Two major pieces of news today:

1. Harvard administrators have announced that 275 workers will be laid off in the next 7 business days. According to director of Human Resources, Marilyn Hausammann, "About half of the positions eliminated are administrative or professional positions, and almost all of the remaining ones are clerical or technical jobs". For the Harvard Magazine story click here. Harvard's clerical and technical workers are planning a rally along with students for this Thursday, 12pm, in front of the John Harvard statue in front of University Hall.

2. We've heard that Harvard's security contract has been moved from Allied Barton to Securitas USA. And because the security workers' union contract is with Allied Barton and not Securitas USA, Harvard's security workers might not have a union contract next year.

Now more than ever is the time for Harvard's community members to send a message of collective sacrifice and compassion. It is not too late to implement creative solutions for budget cuts, to enact voluntary pay cuts for higher paid faculty, and to bring our community together. To those workers who received notices of layoffs today, our hearts go out to you.

Without a doubt, Forst's resignation as Executive Vice President has put Harvard in a tight spot. Forst left after nine months as Executive VP, a position created in 2008. Forst was the first to hold this position and was able to decide for himself what many of his responsibilities were, according to statements he made during our meeting with him two weeks ago. For this reason the job title does not have definite responsiblities, and so it is hard to tell exactly how Harvard will be affected. However, we do know that tasks usually given to Harvard's president were delegated to Ed Forst, and that when it came to Harvard's budget, Forst was counted on to explain what decisions were being made and why. So we do know that a prominent authority on Harvard's budget, if not the authority, is leaving during a budget crisis, with no known successor or administrator who will act as interim place-holder.

However, there is also an opportunity here. Harvard more than ever needs an Executive Vice President to act as budget czar. Besides being a trend in Obama's administration (Climate Czar, Cyberspace Czar, Housing Czar, Automobile Czar...), it's really the only way to get the needed reforms and cuts happening quickly. The opportunity lies in transparency. The new Executive VP will no doubt encounter a lot of suspicion and mistrust as he or she makes decisions that devalue certain departments. The only way to combat the notion that these decisions are not arbitrary, but rather the result of careful decision-making, is a clear and transparent strategy for budget cuts. That way faculty, students, and staff do not have to take issue with the person, but rather the strategy, and a much more productive conversation between the new Executive Vice-President and the rest of Harvard University can take place.

On May 26th, Ed Forst announced his resignation as Executive Vice President to Harvard University. So far, no public statements have been made that say why Forst is leaving his position.

SLAM met with Ed Forst on May 20th, six days before his resignation. There have been questions about what Forst's job actually was, since the position Executive Vice President was created in 2008, and Ed Forst was the first to hold it. When SLAM met with Forst, we asked him what it meant to be Harvard's top administrator. Technically, Forst is the head of Harvard's finances, administration, and human resources. But what does this mean during a budget crisis? Forst explained that his job was to balance the priorities of Harvard's various departments, and that he accomplished this by asking questions to the various departmental heads in order to get a better sense of what could be done. We then asked what "balancing Harvard's priorities" means during a budget crisis when there are departments with competing interests. Forst reiterated that he spoke directly to the various deans of Harvard, and that he looked for efficiencies that could gained by combining services across various departments.

We thank Forst for spending an hour and fifteen minutes meeting with SLAM and fielding our questions, but we were unable to get a sense of what strategies Forst or the school held for making hard decisions about which priorities or services come first. As we've seen, the school has moved beyond the phase of asking questions and "cutting the fat" from Harvard, and will now be making cuts directly into student life, the undergraduate/graduate curriculae, core administrative tasks, and core support staff work (such as cleaning rooms and labs). On the bright side, we did get Forst to agree to push for a website that centralizes all of Harvard's budget data, similar to MIT's Institute Wide Planning website.

Dear President Faust,

The Student Labor Action Movement would like to thank Bill Murphy, Director of Labor Relations, for responding to the letter we addressed to you. We have had productive and clarifying discussions with Mr. Murphy in the past, and would like to continue communicating with the administration at all levels. We look forward to meeting with Mr. Murphy in the coming week.

However, after 25 days, we have yet to receive a response from you, President Faust, concerning our letter, and the approach that the University has taken towards budget cuts. Mr. Murphy, while he does facilitate discussion, does not have the responsibility that you, President Faust, hold as a key member of the Harvard Corporation, and as head of the University. You have significant influence over the scope and magnitude of reductions in wages, benefits, and hours. It is difficult to imagine how decisions about budget cuts can be made without input from the faculty, students, and workers.

During your address to the incoming class of 2013, you claimed to have met with SLAM, even though you have not met with us in any official capacity. We must assume that you were referring to your office hours on April 23rd, 2009, during which several SLAM members attended as individuals to speak with you about how budget cuts will directly affect hired and subcontracted workers at Harvard. Though we appreciated meeting with you as individuals, this is not an example of the collective, open dialogue we are seeking. While we look forward to student input on the budgetary working groups, we worry about the nature of your “periodic communications,” as Bill Murphy calls them in his letter. Instead of opportunities for open dialogue, we have been fielded piecemeal, obscure, and largely one-way communications. Yale’s strategy of asking the general community for suggestions has never even been discussed. In one especially telling example, during the last town hall meeting with Dean Smith and Dean Hammonds, Dean Smith demonstrated a clear lack of familiarity with the Final Report of the Harvard Committee on Employment and Contracting Policies, better known as the Katz Committee Report. SLAM finds it difficult to approach these meetings in good faith when the top administrators cannot answer questions about the University’s own public statements about labor relations. Moreover, certain budgetary suggestions, such as a graduated salary reduction for top administrators and professors similar to those at Stanford, Harvard’s primary competitor for the best salaries in academia, have yet to be seriously and publicly discussed. We are certain that a more open reciprocal dialogue among the workers, faculty, students, and administrators would give rise to a more equitable, fair, and ultimately productive approach to budgetary management.

President Faust, we still await an answer from you, and our concerns will not be allayed until we are satisfied that fair and equitable decisions, made with the input of the entire Harvard community, are made with respect to budget cuts. SLAM sympathizes with the difficult decisions you must face. We would like to make sure that these decisions match your stated commitment to helping build community globally and locally.

We reiterate our gratitude for the town hall meetings and communications from the administration, but these have become solely venues for “questions and answers”; they are not discussions that allow us to enact a community-based response to the financial crunch at Harvard. We are asking for a meeting between you, President Faust, and SLAM that privileges open dialogue, thus paving the way for an alternative, more democratic approach to this crisis.

Sincerely,

The Student Labor Action Movement

Last night Dean of ht Faculty of the Arts and Sciences Michael Smith and Dean of the College Evelyn Hammonds hosted a townhall students for questions about the budget. SLAM members showed up en force, handed out flyers, and managed to ask six out of the nine total questions. While we applaud Deans Smith and Hammonds for holding this townhall for students, they did not present a clear picture of what budget cuts would come. The Crimson article about the event is here.

On the bright side, I was able to give a few introductory remarks before the whole thing began. Here's the mini-speech:

We are all in this room today because Harvard is facing an economic crisis. We’re here because we all realize that $8 billion is a lot of money even for Harvard, and we realize that the decisions Harvard makes today will have a fundamental impact on Harvard for the foreseeable future, as well as set a model that other universities nationwide will likely follow. How Harvard carries itself right now, therefore, is a national issue. In dealing with our economic shortfalls, we can choose a path that brings the Harvard community together, or pulls our community apart. The path that brings us together is the path of collective sacrifice, it is the path of increased transparency, of meaningful feedback that is then implemented, and above all it is courageous and creative leadership.

Throughout this discussion it is important to reiterate that Harvard is indeed different. What works for Harvard is not the same exact solution that will work at Yale, or Stanford, or anywhere else. Yes, our economic situation is unique, but more importantly, but Harvard is different because Harvard is and should be the nation’s leading university. More is expected from Harvard, and anything less than optimal solutions at this time endangers Harvard reputation’s for years if not generations to come. Harvard needs to set not just a good example, but the best example, and this is done by having the greatest feeling of collective sacrifice, the deepest level of decision-making transparency, and the most productive processes of community feedback. (And then here's the point where I actually introduce Dean Hammonds and Dean Smith).

Today, at 3pm, SLAM traveled to the offices of the Harvard Management Company, the Harvard subsidiary tasked with investing Harvard University's endowment. It's a 6 mile subway ride away from Harvard Yard on the 16th floor of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. We we went there to ask for a meeting about prioritizing worker compensation over new investments.

When we walked into the lobby and asked for elevator access, the guard at the desk made a phone call to the HMC offices. Here's what the first five seconds of the phone call went like:

Guard: Hello, we have students from Harvard here for the Harvard Management Company.
Secretary: Uh oh.
Guard: Uh oh, why uh oh?
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SLAM just flyered outside the "Project on Justice, Welfare, and Economics Conference" at 2 Arrow Street. The first three discussions were titled as follows: "Debt, Depression, and Development", "The New Deal Was a Good Idea: Let's Give It a Try This Time", and "The Crisis as an Opportunity for Structural Change: Where Should We Focus Our Political Energy?". With Drew Faust giving the opening remarks, we hope she takes to heart just one of the discussions she introduces today.

Attendees and what we gave them:
President Drew Gilpin Faust- a flyer
Nobel Prize Winning Welfare Economist and Harvard Professor Amartyra Sen- a flyer
Social Studies Professor Thomas Ponniah- a flyer

What they gave us:
President Drew Gilpin Faust- mostly business smiles
Nobel Prize Winning Welfare Economist and Harvard Professor Amartyra Sen- a sense of awe, as well as a request for directions
Social Studies Professor Thomas Ponniah- a really nice chat

SLAM was interviewed by Bloomberg News yesterday. Click here to check out the article!

The Boston Globe covered Dean Smith's budget forum today, along with SLAM's giant "Greed Is The New Crimson" banner drop. Click here for the article.

Also a big thank you is due to the good folks at The Crimson, who put our intimate luncheon with Pres. Faust yesterday on the front page today. Along with a picture of our banner drop.