Any takers? Harvard is charging $9,900 for a six-day course on how to be a university president – after college’s boss Claudine Gay narrowly escaped being fired amid multiple scandals

Harvard is charging as much as $9,900 for a six-day course on how to be a “university president” – after Claudine Gay narrowly escaped dismissal amid recent scandals.

The course, “Harvard Seminar for New Presidents,” will be offered in July 2024 to new presidents and chancellors of colleges and universities, as well as presidents and chancellors from all sectors of higher education.

The $1,650 per day course is one of the most expensive and shortest programs the university has to offer.

Presidents and chancellors of colleges and universities are expected to be “productive, articulate and responsive leaders from the moment they assume office,” according to the course description.

“With a range of external and institutional challenges to address, new presidents do not have the luxury of learning on the job.”

The course is designed to provide a “practical orientation to the presidency,” familiarizing new presidents with the upcoming responsibilities they may face – and preparing them for how to respond to potential challenges that await them.

The program also offers courses on understanding the relationship between the president and the board of directors and your power to improve institutional governance.

Students will examine the components of the fundraising process and the president's role in ensuring success, “explore the importance of an institution's culture and traditions” and consider the “opportunities and challenges of social media in presidential communications.”

Participants will also study the president's role in strategic planning and learn how to develop institutional performance indicators and support progress

It is unclear who exactly will teach the course this year, but Professor Judith McLaughlin has led sessions at the Harvard Seminar for New Presidents in recent years.

As the course's founder, she has “helped” more than 1,300 college and university presidents since the program's inception in 1990.

Harvard University President Claudine Gay sparked outrage at a congressional hearing last week after she said whether calls for genocide against Jews at Harvard constituted harassment and violated the rules depended on context.

She was then forced to apologize after the hearing that cost Liz Magill of the University of Pennsylvania her job over a similar response.

She made history in July when she was borne the first person of color and only the second woman to lead America's oldest institution of higher education.

Despite calls for Gay's resignation, Harvard has endorsed its 30th president and announced that she will remain in her position with the full support of the Ivy League university's governing body, the university's board of trustees announced Tuesday.

The Harvard Corporation – the university's board of trustees – said in its statement: “Our extensive deliberations reaffirm our confidence that President Gay is the right leader to help our community heal and address the very serious societal challenges we face. to take.'

The administration acknowledged Gay's mistakes in dealing with anti-Semitism on campus, adding, “So many people have suffered enormous harm and pain as a result of Hamas' brutal terrorist attack, and the university's initial statement had an immediate, should be direct and unequivocal condemnation.

“Calls for genocide are despicable and contrary to basic human values. President Gay has apologized for the handling of her testimony in Congress and committed to redouble the University's fight against anti-Semitism.”

The Harvard Crimson was first to report that Gay would keep her job despite widespread calls for her to resign from the political and business worlds following her disastrous appearance on Capitol Hill last week, where she refused to say that calling for the genocide constituted intimidation on Jews.

Billionaire hedge fund alumnus Bill Ackman — who has led a campaign to unseat Gay that included accusations of plagiarism against the scientist — claimed that Harvard's administration did not want people to antagonize him.

In its statement Tuesday, Harvard's administration addressed allegations that Gay plagiarized part of her dissertation and said they had opened an investigation at their own request.

'The university was informed of allegations about three articles at the end of October. At President Gay's request, the Fellows “immediately initiated an independent review by leading political scientists and conducted a review of her published work,” the board said.

“On December 9, the Fellows reviewed the results, which identified some cases of inadequate citation. Although the analysis found no violation of Harvard's standards on research misconduct, President Gay is proactively requesting four corrections in two articles to insert quotations and quotation marks that were omitted from the original publications.”

The board continued, “During this tumultuous and difficult time, we unanimously support President Gay. At Harvard, we champion open discourse and academic freedom, and we are united in our strong belief that calls for violence against our students and disruptions to the classroom experience will not be tolerated.

“Harvard's mission is to advance knowledge, research and discoveries that will help address deep societal problems and promote constructive discourse, and we are confident that President Gay will lead Harvard forward toward accomplishing this critical work .'

The Harvard Corporation, formally the President and Fellows of Harvard College, has twelve members, including Gay, former Amherst College President Biddy Martin and former American Express CEO Kenneth I. Chenault.

Gay, who denied plagiarism on Monday, first sparked anger after the Oct. 7 massacre of 1,200 people in Israel with a tepid condemnation of the outrage.

She was then forced to issue two subsequent apologies, in which she issued a louder condemnation of Hamas, the Palestinian terror group behind the atrocities.

Gay has been criticized for taking a pro-free speech stance on hatred of Jews on a campus recently labeled the most censorious in the United States.

New students are warned that not using a person's requested pronoun or being “fatphobic” could constitute violence.

Gay also helped lead the charge against a black Harvard Law School professor who was fired from his job after defending Harvey Weinstein.

Ronald Sullivan says he was fired from his job in 2019 after agreeing to represent the perverted movie mogul. He accused Gay and others of making up a false story about him being a bully to get rid of him.

Sullivan said, “The actions were cowardly and cowardly and Dean Gay and Dean Khurana just consistently and repeatedly lied to the students and they know better.