President Bok, Donor Clash in Letters

The following are excerpts from a February 2 letter president Bok sent to members of the Fine Arts faculty and the Fogg Visiting Committee:

It is my painful duty to write to you and explain our decision not to proceed with the construction of the new addition to the Fogg Museum...To begin with, I want to assure you that our decision did not result form the need for an additional $300,000 to pay for construction costs. Were that the only problem, we would have gladly gone forward and paid the sum ourselves....

[O]ur construction staff concluded that there were substantial risks of incurring significant cost overruns during construction. Already, one of the architects is asking for an additional $100,000 in fees, more expensive bricks seem necessary, and added costs would probably be required to provide a truly adequate security system....

The $3 million stabilization fund has likewise presented problems. From a financial standpoint, it is by no means clear that a fund of this size would suffice to maintain the museums in a reasonable state without incurring deficits. Such a fund might well prove adequate. But it is quite possible that deficits would ensue....

Apart from the financial risks, there were even more serious problems resulting from decessioning art objects to create the fund, I now know how concerned the Department and staff have been on this question, although some have hesitated to speak publicly on the matter. In addition, it has become evident that the museum community is unalterably opposed to our plan....[W]e are currently seeking to appoint a new director, and I have come to learn that decessioning would gravely impair our ability to attract an able person....

In the end, of course, one can always ask why the University would not simply dig into its own resources and contribute the remaining $3-4 million required to create a stabilization fund and complete the new building....I can only say that present conditions are extraordinarily unfavorable for making additional contributions of this magnitude. The Reagan administration is making truly massive cuts in federal funds for higher education. Inflation continues to drive up costs more rapidly than our endowment income. Economic prospects are not favorable. We will need to do everything we can simply to maintain our financial aid programs, avoid further erosion in the real income of our faculty, and maintain the Houses and other existing facilities....

The following are excerpts from a letter mailed on February 4 by Rulph F. Colin, a member of the Fogg Visiting Committee, to President Bok and other members of the committee.

That [the members of the Corporation] are unaware of the importance of the Fogg's role in the national picture does not really surprise me. But I am indeed surprised by the role that you as president and presumably the leader have played--more correctly have not played.

There seem to be only two alternatives. Either

a.) You are as unaware of the Fogg's role and importance as are the other five members of the Corporation, or

b.) Being aware, you are unwilling to go to but and if necessary lay your job as president on the line to accomplish what needed to be accomplished. You may therefore take your choice as to whether "ignorance" or "ignominy" more aptly describes the basis of your behavior....

The fact is that Harvard's decision will, I assure you, cost it much more than $3 to $4 million in lost financial support in the future....

The real explanation for Harvard's long vacillation and then its final decision to discontinue the Fogg building project lies, in my opinion, not in the risks involved in the project itself, but in the Corporation's fear of repeating its mistakes in the recent building of a generator for the medical facilities where, due to what must have been indescribable inefficiently, the final cost of the facilities was well over 100 percent in excess of estimated and projected costs. If hesitancy to take all risks in the future as a result of that experience in the past means that Harvard will stop expanding its facilities--the stagnation of its future is more horrible to contemplate than the mistakes of its past....

Rest assured that the contributed funds will not be allowed to remain with Harvard....