In the quarter-century since Harvard first perceived that
its potential for expansion lay in Allston, that idea has grown to encompass
many things, including:
investments in land assembly (the
first parcel was acquired in 1989), planning and regulatory review,
architectural and engineering fees, construction (the currently suspended
science complex), and senior University management time—together totaling at
least hundreds of millions of dollars;
academic planning spanning parts
of the terms of four Harvard presidents, two provosts, and countless deans; and
elaborate engagements with the
affected neighbors in the Allston community.
What it has not yet produced is a vision for Harvard’s
future that would enlist faculty members’ enthusiasm for new possibilities in
research and teaching, excite donors, and translate into public understanding of
the University’s aspirations. Now there are hints that the first elements of
such a vision might be coming into focus—albeit with the sharp birthing pains
that always accompany a proposal to relocate a lot of people and their work to
a new frontier.
A trickle of hints turned into a torrent of information at
the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) meeting on February 5. President Drew
Faust and Provost Alan Garber—who was docketed to speak “about updated planning
for new academic programs in Allston”—unveiled plans to relocate the majority
of the School of Engineering and Applied
Sciences (SEAS) to the uncompleted science facility there. SEAS faculty
members, who indicated that the contemplated move had been made known to them
only very recently, raised many concerns about the proposal.
Given the significance of this news, this report:
summarizes today’s news
developments;
reviews the history of plans for academic development in Allston;
constructs a possible context for
locating SEAS there; and
looks toward Allston’s longer-term development prospects.
Moving SEAS to Allston: The News
•The President’s and Provost’s Presentations. Before the provost
made his presentation, President Faust first took the unusual step of providing context for the discussion of “the evolution of planning for Allston”
(see more below) and the first wave of programming for the
science center there (on which construction was halted for financial reasons in
2010). She emphasized the “extraordinary opportunity” for Harvard and for
SEAS to accommodate growth; build facilities for collaborative,
interdisciplinary research; and create innovative spaces to support those
priorities. She also emphasized that Allston is already home to the Business
School; a daily destination for undergraduate student-athletes using the
athletic facilities; a home to 22 courses taken by undergraduates during the
past three terms; and the site of other facilities used by undergraduates,
ranging from the ceramics studio to the Harvard Innovation Lab.
The plan for the Western Avenue
health and life sciences building, unveiled last summer (see details below)
“has evolved,” she said, so that complex is now envisioned as “an
anchoring presence” for “the substantial majority of SEAS” plus other flexible laboratory
space. It is a place where SEAS, which prides itself as an engineering school
embedded in a liberal-arts university, can plan connections to the rest of
Harvard, she said, building on existing partnerships in bioengineering; digital
technology, law, and privacy policy; and more. The school “must grow” she said,
and could, in its new home, become “a hub in a wheel of connectivity” that
shapes the rest of Allston as it develops.
Faust acknowledged difficult
issues of maintaining ties to FAS and the College, as well as the other Harvard
schools, and logistical challenges of transportation and class
scheduling—solutions to all of which challenges would have to be found in the
future. That said, the opportunities for SEAS and for Harvard were large, and
realizing them would be a focus of the coming capital campaign (see discussion
below). Meeting with the faculty now, she said, began the process of planning
that future together.
Provost Garber echoed those
points, noting that the planning for the first major academic building in
Allston was only that: that subsequent phases of development would bring a
bigger academic presence to the area over time. In meeting with SEAS faculty
last week (the first such presentation, apparently; see faculty comments
below), he said, he had heard clearly that faculty members were proud of their
position as an engineering and applied-sciences school embedded in a
liberal-arts institution, as Faust had noted, and that maintaining that status was vital.
The contemplated move, he said,
was four to five years in the future. During that time, there would be “lots to
learn” about improving transportation access; resolving the challenges of
scheduling courses to accommodate students whose other work is in Cambridge;
and maintaining research collaborations. The first round of solutions, he
acknowledged, might not be “perfect.”
He reiterated that a major
motivation for contemplating moving “the majority of SEAS” (without specifying
what parts might not relocate) is
that “SEAS needs to grow.” That reflects both the momentum of science and the
judgment of the school’s visiting committee and of alumni active in the field.
Garber saluted the faculty for
expressing their deep concerns about how teaching will proceed from the new
location. That requires serious study, involving SEAS, FAS, and the rest of the
University, he said, starting soon. Student use of the Innovation Lab, he said,
already exceeded initial forecasts by three or four times, so he cautioned against
making overly pessimistic projections about students’ behavior. In the future,
he said, subsequent phases of academic development in Allston would make the
science complex and its surroundings a “vibrant, productive part of our
campus.”
•Faculty Reaction. Several faculty members addressed the proposal. Updated February 6, 2013, 8:15 a.m., to complete identification of faculty speakers at the FAS faculty meeting.
Michael D. Mitzenmacher, Gordon McKay professor of computer science and area dean for computer science, noted that the move to
Allston was new news to the SEAS faculty—as of a meeting with the provost a
week earlier. The initial response was not enthusiastic, and in fact included
overlapping groups of people who opposed the idea and would seek to stop it;
those who objected because they felt they had not been consulted; and those who
felt that the central administration had already made the decision to move the
school, and so, since it was going forward, hoped to make the best of the
situation.
Faculty colleagues were very
concerned about maintaining SEAS’s place in a liberal-arts university: in their view, MIT was a place for people enthralled by technology, whereas
Harvard was a place for people enthralled by what technology can do. In this context, and in light of the
recent enormous gains in SEAS undergraduate-course enrollments—about which the
faculty were especially excited—there was great concern about how such
engagement could be sustained if the school were physically separated from the
rest of Harvard. Similarly, since most SEAS faculty members do
multidisciplinary work with FAS colleagues, in rich research relationships, the
threat of geographic separation loomed large. In fact, isolating the school in
this way, he said, had the potential to defeat SEAS’s educational and research purposes.
In light of these concerns,
faculty members felt that their limited interaction with administrators had
been of the not-to-worry variety: that there are problems, but they will be
worked out. They felt that the motivation for moving was financial, not
educational or scholarly, so the cart had been put before the horse, Mitzenmacher continued.
Recognizing that the move would entail problems and challenges, without having
solutions in place, left the faculty members feeling unexcited to outright
hostile, even though they would like the situation to be positive for SEAS. At
this point, they were left feeling very strongly that their involvement in the
proposed move must be much deeper and more consequential, and that the
discussion of the challenges had to be realistic—rather than vague promises
that the hurdles for class scheduling, transportation, and research
collaborations would be overcome.
Beyond those serious logistical
matters, the faculty would want to know what else might be developed in
Allston, and when—so SEAS would not feel it was being assigned to an isolated
outpost for a long time. And finally, the faculty had been given no idea of
what SEAS might gain from the move, in terms of resources, additional
professorial positions, and so on, and when. On all those matters, Mitzenmacher concluded, the faculty
felt the need for more openness, more clarity, and more answers to important
questions—the foundation for building enthusiasm for relocating their school.
Rob Howe, Lawrence professor
of engineering and area dean for bioengineering,
referred to the meeting last week at which the provost “dropped the Allston
bomb” and said that facts about how the move might proceed were scarce. He
cited close bioengineering connections to colleagues in FAS, Harvard Medical
School, and the affiliated hospitals—and said that Allston was closer to the
MIT campus than to the FAS sciences centered along Oxford Street. A move, he
feared, could reduce the impact of bioengineering collaborations across the
University and choke off burgeoning student interest in the field. Would
students be brought closer to SEAS by relocating the current undergraduate
Radcliffe Quad Houses to new ones along the river? [The Allston plans of the prior
decade once contemplated such a move, but no such undergraduate residences in
Allston are now proposed; see below.] Absent mitigating measures not yet
discussed, he said, a move to new quarters could leave SEAS “house-poor and
lonely in Allston.” He urged the provost and FAS dean Michael D. Smith to
visit SEAS to learn more and to disclose their plans further in coming weeks.
Steven Wofsy, Rotch
professor of atmospheric and environmental science and area dean for environmental
science and engineering, said, “We have been building a community” closely
tied to FAS’s Environmental
Science & Public Policy concentration and Earth & Planetary Sciences department. Graduate students work in different departments, the faculty
members hold dual appointments, and there are many undergraduates pursuing
secondary fields in environmental studies. The environmental concentration
involves hard science, social science, and even computer sciences and
electrical engineering. “If we move,” he said, “our paradigm can’t work.” The
concentration had been built as it was “because this is what our students want,”
he said. “There may be some way to survive this move,” he said, “but it’s not
something that will help us.”
(Although, as noted above, not
all parts of the school are being included in the planned move to Allston,
programmatically, among SEAS academic areas, environmental science and
engineering may have the strongest case for remaining embedded in Cambridge for
the reasons Wofsy outlined.)
Michael Brenner, Glover professor of
applied mathematics and applied physics and area dean for applied mathematics,
said that President Faust’s description of the school resembled his own, so he
would not replow the same turf. He simply wanted to note that no one at
Harvard—faculty or students—lacks for things to do. Both professors and
students pursue packed schedules. Many applied-math students are studying
economics (traditionally FAS’s largest undergraduate concentration). They dash
in for a consultation, and then sprint off to their next obligation. Figuring
out how to accommodate this kind of connection, and schedule, might seem a soft
problem, but it was very real, in the context of a proposed SEAS move.
At this point, President Faust
noted the other items on the faculty’s agenda. Dean Smith, who is himself
Finley professor of engineering and applied sciences, noted that the move to
Allston represented an opportunity for SEAS; acknowledged that many important
issues do not have answers because they need to be worked through with the
faculty; and said he would be happy to visit with his SEAS colleagues, as
suggested, to talk through their concerns, with the provost present as well.
Separately, outside the meeting, Harry
Lewis, Gordon McKay professor of computer science, blogged about the case for
making the move. Noting, “Rarely can I remember so many SEAS professors rising to say that
they like things pretty much as they are!” Lewis wrote, “The future is
over there.” He continued:
The
transportation issues are important, and I wish we had answers now. But this is
an engineering and scheduling problem. It can be solved well enough. I remember
how horrified the athletic community was about House randomization—athletes
could never manage the commute from the Quad to Soldiers Field, they would quit
teams, transfer to Stanford, etc. The commute is inconvenient, but it works;
now everyone takes it for granted, and the benefits of randomization are
almost universally accepted. As the president noted, there is already lots of
undergraduate traffic to the I-Lab too.
This
is a momentous decision, one of those decisions that has to be thought about in
a century-scale time frame. But let’s remember that it is not a decision being
made for the benefit of us who are here today worrying about it, but for the
benefit of our successors and their successors into the indefinite future.
Updated February 6, 2013, at 9:00 a.m. Lewis and David Weitz, Mallinckrodt professor of physics and of applied physics, are cochairs of an SEAS space-planning committee, which will obviously be involved in thinking through implications of the move and proposed new facilities.
Some Allston History
•The Goldilocks
Problem. The various sweeping plans for up to 10 million square feet of new
facilities (dominated by science laboratories, possibly new campuses for the
public-health and education schools, and perhaps new undergraduate Houses)
advanced under President Lawrence H. Summers beginning in 2003 seemed distanced
from teaching, with intractable transportation problems, and with a curious
logic: Once the law faculty declined to relocate from Cambridge, why separate
public health from its natural home in the Longwood Medical Area—and what
intellectual connection would there be among Allston-based public health,
education, and business schools? In the end, of course, the ambition exceeded
the University’s means after the 2008 financial crisis and resulting
devaluation of the endowment. (As noted,
financial constraints forced a halt to construction of the science center in
early 2010).
More recent plans—advanced by Harvard’s Allston Work Team
and subsequently refined by the provost and approved by the Corporation—are
more financially realistic. Developments like the housing complex planned for
Barry’s Corner (at the intersection of North Harvard Street and Western Avenue)
will be undertaken by private-development partners, reducing the University’s
incremental investment. A proposed new basketball arena presumably awaits donor
support. A hotel-conference center could be privately financed; so could a
proposed “enterprise research campus”—a commercial business park—at the eastern
edge of Harvard’s banked land (the so-called Allston Landing North site, toward
the Charles River). And almost all the rest of the property is, in the
University’s most recent planning submission to Boston regulatory authorities,
left blank for undesignated uses long in the future.
Between an overly ambitious plan conceived during the
expansive early years of the new millennium (too hot, Goldilocks might have said),
and the subdued approach required by the financial reverses at the end of that
decade (too cold), might there still be room for a program that is just right—for
Harvard, for the community, and for the wider world the University aims to
serve?
•Allston 2.0. As a result of rethinking the status of Allston in
recent years, the University has committed to resume building the science
complex (presumably in a revised, less costly configuration). The Allston Work
Team recommended in mid 2011 that a redesigned 500,000- to 700,000-square-foot health-
and life-sciences center rise on the dormant foundation there. Possible
users were thought to include global-health programs, part of the Harvard
School of Public Health, an expanded Harvard Stem Cell Institute, and, in the
below-ground levels, various vibration-sensitive imaging-research and -services
programs. The Corporation subsequently authorized academic planning for the
facility, to be completed by mid 2012. Construction was reported to be
contingent upon fundraising in the forthcoming capital campaign.
In June 2012, during a Harvard briefing for the Allston
community, the
University announced that a Health and Life Science Center would proceed. A
letter from executive vice president Katie Lapp summarized the planning process
led by provost Alan Garber, which “reaffirmed” stem-cell science as an
important use of the building, augmented by “scientists in the fields of
engineering and applied sciences” (separately identified as members of FAS
and SEAS—whose work involves biological and life sciences, and affiliates of Wyss Institute
for Biologically Inspired Engineering
“platforms”). Lapp’s letter specified that the development would be
financed with “a mix of funding strategies including philanthropy.” The
supporting document outlined a 500,000- to 600,000-square-foot facility for 500
scientists and staff members, and suggested that architectural design might
commence by the spring of 2013 with construction to follow conceivably in
2014—a fast schedule for a multihundred-million-dollar project with at least some requirement for gift support.
During
a briefing on January 23 for a Harvard Allston Task Force community meeting,
associate vice
president for public affairs and communications Kevin Casey disclosed that the
University had, on the schedule outlined last summer, engaged architect Stefan
Behnisch to work on the Health and Life Science Center; Behnisch designed the
original science complex on which work halted in 2010, and so knows what was intended,
even as he faces the task of adapting his prior work. Casey also said that bioengineering and
engineering would constitute “larger components of this facility,” which he
said would be a science and innovation hub—interesting language that suggested further evolution in University thinking about the science center’s
intended uses.
•A Campaign Catalyst? As these steps unfolded in public, the
University pushed ahead vigorously with the private phase of its capital
campaign, expected to be unveiled this coming autumn (see Harvard Magazine’s January-February 2013 report, “The Coming Campaign”).
During this stage
of refining a campaign’s priorities and testing prospective donors’ support,
the tires are kicked on leadership gifts. It is possible that the re-envisioned
Health and Life Science Center had already attracted enough philanthropic
support that Harvard felt confident it could proceed.
Alternatively, it
is possible that the need for some grander vision or possibility has been expressed—the “wow”
factor that can command the eight- and nine-figure gifts that drive
multibillion-dollar campaigns today (witness the recent $200-million gift by real-estate developer Mortimer
B. Zuckerman, LL.M. ’62, to endow Columbia University’s Mind Brain Behavior
Institute). As sketched
last year, the Allston science facility sounded as though it might principally involve
relocating Harvard’s core stem-cell researchers (not long after they moved into
the renovated Sherman Fairchild Building, itself a $71-million undertaking): more
a real-estate decision than a new frontier in Harvard science. And the result
would be to site stem-cell experts at a venue not readily connected either to
FAS colleagues or to those at the medical campus.
That double move,
in turn, might give FAS space to expand its other sciences in the core of the
Cambridge campus. But it would seem unlikely to best meet one pressing, obvious
need: to accommodate the burgeoning SEAS.
A Case for Envisioning SEAS Expanded
Since it took on a new identity as a school, in 2007 (formerly it was a division of FAS), SEAS
has seen its number of undergraduate concentrators nearly double, to almost
600. Total undergraduate enrollment in SEAS courses has ballooned (from about
900 in the fall of 2008 to nearly 2,000 in the fall of 2011). And applications for
graduate study have soared. During the deanship of Venkatesh
Narayanamurti, which led up to the change in the division’s status, the faculty
ranks increased by about 50 percent. His successor, incumbent dean Cherry A. Murray, set about refining
an academic plan for the next decade; despite the financial crisis and
recession, she set her sights on continued,
aggressive growth in her faculty’s ranks—and in the facilities needed to house
their research and teach their students—potentially adding dozens of new colleagues, over an
extended period, to a ladder faculty that now numbers 83 people (68 full-time
equivalents), and might
want to number, say, 100 full-time members.
Where to put
them? SEAS occupies nearly 400,000 square feet
of research, teaching, and office facilities. If it is to grow significantly, it needs more space. Shoehorning a
building, or annex, atop the parking lot behind Pierce Hall might be an option
for a while. Sherman Fairchild, if made available, would presumably require another nontrivial overhaul for
scientists whose requirements differ from stem-cell researchers’—and it is
separated from most SEAS facilities by the mass of the museums and the chemistry
facilities (unfortunate for SEAS, which operates in a freeform, nondepartmental
way). Some of those intervening
facilities might also be overhauled but musical-chairs renovations are
expensive—something SEAS and FAS planners would have to take into careful
account.
Given these
factors, and no doubt others, might the stars finally have aligned for something
bigger: envisioning the Allston science complex as an entirely new home for much
or all of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences?
The bruited-about
size of a half-million square feet or more would seem ideal to house the
current faculty and accommodate
significant growth in efficient, collaborative laboratory and teaching spaces. The
site lies diagonally across Western Avenue from the Harvard Innovation Lab, which has proved popular with, and accessible to,
entrepreneurially-minded students and faculty members from across the
University. It would be very
close to Harvard Business School (HBS), a world-class center for research on
and teaching about entrepreneurship, innovation management, technology
enterprises, and finance.
That proximity
could make for ideal HBS partnerships with SEAS students and faculty members eager
to translate their discoveries and inventions into enterprises: the theme of
innovation and real-world application that Harvard and other universities (most
recently Cornell in New York City, Carnegie Mellon and Pitt in Pittsburgh, and the University of Illinois and others in
Chicago) are eager to
encourage—in response to internal interest, external demand for engines of
economic growth, and the stellar example of Stanford and Silicon Valley. (The University of Illinois College of
Engineering in late January announced receipt of a $100-million pledge to foster research and teaching in
bioengineering and “big data” computation; it will pay for 35 endowed
professorships—part of the school’s aim to add 130 to 150 faculty positions in
the next five years.) SEAS has in fact already partnered
directly with several venture-capital firms to form The Experiment Fund, a direct channel for seed-stage
financing for entrepreneurial student ventures. (Among those firms are Accel Partners and Breyer Capital, where
the Corporation’s newly elected fellow, James W. Breyer, M.B.A. ’87, is,
respectively, a partner and the founder/manager.)
The business school has recently proved more
than adept at attracting large gifts; hopes to expand toward the science site; and might well be excited by the
opportunity to accelerate such a collaboration as it sketches its considerable ambitions for the University’s
coming capital campaign. Perhaps
there would be similar stirrings from among SEAS’s alumni who are in position
to provide similarly significant support for a big initiative they find
exciting. A tantalizing precedent (like Breyer’s connection to budding SEAS
entrepreneurs) already bridges exactly these disciplines: the $125-million gift—the biggest in
Harvard history—made in 2008 by Hansjörg Wyss,
M.B.A.’65, to create the eponymous bioengineering institute. (Wyss led Synthes, a medical-device
company.)
Allston: The Long View
Over the longer
term, such a vision, if realized, might prove just the catalyst needed to make
the commercial “enterprise research campus” farther east, toward the Charles
River, an attractive location for private development. (That site currently lacks
even the basic infrastructure for such investment; meanwhile, information-technology, pharmaceutical,
and biotechnology companies have continued to invest at a torrid rate in
facilities in Kendall Square, near MIT, and on Boston’s emerging waterfront and around the Longwood area.)
All this is
speculative. But it is intriguing, after 25 years of Harvard investment in
Allston’s still inchoate potential. Within the faculties, in the Allston
community, and beyond, it would be understandable if fatigue and resignation had
set in after the recent roller-coaster ride, as the soaring plans of the new
millennium gave way to the financial crisis—making any significant development seem far out of reach. But perhaps
Harvard has arrived at a moment of good fortune, when an organic solution to
present needs, with longer-term promise, presents itself.
In other words,
imagining SEAS, or much of it, in the proposed science complex in Allston might
meet the Goldilocks test. The size of the facility suits the school’s requirements.
There is an academic and intellectual logic to siting it there, both now and in
the future: to accommodate SEAS’s growth and facilitate natural collaborations
with HBS, with somewhat less logistically complicated ties than other prospective
occupants to either FAS’s Cambridge core or the Longwood area; and to house
growth in subsequent decades—readily, on Harvard’s adjacent Allston properties.
Lest anyone
forget, a very large, long-deferred capital campaign, which could supplement
whatever internal resources the University can bring to bear on the project, is
under way. Naming opportunities, anyone?