January-February 2007

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Job Vacancy: President of Harvard

Harvard University, a private university providing undergraduate, graduate, and professional education to approximately 20,000 students, employing 11,500 faculty, and offering a cozy place for ex-politicos to park their hats, seeks qualified applicants to fill the position of

By Lawrence Douglas and Alexander George

PRESIDENT

The successful candidate must be

  • A dynamic leader capable of boldly revamping a hidebound and possibly incoherent curriculum while simultaneously preserving the status quo.
  • A visionary educational innovator able to reorganize ossified departmental arrangements while leaving hallowed institutional structures untouched.
  • An outstanding communicator gifted in the art of making innocuous banalities resound like sonorous nostrums.
  • An astute fiscal manager capable of boosting faculty salaries, expanding health-care benefits to nonacademic staff, and enhancing financial aid, all without raising comprehensive fees.
  • A subtle imperialist who understands the art of taking over neighborhoods before displaced residents know what has hit them.
  • A fund-raising rainmaker, comfortable with the concept of trillion, who knows how to pry ill-gotten gains from alumni.
  • An individual of limitless inner strength, able to absorb impossible levels of irrationality, hostility, and outright humiliation without losing the knack of exuding bonhomie.

In particular, we are looking for candidates with a demonstrated record of exemplary leadership. Previous experience might include presidency of a G-8 nation, chief mediator in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, former head of a major state penitentiary, or high-level employment by a recognized deity.

Other helpful qualifications: ESP, sleight-of-hand techniques, movie-star looks, Midas touch.

We are especially eager to hear from qualified individuals who are dedicated to

  • Preserving a meritocratic admissions process that nonetheless protects applicants from minority groups such as legacies and gridiron standouts.
  • Maintaining the highest standards of scholarly achievement as exemplified by publications, research, peace campaigning, and hip-hop cameos.
  • Enhancing faculty diversity through appointment of ex-Bush-administration officials seeking academic refuge.
  • Strengthening the rigors of the Harvard curriculum by ensuring that our students receive the grades they truly deserve (for example, by expanding our grade scale to A+++).

Formal application is not required. A roving band of Tibetan monks will find you.

Harvard is an equal opportunity employer. Harvard does not discriminate, or tolerate discrimination by any member of its community, against individuals on the basis of their race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, transgendered status, age, marital or other disability status, citizenship, veteran status, height, weight, skin condition, hair style, sartorial proclivities, ancestry, speciation, probationary or ex-felon status, grand jury indictments, or warrants for arrest issued by the International Criminal Court. (Smokers, however, need not apply.) We particularly encourage expressions of interest from all qualified female Nobel laureates in the natural sciences. 

Lawrence Douglas and Alexander George teach at Amhert College. Their collaborative work has recently been collected into a book, Sense and Nonsensibility. In 2006, Douglas published his first novel, The Catastrophist. George created the Web site AskPhilosophers.org and is working on a related book to appear in 2007.