Keeping An Eye Out

Harvard's 12-year-old white elephant may finally make good this year if, as expected, state officials at last give the green light to the University's embattled $350 million Medical Area Total Energy Plant (MATEP). University officials say they fully expect to bring the plant, located near the Harvard Medical School, on line this fall after a Massachusetts environmental commission completes hearings.

The facility already delivers steam and chilled water to a handful of Harvard-affiliated hospitals, but nearby residents have blocked use of its diesel generators to create electric power because they contend the engines emit carcinogens. Robert H. Scott, Harvard's administrative vice president, says an August 24 report from the state's hearing officer indicates "no problem of any kind" with approval, although the University may be forced to abide by some operating restrictions.

Big Buildings

Closer to home, the new $7 million Belfer wing of the Kennedy School of Government will officially open its doors on the weekend of Oct. 13. A public ceremony on Saturday will highlight the opening ceremonies, but the line-up of guest speakers--rumored to include some very big draws--is being kept under wraps.

In the meantime, most professors and administrators have already set up housekeeping in the new building, and classes will reportedly be held in the wing beginning this fall.

Construction dust is still settling on the other side of the Square, where construction of the Fogg Art Museum's new Sackler wing remains on schedule and is about a year away from its scheduled October, 1985 completion date, said John M. Rosenfield, acting director of the museum.

The wing already boasts the Fogg's Oriental Library, which has been moved to the new building, and several other collections are scheduled for relocation later his year, he added.

However one architectural accoutrement that had been planned for the museum addition will not make an appearance Earlier this summer, neighborhood opposition led the University to abandon its plans to build an overhead bridge connecting the main museum building to its new $15 million annex.

The College's Honeymooners

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences, whose circulation has flowed smoothly, if somewhat sluggishly, since the argumentative sixties, will receive a hefty injection of new blood this fall. In the most notable of a series of administrative changes, 11-year veteran Dean of the Faculty Henry Rosovsky this July handed the torch to 40-year-old wunderkind A. Michael Spence. In addition to learning the ropes in his new role, the former chairman of the Economic Department is acting as his own associate deans for undergraduate and graduate education.

These two positions are as yet unfilled after the departure of Sidney Verba '53 and Edward L. Keenan Jr. '57-the former leaving the undergraduate post for the University Librarianship, the latter returning to the History Department after seven years at the helm of the grad school.

Verba's office is literally empty, but Spence has named Peter S. McKinney, an administrator in the Division of Applied Sciences, to serve as acting administrative dean of the grad school for the academic year. The words "administrative dean" are understood to mean that Spence is reserving the crucial grad school decisions for himself.

Further evidence of Spence's interest in the GSAS is a high-level faculty committee he is in the process of appointing to study the GSAS. This committee, to be headed by Leverett Professor of Physics Karl Strauch, will provide the first comprehensive look at the GSAS since 1969.

Meanwhile, the 18-member Faculty Council, the Faculty's elected steering committee, gets back to business this fall with a half-dozen new members after elections in May, but no pressing items on its agenda. In fact, a September 19 meeting, scheduled to deal with any matters of immediate concern, was cancelled.

The new memers are: Associate Professor Diana L. Eck (Sanskrit and Indian Studies); Professor David Herlihy (History); Associate Professor Andrew H. Knoll (Organismic and Evolutionary Biology); Professor David H.P. MayburyLewis (Anthropology); Professor Zeph Stewart (Classics); and Professor Robert M. Woollacott (Organismic and Evolutionary Biology).

Still To Come

Relatively little business was left outstanding when Harvard's administrative machinery ground down last spring, so College administrators will start out with a fairly clean slate this term. Among this items left open for further debate this fall, however, are increasing contact between students and Faculty and a possible revaluation of the freshman housing lottery.

Last year, spurred on by the two-year-old Undergraduate Council, College officials discussed these matters with council members and agreed to consider them further this year. The College will take the first step toward improving student-faculty contact by distributing a survey to establish what students consider the ideal amount of contact, according to Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III.

One proposal on this matter that will take effect immediately is a coupon system which allows students to take their professors to lunch at their House or at the Union free of charge. Coupons may be picked up in Dean Fox's office.

The first order of business for the Undergraduate Council will probably be electing new officers. Once new leadership is place there, expect some discussion on the ever touchy issue of the housing lottery.

Open discussion on the topic sponsored by the council last spring failed to reach any consensus, but the committee on housing plans to devote more time to the issue this fall. The College is reportedly waiting for a firm proposal from the council before it takes up the issue again.

More immediately, a crop of new House masters and senior tutors will greet returning students in Dunster, Cabot, Lowell, and Mather Houses, Myra A. Mayman, director of Radcliffe's Office for the Arts, will take over for departing Cabot Masier Warren E.C. Wacker and Associate Master Ann Wacker. Mayman will hold the post for a year while a search for a permanent replacement is conducted. Joining Mayman at Cabot will be incoming senior tutor Elizabeth Hart '76.

In the river Houses, Terry K. Shaller '72 and Assistant Professor of Mathematics John M. Lee will take over as senior tutors of Mather and Lowell Houses, respectively. Last spring it was announced that Professor of Anthropology Sally Falk more would become the new master of Dunster House.

If all goes well, students will not be greeted by construction workers and scaffolding. Officials say renovations in Dunster, Eliot and Kirkland Houses should be completed by the time students move into the dorms.

Around The Grad Schools

It's business as usual at most of the University's graduate schools this fall, but a few new twists pop up here and there. Perhaps most dramatic is the faculty migration at the Divinity School that has sent that institution scurrying in search of seven new scholars.

The turnover is striking for a school with a faculty of 40 (15 if which are part-time) that has not made a tenured appointment in seven or eight years. At least two of the seven planned appointments are for tenure spots. Among the departing faculty is former Div School dean Krister Stendahl, who will abandon his teaching post to become bishop of Stockholm in the Church of Sweden.

It's really finally here. Almost. The much heralded, long awaited New Pathway program--designed to offer more humane medical training through smaller classes and hands on teaching--will start to start this fall. This year, the applicants will try for the 25 places in the first-ever class, for next fall. A preliminary draft of proposals, approved over the summer, named committees who are now working on faculty recruitment, allocation of educational resources, and curriculum development.

Also, February will see the opening of a new 15-story building at the Med School, on Shattuck and Francis Streets in Boston, straddling part of the old Brigham hospital. In the planning for at least five years, it's been under construction for the last two.

Four floors are for the Genetics Department, and two are the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a resource for Med School faculty. The rest of the space is for research by Brigham and Women's staff.

Spirits should be running a bit above average at the Graduate School of Design, which just completed its first year in the black in quite some time. Administrators there claim part of the reason for their erstwhile budget woes was the decision several years ago to move the Planning Department to the K-School, resulting in the loss of one-third of the GSD's tuition income.

This year the department will be reestablished at GSD independent of the public policy-oriented department at the K-School, instead emphasizing the physical aspects of urban planning and design. Although the K-School will offer the degree, the move will allow Design to add a third department to its Architecture and Landscape Architecture Departments.