October 23, 2025 • 23 mins
Harvard University President Alan M. Garber joins David Rubenstein to discuss the university's decision to sue the federal government over the freezing of approximately $600 million in research funding. He also addresses Harvard's large endowment and recent changes to admissions policies following the Supreme Court's ruling on affirmative action. Garber explains how Harvard handled campus protests related to the conflict in the Middle East, the uncertainty around visas for foreign students and the importance of having different viewpoints on campus. He's on this week's episode of The David Rubenstein Show: Peer to Peer Conversations. This interview was recorded October 14 in Boston.
Disclosure: This interview took place at The David Rubenstein Treehouse at Harvard University.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
The oldest university of the United States is Harvard University.
It's also one of the most respected universities of the United States,
but recently there's been some challenges by the federal government
the way Harvard is operating. I had a chance recently
to sit down with Alan Garber, the president of Harvard University,
to talk about the challenge of the federal government now
faces and the challenges of American higher education. Harvard is
(00:23):
the America's oldest university, founded in sixteen thirty six. It's
very famous university, maybe the most famous university in the world.
But recently it's been in the news because Harvard sued
the federal government, which was a very unusual thing for
Harvard to do. Why did Harvard sue the federal government
and what's the status of that case.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
I can only tell you a little bit about the
status of the case except what's publicly known, which is
that we received a favorable law of judgment in district court.
And I think you're referring to the lawsuit in which
we alleged First Amendment violations as well as procedural violations
(01:05):
by the federal government when they cut off our funding
and we sued because they cut off our funding. We
should be very clear about that. It was done in
a precipitous manner without any real process. We really had
no choice because we had hundreds of millions of dollars
(01:27):
at stake. And I want to point out one other thing.
This was not in the form of gifts or subsidies.
It was payment for research that we were performing at
the behest of the federal government. We were fulfilling our
obligations under the terms of the grants and contracts that
(01:48):
the federal government issued.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
So how much money was frozen.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
It's a little bit hard to be precise, but on
the order of six hundred million dollars.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Six hundred million was frozen. Some of that has now
come back to Harvard or yes, So to make up
the gap, is Harvard getting that money and giving it
to the people doing the research out of its own funds,
or you have special fundraising, or how do you make
up the gap.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
There was a long period in which we did not
have the funding, and the Central University used its resources
to help the investigators continue at least some of their work,
not all of the work could be funded by the
university and the schools that are part of the university.
What's important to recognize is that there was very critical
(02:35):
work that could not be stopped, but we could not
really afford to make up for all of the loss
money from the federal government.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Now people sometimes say, well, Harvard has an endowment that's
let's say, over fifty billion dollars, so you have plenty
of money. Why couldn't you just take some of that
fifty billion dollars in use it for the research.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Well, of course, the endowment is a very important source
of revenue. One thing that it is important to realize
about the endowment is that it's heavily restricted. So, for example,
we have funds to pay for individual professorships, we have
funds that are dedicated to a particular research center. Funds
(03:16):
of that kind they cannot be used for other purposes.
So that's one restriction that makes it very hard to
treat this like some giant piggybank where we can take
out funds when we need them on a rainy day.
There is a second consideration as well, which is that
most of the terms under which people gave money for
(03:37):
the endowment include an obligation that this should be sustainable,
and what that really means is that future generations should
have access to the same resources that we have today,
so that limits how rapidly you can spend from the endowment.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
There's an endowment tax that was put in under the
first Trump administration and it was increased in this current administration.
Do you see any real justification for that tax and
is it impacting Harvard adversely or other schools like Harvard
the endowment text.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Clearly, it's a substantial text, particularly for universities like Harvard
that are expected to be in the top tier. And
of course it's damaging because, for example, so much of
our financial aid, the scholarships that we give our students
are funded through the endowment, and it funds the research,
(04:33):
it funds all kinds of activities in the university. So yes,
it's quite damaging in terms of addressing the problems that
we are accused of, and that I believe was part
of the rationale for passing the endowment text. The tax
is only going to make it harder to address these issues,
(04:55):
not easier.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
In the early days, Harvard and most universities and I say,
didn't get money from the federal government. After World War Two,
the federal government dramatically increased amount of money given to
universities for research. Do you think that was a good
thing for the US government to do that, and you
think the universities became too dependent on the federal government,
or you think they benefited and it's really been good
(05:17):
for the country to do this.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
The period that you're referring to was really set into
motion by a report by Vineva Bush, who had written
a book called The Endless Frontier, and he argued that
it would be more efficient for the federal government to
support research by working with universities than pursuing more of
(05:41):
a European style model where there would be independent research
institutes the federal government would pay for everything. That's what
set in motion what became a real boom in innovation
in science and technology in the United States. I would
add that in addition to the funding that went to
(06:02):
universities to conduct research, the country benefited from an influx
of immigrants who are some of the greatest scientists in
the world, largely in the post war period, and actually
during the war and just before the war, largely European scientists.
That combination made the US the world leader in science
(06:26):
and technology.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Well in the early part of the twentieth century. If
one were to say what were the greatest universities in
the world, the United States might not have had the
top universities. Is that because the federal government has been
supporting and also because the endowments have grown.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
I would say it's solid the above. But I would
also say that we have had, over the past many
decades a relentless focus on attracting the best talent in
the entire world. It takes resources, but the resources not
only financial. The resources are human resources. And we have
(07:01):
done an amazing job in attracting great talent from all
of the world. So that combination is what enabled the
US to be so successful.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Harvard was sued for discriminating on admissions ultimately went to
the Supreme Court. Supreme Court ruled against Harvard. How has
Harvard changed its admissions policies to conform with what the
Supreme Court now says as the law.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Well, we had announced in the first official communication upon
the release of the Supreme Court's decision that we would
adhere to the law, not change our values and principles,
but we would certainly adhere to the law. The specific
measures that we've taken have been many. We've made sure
that in the admissions process, nobody involved in making a
(07:53):
decision about admissions has access to the check the box
what's your race, what's your ethnicity, etc. So they don't
have access to that information. Of course, there's an interview
in an essay, aspects of identity will come out, but
we do not have We do not provide that information
(08:13):
to the admissions officers where people identify, and I would
add that we train them to make sure that they
don't consider these characteristics that are prohibited from consideration in
through the SFFA decision.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
You're talking about immigrants and how the major universities have
brought a lot of immigrants over and they were great
faculty members and researchers. What about getting foreign students today
to American universities. Do you actually feel that foreign students
are now afraid to apply because of visa problems or
they think they won't get in because there's going to
be some discrimination against foreign students. How has the whole
(08:53):
concern and watching about foreign students and foreign faculty affected
at Harvard.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
For many programs, there is a lot of hesitancy about
initiate about attending college or attending graduate school in the
US because of uncertainty about visa status and whether that
could be taken away. At the same time, this year
we've had a lot of success and the students who
(09:19):
were actually admitted virtually from other countries, virtually all of
them have been able to attend. So it's too early
to have a confident answer your question, but we are worried,
and I want to say one other thing. They aren't
strictly speaking students, but postdocts. That is, the postdoctoral fellows
who work in our labs, in the hospitals and in
(09:43):
other parts of the university. There is some evidence that
fewer of them are applying for jobs in the US.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
The hostages have now come back in Israel, but it
was the events that led to the hostage being taken
and all the people who were killed on Over the
seventh that led to protests on campuses. Harvard and other
universities had encampments and other types of protests. What has
Harvard done since that time to address the concerns that
(10:13):
some people have that Harvard was not sufficiently dealing with
anti Semitism, or that Harvard's ability to let people protest
wasn't appropriate.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
How have you changed things, if at all.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
We've done a lot to address these issues. And one
of the challenges we face from beginning concerning the protests
is that people claimed that our rules were unclear what's
permissible in a protest, and so one of the first
things we did is to develop a set of guidelines.
(10:44):
Basically that drew upon a document called the University Statement
on Rights and Responsibilities, which is created in the early seventies.
That outlined how we protect protests but also enabled the
of our community to carry on their work without disruption.
So we provided some clarity there for anti Semitism and
(11:07):
also for the complaints that we heard about anti Muslim,
anti Arab, anti Palestinian incidents. I created two presidential task
forces to study the issues and make a set of recommendations.
Both of those task forces took their work very seriously.
It took a lot of time, but they gathered data,
(11:29):
they did hundreds upon hundreds of interviews, and then they
came up with a very lengthy set of recommendations, which
we have implemented. We're well on the way to implement those.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
So you're the thirty first president of Harvard University. You
were Harvard undergraduate. Did you ever think when you were
Harvard undergraduated you wind up as president university someday.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Well, back those days, we would have said, what are
you smoking.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Let's talk about your background for a moment. Where were
you born.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
In Illinois, Western Illinois.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
And your parents were they Harvard graduates?
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Well, my father didn't go to college and my mother
went to the University of Wisconsin.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
So when you're growing up, did people say, Helen is
really really smart, he should go to Harvard. Did you
always think you were really talented as an academic kid
in high school and you knew you were going to
get into Harvard.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
If people said I was a really talented kid and
I should go to Harvard, they didn't say it to me. Okay,
I was a good student.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
What class were you at Harvard?
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Well, I entered with the class of nineteen seventy seven,
so I started in nineteen seventy three.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Were any prominent people in your class?
Speaker 2 (12:48):
It may sound like I'm bragging. There are a lot
of alumni here in the audience, and I bet every
one of them is proud of their class. But here
let me brag about my classmates. The person whose face
was beneath mine in the freshman Facebook was Bill Gates?
Speaker 3 (13:04):
What happened to him? He dropped out? Dropped out?
Speaker 1 (13:10):
When he dropped out, you'd think you ever hear of
him again?
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Yeah, I'd say.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Some of us have heard from him. Steve Baumber, the
Chief Justice Supreme Court, John Roberts, a pretty good class
other university presidents. There's a lot of Moia names in.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
So it normally takes four years to graduate from college.
How many years did it take you?
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Three?
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Three?
Speaker 1 (13:33):
So you after three years, what do you decide you
want to do? You go to graduate school? Do you
want to do something important like private equity, going to
business school?
Speaker 3 (13:41):
Or you didn't want to do that? What did you
want to do? Well?
Speaker 2 (13:43):
I couldn't make up my mind. So I did. I
did a PhD in economics and an MD.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
PhD in economics and an MD. But the PhD economics
was at Harvard, the MD was at Stanford. So wasn't
that by coastal a little bit difficult?
Speaker 2 (13:58):
I had a great experience studying economics at Harvard. I
had done enough for the graduate courses at Harvard and
that I could shorten the time it took to get
a PhD. And what I learned in the applications process
is that other PhD programs would not recognize they would
not give me credit for the Harvard courses.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
So you got an MD from Stanford, a PhD from Harvard.
What led you back to Stanford? You taught at Stanford,
is that right?
Speaker 3 (14:27):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (14:27):
For twenty five years?
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Twenty five years. So you're living in California. The weather
is very good, it's a beautiful campus. What propelled you
after twenty five years to come back to the East
Coast to be the provost at Harvard.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Well, I think a lot of people in this audience
know Drew Faust, and let me just tell you she's
a very persuasive person. And I was chair of the
committee to visit the Harvard Medical School and Harvard School
of Dental Medicine. That's how I met Drew, and it
brought me back here about once a year. And it
(15:03):
was through that that I met her and she asked
me if i'd be interested in looking at the job
of provost when it opened up. My initial answer was no,
but somehow she got me to change.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Okay, so you came back as provost and Drew Faust
and then when Drew retired, Larry backhow became the president
of Harvard and you stayed as the provost, that's right.
And then when Claudine Gay became the president of Harvard,
you stayed as the provost. So how many years were
you the provost at Harvard?
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Twelve and a half.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
And for people that don't know what a provost is,
what actually do you do when you're a provost?
Speaker 2 (15:44):
The provost is the number two officer of the university
and the chief academic officer at Harvard. It's a relatively
new role. There was a provost briefly at the end
of World War Two because President Conant was in Washington,
was kind of around the university, very temporary arrangement, but
it really started in modern times in nineteen ninety one.
(16:08):
It's a job that expanded pretty much monotonically over time.
And when I took on the job, the provost was
responsible for all of the inter faculty initiatives. The deans
reported to both the president and the provost, and the
provosts had a huge role in faculty appointments and promotion.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
And Claudingay stepped down as president, you were put in
as the interim president of Harvard, and now you're the
president of Harvard. What's the pleasure of being the president
of Harvard.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
I was asked on January first to step in as
interim president on January second, and I knew that being
provost was a pretty demanding job pretty much twenty four
to seven and I was about to do two jobs.
There were twenty four to seven until I could put
a new provost in place. So there's just the sheer
(17:00):
volume of work was daunting. And then there's the fact
that we were in a crisis that we were under
at Tech. My answer in normal times would be, these
are the advantages of being president. This is what's annoying.
What I learned by serving in this time is that
serving in a time of crisis, I believe is far
(17:22):
more rewarding than serving in normal times. And it's rewarding
because you can really make a difference. There is no
time like the president to do the job.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
In the early days of the country, there were a
few private universities. They were all private pretty much in
the early days. But in recent years Harvard has in
size and breadth and depth, really going way past the
other major universities that you could argue what enabled Harvard
to become such a big university relative that let's say Princeton,
which is a great university but not quite as broad
(17:53):
as Harvard. What did Harvard do that enabled it to
grow to the point where when people say I want
my smart child to go somewhere, they say, I want
my child to be able to go to Harvard.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Well, David, I actually think that the top research universities
in the US are all incredibly accomplished, and I don't
feel as though Harvard is so far ahead of any
other institution. We're stronger in some areas in Princeton, and
maybe not as strong as others, But the fact is
(18:25):
we're a very different institution from Princeton because Princeton has
PhD programs, but they did not invest heavily in professional schools,
so they're covering a different part of the waterfront. But
I would say that we've been fortunate in a number
of ways, including the generosity of our alumni and friends
(18:47):
has helped us. That's been true for the other pre
eminent research universities as well.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Many members of Congress think that Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford,
other major universities that are well known are too liberal.
How does Harvard address that, and how do you get
a faculty that has more people that are not quote liberal?
And is it really unrealistic to do that?
Speaker 2 (19:08):
I think that the core issue is really a question
are our students exposed to the full range of serious
views about important issues. Could be in science, it could
be in my field of economics, could be in political science,
(19:30):
in all kinds of areas, and there's a risk if
the faculty lean all in one direction politically, that they
won't be capable of presenting views other than their owns,
and therefore our students won't be exposed. Oftentimes, my professors
would not reveal what their personal views were. Sometimes they did,
(19:51):
but it was never with the idea that you would
say only certain views are correct about this issue. That's
the problem we have to solve. I think that to
fully address this, we do need a wider range of
views on campus. It's not just about liberal conservative, it's
on all kinds of dimensions. We need a diversity of views,
(20:13):
we need many different views, and we need to create
an environment in which our students can speak freely because actually,
for students, I would say, the most pernicious issue about
this fear that there's that the faculty are all from
one part of the political spectrum. The fear is that
(20:33):
the students who disagree can't express those views or they
will be ostracized in some way. We have to overcome that,
and I think we're making progress.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
What percentage of students who come to Harvard College are
on some kind of scholarship I have, you know, the
assumption might be that they all are from wealthy families
or most of them. What percentage actually on some kind
of scholarship.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
It's on the order of sixty percent receive financial aid.
And I would add that students from family pollies that
earn less than two hundred thousand dollars a year can
attend Harvard College tuition free.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Speaking of tuition, many people criticize the high tuitions of
private universities, in particular, saying that they're all very, very high,
beyond the means of most middle class families.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
Why is tuition so high?
Speaker 2 (21:19):
The cost of providing an education at the kinds of
universities that you've mentioned have gone up and up over
time in real terms. For many of our universities, that is,
inflation adjusted terms, the tuition has gone down and I'm
talking about the nominal tuition for the students who don't
(21:42):
receive any financial aid. When you take an account financial aid,
it's gone down.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
But the cost of educating one of these students that
you educate, is it.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
Higher than the actual tuition?
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Yes, And you think the American universities today are in
danger of not becoming as important to the or the
world as they were ten twenty years ago because of
challenges to the universities. We still think the university are
so strong that they can overcome some of the current
challenges and criticisms.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
I am optimistic about that. But I think is extremely
important is for Harvard and our peer institutions, for particularly
other research universities, to re establish trust in our institutions
and our mission because what we've accomplished really would not
(22:33):
have been possible without this incredibly successful partnership with the
federal government, which has driven the research enterprise.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
As I said before, So one final question I want
to ask you is I have a seven year old
granddaughter and she's very smart, and I'm just wondering is
there an early, early, early decision process that Harvard has
or would you consider starting one. I mean, she's very talented,
So would you consider early early decision for people of
(23:04):
that age or not?
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Well, David, I have to ask you, how's her pitching arm?
Speaker 1 (23:09):
It's better than some of the pictures that I have. There,
you go, maybe she could be on the athletic teams.
But if you had to do it all over again,
when they asked you to be the president of Harvard,
would you have said yes or no?
Speaker 2 (23:20):
I would have said yes with less hesitation.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Thanks for listening to hear more of my interviews. You
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wherever you listen.
The oldest university of the United States is Harvard University.
It's also one of the most respected universities of the United States,
but recently there's been some challenges by the federal government
the way Harvard is operating. I had a chance recently
to sit down with Alan Garber, the president of Harvard University,
to talk about the challenge of the federal government now
faces and the challenges of American higher education. Harvard is
(00:23):
the America's oldest university, founded in sixteen thirty six. It's
very famous university, maybe the most famous university in the world.
But recently it's been in the news because Harvard sued
the federal government, which was a very unusual thing for
Harvard to do. Why did Harvard sue the federal government
and what's the status of that case.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
I can only tell you a little bit about the
status of the case except what's publicly known, which is
that we received a favorable law of judgment in district court.
And I think you're referring to the lawsuit in which
we alleged First Amendment violations as well as procedural violations
(01:05):
by the federal government when they cut off our funding
and we sued because they cut off our funding. We
should be very clear about that. It was done in
a precipitous manner without any real process. We really had
no choice because we had hundreds of millions of dollars
(01:27):
at stake. And I want to point out one other thing.
This was not in the form of gifts or subsidies.
It was payment for research that we were performing at
the behest of the federal government. We were fulfilling our
obligations under the terms of the grants and contracts that
(01:48):
the federal government issued.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
So how much money was frozen.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
It's a little bit hard to be precise, but on
the order of six hundred million dollars.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Six hundred million was frozen. Some of that has now
come back to Harvard or yes, So to make up
the gap, is Harvard getting that money and giving it
to the people doing the research out of its own funds,
or you have special fundraising, or how do you make
up the gap.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
There was a long period in which we did not
have the funding, and the Central University used its resources
to help the investigators continue at least some of their work,
not all of the work could be funded by the
university and the schools that are part of the university.
What's important to recognize is that there was very critical
(02:35):
work that could not be stopped, but we could not
really afford to make up for all of the loss
money from the federal government.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Now people sometimes say, well, Harvard has an endowment that's
let's say, over fifty billion dollars, so you have plenty
of money. Why couldn't you just take some of that
fifty billion dollars in use it for the research.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Well, of course, the endowment is a very important source
of revenue. One thing that it is important to realize
about the endowment is that it's heavily restricted. So, for example,
we have funds to pay for individual professorships, we have
funds that are dedicated to a particular research center. Funds
(03:16):
of that kind they cannot be used for other purposes.
So that's one restriction that makes it very hard to
treat this like some giant piggybank where we can take
out funds when we need them on a rainy day.
There is a second consideration as well, which is that
most of the terms under which people gave money for
(03:37):
the endowment include an obligation that this should be sustainable,
and what that really means is that future generations should
have access to the same resources that we have today,
so that limits how rapidly you can spend from the endowment.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
There's an endowment tax that was put in under the
first Trump administration and it was increased in this current administration.
Do you see any real justification for that tax and
is it impacting Harvard adversely or other schools like Harvard
the endowment text.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Clearly, it's a substantial text, particularly for universities like Harvard
that are expected to be in the top tier. And
of course it's damaging because, for example, so much of
our financial aid, the scholarships that we give our students
are funded through the endowment, and it funds the research,
(04:33):
it funds all kinds of activities in the university. So yes,
it's quite damaging in terms of addressing the problems that
we are accused of, and that I believe was part
of the rationale for passing the endowment text. The tax
is only going to make it harder to address these issues,
(04:55):
not easier.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
In the early days, Harvard and most universities and I say,
didn't get money from the federal government. After World War Two,
the federal government dramatically increased amount of money given to
universities for research. Do you think that was a good
thing for the US government to do that, and you
think the universities became too dependent on the federal government,
or you think they benefited and it's really been good
(05:17):
for the country to do this.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
The period that you're referring to was really set into
motion by a report by Vineva Bush, who had written
a book called The Endless Frontier, and he argued that
it would be more efficient for the federal government to
support research by working with universities than pursuing more of
(05:41):
a European style model where there would be independent research
institutes the federal government would pay for everything. That's what
set in motion what became a real boom in innovation
in science and technology in the United States. I would
add that in addition to the funding that went to
(06:02):
universities to conduct research, the country benefited from an influx
of immigrants who are some of the greatest scientists in
the world, largely in the post war period, and actually
during the war and just before the war, largely European scientists.
That combination made the US the world leader in science
(06:26):
and technology.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Well in the early part of the twentieth century. If
one were to say what were the greatest universities in
the world, the United States might not have had the
top universities. Is that because the federal government has been
supporting and also because the endowments have grown.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
I would say it's solid the above. But I would
also say that we have had, over the past many
decades a relentless focus on attracting the best talent in
the entire world. It takes resources, but the resources not
only financial. The resources are human resources. And we have
(07:01):
done an amazing job in attracting great talent from all
of the world. So that combination is what enabled the
US to be so successful.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Harvard was sued for discriminating on admissions ultimately went to
the Supreme Court. Supreme Court ruled against Harvard. How has
Harvard changed its admissions policies to conform with what the
Supreme Court now says as the law.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Well, we had announced in the first official communication upon
the release of the Supreme Court's decision that we would
adhere to the law, not change our values and principles,
but we would certainly adhere to the law. The specific
measures that we've taken have been many. We've made sure
that in the admissions process, nobody involved in making a
(07:53):
decision about admissions has access to the check the box
what's your race, what's your ethnicity, etc. So they don't
have access to that information. Of course, there's an interview
in an essay, aspects of identity will come out, but
we do not have We do not provide that information
(08:13):
to the admissions officers where people identify, and I would
add that we train them to make sure that they
don't consider these characteristics that are prohibited from consideration in
through the SFFA decision.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
You're talking about immigrants and how the major universities have
brought a lot of immigrants over and they were great
faculty members and researchers. What about getting foreign students today
to American universities. Do you actually feel that foreign students
are now afraid to apply because of visa problems or
they think they won't get in because there's going to
be some discrimination against foreign students. How has the whole
(08:53):
concern and watching about foreign students and foreign faculty affected
at Harvard.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
For many programs, there is a lot of hesitancy about
initiate about attending college or attending graduate school in the
US because of uncertainty about visa status and whether that
could be taken away. At the same time, this year
we've had a lot of success and the students who
(09:19):
were actually admitted virtually from other countries, virtually all of
them have been able to attend. So it's too early
to have a confident answer your question, but we are worried,
and I want to say one other thing. They aren't
strictly speaking students, but postdocts. That is, the postdoctoral fellows
who work in our labs, in the hospitals and in
(09:43):
other parts of the university. There is some evidence that
fewer of them are applying for jobs in the US.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
The hostages have now come back in Israel, but it
was the events that led to the hostage being taken
and all the people who were killed on Over the
seventh that led to protests on campuses. Harvard and other
universities had encampments and other types of protests. What has
Harvard done since that time to address the concerns that
(10:13):
some people have that Harvard was not sufficiently dealing with
anti Semitism, or that Harvard's ability to let people protest
wasn't appropriate.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
How have you changed things, if at all.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
We've done a lot to address these issues. And one
of the challenges we face from beginning concerning the protests
is that people claimed that our rules were unclear what's
permissible in a protest, and so one of the first
things we did is to develop a set of guidelines.
(10:44):
Basically that drew upon a document called the University Statement
on Rights and Responsibilities, which is created in the early seventies.
That outlined how we protect protests but also enabled the
of our community to carry on their work without disruption.
So we provided some clarity there for anti Semitism and
(11:07):
also for the complaints that we heard about anti Muslim,
anti Arab, anti Palestinian incidents. I created two presidential task
forces to study the issues and make a set of recommendations.
Both of those task forces took their work very seriously.
It took a lot of time, but they gathered data,
(11:29):
they did hundreds upon hundreds of interviews, and then they
came up with a very lengthy set of recommendations, which
we have implemented. We're well on the way to implement those.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
So you're the thirty first president of Harvard University. You
were Harvard undergraduate. Did you ever think when you were
Harvard undergraduated you wind up as president university someday.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Well, back those days, we would have said, what are
you smoking.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Let's talk about your background for a moment. Where were
you born.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
In Illinois, Western Illinois.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
And your parents were they Harvard graduates?
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Well, my father didn't go to college and my mother
went to the University of Wisconsin.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
So when you're growing up, did people say, Helen is
really really smart, he should go to Harvard. Did you
always think you were really talented as an academic kid
in high school and you knew you were going to
get into Harvard.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
If people said I was a really talented kid and
I should go to Harvard, they didn't say it to me. Okay,
I was a good student.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
What class were you at Harvard?
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Well, I entered with the class of nineteen seventy seven,
so I started in nineteen seventy three.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Were any prominent people in your class?
Speaker 2 (12:48):
It may sound like I'm bragging. There are a lot
of alumni here in the audience, and I bet every
one of them is proud of their class. But here
let me brag about my classmates. The person whose face
was beneath mine in the freshman Facebook was Bill Gates?
Speaker 3 (13:04):
What happened to him? He dropped out? Dropped out?
Speaker 1 (13:10):
When he dropped out, you'd think you ever hear of
him again?
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Yeah, I'd say.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Some of us have heard from him. Steve Baumber, the
Chief Justice Supreme Court, John Roberts, a pretty good class
other university presidents. There's a lot of Moia names in.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
So it normally takes four years to graduate from college.
How many years did it take you?
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Three?
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Three?
Speaker 1 (13:33):
So you after three years, what do you decide you
want to do? You go to graduate school? Do you
want to do something important like private equity, going to
business school?
Speaker 3 (13:41):
Or you didn't want to do that? What did you
want to do? Well?
Speaker 2 (13:43):
I couldn't make up my mind. So I did. I
did a PhD in economics and an MD.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
PhD in economics and an MD. But the PhD economics
was at Harvard, the MD was at Stanford. So wasn't
that by coastal a little bit difficult?
Speaker 2 (13:58):
I had a great experience studying economics at Harvard. I
had done enough for the graduate courses at Harvard and
that I could shorten the time it took to get
a PhD. And what I learned in the applications process
is that other PhD programs would not recognize they would
not give me credit for the Harvard courses.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
So you got an MD from Stanford, a PhD from Harvard.
What led you back to Stanford? You taught at Stanford,
is that right?
Speaker 3 (14:27):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (14:27):
For twenty five years?
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Twenty five years. So you're living in California. The weather
is very good, it's a beautiful campus. What propelled you
after twenty five years to come back to the East
Coast to be the provost at Harvard.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Well, I think a lot of people in this audience
know Drew Faust, and let me just tell you she's
a very persuasive person. And I was chair of the
committee to visit the Harvard Medical School and Harvard School
of Dental Medicine. That's how I met Drew, and it
brought me back here about once a year. And it
(15:03):
was through that that I met her and she asked
me if i'd be interested in looking at the job
of provost when it opened up. My initial answer was no,
but somehow she got me to change.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Okay, so you came back as provost and Drew Faust
and then when Drew retired, Larry backhow became the president
of Harvard and you stayed as the provost, that's right.
And then when Claudine Gay became the president of Harvard,
you stayed as the provost. So how many years were
you the provost at Harvard?
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Twelve and a half.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
And for people that don't know what a provost is,
what actually do you do when you're a provost?
Speaker 2 (15:44):
The provost is the number two officer of the university
and the chief academic officer at Harvard. It's a relatively
new role. There was a provost briefly at the end
of World War Two because President Conant was in Washington,
was kind of around the university, very temporary arrangement, but
it really started in modern times in nineteen ninety one.
(16:08):
It's a job that expanded pretty much monotonically over time.
And when I took on the job, the provost was
responsible for all of the inter faculty initiatives. The deans
reported to both the president and the provost, and the
provosts had a huge role in faculty appointments and promotion.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
And Claudingay stepped down as president, you were put in
as the interim president of Harvard, and now you're the
president of Harvard. What's the pleasure of being the president
of Harvard.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
I was asked on January first to step in as
interim president on January second, and I knew that being
provost was a pretty demanding job pretty much twenty four
to seven and I was about to do two jobs.
There were twenty four to seven until I could put
a new provost in place. So there's just the sheer
(17:00):
volume of work was daunting. And then there's the fact
that we were in a crisis that we were under
at Tech. My answer in normal times would be, these
are the advantages of being president. This is what's annoying.
What I learned by serving in this time is that
serving in a time of crisis, I believe is far
(17:22):
more rewarding than serving in normal times. And it's rewarding
because you can really make a difference. There is no
time like the president to do the job.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
In the early days of the country, there were a
few private universities. They were all private pretty much in
the early days. But in recent years Harvard has in
size and breadth and depth, really going way past the
other major universities that you could argue what enabled Harvard
to become such a big university relative that let's say Princeton,
which is a great university but not quite as broad
(17:53):
as Harvard. What did Harvard do that enabled it to
grow to the point where when people say I want
my smart child to go somewhere, they say, I want
my child to be able to go to Harvard.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Well, David, I actually think that the top research universities
in the US are all incredibly accomplished, and I don't
feel as though Harvard is so far ahead of any
other institution. We're stronger in some areas in Princeton, and
maybe not as strong as others, But the fact is
(18:25):
we're a very different institution from Princeton because Princeton has
PhD programs, but they did not invest heavily in professional schools,
so they're covering a different part of the waterfront. But
I would say that we've been fortunate in a number
of ways, including the generosity of our alumni and friends
(18:47):
has helped us. That's been true for the other pre
eminent research universities as well.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Many members of Congress think that Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford,
other major universities that are well known are too liberal.
How does Harvard address that, and how do you get
a faculty that has more people that are not quote liberal?
And is it really unrealistic to do that?
Speaker 2 (19:08):
I think that the core issue is really a question
are our students exposed to the full range of serious
views about important issues. Could be in science, it could
be in my field of economics, could be in political science,
(19:30):
in all kinds of areas, and there's a risk if
the faculty lean all in one direction politically, that they
won't be capable of presenting views other than their owns,
and therefore our students won't be exposed. Oftentimes, my professors
would not reveal what their personal views were. Sometimes they did,
(19:51):
but it was never with the idea that you would
say only certain views are correct about this issue. That's
the problem we have to solve. I think that to
fully address this, we do need a wider range of
views on campus. It's not just about liberal conservative, it's
on all kinds of dimensions. We need a diversity of views,
(20:13):
we need many different views, and we need to create
an environment in which our students can speak freely because actually,
for students, I would say, the most pernicious issue about
this fear that there's that the faculty are all from
one part of the political spectrum. The fear is that
(20:33):
the students who disagree can't express those views or they
will be ostracized in some way. We have to overcome that,
and I think we're making progress.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
What percentage of students who come to Harvard College are
on some kind of scholarship I have, you know, the
assumption might be that they all are from wealthy families
or most of them. What percentage actually on some kind
of scholarship.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
It's on the order of sixty percent receive financial aid.
And I would add that students from family pollies that
earn less than two hundred thousand dollars a year can
attend Harvard College tuition free.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Speaking of tuition, many people criticize the high tuitions of
private universities, in particular, saying that they're all very, very high,
beyond the means of most middle class families.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
Why is tuition so high?
Speaker 2 (21:19):
The cost of providing an education at the kinds of
universities that you've mentioned have gone up and up over
time in real terms. For many of our universities, that is,
inflation adjusted terms, the tuition has gone down and I'm
talking about the nominal tuition for the students who don't
(21:42):
receive any financial aid. When you take an account financial aid,
it's gone down.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
But the cost of educating one of these students that
you educate, is it.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
Higher than the actual tuition?
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Yes, And you think the American universities today are in
danger of not becoming as important to the or the
world as they were ten twenty years ago because of
challenges to the universities. We still think the university are
so strong that they can overcome some of the current
challenges and criticisms.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
I am optimistic about that. But I think is extremely
important is for Harvard and our peer institutions, for particularly
other research universities, to re establish trust in our institutions
and our mission because what we've accomplished really would not
(22:33):
have been possible without this incredibly successful partnership with the
federal government, which has driven the research enterprise.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
As I said before, So one final question I want
to ask you is I have a seven year old
granddaughter and she's very smart, and I'm just wondering is
there an early, early, early decision process that Harvard has
or would you consider starting one. I mean, she's very talented,
So would you consider early early decision for people of
(23:04):
that age or not?
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Well, David, I have to ask you, how's her pitching arm?
Speaker 1 (23:09):
It's better than some of the pictures that I have. There,
you go, maybe she could be on the athletic teams.
But if you had to do it all over again,
when they asked you to be the president of Harvard,
would you have said yes or no?
Speaker 2 (23:20):
I would have said yes with less hesitation.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Thanks for listening to hear more of my interviews. You
can subscribe and download my podcast on Spotify, Apple, or
wherever you listen.
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