Harvard Gift- rescinded!!!

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
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<p><a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/06/27/BUGN5JKN8T4.DTL(06-27%5B/url%5D)"&gt;http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/06/27/BUGN5JKN8T4.DTL(06-27)&lt;/a> 17:11 PDT -- It's official: Larry Ellison is backing away from a promise to donate $115 million to Harvard University.</p>

<p>The Oracle founder and CEO, the world's 15th richest person, had made headlines in 2005 when, in an interview with The Chronicle, he pledged to make a major donation to an institute at Harvard to study world health.</p>

<p>But Ellison has decided against making the contribution after the resignation of Harvard President Larry Summers who is about to leave the institution.</p>

<p>"It's official," said Oracle spokesman Bob Wynne. "The reason is the relationship he had with Larry Summers who leaves this week. Larry Summers was the brainchild of this whole concept. With his departure, Larry reconsidered his decision."</p>

<p>The donation would have been the biggest gift in the Ivy League college's history. The pledge was also the 10th largest American charitable contribution in 2005, making Ellison the seventh most generous donor in the United States that year, according to the Chronicle of Philantropy.</p>

<p>Wynne said Ellison will be making an announcement soon on a donation. He did not offer details.</p>

<p>Summers resigned in February, amid faculty uproar over comments suggesting that differences in "intrinsic aptitude" may explain why fewer women than men succeed in math and science.</p>

<p>Ellison had reaffirmed his pledge as recently as November, according to Christopher Murray, a professor and director of the Harvard University Global Health Initiative, who was to run the institute.</p>

<p>Murray also said the donation was to fund the Harvard institute for five years. The agreement, which was never signed, also called for Ellison to consider donating another $500 million to cover 10 more years of research if an external review of the center was favorable.</p>

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<p>Cheers to Ellison. Someone has to stand up to those politically correct scumbags for organizing a witch hunt against Summers</p>

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<p>ouch......</p>

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<p>wow harvard lost 115 million... guess that means they might have to fall back on their $25,000,000,000 endowment. Yeah, i bet they will suffer.</p>

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<p>I anticipate that the void will be filled soon by someone like Bill Gates. Harvard has no shortage of rich alum and potential donors.</p>

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<p>I think you mean rich drop outs</p>

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<p>They're grinning with satisfaction at Yale, though...</p>

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<p>Ahahah Harvard got the shaft.</p>

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<p>"I think you mean rich drop outs"
-No he was correct, an alum does not have to graduate to be considered an alum.</p>

<p>a·lum·nus (ə-lŭm'nəs) pronunciation
n., pl. -ni (-nī').</p>

<p>A male graduate or ---former student---- of a school, college, or university.</p>

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<p>Hurts about as much as a hard pinch: painful for a second, for sure, but won't really affect Harv. in the long run.</p>

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<p>money money money</p>

<p>Now I wonder what school will get the cashhh.</p>

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<p>It's not the money that's the problem though. It's just kind of embarrassing for the school.</p>

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<p>As for what iloveagoodbrew said - I agree that his comments on gender were no grounds on which to fire him, but there was much more to it than that. See the wikipedia articles, et cetera.</p>

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<p>Hey, its not like this is the first time Harvard went on a which hunt against the president. It goes all the way back to the 1600s with the first one.</p>

<p>And when I think of people/places/things that need $115 million, Harvard is not the first to pop in my head. Things like Darfur do.</p>

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<p>Harvard has enough money. Don't know why everyone cares about this...</p>

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<p>
[quote]
It's just kind of embarrassing for the school.

[/quote]
Why? Harvard's not the one who:</p>

<ul>
<li><p>made a $115 million pledge with great fanfare, not out of any charitable impulse but rather as a means of settling a lawsuit charging him with insider trading;</p></li>
<li><p>accepted press and accolades for being among the top ten philanthropists on the basis of the pledge, yet began waffling on it almost from the moment he made it; and</p></li>
<li><p>then had the chutzpah to use Summers' resignation as the excuse for his welching.</p></li>
</ul>

<p>Oh, and get this. In order to preserve his lawsuit settlement, after making it official that he's reneging on his pledge to Harvard, he announced that he's giving $100 million to the "Ellison Medical Foundation." That would be the foundation that's been doing research into how to make him immortal. I'm serious: <a href="http://observer.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4209250-102271,00.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://observer.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4209250-102271,00.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I guess Harvard was unwilling to give him assurances that they would put the money to use for such a good cause - as opposed to doing something trivial with it, like trying to improve world health.</p>

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<p>oh no harvard lost money! what a shame since they are such a poor scool.....</p>

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<p>Okay, Harvard may have a large endowment or whatever, but let's not forget... they actually had to lay off people they had hired in expectation of this donation, so it is kind of a big deal.</p>

<p>And yeah, cosar, you're right, but the media isn't portraying it that way. It is being seen as a bit embarrassing. I was watching CNN the other day and they were poking fun of the whole situation with a comical list of reasons why he backed out. Was it because there were no Rhodes scholars this year? Poor hockey season? Maybe he didn't agree with Halle Berry as Hasty Pudding's choice for Woman of the Year!</p>

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<p>Harvard got REJECTED!!! Now they know how it feels.... :)</p>

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<p>True, Yale had 3 Rhodes Scholars and 4 Marshall Scholars this year - Harvard had no Rhodes. Actually, no other Ivy League School had more than 1 Rhodes or more than 2 Marshalls. </p>

<p>Maybe it's that Yale has taken Harvard's spot as the most selective college in the country (for 2 of the past 3 years, now).</p>