In the past couple of years, Summers has also pushed to expand the use of class credit, a powerful fund-raising tool that previously only the dean of the Faculty could use.

Class credit is the recognition alums are given within their reunion class for donating to Harvard. Traditionally, College alums must give to one of the FAS dean’s priorities to be credited. Since 2003, however, Summers has made class credit available for gifts to graduate financial aid and for donations to the smaller graduate schools, both of which have been priorities for Summers.

The development office’s new Affinity Card allows alums to earn class credit just by using their credit card.

The revenue from the card will be used for the Presidential Scholars fund, a $14-million Summers initiative to support increased financial aid and low-interest rate loans to graduate students. Summers has also used savings from central administration cutbacks to fund the initiative.

Summers “has made it much more likely that donors will be giving to him than to individual schools,” said a senior FAS professor who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

But Rapier insists that has not been the case.

“In pretty much every case that I know of, when money has gone to support Radcliffe or [the School of Public Health (SPH)] from College graduates, it has not been at the expense of the College,” she says.

SHADES OF CRIMSON

Vice President for Finance Ann E. Berman likes to tell a story about the beginnings of the University’s attempts to centralize purchasing. When Berman began looking at ways to cut procurement costs by utilizing the University’s aggregate purchasing power, she discovered that the various entities of the University were getting 25 different shades of crimson-colored stationary.

The University commissioned a McKinsey study in the spring of 2003 that found Harvard could save up to $15 to $30 million annually by combining its purchasing power

“When we looked at purchasing practices, we discovered lots of odd things,” Berman writes in an e-mail. Millions of dollars are saved every year on the centralized purchasing of computers alone, Berman writes.

The centralization of procurement and budgeting during Summers’ tenure has allowed Mass. Hall to more effectively oversee—and influence—the financial activities of Harvard schools outside of FAS. In contrast to centralization of academic functions, there seems to be more consensus regarding the centralization of administrative tasks.

Perhaps more significant financially—and symbolically—than the centralization of procurement is the changes that Mass. Hall has made to budgeting. The annual tub-by-tub budget reviews, which used to be less substantive, have become an intensive, back-and-forth process between the schools and Mass. Hall under Summers, Berman writes.

“Since we enlarged and refocused the Office of Budget, Financial Planning and Institutional Research, they have become more intensive, and we have been working more closely with the schools,” she writes. “The President, Provost and Corporation have higher expectations for the reviews, and we have tried to meet them.”

“Central administration under Summers has been more directly supportive financially and otherwise of programs and activities at the medical school than any other administration anyone here can recall, but with that direct support comes a desire to ask very hard questions,” says Eric Buehrens, executive dean for administration at Harvard Medical School. “With two former Secretaries of the Treasury and a former head of the Congressional Budget Office [among the University’s top leadership], it’s not surprising that they ask penetrating questions.”