Spring Break
2008 - Retrospectives - HBS & The US Presidency
George W. Bush & the Elephant in the Room
Brian Dutt (OE), Viewpoints Editor
Issue date: 12/8/08 Section: News
As Harvard MBAs, with President Bush leaving office in just under two months, this may be a time to turn more introspective - what (if anything) would you have done differently?
At Harvard Business School, "we educate leaders who make a difference in the world." Yet, our campus presents no tangible reminder of the graduate who has made the most difference in the world out of the thousands to walk the halls of Spangler Hall: George W. Bush.
There is no portrait. No engraved bronze plaque. No dedicated park bench. No building bearing his name. No George W. Bush LEAD case. In fact, no one I have spoken with for this article has any knowledge of President Bush even returning to campus since graduation. There seems to be a lack of connection between our community and the only President in history with an MBA on his resume. Is it our doing? Is it his? But more importantly, can we detach ourselves from our rooted political persuasions to try to learn something from a man who for all intents and purposes - is one of our own?
It is no secret that when Bush decided to enter the politics of Texas and the south in the 1970s, his Ivy-league sheepskins from Yale and Harvard became liabilities. Bush learned this hard reality in 1977 after he was "out Christianed and out-Texaned" in a close race for the House of Representatives with a Conservative Democrat. It took him until 1994 to shape himself into a man who stood for education improvement, welfare reform, and crime reduction, and was worthy of the Lone Star State Governor's office.
His even more improbable win of the 2000 Presidential election by a razor-thin margin catapulted him to the world stage, and it was time for a New England reconciliation - with New Haven, at least. In 2001, President Bush fresh from the completion of the "first 100 days in office test" travelled to Yale to deliver the speech for his alma mater's 300th commencement, and re-establish the New England elite connection that had contributed to his first political defeat almost a quarter-century earlier. Despite ongoing protest from the audience over things like the Kyoto Protocol, President Bush proclaimed, "In my time, they spoke of the 'Yale man.' I was really never sure what that was, but I do think that I'm a better man because of Yale."
At Harvard Business School, "we educate leaders who make a difference in the world." Yet, our campus presents no tangible reminder of the graduate who has made the most difference in the world out of the thousands to walk the halls of Spangler Hall: George W. Bush.
There is no portrait. No engraved bronze plaque. No dedicated park bench. No building bearing his name. No George W. Bush LEAD case. In fact, no one I have spoken with for this article has any knowledge of President Bush even returning to campus since graduation. There seems to be a lack of connection between our community and the only President in history with an MBA on his resume. Is it our doing? Is it his? But more importantly, can we detach ourselves from our rooted political persuasions to try to learn something from a man who for all intents and purposes - is one of our own?
It is no secret that when Bush decided to enter the politics of Texas and the south in the 1970s, his Ivy-league sheepskins from Yale and Harvard became liabilities. Bush learned this hard reality in 1977 after he was "out Christianed and out-Texaned" in a close race for the House of Representatives with a Conservative Democrat. It took him until 1994 to shape himself into a man who stood for education improvement, welfare reform, and crime reduction, and was worthy of the Lone Star State Governor's office.
His even more improbable win of the 2000 Presidential election by a razor-thin margin catapulted him to the world stage, and it was time for a New England reconciliation - with New Haven, at least. In 2001, President Bush fresh from the completion of the "first 100 days in office test" travelled to Yale to deliver the speech for his alma mater's 300th commencement, and re-establish the New England elite connection that had contributed to his first political defeat almost a quarter-century earlier. Despite ongoing protest from the audience over things like the Kyoto Protocol, President Bush proclaimed, "In my time, they spoke of the 'Yale man.' I was really never sure what that was, but I do think that I'm a better man because of Yale."
Be the first to comment on this story