“The bookkeeping was totally inadequate,” says Kidd, who had to re-document all of the hours paid for by government funds.

Months later, seeking to reenter higher education, Kidd found herself with a job offer from Harvard. The environment she encountered in Cambridge was as turbulent as the end of her stint at CityYear.

About a year before Kidd’s arrival at Harvard, then-Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis ’68 and then-Administrative Dean of the Faculty Nancy L. Maull spearheaded a “Report on the Structure of Harvard College” which called for stronger oversight of the Phillips Brooks House Association (PBHA).

PBHA, Harvard’s largest student-run group, is an umbrella organization for public service efforts. Though run independently, PBHA is overseen by the director of Phillips Brooks House (PBH), an arm of the College which coordinates public service staffers and advises independent student public service groups.

While the 1994 Lewis-Maull report went a long way to spur a reorganization of PBH and its oversight of PBHA, other factors contributed. After a series of accidents involving PBHA vans and allegations that then-Executive Director of PBH and PBHA Greg A. Johnson ’72 was leveraging the value of PBHA’s public image to get more funding, the College restructured PBH and appointed Kidd.

In 1996, Kidd became assistant dean of public service at the College and director of PBH.

“The place had become so large and dynamic that it needed some organization that made sense,” says Johnson, who was involved with PBHA from his time as a student until 1996. “But the University really just wanted to control PBHA.”

The change provoked such anger that a crowd of between 750 and 2,000, depending on estimates, gathered in the Yard on a cold December morning in 1995 to protest.

This was the firestorm that met Kidd when she assumed her post one month later.

Kidd was blasted for lacking the hands-on experience in public service that some felt the position demanded.

“She was going to be loyal to the people who hired her, period,” Johnson says.

A student who was involved in the leadership of PBHA at the time and asked not to be named says the situation Kidd entered was “impossible” because of the tensions between PBHA students and the University Hall administration.

“She got the job because she was willing to say to the Harvard administration, ‘I believe your point is right,’ and students were furious,” the student says. “She was not that concerned with their fury—she had a point of view and tried to make it a reality.”

Kidd says entering Harvard at that time was difficult.

“You always prefer to start from a basis of trust and excitement rather than anger,” Kidd says. “I didn’t feel the attacks on me were personal...PBHA did not want that level of oversight, and therefore they were going to be angry no matter who was put in that position.”