The Windy University

In the midst of several tumultuous months of media scrutiny, Harvard University President Lawrence H. Summers and the rest of the Harvard community have reason to be unabashedly proud. The winds are most certainly blowing in the right direction with Summers’ announcement of a $100,000 per year renewable energy fund that will make Harvard the leading purchaser of renewable energy among American universities.

When a resounding 82 percent of College undergraduates voted last December in favor of adding a termbill fee to fund College wind purchases, campus administrators responded that they wanted to preserve the sanctity of the termbill; at the same time, however, they assured us that they would make sure to respond with concrete action to the clear student demand for renewable energy. The University has responded and has done so in convincing fashion, nearly doubling the amount that would have been raised by the opt-out termbill fee, and taking the additional step of establishing a $3 million Green Building Loan Fund to finance energy-efficient designs in new buildings.

By planning to spend half of next year’s $100,000 commitment on research and development of renewable energy, Harvard is putting the money where it can be best used. While serving as a leader in purchasing renewable energy is important, any purchases Harvard makes are ultimately a drop in the bucket of U.S. energy expenditure. Harvard, however, uniquely has the resources—both human and physical—to make enormous advances with respect to finding ways to make renewable energy more efficient, more practical, and cheaper.

This renewable energy initiative comes on the heels of Harvard College Library’s announcement of plans to make Lamont Library open 24-hours beginning next fall. We are encouraged by these latest developments and their indication that the administration is in tune with students’ desires. Still, we would like Harvard College specifically to join the Kennedy School of Government and the School of Public Health in making a financial commitment to renewable energy in addition to the commitment at the overall University level. Such an action would be commensurate with the grassroots efforts of members of the Environmental Action Committee and the Harvard Students for Clean Energy—the co-organizers of the termbill initiative—and the will of the undergraduate voters who assuredly had a large role in putting renewable energy on the administration’s agenda.