A Temporary Relief

Ask any event planner at the Harvard School of Public Health for a room, and he or she will recommend Kresge 502.

Furnished with swivel chairs and hanging flat-screen TVs, the auditorium lends itself well to interactive seminars and multimedia lectures for large groups.

Too bad it’s almost always booked. For the School of Public Health, the University’s decision in December to halt construction indefinitely in Allston left administrators and faculty scrambling to find temporary solutions to relieve the overcrowding of its cramped spaces.

With the promise of an additional 450,000 square feet of space, Allston would have lifted much of the pressure imposed by overcrowding at the school, which hampered its ability to expand its teaching and research facilities.

Recognizing that a prospective move to Allston was no longer a realistic medium-term solution, School of Public Health officials began efforts this past year to reorganize existing space for maximum use and explore options for leasing additional space in the Longwood Medical Area.

“We are at capacity—I mean, you should see schedules,” says Nancy M. Kane, the school’s associate dean of educational programs. “It takes a computer doing advanced linear programming just to figure out when to schedule a class, and you’re always going to conflict with someone.”

“It’s a nightmare,” Kane adds.

‘BURSTING AT THE SEAMS’

In the fall of 2008, the School of Public Health launched an alternative case-based core curriculum for MPH students based on an interdisciplinary approach to problem-solving in public health.

Kane turned to the only room on the school’s campus equipped to facilitate the face-to-face classroom interaction the new curriculum aimed to create—Kresge 502.

The few rooms that can accommodate the 60 students enrolled in the new curriculum, Kane says, did not offer the semicircular seating unique to Kresge 502 and would have been ineffectual for class discussions.

“You don’t really see each other,” Kane says. “You just see the back of each other’s heads.”

Just a three-minute walk from Kresge, nutrition and epidemiology professor Meir J. Stampfer says existing lab space is not enough to support the school’s growing body of federally funded research.

“It’s not just about getting the grant money,” Stampfer says. “Once you get the grant, you have to have the space to do the research.”

His lab, Stampfer says, recently received funding for more personnel, but he and his team had difficulty finding space to accommodate the new hires.

“It’s just very frustrating because we really don’t have enough space for ourselves,” Kane adds about the school’s space constraints. “They rebuilt downstairs and made more student space, but we’re bursting at the seams.”

MAKING DO

At the end of his first year as School of Public Health Dean, Julio Frenk was saddled with the responsibility of finding a suitable solution for the school’s cramped quarters until the University was ready to move forward on Allston.

“We’re in a state of overcrowding that’s really not sustainable in the long term,” Frenk says.

Though plans are not finalized at this point, Frenk says school officials have identified potential space to be leased in Longwood.

The School of Public Health is also exploring collaborating with Harvard Medical School to share working spaces until financial resources can support any expansionary plans, according to David J. Hunter, the School of Public Health’s dean for academic affairs.

Stampfer adds that his department is reorganizing internally to maximize use of existing space.

“Right now, we’re just squeezing more and more people into the space,” Stampfer says. “We can do that for a little while, but ultimately, that is going to degrade the quality of the experience.”

Similarly, other schools like the Harvard Graduate School of Education—which was promised a piece of the Allston campus that the University envisioned in 2003—have had to reevaluate plans to reflect the changed timeline of Allston expansion.

“We are making improvements to our campus through the construction of new classrooms and better utilization of space,” says Graduate School of Education Dean Kathleen McCartney.

Faculty and administrators at schools affected by the indefinite halt in Allston expansion say the problem is not unmanageable.

“It hasn’t reached the point that it’s starting to impair our ability to function,” says Stampfer, who adds that he appreciates the school administration’s efforts to find temporary solutions to relieve the issue of cramped space on campus.

“People are crammed into small spaces and crowded so it’s not optimal, but it’s doable,” he says.

—Staff writer Xi Yu can be reached at xyu@college.harvard.edu.