This is the seventh installment of a series studying the persona of each Ivy League president—their bank accounts, their haircuts, and the extent to which they’re known and loved. Here’s Harvard President Drew Faust, who may or may not have made a deal with the devil in exchange for knowledge.

It feels wrong to do anything but to cut to the chase and just start talking about money, seeing as that’s really the story of anything Harvard these days. Drew Faust doesn’t seem to have wanted to be the main character in this particular story, but them’s the breaks. I submit for the record this charming little snippet of dialogue:

Charlie Rose: Is anything different about the job than you expected?

Drew Faust: Well losing, as you said, $11 billion dollars of the endowment was certainly a surprise.

Drew Faust Catherine Drew Gilpin Faust is an academic’s breed of university president who was picked in large part for that reason after he who shalt not be named said that thing about women and science that time which shalt not be repeated (so yeah, the fact that Faust is woman is relevant here, too). But now, the fact that she’s not All About the Benjamins is what’s really relevant. This is really just the right time to say: “mo money, mo problems.”

So this is the inconvenient truth:

[Note: Graph removed at the request of Harvard Magazine, who are probably mad we made fun of them. The image is of a plummeting-downward graph.]

Doesn’t it totally look like Al Gore’s graph in reverse, lol! Except this isn’t the world, this is Harvard. (Yes, Harvard students, there is in fact a very distinct difference.)

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Break out the siren GIFs! Barron’s reports (behind a paywall) that the IRS is investigating Harvard Management Co., the embattled organization responsible for Harvard’s ever-dwindling finances in the era of the Allston boondoggle.

The Boston Globe indicates that the investigation, which includes a variety of institutions, may indeed be simply routine. Says a Harvard rep:

“The university has no reason to believe that the examination will have an adverse effect on the tax-exempt status of the university or any other aspect of the university’s operations.”

However, Harvard was chosen — one of only forty schools in the U.S., reports the Crimson – for further investigation after a routine “compliance questionnaire,” and there’s been a great deal of eyebrows raised over fiscal mismanagement (including, per the Crimson, executive compensation) at Harvard, as chronicled in Vanity Fair and here.

In the wake of public outcry post-bailout, Harvard’s tax-exempt status could potentially become a flashpoint — Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) has been criticized the University’s financial practices, and the compensation issue has shades of Merrill Lynch. Harvard could become an easy whipping boy for conservatives if the IRS report blows up.

Which we, of course, hope it does. We’re going to dig deeper on the Harvard financial issue on the days to come — know anything about Harvard’s finances, or the IRS’s decision to investigate? Email us at ivygate@gmail.com. All tips held in strictest confidence.

We’re already salivating for the December issue of Glamour magazine, featuring all four female Ivy League presidents as 2007 Women of the Year.

Prince and DP reports confirm that The Prezettes — Princeton’s Shirley Tilghman, Brown’s Ruth Simmons, Harvard’s Drew Gilpin Faust, and Penn’s Halloween- and maybe-Jihad-loving Amy Gutmann — will appear in glossy photos alongside the likes of Jennifer Garner, Elizabeth Edwards, and child actress Abigail Breslin. Gutmann has already begun denying the fact that she’s totally pumped to get airbrushed:

Though Gutmann doesn’t “have much time to read magazines like Glamour,” she said she is pleased that the magazine will use the Fund to raise money for charities that support causes for women.

Whatevs, Amy, we know you’re excited to get a professional blow-out and glossy photos, and for little girls the world around to cut out your picture and decorate their notebooks with it. For those who can’t wait to see if the Gutbomb reprises her strapless red Homecoming dress, fear not! IvyGate will be there for you on November 13 when Women of the Year hits newsstands.

• Brown: Middle Eastern youths attend “information session about American journalism”… at the Brown Daily Herald.
• Cornell: $5 to anyone that reads this whole thing
• Harvard: Faust throws the Jews a bone
• Penn: Sports. Sports are the way of the future methinks
• Princeton: “‘It’s a more spirited, healthy, athletic-looking tiger,’ Zaninovich said. ‘[It] more appropriately exhibits the spirit of Princeton.’”
• Yale: “We were hit with a rash of sneak-thief thefts over the weekend.” Hehe… herpes