Ellison Hangs $150M Gift Over Harvard, Stanford

When Larry Ellison mentioned to a Wall Street Journal reporter that he was planning to give $150 million to either Harvard or Stanford, he caught the development offices of both schools off-guard.

The fundraisers at Stanford, who had been wooing Ellison—the C.E.O. of software giant Oracle and a two-time college drop-out—for months, said that they had no idea Harvard was after the same gift, money that would fund an institute to study technology and its effects on government, society and politics.

For its part, Harvard development officers were surprised to see the potential gift portrayed as a part of a direct competition.

And after an initial flurry of press reports following Ellison’s surprise disclosure, both institutions have agreed to cooperate to keep further negotiations with Ellison out of the press.

Ellison’s $150 million donation would rank as one of the largest donations to a U.S. university ever, although it is dwarfed by a $400 million gift to Stanford this year by the Hewlett Foundation. Harvard’s largest donation came from the Loeb family, who donated $70 million in 1995.

According to David M. Glen, Stanford’s associate vice-president for development, Stanford had been in conversations with Ellison about funding for an interdisciplinary program in technology and public policy for several months. But the talks were informal, and they had lapsed recently.

“We haven’t been in touch with [Ellison] for some time,” Glen said.

The next time Stanford’s development office heard of the Ellison gift was when reporters called for comment. “We were astounded when we got a call—we had no idea he was talking to Harvard,” Glen said.

According to Sarah O’Brien Mackey, Harvard’s associate director of communications for alumni affairs and development, Harvard is still just in the very early stages of discussions with Ellison.

“It’s at a very preliminary stage. There has been maybe only one conversation or so between Harvard and Ellison,” Mackey said. Mackey described Stanford’s position as “much further down the line.”

But according to both Glen and Mackey, press reports that described a competition for Ellison’s donation were misguided.

“Harvard does not see itself in competition—that was a mischaracterization,” Mackey said. “The focus is to find out what Mr. Ellison is interested in, and to see how that matches the priorities of the University.

“If it’s been setup as a competition, it’s not because Harvard has or Stanford has, it’s because Larry Ellison has,” Glen said.

Reports that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) had been involved in negotiations with Ellison were wrong, according to an MIT spokesperson.

Now that both schools are aware of each other’s contacts with Ellison, they are cooperating to keep their discussions from turning into a full-fledged public competition.

“We’ve agreed with Harvard that we’re not going to play this out in the press,” Glen said.

As a result, officials at Harvard and Stanford were both reluctant to discuss proposals for the institute.

For his part, Ellison has released no further details of his philanthropic intentions, according to an Oracle spokesperson.

Glen described interest at Stanford as stemming from their school for humanities and sciences, business school, and graduate school for engineering among others.

Mackey said that it was too early to reveal who at Harvard would be coordinating the proposals, or what schools would be involved. Reports cited the Kennedy School of Government as one possible host of the institute.

But due to the cross-disciplinary nature of the focus, any discussions would certainly involve a broad spectrum of Harvard departments. In addition to the Kennedy school, the existing joint Ph.D. program in technology offered by the business school and the graduate school of arts and sciences could be interested in the Ellison institute. The Provost’s office for interfaculty initiatives could also play a role.

For both schools the focus has already shifted from managing the fallout of Ellison’s surprise comments to touting the benefits that their institution brings to the table.

Glen explained that in addition to Stanford’s proximity to Silicon Valley and Oracle’s headquarters, a major asset lies in the strength of its interdisciplinary studies programs. Stanford broke ground.

Harvard officials wouldn’t go into the details of what advantages Harvard has in trying to attract Ellison. But Harvard spokesperson Joe Wrinn said that the University thinks it has a good shot at the institute.

“We’ll do our best to get that gift,” Wrinn said.

—Staff Writer David H. Gellis can be reached at gellis@fas.harvard.edu.