And in Fiscal Year 2002, the Kennedy School ran a massive $5.9 million deficit.

“I cannot let the current open-ended commitment to LRAP undermine the school’s return to financial stability,” Nye wrote in a March e-mail to students announcing the decision to cap benefits under the program.

GRASSROOTS MOVEMENT

When Nye unveiled the LRAP eligibility changes in March, students responded with an all-night protest in front of the Kennedy School.

Last month, KSG students met separately with Nye and University President Lawrence H. Summers to voice their concerns over LRAP’s future.

Cory S. Claussen, a member of the MPP class of 2004, said both administrators expressed sympathy with the students’ goals. “We weren’t fighting a battle to win their hearts and minds,” he said.

Claussen, an organizer of the fundraising campaign, noted that a small number of students have resisted the pro-LRAP movement’s collaboration with administrators.

“You can’t change the tone of a movement overnight. And to go from angry protests to ‘let’s-all-cooperate’ in one meeting can seem artificial,” he said. “Some people see this as the poor giving to the poor.”

Students raised a modest $700 at a talent show last month, Claussen said, and 150 students donated to LRAP on Monday. He said the campaign aims to reach 60 percent participation by the end of the week.

A SCHOOL IN TRANSITION

“LRAP is a program that is pretty near to the dean’s heart and is very much a part of his vision for what the Kennedy School should do,” said Gotbaum, who is a vice chair of DALC.

Gotbaum said his gift “was an appropriate way to honor Joe Nye and to honor the Kennedy School.”

Nye will step down from his post as dean at the end of the current semester, handing the reins to David T. Ellwood ’75, the Scott T. Black professor of political economy.

“I am not ready to set goals or targets,” Ellwood wrote in an e-mail yesterday.

But he added, “I would anticipate that potential funders would be pleased, encouraged, even inspired to see that students were committed and actively engaged in fundraising for this important enterprise.”

Nye could not be reached for comment. Jesus Mena, the Kennedy School’s communications director, said the dean is traveling in the United Kingdom and is slated to appear on BBC to discuss his latest book, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics.

—Staff writer Daniel J. Hemel can be reached at hemel@fas.harvard.edu.