The Harvard Crimson: The name of “Harvard” should not be decided in the choice in Bulgaria
Let’s focus on achievement, not diplomas
Harvard successfully formed the government in Bulgaria. Um, let’s try again: The Harvardists – two Harvard graduates from Bulgaria, Kiril Petkov and Asen Vassilev, who received nicknames for their alma mater – are on the verge of taking over the country after a political party founded by they won the third parliamentary elections in the Balkan nation in 2021.
After former Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, a former prime minister of Bulgaria for more than a decade, has been accused of corruption and months of anti-government protests, Petkov and Vassilev’s anti-corruption party, We Continue to Change, is expected to take power. The new party emerges at a critical time in Bulgaria’s history, facing until recently a crisis of the rule of law, widespread distrust of the government and, with the lowest level of vaccine vaccination in the union during a booming COVID-19 epidemic.
We are glad to see that the protests in Bulgaria have led to a return to the political leaders who promise change, honesty and stability to the Bulgarian people. Their actions in the coming months – if you manage to form a coalition – will say many of the words it took to get here, the party victory seems like the democratic response to activism in Bulgaria.
It seems that Kiril Petkov – a graduate of Harvard Business School and Asen Vassilev, a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School – are about to really transform into “civic leaders”, which our university hopes to train behind its gates. It is encouraging to see these pioneers apply skills acquired at Harvard that would be difficult to acquire elsewhere, in their hometowns – wherever they are. Perhaps even more encouraging is the fact that many Bulgarian immigrants followed the example of Petkov and Vassilev, and returned to their country to help reform it.
However, there is one aspect of the election that bothered us a little, albeit our jokes, was the overexposure of these two people as Harvard graduates. Ultimately, Petkov and Vassilev were elected by Bulgarian President Rumen Radev as ministers in the country’s interim government – from where they launched their campaign – largely solely on the back of the Harvard name.
Using a university’s reputation as a qualification is strange and potentially dangerous in two ways: First, it creates the false notion that a Harvard degree is immediately given to an individual better able to handle anything than and another – the idea just as much in the US, most likely in Bulgaria. Secondly, it erases probably the much more significant achievements of these people, other than the approval they received in their youth.
To this end, we hope to see a future in which we give up throwing names – as much in our country as in distant Bulgaria – and instead focus on what our “civic leaders”, including Petkov and Vassilev, have done. with order to earn our respect.
In the meantime, we wish these two men all the best – especially after that, the difficult and crucial work of forming a government of warring parties and potentially the status quo party itself, which they oppose. Maybe in this process they will find their Harvard education useful. “
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2021/12/2/harvard-name-bulgaria-election/