The Harvard Corporation

http://www.haa.harvard.edu/alumni/html/corporation.htm

 

 

 

What is The Harvard Corporation?

 

This diagram shows the organizational structure of Harvard University. As you can see, all power stems from the Corporation:

 

(source: Harvard Web Site)

 

“On June 9, 1650, the Great and General Court of Massachusetts approved Harvard President Henry Dunster's charter of incorporation. The Charter of 1650 established the President and Fellows of Harvard College (a.k.a the Harvard Corporation), a seven-member board that is the oldest corporation in the Western Hemisphere.” (source) (emphasis mine)

 

“The Harvard Corporation - known formally as the President and Fellows of Harvard College - is the University's executive board. The oldest corporation in the Western Hemisphere, the seven-member board is responsible for the day-to-day management of the University's finances and business affairs. The Corporation members are Lawrence H. Summers, D. Ronald Daniel, Hanna Holborn Gray, Conrad K. Harper, James R. Houghton and Robert E. Rubin.1

 

Significant matters of educational and institutional policy are also brought before the President and Fellows by the President and Deans.” (source)

 

1Until recently, Herbert S. Winokur, Jr was the 7th member – he `resigned’ because he felt that his connections with the Enron scandal (he was a director there) was “in some ways diverting attention from your agenda for Harvard," stressing that he "[did] not wish to be a distraction in any way from your efforts.” (source)

 

“With an annual operating budget of approximately $1.8 billion, Harvard University has a considerable impact on the local economy. Harvard is one of the largest employers in Massachusetts and in its host communities, Cambridge and Boston.” (source)

 

Indeed, the Corporation has much power. A new President “is elected by the Corporation, with the counsel and consent of the Board of Overseers.” (source)

 

They also enjoy a great deal of protection & secrecy. The Harvard based “Living Wage Campaign” was repeatedly rebuffed by the Corporation when attempting to meet with members to ask them to consider their proposals. Indeed, in March 2001, “[they led] 200 students and others on a "Hunt for the Harvard Corporation." The Corporation is in Loeb House, but Harvard police prevent them from approaching to request a meeting.” (for more on this)

 

Harvard itself presides over an enormous enormous endowment:

 

“[the] endowment, valued at $18.3 billion at the end of FY 2001, is a collection of more than 8,600 separate funds established over the years to provide scholarships; to maintain libraries, museums, and other collections; to support teaching and research activities; and to provide ongoing support for a wide variety of other activities. The great majority of these funds carry some type of restriction.” (source) The endowment “is the largest of any US university (Yale ranks #2).” (source)

 

Of course, this endowment is tax-exempt. And this is where we hit a little mystery: The Harvard Management Company. This company manages the investment of Harvard's endowment. We do know that Ronald Daniel, as Harvard Treasurer, acts as the Chairman of the Management Company. Herbert S. Winokur, Jr is cited as a director of this company, although one can assume that he probably resigned this post along with his tenure within the Harvard Corporation. Other than that, this `company’ isn’t one for disclosure. However, in light of the recent questions being asked of Bush concerning Harken, Harvard became a player in the saga. Michael Eisenson, a partner of the Management Company who made the decision “to invest at least $20 million in Harken” and “who [later] joined Harken's board.” Of course, Harvard Management’s Chief Executive Jack Meyer denies any wrong doing.

 

For the flip side, including details of Harvard’s involvement with Harken, Enron & other illegimate activities, see Harvard Watch.

 

A far more controversial take on the Harvard Corporation is “Why the Harvard Corporation Protects the Drug Trade” by Linda Minor – Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

 

 

Who runs the Harvard Corporation?

 

Mr. Lawrence H. Summers

President, Harvard College

 

Lawrence H. Summers took office as 27th president of Harvard University on July 1, 2001.

 

His election by the President and Fellows of Harvard College with the counsel and consent of the Board of Overseers was announced on March 11, 2001, marking the culmination of an intensive and broad-ranging nine-month search for a successor to Neil L. Rudenstine. An eminent scholar and admired public servant, Mr. Summers is the former Nathaniel Ropes Professor of Political Economy at Harvard, and in the past decade served in a series of senior public policy positions, most recently as secretary of the treasury of the United States.

 

Having received a bachelor of science degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1975, Mr. Summers began his Harvard career as a doctoral student in economics. He served, among other roles, as a resident tutor in Lowell House and a teaching fellow for Ec 10, the popular undergraduate economics survey course. After completing his dissertation, "An Asset-Price Approach to Capital Income Taxation," he was awarded the PhD from Harvard in 1982. By that time, he had taught for three years as an economics faculty member at MIT, where he was named assistant professor in 1979 and associate professor in 1982. He then went to Washington as a domestic policy economist for the President's Council of Economic Advisers.

 

In 1983, he returned to Harvard as a professor of economics, one of the youngest individuals in recent history to be named as a tenured member of the University's faculty. In 1987, he was named Nathaniel Ropes Professor of Political Economy. While on the faculty, he taught undergraduate and graduate courses in macroeconomics and public finance and was an adviser to numerous graduate students who have themselves gone on to become leading economists. He also served as an editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics.

 

Mr. Summers in 1987 became the first social scientist ever to receive the annual Alan T. Waterman Award of the National Science Foundation (NSF), established by Congress to honor an exceptional young U.S. scientist or engineer whose work demonstrates originality, innovation, and a significant impact within one's field. In 1993, Mr. Summers was awarded the John Bates Clark Medal, given every two years to the outstanding American economist under the age of 40.

 

Mr. Summers took leave from Harvard in 1991 to return to Washington, this time as vice president of development economics and chief economist of the World Bank. In that position, he played a key role in designing strategies to assist developing countries, served on the bank's loan committee, and guided the bank's research, statistics, and external training programs. His research featured an influential report demonstrating the very high return on investing in educating girls in developing countries.

 

In 1993, Mr. Summers was named as the nation's undersecretary of the treasury for international affairs. He had broad responsibility for assisting then Secretary Lloyd M. Bentsen in formulating and executing international economic policies. In 1995, then Secretary Robert E. Rubin AB '60 promoted Mr. Summers to the department's number-two post, deputy secretary of the treasury, in which he played a central role in a broad array of economic, financial, and tax matters, both international and domestic. During this time, he worked closely with Secretary Rubin and Alan Greenspan LLD '99 (hon.), chairman of the Federal Reserve System, in crafting government policy responses to financial crises in major developing countries.

 

On July 2, 1999, Mr. Summers was confirmed by the Senate as secretary of the treasury. As Deputy Secretary, Mr. Summers was the second-highest ranking official at the Treasury Department. In that capacity, he served as the principal economic adviser to the President and as the chief financial officer of the U.S. government, presiding over a federal department comprising some two dozen distinct bureaus and offices, with a civilian workforce of nearly 150,000 employees. He took a leadership role in the Department's work on international policy issues, tax policy issues, issues relating to the financial system, domestic policy issues and enforcement issues. Mr. Summers also served as the American deputy in the G-7 international economic cooperation process.

 

After leaving the treasury department in January, Mr. Summers served as the Arthur Okun Distinguished Fellow in Economics, Globalization, and Governance at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

 

Mr. Summers's many publications include Understanding Unemployment (1990) and Reform in Eastern Europe (1991, coauthored with others), as well as more than 100 articles in professional economics journals. He also edited the series Tax Policy and the Economy. In 2000, Mr. Summers was invited to present the American Economic Association's prestigious Ely Lecture, in which he addressed "International Financial Crises: Causes, Preventions, and Cures."

 

In 2002, Mr. Summers was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, a private organization of scientists and engineers dedicated to the furtherance of science and its use for the general welfare.

 

Born in New Haven, Connecticut, on November 30, 1954, Mr. Summers spent most of his childhood in Penn Valley, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia, and was educated in the Lower Merion public schools. He has twin daughters, Pam and Ruth, age eleven, and a son, Harry, age eight.

 

http://www.president.harvard.edu/biography/

 

He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and of the Trilateral Commision.

 

**

 

Mr. D. Ronald Daniel

 

Director, McKinsey & Company, Inc.

 

D. Ronald Daniel is an employee of McKinsey & Company. He joined McKinsey & Company in 1957 and held various positions with the firm, including Managing Partner from 1976 to 1988. He has served as a director of McKinsey & Company since 1968. Mr. Daniel is a member of the Harvard Corporation, the Harvard Board of Overseers, and is the Treasurer of Harvard University as well as the Chairman of the Harvard Management Company. Mr. Daniel is also a member of the boards of WNET/Thirteen, New York’s public television station, the Brookings Institution and Rockefeller University. He was elected a Director of Yum! Brands effective October 7, 1997, and is a member of the Executive/Finance Committee, Nominating Committee and the Compensation Committee. He is also the Chairman of Ripplewood Holdings (a New York based Private Equity firm).

 

“D. Ronald Daniel, for instance, was Jeffrey Skilling's boss at McKinsey during the 1980s, when Skilling consulted with Enron to design the energy giant's unsustainable business model. Because of the work of Daniel and Skilling, McKinsey is now a defendant in the largest suit against Enron. Moreover, it is remarkably telling that just as the university prepares to bid farewell to one of the Enron club, it has already announced the entry of another one. Robert Rubin, the Corporation's latest addition, is a director of Citigroup, Enron's largest creditor. Rubin attempted to obtain a Federal bailout for Enron as it approached collapse-while its top executives cashed in on Enron's falling stock and drained the pension funds of thousands of their employees.” (more)

 

He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

 

**

 

Hanna H. Gray

 

President, Emerita and Harry Pratt Judson Distinguished Service Professor of History, The University of Chicago

 

Born in Germany, Gray received her A.B. from Bryn Mawr College in 1950 and went on to study at Oxford as a Fulbright scholar. She then enrolled at Harvard, where she studied the intellectual history of the Renaissance, receiving the Ph.D. in history in 1957. Since that time Gray has taught at Harvard, Chicago, Berkeley, Northwestern, and Yale. After two years as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences of Northwestern, she was appointed Provost of Yale in 1974, where she also served as acting president during the academic year 1977-78. She was appointed president of the University of Chicago in 1978, a position she held until 1993. She is currently the Harry Pratt Judson Distinguished Service Professor of History in that university.

 

In 1988 Gray was elected to a six-year term on Harvard's Board of Overseers. In that capacity she served for several years as a member and vice chair of the Board's Executive Committee, and she chaired the Committee on Visitation. In addition, she served as a member of the standing committees on Humanities and Arts and on Institutional Policy. During the years 1992-94 she chaired a key committee which reviewed the visitation process at Harvard and made a series of recommendations which are now leading to greater coordination between the visitation of various units in the University and the academic planning process.

 

Awarded the Medal of Liberty in 1986, in 1991, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, from President Bush, and the Sara Lee Frontrunner Award. She has also received over 60 honorary degrees from universities in the United States and abroad, including the LL.D. from Harvard in 1995. In 1996 she received the University of Chicago's Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching.

 

Gray resides in Chicago with her husband of nearly 42 years, Charles M. Gray, also a professor of history at the University of Chicago; he is a 1949 Harvard graduate who received the Ph.D in 1956. She is the daughter of the late Professor Hajo Holborn of Yale. (source)

 

She was until recently a director at JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Guaranty Trust Company of New York, Ameritech and Atlantic Richfield (leaving when it merged with BP)

 

She is director of Cummins Engine Company, Inc.

 

She is the chairman of the Andew W Mellon Foundation and the chairman of the board of trustees for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She also serves on the board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institute.

 

She is a member of the National Commission on Federal Election Reform.

 

She is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

 

More on Hanna here.

 

**

 

Conrad K. Harper

 

Partner, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett

 

Conrad K. Harper is a Partner at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett in the Firm's Litigation Department. His areas of concentration are litigation, international arbitration and mediation, including commercial contract disputes, securities, products liability, environmental and insurance defense.

 

Mr. Harper worked at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund in New York from 1965 to 1970. From 1971 to 1993, he was an associate (1971-74) and then a partner (1974-93, 1996 to present) at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. He has served as Legal Adviser of the U.S. Department of State from 1993 to 1996 and as a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague (1993-96; 1998 to present). He has been a visiting lecturer at Yale Law School, a consultant to the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Co-Chairman of the Lawyers' Committee For Civil Rights Under Law and Chancellor of the Episcopal Diocese of New York. Mr. Harper was President of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York from 1990 to 1992.

 

In addition, Mr. Harper holds the following positions: Member, Harvard Corporation; Director, Harvard Medical International; Trustee, Metropolitan Museum of Art; Trustee, William Nelson Cromwell Foundation; Member of the Council and 1st Vice President, American Law Institute; Director, Global Center for Dispute Resolution Research; Director, Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and Member of the Board of Directors, the Academy of Political Science. He is also a Fellow, American College of Trial Lawyers and Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences; and Member, American Philosophical Society. 

 

Mr. Harper received his B.A. from Howard University in 1962 and his LL.B. from Harvard Law School in 1965. He is a member of the London Court of International Arbitration and various bar associations including the International, American, National, New York State and Metropolitan Black Bar Associations, and the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, the Federal Bar Council, the American Society of International Law and the Union Internationale de Avocats. (more)

 

He is a director of the Public Service Enterprise Group and a director of the New York Life Insurance Company.

 

He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

 

**

 

James R. Houghton

 

Chairman of the Board, Emeritus, Corning Incorporated

 

Mr. Houghton joined Corning in 1962 and served in production, financial and sales positions until 1965. He then was named vice president and European area manager, Corning Glass International, S.A., residing in both Zurich and Brussels.

 

In 1968, Mr. Houghton returned to the United States and was appointed general manager of the Consumer Products Division and elected a vice president of Corning. He was elected a director of the company in 1969, vice chairman with responsibilities for the company's International operations in 1971 and chairman in 1983. Mr. Houghton retired as chairman and chief executive officer on April 25, 1996. In June 2001, Mr. Houghton was elected non-executive chairman of the board. In April 2002, he resumed his role as chairman of the board and chief executive officer.

 

He graduated from Harvard College in 1958 and received a master's degree from Harvard Business School in 1962.

 

Mr. Houghton is a director of Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and a director of Exxon Mobil Corporation. He serves as a trustee of the Corning Incorporated Foundation, The Pierpont Morgan Library and The Metropolitan Museum of Art. He is past Chairman of the Business Council of New York State and is a member of the Business Council.

 

Mr. Houghton is married to the former Maisie Kinnicutt and has two children.

 

He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and of the Trilateral Commision.

 

His brother is New York Congressman, Amory Houghton Jr. (source) and indeed, the Houghton family has a long history in American life:

 

“Descendants of Corning Glass Works founder Amory Houghton. Entered glass works 1851. Bought Brooklyn Flint Glass Co. 1864; moved upstate to Corning, N.Y. 1868. Produced first glass bulbs for Thomas Edison 1879. Family company later pioneered: Pyrex 1915; silicone late 1930s; fiberglass 1939; TV picture tube 1947; optical fibers late 1960s. Subsidiary Dow Corning Corp., silicone producer, filed for bankruptcy 1995 after breast implant litigation. Corning to spin off its healthcare services division 1996. James (Jamie) Houghton, 60, retired as chair and CEO 1996 ending five generations of family management. Brother Amory (Amo) Jr., 70, left company 1986 to serve in Congress (R.-N.Y.). Family stake held directly or through Market Street Trust Co.” (source)

 

 

**

 

Robert E. Rubin

 

Director and Chairman of the Executive Committee, Citigroup Inc

 

Robert E. Rubin, a Director, Chairman of the Executive Committee and Member of the Office of the Chairman of Citigroup Inc., has been involved with financial markets and our nation's public policy debate all his professional life.

 

Mr. Rubin began his career in finance at Goldman, Sachs & Company in New York City in 1966. He joined Goldman as an associate, became a general partner in 1971 and joined the management committee in 1980. Mr. Rubin was Vice-Chairman and Co-Chief Operating Officer from 1987 to 1990 and served as Co-Senior Partner and Co-Chairman from 1990 to 1992. Before joining Goldman, he was an attorney at the firm of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton in New York City.

 

Mr. Rubin, long active in national and New York City's public affairs, left the private sector in 1993 to join the Clinton Administration. Beginning with the President's Inauguration, Mr. Rubin served in the White House as Assistant to the President for Economic Policy. Directing the activities of the National Economic Council, Mr. Rubin guided the newly created NEC as it oversaw the Administration's domestic and international economic policymaking process, coordinated economic policy recommendations to the President, and monitored the implementation of the President's economic policy goals.

 

Upon the retirement of his predecessor, Lloyd Bentsen, Mr. Rubin was President Clinton's choice to serve as our nation's 70th Secretary of the Treasury. He was confirmed by the U.S. Senate and sworn into office on January 10, 1995.

 

As Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Rubin played a leading role in many of the nation's most important policy debates. He was involved in balancing the federal budget; opening trade policy to further globalization; acting to stem financial crises in Mexico, Asia, and Russia; helping to resolve the impasse between the Congress and the Executive Branch over the public debt limit; safeguarding the nation's currency against counterfeiting; introducing inflation-indexed securities; strongly responding to issues at Treasury's law enforcement agencies; and guiding sensible reforms at the Internal Revenue Service. He left Treasury on July 2, 1999.

 

Mr. Rubin now serves as Chairman of the Board of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC). LISC is the nation's leading community development support organization with 38 offices nationwide. At the White House and Treasury, Mr. Rubin was a leading advocate for policy actions that met the need for economic development in the nation's distressed urban and rural areas.

 

Mr. Rubin joined Citigroup on October 26, 1999, where he participates in the strategic, managerial and operational matters of the Company. He also serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the Ford Motor Company and on the Board of Trustees of Mount Sinai-NYU Health. In March 2000 he became a member of the advisory board of Insight Capital Partners, a New York-based private equity firm that specializes in e-commerce business-to-business companies. He is a member of the Rockefeller Family Trust Committee and Co-Chairman of the Investment Committee of the Edmond J. Safra Foundation and also advisor to the Board.

 

Mr. Rubin's previous activities included membership on the Board of Directors of the New York Stock Exchange, Harvard Management Company, New York Futures Exchange, New York City Partnership and the Center for National Policy. He has also served on the Board of Trustees of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the President's Advisory Committee for Trade Negotiations, the Securities and Exchange Commission Market Oversight and Financial Services Advisory Committee, the Mayor of New York's Council of Economic Advisors, and the Governor's Council on Fiscal and Economic Priorities for the State of New York.

 

Mr. Rubin graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College in 1960 with an A.B. in economics. He received a L.L.B. from Yale Law School in 1964 and attended the London School of Economics. (source)

 

He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

 

 

Recently ex-fellows

 

Mr. Robert G. Stone, Jr.

Chairman, Emeritus/Director, Kirby Corporation

 

Until recently, Mr Stone was the Senior Fellow of the Harvard Corporation. He has been Chairman Emeritus of Kirby Corp. since 1995 and served as Chairman of the Board of Kirby Corp. from 1983 to 1995. He currently also serves on the advisory board for Arcadia Partners and as a director for Russell Reynolds Associates.

 

Stone entered Harvard in 1941 as a member of the Class of 1945, and was graduated in 1947, having taken leave in February 1943 to serve in the U.S. Army during World War II. He studied economics and captained the heavyweight crew team that set a world record for the 2000 meters in 1947. For years he was a leading executive in the shipping industry, serving as president and chairman of States Marine Lines, and then chairman of the Kirby Corporation, where he is now chairman emeritus and director. He was active in the energy industry, as chairman of the General Energy Corporation. Mr. Stone has served as a director of The Chubb Corporation, Core Industries, Inc., Corning Incorporated, NovaCare, Inc., The Pittston Company, Russell Reynolds Associates, Inc., various funds managed by Scudder Stevens & Clark, Inc., Tandem Computers Incorporated, and Tejas Gas Corporation.

 

Mr. Stone was a lead investor for Industrial Capital Group, Intersouth Partners, Morgan Holland Venture Partners, and The Mayfield Fund, and played a significant role in Harvard University’s entrance into private equity investing.

 

Mr. Stone has actively invested in venture capital partnerships for over 30 years.

 

Stone may have also played a questionable role in the Harvard investment into Harken – an issue which is explored in some detail here.

 

**

 

Herbert S. Winokur, Jr.

 

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Capricorn Holdings, Inc

 

Born in Columbus, Georgia.

 

1964, 1965, A.B., Harvard, Applied Mathematics 1965, A.M, Harvard, Applied Mathematics 1967, PHD, Harvard, Applied Mathematics (Decision and control theory)

 

1967-69, officer in the US Army, assigned to the Office of the Secretary of Defense

 

1969-74, co-founder and chairman of the Inner City Fund (later ICF Kaiser International), a management consulting firm specializing in policy planning for senior government and business officials.

 

1974-1983 senior management positions at Pacific Holding Corp, Victor Palmieri and Co., and Pennsylvania Co., Penn Central's principal operating subsidiary.

 

1983-1987 Winokur served as senior executive vice president of the Penn Central Corp., and played a leading role in the corporation's major restructuring and cost reduction efforts.

 

1987, chairman and chief executive officer of the investment firm Capricorn Holdings Inc., Greenwich, Conn.( http://www.capricornholdings.com ) He is also managing general partner of three affiliated limited partnerships, Capricorn Investors, L.P., I (organized 1987), II (organized 1994), and III. As of 2000, The portfolio investments encompass companies with revenues of more than $2 billion and having more than 20,000 employees

 

1987/89(?)-1997, member, Board of Directors, NHP, as co-investor with Harvard until NHP is sold to AIMCO  in 1997, two years after its IPO. As it is sold, its mortgage banking subsidiary, WMF Group is retained, with Harvard and Pug remaining on the board until it is sold to Prudential in June 2000.

 

1988, becomes Chairman of the Board of DynCorp after Capricorn buys approximately 35-40% of the stock. In 1997, Capricorn divests stock down to approximately 5% and Pug resigns as Chairman, remaining on the board and becoming Chairman of the Compensation Committee.

 

1989, named a member of Harvard's Committee on University Resources.

 

1995, named a member of the board of directors of the Harvard Management Company.

 

1997, sells NHP, Inc. (HUD apartments), a co-investment with Harvard, and steps down as Chairman of DynCorp, remaining on the Board as Compensation Committee Chairman.

 

1997-98 (?), funds Herbert S. Winokur Public Policy Fund at Harvard University at the Kennedy School of Government.

 

1998, named a board member of CCC Information Services, a co-investment with Harvard Endowment.

 

Feb 2000, named to the seven man board of The Harvard Corporation

 

Honorary director of the UCLA Medical Center

Former trustee of the Greenwich Academy

Former co-chair of the New York Historical Society

Board of Second Stage Theatre

Former member of board of Project 180, an organization that facilitates the restructuring of nonprofit institutions

Member: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Council.

Member, American Council for Capital Formation

Director of Enron Corp – also assigned to investigate allegations of fraudulent behaviour

Director of ATCO Group

Director of CCC Information Systems

Director of Dyncorp (for an alternative view of Dyncorp, see Dyncorp Sucks)

Director of Azurix (which is an Enron subsiduary & currently making news in Florida)

Director of Nac Re Corporation

He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations

 

This was extracted & edited from Caroline Fitts’ dossier on Winokur & his Harvard/Enron connections. Combined with Harvard Watch it provides an extensive summary of the possible fraudulent behaviour this man has been involved in.

 

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