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It is funny when the dog catches its tail, but having worked for Harvard as an individual contributor for quite some time until recently, I think this is more a

It is funny when the dog catches its tail, but having worked for Harvard as an individual contributor for quite some time until recently, I think this is more an artifact of how many things Harvard does rather than some vast bureaucratic inefficiency. It's forestry program, pharmaceutical research, real estate development, giant dining organization, handful of public theaters, 72 (seriously) libraries, most being domain specific, police department that has the third largest jurisdiction in the state (on paper but they really only deal with university stuff,) their hospitals, and the zillions of other things they do can only take so much centralization. It's a bloated bureaucracy, for sure, but it doesn't hold a candle to The Fed, and IBM beats them both by a mile.

fallingknife 4y ago
But then ask why does Harvard need to do all of those things? European universities don't have dining organizations. They don't have police forces. They don't need much real estate development because they don't have this type of mission creep. And that's just out of the things you mentioned. There's a lot more fat to cut.
- jonathankoren 4y ago
  University police forces are common in the United States, and are an explicit legacy of the Vietnam War and Civil Rights protests, and the Kent State Massacre in particular. The idea is that the kids are less likely to be beaten or killed by police that answer to the university. https://www.vox.com/2015/7/29/9069841/university-of-cincinnati-police https://www.vox.com/2015/7/29/9069841/university-of-cincinna... https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/09/college-campus-policing/407659/ https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/09/colleg...
  - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
    The marketing may be that interests align but the reality is that police that answer to the university will jump to answer calls that local police forces would get to when they get to, like petty theft of university property, public drunkenness, etc. Transit police, university police, capitol police, boutique police forces like that exist for one reason and one reason only: to prioritize things that the police who would otherwise have jurisdiction would laugh at.
    - SoftTalker 4y ago
      Universities are also generally exempt from all the taxes that pay for municipal police, so they provide their own. It (sometimes) has a dual educational purpose where they run a law enforcement or criminal justice curriculum and the campus police service provides practical experience for students.
    - ethbr0 4y ago
      We had a great Atlanta PD major do a Q&A on the GT campus after a string of thefts/muggings. She straight up said something to the effect of "I'm doing the best I can with the resources I have. Your zone also includes Midtown, with bars and commercial. If crime goes up there, owners with more political connections and tax revenue than the university gripe. So that's where most of my resources are." Gotta respect honesty.
      - MomoXenosaga 4y ago
        If you follow that to its logical conclusion the police would never show up in certain areas of the city. Personally I don't want my country to turn into Sao Paulo or Mexico City. Hell why not a subscription plan for the police? 911 please enter your customer credentials.
        brazzledazzle 4y ago
        To some degree this already happens though it's less of a direct subscription or denial of services and more of a function of the taxes and connections in an area. Police officers often have entirely different response times, presence, escalation/deescalation strategies and enforcement policies for wealthy and poor parts of a city.
        WeylandYutani 4y ago
        Good thing that crime rates are one of the few things that get people to vote in council elections.
        4y ago
  - coldtea 4y ago
    >The idea is that the kids are less likely to be beaten or killed by police that answer to the university. Kids not being beaten up or killed by the police in general wasn't an option?
    - pm90 4y ago
      Ideally, yes. But in the absence of wholesale reform, this does look like a pretty reasonable solution that could be implemented quickly.
      - coldtea 4y ago
        So, a kludge
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- derefr 4y ago
  Somebody somewhere would be doing these things. Does it matter that that somebody is called “Harvard”? It’s not like it’s all run top-down; it’s just a bunch of affiliated organizations that have contractual relationships. I.e. an economy. The people who run those theatres et al aren’t directly benefitting from the donations of Harvard alumni; they’re rather benefitting from the (presumably) Harvard College(s) of Performing Arts paying them for use of the space—same business model as any commercial theatre. Those affiliated businesses aren’t “Harvard” (the University) per se, any more than the people working for businesses in a food court in an airport work for the airport.
  - fallingknife 4y ago
    > Somebody somewhere would be doing these things Yes, but Harvard duplicates existing services. e.g. when Harvard runs a dining org, that service is already provided by local restaurants and grocery stores. The only things Harvard needs to provide are things that you can't already get in Boston. Classrooms, libraries, labs, etc. It's just like engineering. Anything that can easily be offloaded to a third party tool should be.
    - jackvalentine 4y ago
      Do those existing local businesses have the capacity to fulfil the customers that Harvard currently is, if Harvard were to suddenly tomorrow withdraw that service entirely?
      - chefandy 4y ago
        Unless Harvard was to sell its facilities for someone else to operate, local businesses never could... Not without serious change in local governance. Not close to enough commercial space. You'd have to demolish a bunch of buildings to make larger facilities to handle the load.
    - HPsquared 4y ago
      Generic restaurants can't exclude non-Harvard students.
- nxmnxm99 4y ago
  Why would Harvard want to emulate European schools
- bdcravens 4y ago
  Many tech businesses don't need to contribute to open source either, yet a significant amount of salary is lost to those employees who do.
  - accurrent 4y ago
    Most companies contributing to open source do it either because they (1) consume projects directly or (2) want access to the community. For (1) it is no longer considered a waste of money as the corporation directly benefits from such changes. (2) is slightly harder to directly quantify however by opensourcing tools like tensorflow or react companies directly have access to talent pools which otherwise would not exist and they can cut costs on train ing. Its also free marketing for companies. In the end there really is no salary lost.
    - bdcravens 4y ago
      I suspect similar intangibles exist for Harvard.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- themitigating 4y ago
  That's another question That's much more complicated. The gp said they should cut their administrators not "Harvard should reduce services so they can then cut administrators"
- chefandy 4y ago
  A) United States universities offer a broader, more general education than the more compact, specialized education conferred by most European universities. B) Harvard's enrollment is more than 22k, many of whom live in campus dorms. That requires a lot of infrastructure. Plus it's a giant research organization with an endowment of 53 billion dollars. Centralizing makes complete sense in many areas. As any large organization does, they outsource things, like security patrols, when it works out better. C) They don't just do those things for the heck of it. The research alone contributes a huge amount to society, as do it's graduates. Those 72 libraries hold some of the world's most precious documents and objects. D) Saying that European universities simply don't have dining services that run their cafeterias and events shows you don't understand what the term dining services means. Lots of Harvard gatherings get food from local restaurants but sending thousands of residential freshmen into Harvard Square for breakfast every morning would be ludicrously inefficient. E) Tieing up Cambridge PD's officers responding to loud parties, petty theft, etc. would be dumb. Not having a centralized organization to handle or monitor crime that takes place in the many municipal jurisdictions that Harvard has facilities would also be dumb. Harvard does have a large bureaucracy that could trim some fat, but your sweeping assumptions about what they don't need without even considering why they have them are pretty uninformed.

fallingknife 4y ago

But then ask why does Harvard need to do all of those things? European universities don't have dining organizations. They don't have police forces. They don't need much real estate development because they don't have this type of mission creep. And that's just out of the things you mentioned. There's a lot more fat to cut.

jonathankoren 4y ago
University police forces are common in the United States, and are an explicit legacy of the Vietnam War and Civil Rights protests, and the Kent State Massacre in particular. The idea is that the kids are less likely to be beaten or killed by police that answer to the university. https://www.vox.com/2015/7/29/9069841/university-of-cincinnati-police https://www.vox.com/2015/7/29/9069841/university-of-cincinna... https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/09/college-campus-policing/407659/ https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/09/colleg...
- dsfyu404ed 4y ago
  The marketing may be that interests align but the reality is that police that answer to the university will jump to answer calls that local police forces would get to when they get to, like petty theft of university property, public drunkenness, etc. Transit police, university police, capitol police, boutique police forces like that exist for one reason and one reason only: to prioritize things that the police who would otherwise have jurisdiction would laugh at.
  - SoftTalker 4y ago
    Universities are also generally exempt from all the taxes that pay for municipal police, so they provide their own. It (sometimes) has a dual educational purpose where they run a law enforcement or criminal justice curriculum and the campus police service provides practical experience for students.
  - ethbr0 4y ago
    We had a great Atlanta PD major do a Q&A on the GT campus after a string of thefts/muggings. She straight up said something to the effect of "I'm doing the best I can with the resources I have. Your zone also includes Midtown, with bars and commercial. If crime goes up there, owners with more political connections and tax revenue than the university gripe. So that's where most of my resources are." Gotta respect honesty.
    - MomoXenosaga 4y ago
      If you follow that to its logical conclusion the police would never show up in certain areas of the city. Personally I don't want my country to turn into Sao Paulo or Mexico City. Hell why not a subscription plan for the police? 911 please enter your customer credentials.
      - brazzledazzle 4y ago
        To some degree this already happens though it's less of a direct subscription or denial of services and more of a function of the taxes and connections in an area. Police officers often have entirely different response times, presence, escalation/deescalation strategies and enforcement policies for wealthy and poor parts of a city.
        WeylandYutani 4y ago
        Good thing that crime rates are one of the few things that get people to vote in council elections.
      - 4y ago
- coldtea 4y ago
  >The idea is that the kids are less likely to be beaten or killed by police that answer to the university. Kids not being beaten up or killed by the police in general wasn't an option?
  - pm90 4y ago
    Ideally, yes. But in the absence of wholesale reform, this does look like a pretty reasonable solution that could be implemented quickly.
    - coldtea 4y ago
      So, a kludge
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
derefr 4y ago
Somebody somewhere would be doing these things. Does it matter that that somebody is called “Harvard”? It’s not like it’s all run top-down; it’s just a bunch of affiliated organizations that have contractual relationships. I.e. an economy. The people who run those theatres et al aren’t directly benefitting from the donations of Harvard alumni; they’re rather benefitting from the (presumably) Harvard College(s) of Performing Arts paying them for use of the space—same business model as any commercial theatre. Those affiliated businesses aren’t “Harvard” (the University) per se, any more than the people working for businesses in a food court in an airport work for the airport.
- fallingknife 4y ago
  > Somebody somewhere would be doing these things Yes, but Harvard duplicates existing services. e.g. when Harvard runs a dining org, that service is already provided by local restaurants and grocery stores. The only things Harvard needs to provide are things that you can't already get in Boston. Classrooms, libraries, labs, etc. It's just like engineering. Anything that can easily be offloaded to a third party tool should be.
  - jackvalentine 4y ago
    Do those existing local businesses have the capacity to fulfil the customers that Harvard currently is, if Harvard were to suddenly tomorrow withdraw that service entirely?
    - chefandy 4y ago
      Unless Harvard was to sell its facilities for someone else to operate, local businesses never could... Not without serious change in local governance. Not close to enough commercial space. You'd have to demolish a bunch of buildings to make larger facilities to handle the load.
  - HPsquared 4y ago
    Generic restaurants can't exclude non-Harvard students.
nxmnxm99 4y ago
Why would Harvard want to emulate European schools
bdcravens 4y ago
Many tech businesses don't need to contribute to open source either, yet a significant amount of salary is lost to those employees who do.
- accurrent 4y ago
  Most companies contributing to open source do it either because they (1) consume projects directly or (2) want access to the community. For (1) it is no longer considered a waste of money as the corporation directly benefits from such changes. (2) is slightly harder to directly quantify however by opensourcing tools like tensorflow or react companies directly have access to talent pools which otherwise would not exist and they can cut costs on train ing. Its also free marketing for companies. In the end there really is no salary lost.
  - bdcravens 4y ago
    I suspect similar intangibles exist for Harvard.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
themitigating 4y ago
That's another question That's much more complicated. The gp said they should cut their administrators not "Harvard should reduce services so they can then cut administrators"
chefandy 4y ago
A) United States universities offer a broader, more general education than the more compact, specialized education conferred by most European universities. B) Harvard's enrollment is more than 22k, many of whom live in campus dorms. That requires a lot of infrastructure. Plus it's a giant research organization with an endowment of 53 billion dollars. Centralizing makes complete sense in many areas. As any large organization does, they outsource things, like security patrols, when it works out better. C) They don't just do those things for the heck of it. The research alone contributes a huge amount to society, as do it's graduates. Those 72 libraries hold some of the world's most precious documents and objects. D) Saying that European universities simply don't have dining services that run their cafeterias and events shows you don't understand what the term dining services means. Lots of Harvard gatherings get food from local restaurants but sending thousands of residential freshmen into Harvard Square for breakfast every morning would be ludicrously inefficient. E) Tieing up Cambridge PD's officers responding to loud parties, petty theft, etc. would be dumb. Not having a centralized organization to handle or monitor crime that takes place in the many municipal jurisdictions that Harvard has facilities would also be dumb. Harvard does have a large bureaucracy that could trim some fat, but your sweeping assumptions about what they don't need without even considering why they have them are pretty uninformed.