Harvard officials all deny it, and claim the request itself is rare.

The University does try to involve significant donors to some extent, however, often using alumni weekends at Harvard.

Gordon describes these meetings, which draw between 300 and 400 couples, as a prime fund-raising ground for repeat givers. While there is no set criteria for an invitation, a "dedication to Harvard" is needed and the individuals are either large donors or fund-raisers.

Some events are reserved for members of the President ($25,000) or Associate ($10,000) giving levels. The cocktail parties at such events are where "the real action occurs," according to Gordon, and the location of many key individual fundraiser/donor conversations.

Another common method, according to Gordon, is for a dean or a prominent faculty member to hold a dinner in a city such as New York and invite seven couples or so to discuss the University and its future. These events make donors feel like they are helping to run Harvard, Gordon adds.

Membership on University visiting committees is yet another way for Harvard to reward donors and fundraisers. Every four or five years such committees, made up of professionals in the field, interested alumni and at least one Overseer each, evaluate departments to see how they are doing.

In this way, donors can actually play a minor role in policy making.

And though fundraisers emphasize that everyone attempts to shield Rudenstine from most of the day-to-day fundraising duties, large donors expect to have the deal finalized with the president. Rudenstine has been known to stay up all night writing thank-you notes to donors by hand, for example.

A significant contributor is probably guaranteed one meeting with the president if he or she wants it, Gordon says. "But if they want to have another one, they had better not waste it," he adds.

Ideally, the University would like every donor to become a fundraiser. "It's not easy," says Monrad. "For some inexplicable reason people are reluctant to ask [others] for money. It's almost like asking about their sex life."

Notable Gifts

While some other well-known schools have been embarrassed because of gifts they later regretted, notably Yale with its much-publicized donation from the Bass brothers for Western studies. Harvard has been careful to avoid any such public fiascoes.

But that doesn't mean that fundraising at Harvard always goes along expected lines. Two of Harvard's most famous and significant gifts came about in very different ways from the norm.

The Countess Albina du Boisrouvray's $20 million gift to the School of Public Health progressed along the typical lines, if such things can be said to exist for such a large gift--with the exception of the fact that she had no previous ties to Harvard.

According to Reardon, Boisrouvray had worked with AIDS patients in the past, establishing a network of hospices for kids with AIDS. She then realized she wanted to do something about prevention and ended up calling Professor of Epidemiology Jonathan M. Mann '69 because she had heard of some of the work he was doing with AIDS.