Should a school return a gift years after accepting it? When asked for the gift policy, [University spokesperson Jonathan L.] Swain offered a statement instead. “The gift policy is designed to ensure that no gift to Harvard will provide a donor...
Read moreEndowment Purpose at Harvard
Three years ago, Congress asked 56 schools to provide more information on their endowments. Harvard published their response online. The Harvard University endowment is not a single account, but rather is made up of more than 13,000 individual...
Read moreRestructuring Pay at Harvard Endowment
How much does a University President make? How about an endowment chief? Who makes more? Faust Made $1.7 Million in 2017, Bacow’s Salary As President Unknown Until 2020, The Harvard Crimson Harvard Endowment CEO Reaps $9.3 Million Payday in...
Read moreNew Harvard Endowment Website on Divestment
Harvard Management Company has a new website. There you will find a description of their new investment approach. HMC’s generalist investment model breaks down silos among asset classes to search the world for the most attractive risk-adjusted...
Read moreCommercializing Research at Harvard
The effort to commercialize research has a long, haphazard history in higher ed. But schools such as Harvard, Stanford, and MIT organize their commercialization efforts through one department. At Harvard that department is called the Office of...
Read moreHarvard Vineyards Environmental Review
“Harvard’s foray into wine country is part of a broader shift in the Central Coast of California toward large investors and new crops. The Cuyama Valley was a major oil-producing region for decades before eventually shifting to a mix of...
Read moreHarvard Medical School $200 Million Blavatnik Gift
“With today’s gift, [Len Blavatnik] now ranks among the leading benefactors in Harvard history. The $200-million pledge is not quite at the level of the naming gifts for the schools of engineering and applied sciences ($400 million) and...
Read moreHarvard President on Divestment
“Harvard presidents have long maintained that the University’s endowment is not an appropriate tool for enacting social change despite persistent calls from activists, most recently to withdraw holdings from the fossil fuel and private...
Read moreHarvard Breaking Higher Ed Fundraising Record
“All but the first fiscal year of the capital campaign saw annual fundraising totals in excess of $1 billion. Last year, Harvard raised $1.28 billion, up from $1.19 billion the year before. This year, only two other schools — Stanford and...
Read moreHarvard CIO Narv Narvekar on Endowment Changes
“In a refinement, or perhaps a restatement, of his description of the duration of that transition, [CEO] Narvekar wrote that ‘the significant changes we are undertaking require a five-year timeframe to reposition the organization and...
Read moreHarvard Vineyards Thirst for Water in California
“The county supervisors issued an emergency moratorium on new agricultural wells starting Aug. 27, 2013—not just wells in the affected areas but also in areas such as Harvard’s holdings where groundwater hadn’t fallen as much. The day...
Read moreHarvard Monetizing Campus Real Estate
“Fourthly, in strictly monetary terms, the University is holding land it values at $969 million in its most recent financial statements—an asset, outside the endowment, on which it is presumably earning little, if any, return. At a time when the...
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