<p>I don’t read the Harvard forum, so I cannot speak to specific examples of meaness.</p>
<p>I think it is true that when someone or some group thinks it occupies the absolute top of the food chain, as it were, mostly because no successful challenges to that perception have been launched, it is up to those who would launch such challenges to come up with a reason or reasons to show how that particular conceit, displayed by some Harvardians (not all, of course), rests on less than impervious foundations.</p>
<p>In Harvard’s case that may be indeed hard to do. One way to appraise that esteemed institution is to look at its value system and compare it against one’s own. Are there things being done by H, be it the students, faculty, the administration, or – that most sacrosanct entity – the Board of Overseers that are insults to one’s values, ethics, politics, environmental concerns, etc.? </p>
<p>My guess is one would not have to dig too deeply to find ocassional or perhaps even numerous instances that would take old “Newtowne College” down a peg or two.</p>
<p>I’ll throw out just one of the most recent and well publicized instances, that of the loss of nearly one fourth of its endowment to short-sighted and, well, just plain greedy investment strategies. Harvard is, of course, not alone in its finacial foibles, as many colleges have lost endowment value. This does however, make H look very much like the other mere mortals in the game, does it not?</p>
<p>Let the digging commence…</p>