentioned earlier.

At the programmatic level, Harvard’s Afro-American Studies Department and the Du Bois Institute have experienced extraordinary, dynamic growth and a steady expansion of their interdisciplinary scope. Linkages among programs in the arts have also been enhanced, including collaborations that involve the University Art Museums, the Graduate School of Design, Visual and Environmental Studies, the History of Art and Architecture Department, and other units. The creation of ARTS FIRST weekend – led by John Lithgow (’67) and the Board of Overseers – is an annual symbolic and practical demonstration of the vitality of all the arts at Harvard, including not only the "traditional" visual arts, but also drama, dance, opera, music, literature, film, video, photography, and everything that might be termed "multimedia."

Finally, as a tangible symbol of our commitment to architecture and historical preservation – and to our sense of community – the "lost" tower of Memorial Hall has miraculously reappeared, completing a six-year journey to restore and improve all the major spaces in Memorial Hall, recreating the building’s state of grandeur as one of the great 19th-century architectural structures in the nation.

As the pace of scientific discovery continues to accelerate, we are pressing forward with innovative efforts to connect work in different domains at the leading edge of science – in genomics, in neuroscience, in computer science and electrical engineering, in the health sciences, and in other key fields.

In October, we dedicated the Maxwell-Dworkin building, Harvard’s new home for work in computer science and electrical engineering. Built with major gifts from Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, both members of the Class of 1977, the new structure will allow us to expand greatly the scope of our teaching and research opportunities, to stimulate more effective collaborations among people and programs, and to accommodate the growing number of undergraduates (and graduate students) interested in computer science and electrical engineering.

New collaborations are also being created between the Medical School and the School of Public Health, and between the Medical School and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. The FAS alone plans to commit between $150 million-$200 million to interdisciplinary science initiatives – organized mainly as new centers – over the next five years. We are in the midst of what is an absolutely major era of scientific discovery, and the Campaign has positioned Harvard to help play a leading role in the decades ahead.

• Preparing Harvard for a future in which new information technologies dramatically influence the nature of learning.

The campus is now "wired" in ways hardly imaginable just a decade ago. More and more courses – including more than 1,000 in the FAS alone – are taking advantage of new information technologies to enrich teaching and learning, whether the subject is Chaucerian verse or Newtonian mechanics, American politics or African art. Between 1993 and 1997, all of the card catalogue information for the approximately 13 million volumes in Harvard’s 90 libraries was placed on line. A new Library Digital Initiat ive, at a cost of approximately $12 million, has been inaugurated to support a University-wide approach to the purchase, storage, access, and preservation of on-line digital information and materials. And the University as a whole is thinking more strategically about how best to use new technologies – including those that make possible new forms of "distance learning." We are only at the beginning of the profound changes that the new information technologies will stimulate over time. We have already done much – but there is obviously even more that lies ahead.

As these examples suggest, the approaching end of the Campaign is not only a moment to look back on the goals that have been so strongly achieved, but also a time to think in a concentrated way about the future. With this in mind, the Deans of the Faculties, the Provost, and I will begin regular meetings, as we did at the outset of the academic planning process that preceded the Campaign, to begin a discussion of future priorities for Harvard.

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While we work together to discuss such priorities, we continue to move forward on a range of very concrete initiatives and activities across the University. On September 14, the governing boards of Harvard and Radcliffe concluded a formal merger agreement, which took effect on October 1, 1999. As of that date, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study came into being under the leadership of Acting Dean Mary Maples Dunn, taking its place along with Harvard’s Schools and Faculties as an integral part of the University.

The mission of the Institute, specified as part of the merger agreement, is to create an academic community where individuals can pursue advanced work in any of the academic disciplines, professions, or creative arts. As a significant part of that mission, the Radcliffe Institute will also sustain a strong continuing commitment to the study of women, gender, and society. The Radcliffe Institute is one of a very few large-scale instit utes for advanced study in the country – others are located in North Carolina, in Princeton, and in Palo Alto – and as such it will provide a rich resource and a set of opportunities for Harvard and for the scholarly community at large. Preliminary plans are already under way for visits by distinguished lecturers, to begin in the spring of this year, and two symposia – one on gender and one on aesthetics – are being planned for 2000-2001. Meanwhile, Radcliffe’s existing strong units and programs – the Bunting Fellowships, the Schlesinger Library, the Radcliffe Public Policy Center, and the Murray Center for the Study of Lives – continue their activities.

With the help of two committees – one composed of several former Radcliffe Trustees and members of the Harvard governing boards, and one a faculty advisory committee consisting of senior faculty from each School in the University – we are actively engaged in the search for the first permanent Dean of the Radcliffe Institute. Because of the Institute’s broad and ambitious mission – to provide a venue for advanced work of the highest quality across a wide range of disciplines – the search is both exciting and challenging. I am encouraged by our progress so far, and I have no doubt that we will identify an outstanding leader for this major new initiative.

I want to take this opportunity, once again, to thank Nancy-Beth Sheerr and the Radcliffe Board of Trustees for their leadership in guiding Radcliffe to this transformative moment. I also want to express my personal gratitude to Mary Maples Dunn for taking on the leadership of the Institute during this transition period. Mary’s energy, clarity of mind, and engagement with other members of the University community will go far to ensure that the first permanent Dean of the Institute has an exceptionally sound foundation on which to build.

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The merger of Radcliffe into Harvard and the creatio n of the Radcliffe Institute represent what I am confident will be an extremely fruitful transformation of the long-standing relationship between our two institutions. Meanwhile, under the leadership of our new Vice President for Government, Community and Public Affairs, Paul Grogan, the University has also taken steps to enhance the relationships that exist between Harvard and its host communities of Boston and Cambridge.

• Recognizing that the University benefits enormously from the vitality and attractiveness of our host cities, we have been actively engaged this fall with one of the most important issues facing Boston and Cambridge – how to maintain a considerable "stock" of affordable housing in the immediate local area. On September 29, the University announced the sale of its housing development in the Mission Hill section of Boston. This transfer, to the local tenants’ association, continues a 25-year partnership with residents at the development, while assuring the future of hundreds of units of affordable housing in the area.

In addition, a major new program, involving a commitment of $21 million, will help to provide substantial affordable housing for many host-city residents. Designed to combat steadily increasing prices for housing in the Boston area, this plan involves a $1 million fund for one-time grants and a $20 million revolving loan fund that will supply low-interest loans to non-profit housing organizations, allowing them to leverage Harvard’s commitment in order to secure other government and private-sector funds for affordable housing.

• Other aspects of our interactions with Boston and Cambridge are less direct, but no less important. In an exercise that has been instructive for all of us on campus, we undertook two separate studies examining the range of Harvard’s ongoing activities in the Greater Boston area. In late September, the University released a comprehensive economic impact study, "Investing i n the Future: Harvard University’s Contribution to the Boston Metropolitan Area Economy."

This analysis, prepared by an outside consulting firm, details how Harvard, its students, and its programs stimulate economic growth in Boston. Harvard is the area’s second largest private employer, and 82% of the University’s 15,000 permanent employees live in the Boston metropolitan area. Furthermore, the University spends more than $1.2 billion each year on goods and services in the greater Boston area. In addition, Harvard makes voluntary payments-in-lieu-of-taxes (PILOT payments) to both Boston and Cambridge as part of its relationship with both cities. In August, we announced with Boston Mayor Menino that Harvard would pay the city an additional $40 million over the next 20 years – a 45% increase over existing payments.

• The University has also compiled and published a directory outlining the 240 public service programs fielded by our various Schools. Over two-thirds of Harvard College students engage in public service of some sort, and our undergraduates contribute more than 500,000 hours of community service each year – often to the neediest communities in the city and surrounding suburbs. These are powerful, and effective, contributions made by our students, year in and year out, despite the relentless demands that we – and they themselves – place on their time and energy.

At this important moment in Harvard’s history, we need to continue to plan imaginatively and collaboratively for the next decades, indeed centuries, of academic development.

We must work with local residents, local governments, and various parts of the University itself in order to shape a future – and a physical environment – that will continue to be humane in scale, sensitive to the past, and yet vital and economically sound.

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At the federal level, we have focused intensively this fall on making t he case for the critical importance of continued federal support of teaching hospitals, and for broad-based support of research in the basic and applied sciences. Congress has been responsive on both fronts. The House and Senate voted to restore some portion of the scheduled steep cuts in Medicare reimbursement – an important source of funding for teaching and research at university teaching hospitals – that were enacted in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. Congress also voted for increased funding for the core federal agencies that support university research in the many sciences. In all of these matters, we owe a major debt of gratitude to Senator Kennedy and our Massachusetts congressional delegation, which has provided strong and consistent leadership for university-based research in New England and nationally. I also want to thank Mayor Menino and Governor Cellucci for their efforts in focusing the attention of mayors and governors throughout the country on the budgetary problems facing our teaching hospitals.

On campus, there has been an expanded program to help ensure that Harvard remains an employer of choice for faculty and staff at all levels, and that the University continues to develop programs that regard employees fairly in terms of compensation, benefits, and opportunities for career growth. In early October, the University concluded an agreement with the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers (HUCTW) relating to the past use of the "casual" workers – employees who work for the University less than half-time (or for less than three months at more than half-time). More than a year ago, the HUCTW expressed concern that some employees had been retained on the casual payroll for longer than the contract stipulates. Working with the union over a period of months, our staff examined the use of casual workers throughout the University, identified areas in which our practice failed to meet the agreed guidelines, and designed – with the unio n – a settlement to compensate individuals, as appropriate, and began to design mechanisms to eliminate the problem going forward.

I am also pleased to report that in November we completed successful negotiations with three of our employee unions. In addition to concluding separate four-year contracts with the Harvard University Police Association and the Graphic Communications International Union, we also negotiated a new agreement with the Service Employees International Union, which represents custodial workers on campus.

The new three-year contract provides wage increases in keeping with union standards in the Greater Boston area, improves paid time off for part-time employees, and provides a bonus vacation feature for longer-term employees – all while retaining necessary flexibility and quality control at the departmental level.

In all of these matters, we are indebted to the work and leadership of our staff in human resources, and to the willingness of union representatives to engage with us in securing constructive agreements for all covered employees.

Finally, partly in response to concerns raised by students and others about our lowest paid workers, I appointed a faculty committee last spring to review the University’s policies with respect to the contingent workforce – including those who work on a temporary basis and those who are employees of organizations outside Harvard. That committee has worked throughout the summer and fall to collect and analyze data on those workers and the compensation they receive. We expect a report containing both findings and recommendations in the near future.

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On other fronts, we recently hosted a two-day conference meeting of Chinese and American university presidents (seven each) to discuss the shape and future of the modern research university and the potential for exchange and collaboration across borders as China undertakes an unprecedented investment in its own u niversity system. I believe that this was the first intensive exchange of this kind between university leaders from our two countries, and I am optimistic that it will stimulate collaborative work at many levels among faculty and students across all the institutions involved.

The spring will bring many more events, including a major celebration of the 30th anniversary of the Department of Afro-American Studies and the 25th anniversary of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research; the third Internet and Society Conference; and the formal celebration of the end of the Campaign.

Meanwhile, we continue to wrestle with, and move forward on, a range of issues vital to the future of the University – how to plan our future physical development in Cambridge and Boston, working with the local communities; how to engage creatively, yet responsibly, the spectrum of challenges and possibilities raised by the new information technologies; how to give concrete yet manageable expression to the notion that we are now a worldwide university in a truly global educational environment; and how to ensure that we build upon the energy, momentum, and involvement that so many of you have brought to the Campaign, so that we can address the future with equal vigor, insight, and engagement.

As always, I appreciate your interest, your support, and your willingness to help in so many ways. With all best wishes,

Sincerely,

Neil L. Rudenstine