HSA Fired General Manager, But Alleged That He Resigned

The Board of Directors of Harvard Student Agencies fired Andrew W. Nelson as HSA's general manager last February, although the Board said at that time that Nelson resigned from his post.

HSA's Board of Directors announced on February 22 that Nelson resigned for reasons of poor health and would be replaced as general manager by Bradlee T. Howe '63, director of the Student Employment Office.

No Resignation

However, in a letter to The Crimson dated May 1, Nelson says, "Please be advised that my resignation was never submitted to the Board nor to Mr. Jewett."

L. Fred Jewett '57, dean of Admissions and HSA board member, said yesterday, "Mr. Nelson, to the best of my knowledge, did not resign."

Arthur I. Segel '73, last year's president of HSA, said yesterday that HSA had asked Nelson to resign because he rarely showed up for work.

HSA felt that health problems were keeping Nelson from doing his job, Segel said.

Nelson said yesterday that he has had chronic headaches since a 1971 back operation. He said that because of these headaches he came in "either for a half day or not at all" for the first two months of this year.

"It would have been nice if [HSA and Nelson] could have affected a leave of absence arrangement," Nelson said. He said that he is going into the hospital soon for treatment of his headache condition.

Nelson said he does not have other employment and will not be able to look for any until after his hospital stay. He said that uncertainty about his relationship with Harvard would hamper him in any job search.

The Board's statement which announced Nelson's resignation was intended to help Nelson with any future job applications, Segel said.

Jewett said yesterday that at the time of Nelson's departure, "There was no indication that there was going to be any resolution of his Illness, or that he was going into the hospital."

Nelson will remain on the University payroll until June 30 but will perform no duties for HSA. Both Harvard and HSA had been paying Nelson before March 1.

Financial Move

Nelson said yesterday that one of the reasons he lost his job was so that the University could save money. He said that a general manager who was already a University employee would not require as much in additional salary as Nelson was being paid altogether.

Jewett said yesterday that the switch from Nelson to Howe is "not going to save us any long run money."

Here or There

Howe said that he took the job with the understanding that he would get an assistant on July 1 to help with his duties as director of Student Employment, general manager of HSA and an admissions officer. The cost of the assistant would mean that the University would save nothing except perhaps a "thousand here or a thousand there," he said.

Nelson says in his letter, "When I arrived in 1970, I inherited a $35,000 operating loss. In fiscal '71 this was reduced to $12,000 and in fiscal '72, HSA had a $13,000 operating profit."

HSA did show an operating profit last year but, "It was due to a one-time contribution of back Social Security taxes which we had paid erroneously in previous years," Howe said yesterday.

Howe added, "HSA was definitely not a profit-making operation for the first nine months of this fiscal year."

Nelson said yesterday that 1972's profit was due "in part" to the returned Social Security tax money. But he added that there was "a basic turnaround at HSA under my direction.