HARVARD THEN AND NOW: Harvard is in a world of hurt!

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 26, 2023

Questions unasked, unanswered: Harvard College is the undergraduate arm of Harvard University. At least on the national stage, that world-famous institution suddenly finds itself in a world of hurt.

So many alumni, so little time! Let's touch on one famous pair:

In the fall of 1936, Pete Seeger and John F. Kennedy enrolled as fellow freshmen in the class of 1940. 

Seeger dropped out after freshman year. A few years later, he became a member of the American Communist Party, a membership he maintained for seven years. 

Kennedy graduated on time in June of 1940. Later, he served as President of the United States for a bit less than three years. 

(In our own street-fighting class of 1969, Gram Parsons dropped out after just one semester. He became a musical icon himself, then died at age 28.)

Many well-known figures have emerged from the "10,000 Men of Harvard," a group which now includes a very large number of women. (That was already true when we were at the famous school, though the women were enrolled at that time under the Radcliffe name.)

Also, a number of highly accomplished figures have emerged from the famous school. That said, let's return to the current state of affairs, as overseen by the New York Times in an awkward news report from yesterday's print edition:

Claudine Gay Turmoil Forces Harvard’s Secretive ‘Corporation’ Into Spotlight
Harvard’s powerful board has backed its president and said little else, yet a member privately said “generational change” may be needed.  

Oof! Online, those are the headlines which sit atop an awkward report. The report spotlights Harvard's "powerful / secretive board," which describes itself, on its website, as "the oldest corporation in the Western Hemisphere."

(It does so in a slightly tone-deaf way, perhaps for better or worse.)

For ourselves, we'll guess that Harvard and its board could benefit from something more than a bit of "generational change." In fairness, the same can be said of all of us, red and blue tribals alike.

At this particular point in time, we've moved past Frost's "darkest evening of the year"—or at least, we've moved past the year's longest evening. That said, Harvard is in a world of hurt—and so is the "Corporation."

How the mighty are possibly falling! Print edition headline included, the news report, by Copeland and Farrell, started off like this:

Claudine Gay Turmoil Brings Harvard Board Out From the Shadows

On Tuesday, the day before Harvard acknowledged more problems with its president’s scholarly work, two members of its governing body sat in a private dining room at Bar Enza, a popular Cambridge restaurant, and faced a grilling.

It was an exceedingly rare opportunity for a small group of prominent academics to speak directly to members of the reclusive board in charge of the school, as it endured a turbulent period. The campus was convulsed by demands for the resignation of Harvard’s president, Claudine Gay, after allegations of plagiarism and anger over her handling of antisemitism and threats to Jewish students, which spurred a donor revolt.

The two board members, the nonprofit founder Tracy Palandjian and the private-equity executive Paul Finnegan, were told directly that they had to do more to address the ongoing maelstrom consuming the campus.

“You need to be more out front of this,” Jeff Flier, the former dean of Harvard Medical School, recalled telling them. “If people are saying the university is making mistakes—they are talking about you!”

Board members were grilled—in a dining room—concerning a range of problems. A maelstrom is consuming the campus, the two board members were told. 

The maelstrom concerns the university's president, but the maelstrom doesn't end there. Having said that, we'll also say this:

In the stillness of the Christmas season, we found ourselves thinking back on certain things we observed during our own freshman year at the famous open-air prison in question.

Harvard is in a world of hurt, but so is our struggling nation. It seems to us that this news report in the New York Times allows us to ponder the formal and informal ways we Americans are all governed. 

That includes the ways our public discourse is formed by our most elite institutions.

Seeger came and Seeger went; we stayed for the full four years. Along with one of our roommates, we stumbled upon the brand-new Hee Haw TV program in June of our senior year! It happened on Cape Cod!

For ourselves, we still have basic, somewhat amusing questions about the things we saw freshman year—questions we've never seen asked or answered. These questions take us to the heart of the way our failing discourse functions.

For starters, though, who sits on the "secretive" board in question? Two members were willing to subject themselves to a grilling, and they deserve credit for doing so. 

All in all, though, who sits on that board? We'll start with that question tomorrow, though we'll soon let our memories emerge.

Tomorrow: "The board seeks to build a well-rounded group of people who have complementary expertise."