The committee member recalled meeting Slive in the Yard during a winter snowstorm after the Fogg director had met with University officials "Seymour's head was bowed, and I said, 'Seymour,' and he looked up, and threw his arms around me and started to cry 'I've just been through a session with the Corporation, 'Slive said."
Shortly after final construction bids were received, Fabing and Slive met with Jon B. Wyatt, vice president for administration, Thomas O'Brisn, vice president for finance, and Henry Rosovasky, dean of the Faculty.
According to Fabing, she and Slive were informed that beyond the construction cost overruns, the administration now felt that the Fogg had not adequately provided for the long-term operating and maintenance expenses of the new building.
Fabing said that the administration had initially required only one year of operating expenses before the onset of construction. Suddenly, Harvard said it would require long-range maintenance financing, although the administrators at the meeting would not specify its extent, she said.
Decision
This new decision, Heiskell said, stemmed from an analysis of costs over the next ten years. Another source with knowledge of the administration's predictions said that this new, more pessimistic prognosis was based on a set of "worst-case" assumptions about the economy and the Fogg's ability to raise income.
Francis H. Burr '35, another Corporation member, said that in recent weeks it had become more apparent that the combination of construction and operating cost increases was threatening the project's future.
"Maybe we were wrong, "Burr said of the Corporation's endorsement of Bok's decision to cancel the project. "But you have to blow the whistle at some point. We just didn't see the money coming in."
Burr said that the proposed Fogg expansion differed significantly from several recent construction projects for University hockey and basketball facilities.
"The money is going to come in for [athletics]," Burr said. "But on this one [the Fogg], they had been back to the well so many times" that there did not seem a good chance of raising the remaining money.
As a last resort, officials compromised on a plan for the sale of some of the Fogg's artwork. But before they could implement the plan, Bok decided to cancel the entire project. That final decision, according to one Fogg supporter, was based on "a psychological funk" created by persistent and exaggerated worries over the national economy and past construction failures such as the Medical Area Total Energy Plant (MATEP), which exceeded original cost estimates of $50 million by about $180 million.
"They've lost so much money on MATEP that they can't contemplate losing any more," said James S. Ackerman, professor of Fine Arts.
Burr confirmed the impression held by Ackerman and others of the Corporation's outlook by saying. "We have been burnt many times before and it's cost a lot of money. There have been many times that we felt foolish, when in retrospect we would have been better to cancel the whole thing out."
Responding to accusations that Harvard had showed more generosity toward athletics at the expense of Fine Arts, Bok said, "That was a different period then when the athletics came along....This is not a particularly optimal period to be substantially expanding facilities....We now have a very different outlook than we faced a few years ago. It is a different era."
Colin stated in his letter to Bok, "If hesitancy to take all risks in the future as a result of bad experience in the past means that Harvard will stop expanding its facilities, the stagnation of its future in more horrible to contemplate than the mistakes of its past."
"It's a problem of psychology," one long-time donor said, "the psychology that everything goes wrong here in terms of money. If you think like that you'd better stop doing everything.