John Harvard's Journal - The New Fellowship, November-December 1996

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Amazing Space	Well Endowed	Leveraged Giving
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Presidential Portrait	The Undergraduate	Sports
Brevia

John Harvard confronts the company. Photograph by Brooks Kraft

At a happy gathering in Annenberg Hall on the evening of September 6, Harvard inducted the first group of John Harvard Fellows into the program of that name set up to honor donors who have given at least $1 million to the University Campaign. At dinner the guests had grilled shrimp for starters and then "Szechuan Steak au Poivre with a Port Ginger Sauce." President Neil L. Rudenstine was master of ceremonies.

Seamus Heaney, Nobel laureate and Boylston professor of rhetoric and oratory, read the villanelle he composed for the College's 350th birthday, with the repeated words, "A spirit moved. John Harvard walked the Yard."

Rudenstine welcomed the fellows, "the first such fellows and the first such assembly in the history of our University." He told the little that is known about the life of John Harvard himself. To be a John Harvard Fellow, he said, means "to share John Harvard's conviction about the absolute necessity of education." Recalling the ragtag nature of the scrappy enterprise John Harvard bet on in 1638, Rudenstine observed that every gift is "a wager, a hope, a gamble that what we do will leave some portion of our world slightly better off than it was before."

John Harvard Fellows are the mainstays of the University Campaign, an effort to raise $2.1 billion by the end of 1999. Fundraisers expect that benefactions of $1 million or more, "leadership gifts," will account for more than 65 percent of the money raised.

The first inductees into the John Harvard Fellows program took home elegant keepsakes - a replica of the Great Salt (the original given to Harvard by Mrs. Henry Dunster, wife of the first president, in 1644), and of the McCleary Plate (the original believed to be the oldest surviving piece of china to have been used by Harvard students). Photograph by Larry Volk

By the end of August the University had received 220 gifts of at least $1 million, including five gifts of $25 million or more, 12 of $10 million or more, 33 of $5 million or more, and 170 of $1 million or more, for a total of $815 million in leadership gifts. Total campaign giving stood at $1,274,970,000.

Traditionally, support at these levels has come from older philanthropists living on the East Coast. But in this campaign, about 10 percent of the dollars raised in leadership gifts so far have come from younger alumni, 24 percent have come from Americans in states other than New York and Massachusetts, and 17 percent have come from foreign donors. Individuals who did not attend Harvard have played a dramatic role; about a quarter of the leadership gifts have come from these "partners."

Toward the end of the celebratory evening, John Harvard (a.k.a. recent Emmy winner John Lithgow '67) put in a surprise appearance, entering the hall in a blaze of light. Suering culture shock, he was in a lively but foul mood, dismayed by the changes wrought at Harvard since his day. He strode among the tables scolding the company. He brightened up when he spotted Eppie Lederer (Ann Landers), and began to think he might have misspoken. Finally, he wished all well: "I speak for those of generations past when I commend ye, kind, worthy, and loaded friends. My blessings be upon you."

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