So the development office retired Fitzsimmons' job, as well as the directorship of the capital (major gift) fund drive, now held by William Boardman. The two posts and departments will be combined under the tutelage of Richard Boardman, the new executive director of the College Fund. Now development officers can "track a person and share information for both the annual and major gift fund drives," says Reardon.

At the same time the office contracts internally, it will expand into the greater Harvard community by stepping up aid to the financially struggling graduate schools. Since each graduate school is responsible for soliciting its own donations, a system known as "every tub on its own bottom," the schools with the richest alumni roll in the money, while the poorest schools struggle with debt. While the Medical School, the richest graduate school, will mount a $200 million fund drive this summer, the Divinity and Design Schools are trying to stay out of the debt that they suffered last year.

The central development office orchestrates a system of advising to bolster the poorer schools' fundraising efforts, which will now be headed by William Boardman. The advisors will attempt to enlarge the poorer schools' donor constituencies and provide administrative help, Reardon says.

William Boardman "knows alumni, knows the University, and will build an outreach for those [poorer] schools that have got to develop their own constituency beyond alumni," says Reardon. "He will bring central expertise to deal with specific programs."

The reorganized development office is also expected to solicit donations for Harvard's sore spots. Major renovations to the Radcliffe Quad houses have yet to be completed, and the University is already $780 million in hock for the fix-up job. But gifts to academic programs are more appealing; no one has lent a name and the necessary $7 to $10 million to renovate the last unnamed upperclass residence, North House.

"When people give large amounts of money they want to affect the education program, so they give less money to anything else," says Reardon. "They don't show an interest in bricks and mortar."

The development office is now scrambling to find the right donor. The undying fame of getting one's name on a house, "isn't going to do it by itself," says Reardon. The University's top fundraiser says he hopes that alumni will "sense this real opportunity to bring that cluster of houses into the programs and educational opportunities all other houses have."

Corporations are "slowly" beginning to recognize that "space and equipment" are important to education and will increasingly beef up the University's building maintenance funds, says Reardon. Last year the Faculty of Arts and Sciences ran a $15 million budget and borrowed $140 million in December to pay for lab and Quad renovations.

University administrators have no qualms about hitting up the "most generous benefactors" for a steeped-up donation." Besides lab and Quad renovation, the current priorities for fundraising, which are also the pet problems of Dean of the Faculty A. Michael Spence, are graduate education, junior faculty development and international studies.