FAS Hires State Finance Official

Leslie A. Kirwan ’79, the State of Massachusetts’ head finance official, has been named Faculty of Arts and Sciences dean for administration and finance, effective Nov. 2.

After decades working for the state government, Kirwan is a veteran of steering large organizations through fiscal crises: as the state’s secretary of administration and finance under Mass. Governor Deval L. Patrick ’78 for the past two years, Kirwan has helped close a series of billion-dollar deficits.

FAS Dean Michael D. Smith cited Kirwan’s “strong background” in fiscal management as a crucial quality she brings to her post in FAS, which is now facing a $110 million deficit.

“She has a history of building and leading strong administrative organizations,” Smith wrote in an e-mailed statement to The Crimson yesterday, noting Kirwan’s past work in organizations with “diverse” needs. “She is a strategic thinker and extremely well respected by those that worked with and for her.”

A former Cambridge resident who used to walk through the Yard every morning to high school, Kirwan said she is “very excited” to rejoin her alma mater as an administrator.

“The opportunity to match up my background at Harvard and my professional life was just too good to pass up,” Kirwan said in an interview with The Crimson on Friday. “I’m bursting with excitement to get to Harvard.”

As the secretary of administration and finance for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Kirwan has been responsible for developing the state capital budget and overseeing budgetary activities. In addition, Kirwan helped to implement the nation’s first statewide healthcare program that has aimed at universal coverage, as chair of the Health Connector board of directors.

Kirwan said that just as she has tried to make key investments at the state level in public education and healthcare in the face of gaping shortfalls, she hopes to confront the FAS’ remaining $110 million deficit as a challenge that requires her to both balance the budget and make “targeted investments.”

Her approach is reflective of Smith’s stated emphasis over the past few months of maintaining the quality of teaching and research in FAS while making cutbacks that will not affect the educational mission of the University.

“Economic cycles are an inevitable part of the job, and I would say that it requires discipline,” Kirwan said. “It’s important in all times to emphasize the sustainability of the core mission.”

Kirwan’s appointment comes after Smith announced in July that FAS Dean for Administration and Finance Brett C. Sweet would depart for Vanderbilt after less than a year at Harvard. With the key financial decision-maker slated to leave, Smith immediately began a national search for a permanent replacement. Smith said the search involved “a lot of candidates,” and declined to further elaborate on the process.

Until a replacement could be found, Catherine Gorodentsev—formerly the executive vice president’s chief of staff—assumed the interim role of FAS dean for administration, and Deena Giancotti—associate dean for finance—took up Sweet’s financial responsibilities.

Though Harvard has suffered from other recent departures—including those of former Executive Vice President Edward C. Forst ’82 and FAS IT Dean Lawrence M. Levine—Kirwan said she “would like to stay” at Harvard.

“I hope that I will be such a good fit at Harvard that it might be a long-term phase of my career,” Kirwan said.

She has been in communication with Smith and other FAS administrators about the post since August, she said. Though Kirwan will not officially begin her responsibilities until Nov. 2, she said she has reached out to professors she knows—including Economics Professor James H. Stock—so that she can start to build a network of faculty contacts, and she said she plans to review relevant readings and financial texts.

Kirwan, who graduated from the Harvard Kennedy School in 1984, is not unfamiliar with the terrain of fiscal management, as evinced by her years of service to the state. Prior to her role on the governor’s cabinet, Kirwan spent seven years as director of administration and finance at the Massachusetts Port Authority.

She also served as deputy commissioner at the Massachusetts Department of Revenue, which required her to manage the activities of over 2,500 state employees.

Though Kirwan has often had to lay off staffers because of budget constraints, she said that she always chooses to break the news herself, and confessed to tearing up at a meeting after having to personally lay off more than a dozen workers in Mass. Port Authority after Sept. 11 to push Logan airport back onto solid financial ground.

“It’s impossible to approach it without some emotion on behalf of the people whose lives are turned upside down,” Kirwan said. “If I ever get to a state in my life when I’m not troubled by the fact that economic challenges and budget reductions lead to personnel impacts, then maybe I should go into another field.”

But after years of experience in the throes of fiscal maelstroms, Kirwan said she understands that she often needs a light-hearted approach to the challenges of cost-cutting—namely, in the form of a stuffed Grinch doll that she sometimes brings to her office.

“I don’t have to make a heavy-handed statement about the constraints facing us. I can just show people the Grinch, and that’s a good way to just remind them that there are some hard choices to be made,” Kirwan said. “But if we approach them together in a spirit of shared responsibility, then we can often come up with a solution.”

As for whether she plans to relocate the Grinch to University Hall, Kirwan said, “That might be a little bit over the top for the first week.”

“I might bring him at Christmastime,” she added.

—Staff writer Bonnie J. Kavoussi can be reached at kavoussi@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Esther I. Yi can be reached at estheryi@fas.harvard.edu.