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Yes. After a while you become chairman of different functions that go on there. And the most important function was running the visiting committees, because the visiting committees are the way of trying to get an objective outside view on how academe is performing, and they also serve the purpose of being, usually, supportive of the institution, and raising money for the institution.

That turned out to be a very interesting job because there's sixty visiting committees, with a thousand members on them, and with the normal turnover you're really dealing with trying to replace a hundred to a hundred and fifty visitors every year, and to get each committee in proper balance among academics, support types and properly chaired. And it gets you to know quite a lot about the university, because obviously, you have to have some knowledge about each of the units to deal intelligently with its visiting committee. If you have a visiting committee for the school of divinity, you try to get a few “divines” [laughter], and then you try to get a few rich people with religious interest. You try to get them not to be all Episcopalians, or all Presbyterians, because it's a school of religion, it's not a school of one religion.

Do the people on the visiting committee all have to have been from Harvard or not?

No, not at all.

So you have the world to choose from.