Endowment Director is on Harvard's Hot Seat

[October]

Endowment Director Is on Harvard’s Hot Seat

Harvard may be the nation’s wealthiest university, but it is short on cash.


The school relies on its endowment to generate a third of the money for its operations, and the endowment is on the verge of posting its biggest loss in 40 years. With much of its money tied up for the long term, it is scrambling to meet some obligations.

Harvard has frozen salaries for faculty and nonunion staff members, and offered early retirement to 1,600 employees. The divinity school has warned it may not be able to cover tuition for all its students with need, the school of arts and sciences is cutting its billion-dollar budget roughly 10 percent, and the university president said this week than the unprecedented drop in the endowment was causing it to delay its planned expansion, starting with a $1 billion science center, into the Allston neighborhood of Boston.

The school has even added to its debt by issuing $1.5 billion in new bonds, its largest such offering ever.

Turning the ship around turns heavily on Jane Mendillo, who took over the Harvard endowment on July 1 — which in hindsight looks like the worst possible moment to step into a job once held by some legendary investors. The endowment, the largest of any university in the nation, has shrunk by at least $8 billion, to $29 billion, since she arrived.


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/21/business/economy/21harvard.html?partner=rss&emc=rss



Well, aren't they the ones who produced all those MBA's on Wall Street? Not to mention the likes of GWB? Just sayin'...

[frazzled]

1. As my husband said when he read that this morning ...

Black man takes worst job in America. Woman takes worst job at Harvard.

Look, she shouldn't be on the line: it's the darling boys who preceded her who invested all that stuff. They walked away with millions in bonuses. She comes in to clean up the mess and gets razzed.

My heart so bleeds for dear old Harvard: its endowment has shrunk to $29 billion. That's more than the treasuries of most countries.

They are cheaper than the day is long.

[JI7]

3. i think natural sciences is the only area where people actually have to be qualified

to be there.

other areas include many people who got in because of money and connections. didn't Bush get rejected by some law school in Texas so ended up going to Harvard Business ?

knowing Bush has a Harvard MBA how impressive is a Harvard MBA to you ?

[October]

8. Well stated.

Now we see a woman as the "face" of Harvard -- cleaning up after the mess these robber barons have left.

[Muttocracy]

2. Like your comment and the one above - maybe MBAs have trouble with the little things

you know, worker salaries, utility bills, ...

[TahitiNut]

4. Jane Mendillo's MBA is from Yale (like Dubya's)

Her predecessor, Robert S. Kaplan, is a former vice chairman of The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. and a professor of management practice at Harvard Business School.

(I think I see his problem.) :dunce:

[frazzled]

5. Dubya's MBA was from Harvard ...

He went to Yale as an undergrad. Harvard took him when U of Texas Business School turned him down.

[TahitiNut]

6. Oops! Correcto. (Brain fart.) Sorry.

:cry:

[Jane Austin]

7. I think it was the UT Law School that turned him down, no? . . . . . n/t