“I was assured from the start of University support, in outright financial support and in the commitment to work to secure a substantial endowment. CID budgeted accordingly,” Sachs says. “CID was not running out of money. That’s simply ridiculous.”
While Sachs would not elaborate with details, he wrote that Pagett’s account of the finances was “wholly inaccurate.”
“He simply does not know or does not understand or chooses to ignore the commitments of the Kennedy School, and the explicit arrangements with the University,” Sachs says.
Pagett says it was Sachs who didn’t understand the Kennedy School’s commitment. Sachs, Pagett says, expected the Kennedy School to take the lead while the Kennedy School expected Sachs to play a substantial role.
While Nye won’t comment on CID’s finances, he writes in an e-mail that the Kennedy School was fulfilling its end of the agreement.
Rodrik says that in formulating their report, his committee was concerned with program and mission, not finances. But the committee’s recommendations do address the problems Pagett and others cite with the center’s finances.
The report proposes a faculty oversight committee with financial monitoring as one of its prime duties.
“We need a better governance structure, to make sure CID is operating within its resources,” Rodrik says.
Looking Forward
The obstacles facing CID are significant and disagreements over the past linger. But those involved in planning for the center’s future are optimistic.
Rodrik says he hopes the plan is approved and a search for a new director begins quickly.
Nye says he agrees with the report and plans on discussing it with Summers and Provost Steven E. Hyman.
All want the work of reconstructing CID to begin in earnest.
At the same time, Rodrik cautions, CID is not and will not be the sole face of development studies at Harvard. Across the University, work on the Third World has continued during CID’s hibernation.
Rodrik says development studies at Harvard will remain among the strongest in the nation with or without CID’s support.
—Staff writer David H. Gellis can be reached at gellis@fas.harvard.edu.