Are you among the 9.8 percent of graduating Harvard seniors with an “undecided” post-graduation path? If so, you’re in luck! Trade that euphemism for some optimism and consider applying for the best new job opening in Cambridge: Harvard College dean.

According to recent reports, current dean Evelynn M. Hammonds will leave her post July 1. In a statement published through an “outside strategic communications company,” Hammonds claims she was not asked to resign, but decided to step down to focus on a full-time career in academic research. A professor of scientific history and African American Studies, she’ll resume her post at the College after a sabbatical.

But let’s face it: nothing sounds sketchier than “outside strategic communications company.” This humble blog is not the first to posit a link, however causal, between Hammond’s resignation and a series of “secret email searches” that occurred in the wake of Harvard’s now-infamous Government 1310 cheating scandal. And while one Crimson editorial does not a change-maker (or career-changer) make, 66 anonymous Crimson trolls can’t be wrong. To quote salient media critic “ConcernedCrimson”:

yea seriously tho.

Naturally, such recent events prompt an important question: who will be the next Harvard College dean? Will it be Andy Samberg, whose 2012 Class Day address seemed to eerily predict Hammonds’ fall from grace? Will it be Yale’s President-elect, Peter Salovey, who is “coincidentally” beginning his tenure June 30? Or will it be Christopher L. Eisgruber, who will “coincidentally” become Princeton’s president effective July 1? Okay, so it probably won’t be any of these guys. After all, a good dean is hard to find, and we’re counting on you to help us (and Harvard!) pick the right candidate. Who should be the next dean of Harvard? More importantly, who will be?

Think you have the answer? Write up a comment, drop us a line and let us know; that’s kind of what we’re here for.

Who would have thought there would have been a weekend when Harvard’s basketball team was more respected than their Quiz Bowl players? One won four National Academic Quiz Tournaments championships in three years, and the other just went on a “historic run” of a two game NCAA win streak. However, last week the NAQT announced that they were revoking Harvard’s four Quiz Bowl championships from 2009-2011, following the revelation that one of the Crimson players had illegally accessed future Quiz Bowl questions.

According to an interview in The Harvard Crimson with Andrew Watkins — Harvard Class of 2011 and the accused Quiz Bowl cheat — this is all a big misunderstanding. Watkins admits that yes, he accessed a webpage with Quiz Bowl questions, and yes, he did this many, many times. But, as The Crimson reports:

“He declined to elaborate on his motivations for accessing the page, and would not say why he opened it repeatedly before important games.”

But what Watkins did say is potentially more interesting than what he didn’t. According to the former Quiz Bowler, “A website containing question content was loaded. At no point did I read the questions therein.” So, he knowingly and repeatedly loaded a webpage with Quiz Bowl questions, but didn’t actually read anything on it. The NQBT president calls shenanigans on Watkins though, telling The Crimson, “It was clearly marked, and anyone who plays Quiz Bowl would know, “Oh, I’m going to play on those questions, I need to stop looking immediately.’”

In true Harvard fashion, suspicions were first raised about Watkins because he was much better than any other player. Watkins, now a chemistry grad student at NYU, did “astoundingly well against some of the greatest science players of all time, beating them in their specialty categories over and over again,” according to a former rival. However, the NQBT president says they didn’t launch an investigation earlier because while Watkins was good, “he wasn’t so good that he was really standing out from everybody else.” Harvard motivation in a nutshell.

This weekend, it came to light that Harvard University secretly accessed the email accounts of their 16 Resident Deans. The Harvard administration confirmed this yesterday morning, releasing a statement detailing their search and the motivation behind it.

Since this revelation, Harvard’s administration has been the target of attacks both internally and externally. Alumni, faculty, and everyone in between have made no secret of the fact that they disagree immensely with the core of Harvard’s actions, and more specifically, how the administration handled the search. Over the weekend, The New York Times quoted Harvard professors who called the search “creepy” and “dishonorable.” Even after the administration released their statement explaining and apologizing for their actions, professors likened Harvard to “the Hoover era FBI” and told The Crimson their true concern was the university “trolling emails.” Same thing, different eras, right?

These sentiments are misguided. While the Harvard administration did not fulfill their obligation to inform the Resident Deans of the investigation as it was happening, the university was fully justified in conducting their email search.

First and foremost: Confidential information was sent out twice by a Resident Dean. No matter how innocuous the emails may seem, the central issue at hand is that a Harvard employee directly in charge of students forwarded confidential information (however vague) about Harvard students involved in a disciplinary matter. It’s not that far of a stretch to worry about what other — potentially more sensitive — information this Administrative Board member would leak. And Harvard needs to worry about that, not because of pride or honor or their need to maintain everlasting fear, but rather because FERPA exists. Boring, maybe, but true.

According to their statement, the first step Harvard made was to ask the Resident Deans if one of them had leaked the emails. It was only after no one — including the guilty party — owned up to something the administration knew happened that the email search was initiated. According to the university’s statement, “It was made clear at that time that absent clarification of what happened, an investigation would be required. No one came forward.” Resident Deans were asked multiple times if they knew anything about the emails and, shockingly, nothing was confessed. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the weekend it was revealed that Harvard University had secretly accessed the email accounts of 16 Resident Deans in connection with a leaked confidential message regarding the university’s recent cheating scandal. Across a number of websites, Harvard faculty members and alumni called the search “creepy,” “dishonorable,” and “one of the lowest points in Harvard’s recent history — maybe Harvard’s history, period.”

This morning, Harvard’s Deans office released a statement about the email search, describing it as “limited to a search of the subject line of the email that had been inappropriately forwarded.” The statement also revealed that the covert operation had the approval of Harvard’s Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and General Counsel, and the support of the Dean of Harvard College.

One of the key issues in question here is not only whether Harvard had the right to access the Deans’ emails, but if they also had an obligation to inform them of the search. From Harvard’s statement:

“Some have asked why, at the conclusion of that review, the entire group of Resident Deans was not briefed on the review that was conducted, and the outcome. The question is a fair one. Operating without any clear precedent for the conflicting privacy concerns and knowing that no human had looked at any emails during or after the investigation, we made a decision that protected the privacy of the Resident Dean who had made an inadvertent error and allowed the student cases being handled by this Resident Dean to move forward expeditiously.”

According to a Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences electronic policy document, “The faculty member is entitled to prior written notice that his or her records will be reviewed, unless circumstances make prior notification impossible, in which case the faculty member will be notified at the earliest possible opportunity.” While The Crimson notes that Resident Deans are not technically faculty, they do have some faculty privileges, so this would seem like “clear precedent.” However, the statement does offer an apology to the Deans (real story: Harvard apologizes!), so that’s something.

Also, for what it’s worth, the search worked. Harvard’s statement acknowledges that the university found the person they were looking for by searching the email subject lines and collecting “metadata” — the name of the sender and the time the emails were sent. While it may make for an uncomfortable precedent in the view of some faculty, it was also effective.

Click through for the full (long) statement from the Harvard Dean’s office: Read the rest of this entry »

More than half of the Harvard students involved in last year’s cheating scandal have been forced to withdraw from the university, according to an email sent out today to the Harvard community. The investigation into members of Government 1310: Introduction to Congress was first announced in August, after similarities were found in 125 take-home open-book final exams.

The Crimson reports that of the students initially charged by the university more than half were required to withdraw, while about half of those who are allowed to stay on campus received disciplinary probation. No actions were taken against the other students.

As Bloomberg points out, Harvard stated in August that students forced to withdraw as a result of cheating could be off campus for up to two semesters.

In early October, Outside published a 5,000+ word exposé of Tough Mudder, the adventure racing company founded in 2010 by Will Dean, an alumnus of Harvard Business School. The story is well worth reading in full for journalist Scott Keneally‘s thorough assessment of the company’s rapid growth over the past two years. (Update: there’s also a trailer!)

What really snagged our attention, however, was Keneally’s survey of allegations that Will Dean stole the idea of Tough Mudder while he was a student at HBS.

The evidence of wrongdoing hinges on a Harvard-endorsed field study Dean performed at Tough Guy Limited, in the United Kingdom, where Dean is from. In a nut: after completing the field study, Dean submitted to Harvard and Billy Wilson (the proprietor of Tough Guy Limited) two different reports of his work:

In December, when Dean completed his report, he submitted one version to Harvard and a slightly modified one to Wilson. Both described the potential for more events, but the version he sent to Wilson omitted key recommendations for how he might immediately expand. Rather, he suggested Wilson adopt a wait-and-see approach. Wilson was unimpressed with the report, and the two men fell out of touch.

It’s sort of like The Social Network (minus the Trent Reznor soundtrack) — except that Harvard eventually took action against Will Dean.

Keneally discusses an internal Harvard investigation that arose from a complaint Billy Wilson sent to the biz school’s faculty less than two weeks after Tough Mudder staged its first event in the spring of 2010. We recently got our hands on the text of the investigation’s final ruling, which Outside quotes from, and it’s actually a bit more unsparing than the magazine lets on. Read the rest of this entry »

Oh my. From the Crimson:

Helping those with primarily low academic qualifications into primarily academic institutions makes as much sense as helping the visually impaired become pilots. How would you feel if you were assured before going into surgery that your surgeon was the beneficiary of affirmative action in medical school? I do not see why higher academic institutions should lower their standards for admission.

PLOT TWIST: the author is—hiss, hiss!—a legacy:

In a way, I am the product of a sort of affirmative action, and it takes a terrible psychological toll. My father went to Harvard College, which makes me a legacy. I am kept up at night by the thought that simply because my father has attended and donated to the University, I might have taken the spot of a more qualified applicant. My name is not exactly “Sarah Wigglesworth Hurlbut Coop,” but I am still a legacy, and the thought of its bearing on my admission is somewhat terrifying.

May blogs diagnose new disorders? The author appears to be suffering from the delusion, largely indigenous to New England and the Tri-State area, that life is like the Harry Potter universe, where young wizards are admitted to Hogwarts by way of pure destiny and magical envelopes, rather than SAT tutors and enormous parental donations. This legacy actually seems to believe that she could not have attended any other school, or just not applied to Harvard in the first place, thereby saving her years of suffering, of thinking she doesn’t actually belong at Harvard.

And to answer the burning question: of course she took the spot of a better applicant. Probably a far better one. What else are legacy admissions for? Rescuing endangered animals?

The Harvard Voice — “Harvard University’s premiere student-life publication” — recently published, then retracted, the following paragraph:

You can always spot the Asian contingent at every pre-interview reception. They dress in the same way (satin blouse with high waisted pencil skirt for girls, suits with skinny ties for boys), talk in the same sort-of gushy, sort-of whiny manner, and have the same concentrations and sky-high GPAs. They’re practically indistinguishable from one another, but it’s okay. Soon, they will be looking at the same Excel spreadsheets and spend their lunch talking about their meaningful morning conversations with the helpdesk of Bloomberg. Uniqueness is overrated when you make six-figure salaries.

The Crimson says the paragraph was eventually scrubbed from the listicle (“5 People You’ll See at Pre-Interview Receptions”), to which the Voice’s editors appended the anonymous author’s response (which, incredibly, was also deleted):

Clearly, I’ve been censored, which in itself is an interesting reflection on free speech in America. If you couldn’t tell that this article was satire, then we have bigger problems than me being ‘offensive.’ (If you are curious to know what the censored stereotype is, just take a quick look around the room. JK!)

And then the author took it all back, launching into a careful—yet honest, yet brave—discussion over how to confront the racial resentment that continues to plague the Ivy League. JK! That probably would have been deleted too.

[The Crimson]

The recent Harvard University cheating scandal seems to be everywhere these days, and lest we forget, it’s not just affecting students in Cambridge: Its influence touches everyone in the Ivy League. An article today in The Daily Pennsylvanian takes the actions of the 125 Harvard students as an excuse to moralize about the superior virtue and integrity present in the student body of the University of Pennsylvania. As the article’s subheadline reads, “Some cite ‘cultural difference’ between the two universities.” Cultural differences between Penn and Harvard you say… Oh please, go on.

The piece is riddled with Harvard bashing from administrators and students alike, but, as noted above, the best part of it all is that they don’t just take their fellow Ivy down; they use the scandal as a way to idealize their own (eighth place) university. As one student says:

“There was a culture at Harvard where it was acceptable to collaborate on take-homes … That’s not allowed here. Students know a take-home is an exam that should be their own work.”

Yes, while Harvard students may have thought they were allowed to work with their classmates, no one needs to tell a Penn man or woman that such behavior is simply unacceptable. Collaboration? That’s not allowed at the University of Pennsylvania, everyone knows that.

A fellow student echoed the point:

“I understand the cutthroat nature of an Ivy League institution, but I’ve never felt the necessity to go beyond the realm of what is accepted.”

A Quaker can surely see the faults in others, and understand how such illicit dealings might prove tempting in order to get ahead in life, but partake in these activities? Never. Read the rest of this entry »

Institutional Ethics is a new column about the fun, fun world (really) of ethics in the Ivy League. Please forgive the ClipArt. —Eds.

When news of the Harvard plagiarism business first broke, I couldn’t help but chuckle—because honestly, how could they be so stupid? (Aside: As a Yalie, I’ll admit that it was nice for another Ivy—read: Harvard—to be in the news for less-than-honorable reasons.)

A bit more digging, however, shows that the case isn’t quite as open and shut as 125 Harvard undergraduates circle-jerking for exam answers. (Okay, I’m done with the Harvard bashing.) As the New York Times reported on August 31, the cheating may have been due to “innocent—or at least tolerated—collaboration among students”. Is collaboration on a final cheating? Well, yes.

When the Harvard Crimson revealed the scandal, they included a telling photograph of the exam instructions, exposing a heavy use of the phrase et cetera—which, as my friend and fellow Yalie Zara Kessler pointed out, is essentially code for “I’m out of specific things to say, so here’s a vague-ish Latin phrase that’s very open to interpretation.”

But that Times quote belies a particularly sticky reality: if working together on take-home exams has been implicitly tolerated in the past, who’s really at fault here—the institution or her students?  Read the rest of this entry »