Harvard and Endeavor Launch Leadership Training Platform

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Endeavor and Harvard University announced the launch of Versity, a new online professional development learning platform, in a joint press release on May 2.

Versity will officially launch in June with three courses that are each co-taught by a Harvard professor and a celebrity actor affiliated with Endeavor.

Endeavor is a global sports and entertainment company based in Beverly Hills, California overseeing talent agencies, sports leagues, and brand marketing.

Most notably, Endeavor maintains a controlling interest in the company that owns UFC and WWE, the premiere mixed martial arts and wrestling leagues.

Harvard spokesperson Jason

A. Newton wrote in an emailed statement Thursday that Versity is “a new opportunity for Harvard faculty to create high-quality short-form courses with new educational content for different types of learners whom Harvard faculty might not otherwise reach.”

The new platform is geared toward companies that seek to provide their employees with educational opportunities to help them build leadership skills.

Versity is a collaboration between Endeavor and Harvard’s

Office of the Vice Provost for Advances in Learning, a University administrative wing that focuses on online learning and innovations in education.

The collaboration with Endeavor to establish Versity will allow professors to share their expertise in a manner that protects the intellectual property of the faculty member and Harvard, according to Newton.

When Versity launches next month, three of Harvard’s most well-known professors will be the first on the platform.

Government professor Michael J. Sandel and Michael B. Jordan will collaborate on a course about tech ethics; Harvard Law School professor Jody L. Freeman and Amy Poehler will co-teach a course titled “Purpose, Perspective, and Persuasion”; and University Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Cynthia Erivo will serve as the instructors of “How to Bring the Real You to Work.” Guy Schory, who serves as chief digital officer at Endeavor, said in the press release that Versity “combines results-driven pedagogy with world-class storytellers to bring a unique and engaging perspective to learning.”

“By combining leading global minds, creative talent, and a dynamic, interactive technology platform, we are creating a whole new way to develop the leaders of tomorrow,” Schory added.

Versity expects to unveil ad - ditional courses throughout the rest of 2023, according to the press release. Harvard will use any proceeds it receives from the collaboration with Endeavor to support Versity’s course design and to reinvest in the University’s teaching and learning initiatives, according to Newton. the rent is too damn high and it just keeps going up,” HGSU-UAW organizer TomHenry J. Reagan said at the rally. “We are here because the wealthiest academic institution in history thinks it’s okay to tell its employees to go on food stamps.”

Versity isn’t the University’s first online educational partnership.

The initiative is similar to the $30 million collaboration between Harvard and MIT in 2012 that established edX, an online learning platform that allowed users to take digital courses from the two institutions for free.

The virtual learning platform was sold in 2021 for $800 million to 2U, Inc., a Maryland-based education technology firm — though the company’s stock price has since plummeted. Gates said in the press release that he is “deeply honored” to be teaching one of Versity’s three inaugural courses.

“Since Socrates, great teaching has always been characterized by great storytelling,” Gates said.

“Working alongside the brilliant actor Cynthia Erivo, we thread a wide range of riveting narratives into the fabric of our pioneering course on social identity and cultural authenticity,” he added.

Organizers from the Harvard Academic Workers campaign also spoke at the rally. HAW is attempting to unionize non-tenure-track academic workers and has been collecting union authorization cards since February, when they first launched publicly.

“Asking for a living wage is not greedy, it’s not selfish, and it doesn’t undermine that commitment to what you do,” HAW organizer and Harvard Medical School postdoctoral fellow Morgan Gilman said.

“We all know that the money is in the budget. They have no trouble finding the money when they’re writing their own paychecks. This is a matter of priorities,” Gilman added.

Harvard President Lawrence S. Bacow earned more than $1.3 million in 2021, an increase of around $200,000 from what he made in 2020.

Rally goers also criticized the University’s acceptance of the donation from Griffin, taking issue with his support of Republican politicians.

Griffin donated nearly $60 million to Republican candidates during the 2022 midterm election cycle and has publicly supported Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for president in 2024, though DeSantis has not yet announced a presidential bid. Griffin has also contributed to Democratic politicians, including $500,000 to U.S. President Joe Biden’s inaugural committee.

“We’re here because when a billionaire Republican sugar daddy wants to boost his ego, Harvard will happily oblige for a bargaining cost of $300 million,” said Reagan, a first-year Ph.D. student in Engineering Sciences.

University President Lawrence S. Bacow has defended the school’s decision to accept Griffin’s donation and rename GSAS in his honor, adding that Harvard should not screen donors for their political affiliations.

The HGSU-UAW petition states Harvard’s decision to accept Griffin’s donation “reinforces a long history of association with the billionaire class and per- nicious anti-labor figures.”

The letter criticizes Griffin for opposing teachers’ unions. In a February 2022 interview with billionaire David M. Rubenstein — a member of the Harvard Corporation, the University’s highest governing board — Griffin said he believes an important part of achieving the American Dream is “by having an on-ramp to education.”

“And unfortunately, we’ve put a detour on that on-ramp in many parts of our country where the interest of the public sector unions dominates the rights of the children,” he said.

The petition also condemns Griffin for his support of DeSantis, who it says “has built his national political profile off of ruthless attacks on queer and trans people.” In 2022, DeSantis signed a state law — referred to by many detractors as the “Don’t Say Gay” law — forbidding kindergarten to third-grade public school teachers from teaching about gender identity and sexual orientation. DeSantis has also opposed gender-affirming health care for transgender minors.

In an April 12 statement to The Crimson, Jaquelyn M. Scharnick ’06, a spokesperson for Griffin, wrote that it is “patently false that Ken would in any way support viewpoint restriction as he has been one of the strongest supporters of free speech and free inquiry in the country.”

“Ken said as recently as today that no one who contributes to a politician agrees 100% with their views and policy positions,” wrote Scharnick, a former Crimson News editor. “This is as true for Ken’s financial support of Governor DeSantis as it was for his backing of the campaigns of President Obama and Mayor Rahm Emanuel.”

Per Forbes, Griffin has publicly backed DeSantis’ “Don’t Say Gay” law, saying that DeSantis has “a really important point of view.”

Following the rally, recently elected HGSU-UAW president Evan C. MacKay ’19 led a march around Harvard Yard to deliver the petition to Massachusetts Hall.

“We know that at the richest institution in higher education in the history of the world, Harvard can pay its workers a living wage,” MacKay said.