Forging Ties Between Harvard and the Smithsonian

In 1973, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CFA) was formed to cap an 18-year experiment in which the University's academic prestige was combined with the Institute's resources. The result marks the union of two of the country's oldest astronomical observatories.

The forerunner of the CFA emerged in 1955 out of an unusual collaboration between Harvard University and the Washington, D.C.-based Smithsonian Institute. While similar joint arrangements later developed into leading research sites such as Los Alamos at the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Chicago's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratories, the CFA was the first to take advantage of pooled resources and helped stake the U.S. to an early lead in international astrophysics.

As Professor of Astronomy John P. Huchra describes it, "the amalgam of the institution is greater than the sum of its parts."

The Smithsonian and Harvard were first brought together under the most personal--and Harvardian--of circumstances. In the 1950s, the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) invited then-Harvard College Observatory (HCO) Director Fred L. Whipple to assume its directorship.

Internationally known for his pioneering work on meteors and comets, Whipple took the post--on condition that the SAO relocate to Cambridge. So vital was Whipple considered to the Smithsonian that the SAO complied and joined HCO in Cambridge that year, while it maintained a separate administration.

Under Whipple's direction, astrophysics at the observatories expanded at an unprecedented rate. Following the world's first human-made satellite launch in 1957--the Soviet Union's Sputnik--the center also received an infusion of government and private funds when previously complacent America plunged into space technology.

Almost overnight, astrophysics gained national prominence after being viewed for years as "a bastard science" akin to astrology, Huchra recalls. From 1955 to 1973, Whipple supervised research in celestial mechanics, upper atmosphere weather meteorics and satellites.

After Whipple retired and gained emeritus status in 1973, the HCO and SAO formally joined to form the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Willson Professor of Applied Astronomy George B. Field took the helm at the center's 60 Garden St. offices, where the SAO and HCO are jointly housed.

Today, Huchra is satisfied with the relationship since "there's a symbiosis" between Harvard and the Smithsonian, he says.

The Smithsonian owns virtually all CFA observational and computational facilities, including the Oak Ridge Observatory at Harvard, Mass., the George R. Agassiz Station in Fort Davis, Tex., the 176-inch equivalent Multiple Mirror (MMT) telescope at the Whipple Oberservatory in Amado, Ariz., and the VAX II Cluster mainframe computers at the CFA, which can perform two million calculations per second.

In return, Harvard offers an "academic atmosphere [that] is very good," Huchra says, adding, "One of the draws for me to the Smithsonian is the ability to teach."

However, the CfA solution is not free from disadvantages. At the observable level, joint staffing prompts confusion among professors in affiliation, not unlike that of sophomore-standing students within their class. "I'm complicated. I'm tenured Harvard faculty, but Harvard doesn't pay my salary," said Huchra.

More serious are salary disputes between the two faculties. While the Smithsonian employs 119 members of the center's 140 tenured faculty, paid salaries of its staff have lagged behind Harvard's over the past 15 years.

Meanwhile another 12 professors, including Geller and Huchra, are jointly tenured by Harvard and the Smithsonian but are paid by the Smithsonian.

"There's always a friction" between faculty, Huchra said, deriving from the perceived "second-class" citizenship of the Smithsonian staff. Other tensions appear when the center attempts to set long-range goals. Professor of Astronomy Margaret J. Geller says that Harvard has been "dragging its feet" on a proposed $20 million telescope to be built in the Southern Hemisphere. The University apparently prefers to rely for now on the Smithsonian facilities.

But Huchra says he expects at least the faculty situation "will change soon," as the Smithsonian boosts salaries.

"HCO has gotten smaller and the Smithsonian has gotten bigger" since the merging of the two, said Huchra. "If [the Smithsonian] weren't here, there'd only be about eight people."