| It's possible, but I'm skeptical. Giving someone a nice office doesn't take all that much. Unpaid "visiting scientist" or "research affiliate" positions aren't actually very hard to come by. It doesn't take more than one decision maker. I've had similar positions at several schools, mostly as a convenience, and all it takes is one prof to send an email or fill out a one-pager form (depending on the school). Office space is largely a matter of availability. If it's scarce in a lab, you're not getting it. If it's plentiful, well, I've had random offices at universities too. I know plenty of people with such positions at MIT with minimal academic backgrounds. The general arrangement was that a professor wanted something done. Someone was willing to do it for free, usually because it was interesting and fun. Professor signed a form. In one case, this was a random person more-or-less off-the-street (at MIT). Harvard is also broken up into silos; it's more like a loose confederation of schools than a unified university. That makes things like this even easier, since only one place needs to agree. Most of Harvard seems to take their motto of veritas pretty seriously, still. That doesn't mean they don't keep secrets -- they do -- but I haven't seen them openly lie much. Their corruption is different; it's more about building out a political power base. As far as I know -- although this is really quite third hand -- Larry Summers was an explicit, planned takedown. Harvard politics are... complex. |