Faculty Council Looks To Change Allston Input Balance

On the heels of two Faculty meetings in which professors have sparred with University President Lawrence H. Summers over his plans for the University’s land in Allston, the Faculty Council last week discussed ways to give professors more say in planning the new campus.

Council member and Baird Professor of Science Gary J. Feldman proposed forming a Faculty committee which he said would “consult widely with the Faculty, representatives of the professional schools, and the Allston task forces” and report its findings after a year.

But it remains to be seen whether such a committee would hold any sway—or even make it off the drawing board.

The new campus in Allston—the “planning assumptions” for which Summers announced in October—will consist of some science facilities of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), the Graduate School of Education, the School of Public Health and potentially undergraduate housing.

The plan has incited opposition from many faculty members, who primarily object to the notion of splitting sciences and to the planning process, which has been criticized as insufficiently consultative.

One council member said faculty members are “upset at what seems to have been a rammed-through agenda by the president and his team.”

Besides high-profile debates with Summers at meetings, much faculty dissent has been privately voiced.

Professors say Allston is a hot topic for debate around the water cooler and at the lunch table.

“There is a great deal of concern among the FAS faculty over Allston planning,” Feldman wrote in an e-mail. “The FAS faculty has not had a process in which it, as a faculty, could participate in these crucial discussions. It is important for the faculty to take ownership of the planning for its future.”

This proposal comes just one week after Summers told the full Faculty at its monthly meeting that it would not have the opportunity to vote on Allston plans.

“It has not been the practice of the Faculty to vote on new buildings, on the physical plant or on questions relating to the allocation of slots,” Summers said at the meeting. “For reasons deeply rooted in University governance and tradition...matters regarding the allocation of resources by Massachusetts Law are reserved for the Harvard Corporation.”

Professor of Psychology Marc D. Hauser, a council member who was absent from Wednesday’s meeting, said he supports the idea of a committee but worries that the administration has already made its decision.

“We all want more discussion, and the committee is a good way to start,” he said. “The question is whether that’s going to do anything. Are we fighting a stone wall?”

The council also discussed in broad terms the recurring concern of splitting FAS science between the two banks of the Charles.

Science professors in particular have raised concerns about the plan’s potential inconvenience and the pedagogical impediments that could result from the proposal to have the sciences straddle the river.

And although Summers maintains that the FAS science buildings in Allston could consist of entirely new programs—leaving all current facilities where they are—science professors still worry that they may have to move.

“The overriding fact is that scientists are unhappy,” one council member said. “The scientists don’t want to move.”

Hauser says that while all the sciences are pressed for space, the division of the sciences would be “a disaster” for many departments.

“It has to be shown that they have exhausted all possibilities [for FAS science] in the vicinity of [the Cambridge] campus,” Hauser said.

Although it was on the council’s agenda, discussion of a letter penned by council member and Welch Professor of Computer Science Stuart M. Shieber ’81 was postponed because of Shieber’s absence from the meeting.

According to professors who have read the letter, Shieber highlights scientists’ main concerns about the University’s plans for Allston—taking issue with the decision to leave the Law School where it stands while dividing science facilities between the new land and Cambridge. While scientists have opposed a potential divide in FAS sciences for years, the letter marks the most explicit criticism of an Allston science campus yet.

Shieber’s letter will likely be discussed at the council’s next meeting—scheduled for Dec. 10—when it will resume consideration of Allston plans.

And one member said the issue will likely linger.

“My expectation is that the anger will not be easily set to rest,” one council member said, noting that science professors and staff make up more than half of the total faculty. “This will not die down in the next month.”

—Staff writer Stephen M. Marks can be reached at marks@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Rebecca D. O’Brien can be reached at robrien@fas.harvard.edu.