"It's satisfying to see one's ideas reflected in statements the president makes and in policies international institutions make with developing countries," says Ropes Professor of Political Economy Lawrence H. Summers, who is undersecretary of the treasury for international affairs.
"It was an agonizing decision [to leave], but I felt the position I was offered was a very rare opportunity for an economist to really use his economic ideas to have real impact," says Summers.
That phrase summarizes for academics the appeal to academics of what is unquestionably the big time the way "The Show" does for minor league baseball players. Harvard professors are having "real impact," and the catalogue of policy initiatives they are involved with is impressive and comphrehensive.
"I will be working with the president to develop major human rights initiatives in all aspects of foreign policy," says former Vice President for Government, Community and Public Affairs John H. Shattuck, now assistant secretary of state for human rights.
Specifically, Shattuck will work to guide the process of granting China Most Favored Nation trade status, which depends largely on the nation's progress on human rights. He will also be preparing for an international world conference in Vienna on human rights. Shattuck will be deputy head of the U.S. delegation to the gathering.
Summers worked on the package of U.S. support for Russia revealed in April. He is involved with an initiative to reduce Africa's debt burden and to encourage family planning there. He also participated in the Uruguay Round of international trade talks.
The Harvard touch is equally present in domestic policy.
De Long remembers his office on "full alert trying to produce and process quantitative data to help the congressional vote for the budget." Day to day, he analyzes the impact of the spending and regulatory roles of the government.
Assistant Professor of Economics David M. Cutler, a liason between the Council of Economic Advisors and the National Economic Council, is involved with Hillary Rodham Clinton's Health Care Task Force.
Donahue is working to create a school-to-work transition system for high school graduates and "trying to develop ways to redefine the labor angle [from] work force protection to work force development."
The list could go on and on. As the institution's collective ego merits, few areas of government, few campaign-speech initiatives and few front-page stories seem to be without at least some minimum involvement by a Harvard figure, and often an academic.
The potential for hubris-filled University admissions material aside, the prodigious presence of Harvard professors is part of a larger influx of academics into government increasingly prevalent since the 1940s.