Looking for Leverage, Knafel Gives to Harvard

Sidney R. Knafel ’52 believes in leverage—in business, education and philanthropy.

“You want to have a larger sound than the voice you’re expressing,” he says.

Teaming up with other people, either in business ventures or in philanthropy, is the way Knafel says he has gained that sort of leverage.

And supporting Harvard is Knafel’s way of making a difference and contributing to the advancement of education.

Knafel has donated $14 million to Harvard for the construction of the Center for Government and International Studies (CGIS)—originally named the Knafel Center. It will house the Department of Government as well as various research centers related to government and international affairs.

Construction should have begun by now, but after hundreds of hours of talk and debate with the city, the University is still negotiating for the final permits.

The building plan by architect Henry N. Cobb proposes two four-story buildings of rounded glass and terra cotta facing each other across Cambridge Street. The latest point of contention is an underground tunnel beneath the street that would link the buildings.

The project has now grown so much in cost that the University last fall asked Knafel if it could name just one of the buildings after him—and free up the other building to attract some other major donor.

Knafel said last fall he could have dug in his heels and insisted on keeping his name over the entire center, but after “forthright” talks with University fundraisers he agreed to the naming change.

“Calling two buildings ‘Knafel Center’ satisfies a crying ego need I apparently have,” Knafel said. “But I figured I could overcome that and free up a building for some guy who’s got to come along and shell out a couple of bucks.”

“There are too many things Harvard has to do,” he added. “One thing they shouldn’t have to do is battle with their supporters.”

His approach to his center is indicative of how he treats Harvard in general—with humor, a heartfelt reverence and warmth.

He says Harvard has been—for him and others—a “wonderful place to grow up and become aware of the world.”

But Knafel says his personal experiences at Harvard are not the reason he has donated so much to the advancement of the University. Excellence, rather than personal connection, is what Knafel says brings him to provide his support.

“I don’t get involved in Harvard because I’m trying to give back. Consciously that’s not a factor for me,” he says. “I believe that helping Harvard can really make a difference in the world. The fact that I went there, that’s just a coincidence.”

Beyond his contributions to Harvard, Knafel donates his time and money to other “excellent” institutions. He sits on the board of Wellesley College, the alma mater of his late wife Susan Rappaport Knafel, and, just a few weeks ago, he went up to Andover to look at the site for a new building, as the head of an architectural committee to construct more facilities at the school—which he attended briefly before arriving at Harvard.

The Harvard Years

A native of Westchester County, Knafel lived in Winthrop House while an undergraduate—although he freely admits that his busy schedule and visits to Wellesley left him little time to spend there.

Knafel spent much of his time in his undergraduate years at The Crimson as the newspaper’s business manager. Knafel says he gained valuable real world business experience that he could later apply in future business ventures, but what he enjoyed most about The Crimson was the camaraderie among the editors.

Looking back on those years at the College, Knafel says he feels now that he and fellow students lacked a greater awareness of the world outside Harvard.

“We were really quite naïve,” he says. “We were brought up in a depression, and a war. It should have made us very sophisticated, but it didn’t.”

“The issues we had were inconsequential, frivolous concerns,” he adds.

The independence and individual responsibility that Harvard required of him as an undergraduate was a formative experience for Knafel. He says the lack of advising was an incentive for him to take initiative and make decisions on his own.

“We really were thrown into an adult world,” he says.

Knafel says one major regret of the undergraduate career is having taken the class, Democratic Theory and Its Critics. This class was the only one in which the economics concentrator received a grade of less than a B.

Disappointed with his low grade, the young Knafel approached the grader about it, only to receive the harsh response that he should be lucky to have gotten the grade he did.

After graduating from the College, Knafel recalls that he wanted to do anything to stay in Cambridge. His interest in business made Harvard Business School (HBS) seem to be the natural choice.

Knafel said he was surprised to find a “moat” between Cambridge and the B-school. While he was initially disappointed at his distance from the gates of the College, Knafel excelled at HBS and said he enjoyed his time there.

In his first year, Knafel won a Baker Scholarship, the school’s highest scholastic honor.

He founded Vision Cable in 1971 and continued to serve as chair until its sale in 1981—although he has continued to be deeply involved in the industry, serving on the board of Insight Communications Company, Inc. since 1985, as a director of a broadband communications company, as well as biotech and other private firms.

Currently, he is the managing partner of SRK Management Company, a private investment company.

Outside the Boardroom

While maintaining his busy schedule, and remaining active in business and philanthropy, Knafel also has found time for other pursuits, developing an extensive collection of antiques.

Collecting maps is a hobby of Knafel’s that goes back about 20 years to a piece of property on Martha’s Vineyard. When Knafel purchased the Martha’s Vineyard property, which contained a small pond, he heard rumor that the pond had at one time been open to the ocean. Interested in finding out if there was truth to this tale, Knafel acquired an old map of the area. The map indeed showed the land with the pond open to the ocean.

Since acquiring that first antique map, Knafel has acquired an entire collection, with the oldest map dating back to 1434.

Knafel says he enjoys seeing how an understanding of the physical world developed over time. In his collection, he has early maps that show California as an island, and later ones that show California after it was discovered to be part of the North American land mass.

“The nice thing about maps is that they show how the world was discovered,” Knafel says. “It is literally a graphic study.”

Part of the map collection will be on display in Pusey Library during commencement. Also on display from Knafel’s collection is a manuscript that contains the first reference to “Harvard Colledge” in a published document. The display is only the latest way Knafel’s contributions have bolstered the University.

“I think I’m being constructive. Alumni can be very constructive, not just in providing financial resources, which of course is vital, but more than that, I think involved alumni really provide a discipline to the staff and the faculty,” he says. “We reaffirm our dedication to what they’re doing.”

—Staff writer Stephanie M. Skier can be reached at skier@fas.harvard.edu.