Discussion Please

Expansion is a dirty word. The Administration would rather use such euphemisms as "natural growth," and "normal expansion of facilities," or, more frequently, not discuss the subject at all. Despite attempts to becloud the issue, however, it is quite clear that the College is committed to a policy of substantial expansion.

The Program for Harvard College, a conception of the Corporation, the Administration, and a limited number of the Alumni, is the most obvious of these commitments. It provides $15 million for three new houses and another million for an improved and enlarged commuter center. Master Leighton talks of raising the percentage of commuters in the student body, and Seymour Harris discusses eliminating small classes in order to pack more students into existing facilities.

Even in its most conservative moments, the Administration does not contend that it will be possible to build three houses (including Quincy) without increasing the size of the College. About fifty more freshmen were admitted this year to fill the space opened by Quincy, which was supposed to take care of most deconversions. It follows that unless the room rent policy is radically revised, almost all the space opened by the two succeeding houses and by Leverett towers will go into pure expansion.

There are countless arguments both for and against expansion: that Harvard has an obligation to educate as many people as possible; that it should try instead to give the best possible education to a limited number; that a large group can be taught more economically than a small one; that the present organization of the College would break down if it were enlarged substantially. Similarly, nobody is quite sure how much expansion of labs, classrooms, and libraries should accompany the building of whatever new Houses and dorms may be constructed.

But though this endless point-counterpoint does not always serve to clarify the "correct" solution, it does make abundantly clear that, if the subject is of any importance, it has certainly not received open discussion commensurate with its complexity or with its implications.

And there can be no question of the importance of the expansion issue. Its economic implications are conspicious: that Harvard may have to pay as much as $10 million just for the land to expand; that it may be forced to underpay its professors (even if they do remain among the nation's highest paid.) The educational implications, as they would influence the substitution of lectures for sections and would perhaps reduce student-Faculty relations, are even more significant. It is impossible to pass on the probability or desirability of the various possibilities, but their existence is clear and important.

As yet, the physical commitment of the College to an expansion policy has not been reflected in adequate planning for the future. There is no visible policy of open-market purchase for all free land (one of the reasons for the incredibly expensive venture into acquiring the MTA yards), there has been little recognition until the last few years that "good-will" gestures to the rest of the Cambridge community might be as important to the College as any physical bargaining. Few but the professional planners have recognized the implications of the College's existence in a metropolitan community.

It would be impossible to run the University or the College if every administrative decision were referred to the Faculty. Yet there comes, every few years, a critical problem which needs such discussion, and which would benefit substantially from thorough consideration by non-Administrators. Perhaps the revision of the Freshman year is such a question; certainly expansion is sufficiently immediate and pressing so that the Administration should stop playing its cards close to its chest, throwing the matter open to and actively encouraging general faculty discussion.