First off, a word on nomenclature: from now onwards, the term ‘Cambridge’ on its own shall be taken to mean the original town of Cambridge in the county of Cambridgeshire in the United Kingdom of Great Britian and Northern Ireland. Reference to the town of Cambridge across the Atlantic, if any, will be marked with the name ‘Cambridge, Massachusetts’.
It seems that Cambridge University, in a bid to challenge the financial dominance of its American counterparts, is all geared up to boost its coffers by roping in Nick Cavalla, a fund manager, as its Chief Investment Officer. More about his appointment can be read from the official university press release at this link: http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/news/dp/2006112702
And its actions does not go unnoticed by its American ‘rivals’. At the very least, Cavalla’s appointment has received due attention from the Harvard Crimson, the student-run daily of Harvard University, in an article whose title reeks of journalistic sensationalism: Cambridge Aims for Ivy Treasures.
From this article, I learnt something new: it seems that Alison Richards, the current Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge is amongst the gamut of names put forth as potential candidates for the Harvard presidency. I really hope that she will remain in Cambridge even if the Harvard Corporation decides to lure her back to the States. Then again, there are at least three reasons that might just work against Richards candidacy for the chair of the president:
1) Harvard’s presidents from the time of Henry Dunster till Lawrence Summers have all been males. Nonetheless, it remains to be seen whether the Harvard Corporation will observe the fact that many leaders in academia are in fact women!
2) With the exception of the first two presidents, Dunster and Chaucy, all the presidents are Harvard graduates. To my knowledge, Richards has not studied at Harvard.
3) The president would also most probably be an American. Richards is British. A Brit leading a school which is the bastion of Americana? That borders on the unimaginable.
In short, Richards is most likely to stay here for a while; something which is good for Cambridge.