Finance VP Resigns, Questions Linger

Staffers in the Office of the Vice President for Finance found what they have called an unexpected message in their e-mail inboxes last Tuesday.

Their boss—Elizabeth Mora, also the University’s chief financial officer—would leave Harvard in mid-May, the e-mail said. And with no explanation given for the sudden nature of the announcement, her staff has continued to express confusion.

“I think people were just shocked,” said Sharon D. DeMaranville, the director for financial planning. “People really didn’t expect it. I certainly didn’t expect it.”

The University has remained notably silent on the issue, and Mora, as well as her interim successor as chief financial officer, has repeatedly refused requests for interviews.

University spokesman John D. Longbrake said that Mora did not come into the office the entire day after the announcement was released.

Calls to members of her office Friday afternoon elicited either professions of ignorance or terse refusals to comment on anything related to Mora’s tenure.

“That’s not something I’m going to comment on,” said Judith A. Ryan, director for cost analysis and compliance, when asked about her boss’s time at Harvard.

Mora’s resignation comes at a time of increasing turnover in Harvard’s highest administrative positions.

Last September, University President Drew G. Faust appointed her former Radcliffe colleague Tamara E. Rogers ’74 as vice president for alumni affairs and development after forcing out Donella M. Rapier, a holdover from the administration of Lawrence H. Summers.

Faust has also announced plans to create an executive vice president position, though she is several months behind the deadline she originally stated for filling this post.

Had Mora stayed, she would have had to report to the executive vice president, but Alan J. Stone, another Harvard vice president and the head of communications for the University, said last week that Mora’s departure was not related to the new Mass. Hall position and that they had not yet settled on a person for the job.

During her tenure as vice president, which began in 2006, Mora worked on a wide variety of projects, including financial modeling for Allston and renegotiation of reimbursement rates for Harvard research, according to the University’s initial statement about Mora’s resignation.

At the end of Friday afternoon, after receiving numerous phone calls from reporters, members of Mora’s office were specifically told to refer all requests to a University spokesman.

“I was just instructed that all inquiries about Beth Mora’s tenure be directed to the News Office,” said Michael T. Tiorano, an accounting assistant in the office.

When pressed for the source of this instruction, Tiorano responded, “Angels.”

Longbrake said last night that he had “nothing to add” on the subject of Mora’s resignation.

—Staff writer Clifford M. Marks can be reached at cmarks@fas.harvard.edu.
—Staff writer Nathan C. Strauss can be reached at strauss@fas.harvard.edu.