While You Were Gone ...

It was not the best of times in Harvard Yard this summer, nor the worst, But for one memorable evening, it was certainly the wettest.

Shortly after 8 p.m. on July 9, a water main burst in the construction site between Widener Library and Weld Hall. For the next two hours, hundreds of thousands of gallons of crystal-clear drinking water gushed forth enough water to cover much of the Yard to depths as great as three feet, and enough to turn a normal night at summer school into a beach party.

Buildings and Grounds workers tried feverishly to stanch the flow, but the ancient pipes and hard-to-find shutoffs thwarted their efforts till nearly 11 p.m. When they finally fixed the leak, the Yard drained quickly and subsequent inspections revealed only minor damage to building basements and underground library stacks. By early morning, only a layer of mud was left as proof of the nighttime flood.

The summer's other big news story will be around a little longer, three years, to be exact. President Bok announced in early August that he would examine both the Sociology department and the record of former junior faculty member Theda Skocpol until 1984 before deciding whether to offer Skocpol tenure. Skocpol--who began teaching duties at the University of Chicago this fall--charged last year that she was denied tenure because of her gender. A three-member panel upheld Skocpol's charge in the early spring, and sent the mess on to Bok for a final decision. Instead, he announced he would watch Skocpol to see what she wrote in the next three years, and at the same time commission a thorough study of the "needs and priorities" of the Sociology Department.

Prize-winning author Skocpol said she was pleased with the decision, though she added the pressure on her to produce new scholarly work would increase with the knowledge that Bok was staring over her shoulder. Bok's announcement came after an exchange of letters with Skocpol, and the undisclosed recommendation of an ad hoc panel debating her fitness for tenure.

Bok gave Skocpol three years in limbo; Eugene Sherry and Arif Hussain, two Harvard-affiliated doctors were not as lucky. They received three-to-five year terms in the state penitentiary (although all but six months of their terms will be suspended) after being convicted of raping a nurse after a Boston party last year. The sentences sparked controversy, the doctors contending in a tearful courtroom scene that their lives had already been destroyed, and many critics protesting that the terms were too light. The doctors--no longer employed by the University--are appealing, and one juror held a bizarre news conference a few weeks after the verdict to recant her vote. One of the doctors, Hussain, has since pled innocent to two additional counts of rape.

Dollars and cents dominated the headlines throughout the summer, and most of the financial news was good for the summer. The Medical School won a $6 million grant in late June for work on genetics, the latest in a series of commercially related contracts let to the University, each of which has sparked a new round of concern about academic freedom and integrity.

Fund raising continued apace, with both the $250 Million Fund drive and the Kennedy School construction fund passing milestones. The capital fund drive, slightly ahead of schedule, boomed past the $150 million mark in mid-July. The news cheered fundraisers, who promptly announced they would continue to solicit funds until the October 1984 completion date even if the original goal had been surpassed. On Boylston St., mean-while, a last-minute bulge in contributions pushed the K-school's fund drive over its $6 million preliminary target with only days to spare. The money--much of which came from a single anonymous donor--will fund an addition to the school, extending either up Boylston or Eliot streets.

But fundraising may become harder in the months and years to come. Economists and Harvard lobbyists reacted sourly to the Reagan tax-cut victory in early August, pointing out that the new law makes it more expensive to give money or stock to charity. The reduction of the maximum individual income tax rate from 70 to 50 per cent means that it will not cost the wealthiest contributors 50 cents, not 30 cents, to donate a dollar to the University. That could produce a "very chilling effect," one Harvard official said; Laurence B. Lindsey, an analyst at the National Bureau of Economic Research said giving could drop off as much as 40 per cent in the wake of the tax cut.

As if the fiscal worries weren't enough, the University's neighbors grew increasingly restless as the summer wore on. In Boston, the city council passed and Mayor Kevin H. White signed into law new regulations governing recombinant DNA research which will govern, among others, the Med School. And in Cambridge--after decades of attempts--the city government finally gained concrete control over future University expansion, passing a law that subjects Harvard and other large institutions to zoning controls. The law--heralded as the start of a "new era" by city officials--requires city approval of any major developments in residential neighborhoods, and places a flat ban on much proposed expansion.

The city fathers had troubles of their own in late July, when local developers hauled them into court in an effort to enjoin enforcement of the city's tough restrictions on condominiums. They failed when a federal judge let the law stand for the time being, but the real estate interests vowed to redouble their efforts to elect a conservative majority to the city council in upcoming elections.

Harvard kicked a hornet's nest in early summer when it announced its intention to remove a large apartment building at 122 Mt. Auburn St. from the rental housing market. The move--which will require city approval--came in the midst of protracted legal battles over the building. Tenants fear that the planned evictions, to make way for large-scale renovations, will result in dramatic rent increases when they are allowed to move back in.

But the University earned much local good will when it announced--after spring and summer meetings with the local residents--a preliminary plan for the development of a huge Mt. Auburn St. site. The plan, which Harvard asked neighbors to comment on, incorporates most of the features city leaders had requested, including smaller buildings on the side of the development abutting a residential neighborhood. Offices and condominiums will share the acre site, located across the street from the post office.

Construction delays on the Briggs Cage renovation that was to have allowed the basketball team a new home in time for their winter season may now result in a completion date months later than hoped. Srikes by local carpenters and masons all but halted work on the Cage, and caused major slowdowns in work on the MBTA's Red Line extension project in the Square.

At another construction site, though, things were looking brighter for the University. The seemingly jinxed Medical Area Total Energy Plant (MATEP) moved one step closer to completion with the installation of the plant's diesel engines. A few protesters tried to block the work, but officials said they were optimistic the challenges were almost over. If a few remaining court fights go as expected, they said, the diesels could be churning out electricity by this time next year.

Amid the various fusses, of course, things went on pretty much as usual. The Summer School students--almost 5000 of them, more than ever before in the school's history--came and went, many of them studying computer science or English as a second language during their stay. Dudley Herschbach. Baird Professor of Science, was named the new master of Currier House, and S. Allen Counter, associate professor of Neuroscience, was picked to head the new race relations foundation. And then the class of 1985 arrived, 1604 strong, so the cycle can begin again.