Harvard: Enlightened Or Despotic Giant?

"I attempt to speak to tenants and listen to their concerns." Kenneth W. Erickson '69, an attorney for Harvard's real estate division, in August 1981

The words sound nice, but coming from the man tenants call a spy, they have little chance of convincing anyone that the University is seriously interested in the quality of life in its 2400 apartments.

"There will never be a formal report delivered to anybody" on the management of Harvard's real estate.   Herbert P. Wilkins '51, President of the Board of Overseers, in April 1982

One' year earlier. Wilkins promised publicly that he would issue a document in the fall of 1981 on an investigation by the Overseers' committee on institutional policy.

"That's astounding...it seems a classic case of suggesting belt-rightening to those who can least afford it and an extended bout of generosity to those who least need it."   Michael Turk, coordinator of the Harvard Tenants' Union, in March 1982

Turk was responding to the news that administrators at Harvard Real Estate (HRE), which manages the University's properties, received pay hikes last year of up to $17,000. One increase raised HRE President Sally Zeckhauser's annual, stipend to $65,500 more than the salaries of most members of the Faculty.

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For years, Harvard has been portrayed in Cambridge political circles as a hypocritical grant that takes far more from city residents than it gives to the community. In debates over institutional expansion into city neighborhoods, the failure of Cambridge's non profit private universities to provide ample in lieu of tax payments, and the need for private assistance to the Cambridge public schools. Harvard has consistently been cited as a major villain. The contradictions between the words of Harvard officials and their actions have been all too readily apparent.

During the past 12 months, however, tensions in the ordinary intense cold war between Harvard and Cambridge have decreased significantly, parts because city officials have been almost exclusively busy with the budget complications created by Proposition 2 1/2 and partly because of a new strategy used by University officials. In several cases that would most likely have led to angry exchanges with the city council in years past. Harvard administrators this time realized that their goals could best be achieved through cooperation with neighborhood residents. Harvard responded positively, for example, to a request by local merchants for and in finding more parking space. The University offered the businessmen the use of part of the Business School lot, and thus avoided a series of hostile public exchanges.

The most obvious area where, Harvard has failed to gain a fresh perspective on relations with the outside world is in its treatment of tenants, and particularly in its attitude towards the Harvard tenants Union (HTU), which organized in 1981 to gain desperately needed strength in disputes with the University. In its treatment of HTU members. Harvard has maintained the same bellicose, short sighted and obstinate posture that originally generated Harvard's traditional image as a Goliath menacing a city of Davids.

The two case studies that follow illustrate the advantages of the beginnings of a newly approach able Harvard, and the effects of the remnants of the old take-it-or-leave-it University.

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Case-1-The Enlightened Giant

Harvard's plans for a $25 million office and condominium complex off Mt. Auburn St. hit an unexpected snag last December when the Cambridge Historical Commission voted to prevent for at least six months the demolition of two buildings on the site of the proposed "University Place" development.

Community residents had played a major role in the planning of the project, and until the historical commission meeting neighborhood opposition had been muted and insignificant. But the meeting drew dozens of locals and a petition that included the signatures of several Harvard professors.

Because changes in design needed to save the two buildings--at 134 Mt. Auburn St. and 3 Mt. Auburn Place--would be costly, there was speculation that Harvard would fight the commission's designation of the structures as "historically significant."

But only a month later, Harvard officials agreed to preserve the buildings by altering the University Place design, and on January 8 the historical commission accepted the new plan without objection, cleaning the way for Corporation approval of the massive development later that month. About 40 neighborhood residents attending the commission meeting broke into applause when Donald Lang one of those who had negotiated the compromise plan with Harvard, thanked University officials for their cooperation.

And Tudor C. Ingersoll, head of the residents negotiating committee said the agreement was "terrific". The neighbors are all breathing a sign of relief" Ingersoll said.

Early in the spring. Harvard's developer for University Place broke ground for the project in a ceremony attended by happy community residents and happy University administrators and happy Cambridge politicians.

Case-2-The Despotic Giant

During the winter months of 1981 members of the then newly formed Harvard Tenants Union spent hundreds of hours compiling an energy usage survey of tenants in Harvard owned buildings. The survey finding based on responses from tenants in 124 apartments demonstrated a "gross form of mismanagement by Harvard Real Estate, according to HTU members Turk explained that Harvard could cut fuel costs simply by criminating waste, performing routine maintenance, and obtaining quantity discounts on fuel. These measures, Turk said, were likely to generate lower rents for Harvard tenants.

Administrators at Harvard Real Estate never responded to the conclusions of the survey. But soon after the study was released, HRI began its own program of major renovations installing, among other things, expensive thermopane windows to reduce energy usage in several Harvard buildings.

In January 1982 more than one-third of the tenants in one of the largest Harvard-owned apartment buildings voted to deny access to their homes to University workmen seeking to install the new energy-saying windows. More than 30 tenants in the 9-13a Ware St. building said they opposed the University's plans because the thermopane windows would increase their rents by up to $120 per month while other energy-saying measures would probably cut rents.

Harvard proceeded with its plans through the winter despite tenant opposition, and a series of disputes between HRE and Ware St. residents followed. In February, two Ware St. residents reported that they were considering filing charges against HRE for allegedly entering their apartments against their will to install the thermopane windows. A month later the city's building commissioner ordered Harvard to stop working over stairs in the Ware St. building without adequate safety precautions. And finally, towards the end of March, a Ware St. tenant and an HRE worker charged each other with assault and battery in separate criminal complaints. The charges stemmed from an argument between the two men over safety precautions for the window renovation project. The Ware St. tenant, who had served as a spokesman for his protesting neighbors, was also threatened by HRE with eviction for "any further conduct by you which interferes with legitimate interests of Harvard." The criminal charges between the tenant and the HRE employee were dropped by mutual agreement later in March.

Harvard completed the window installation in April and is awaiting a rent control hearing June 22 on its request for rent increases generated by the renovations. While agreeing to allow the final stages of the project to proceed. Ware St. residents served notice that they will oppose the rent increases at the board meeting. And the Harvard Tenants Union has asked the rent board for a ruling on Harvard's right to enter tenants apartments to conduct repairs.

The board hearing later this month will be attended by unhappy tenants, unhappy representatives of Harvard, and will be watched closely by several unhappy Cambridge politicians.

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The Ware St. story was one of the longest running, but by no means the only, example of Harvard's reluctance to reform its relations with tenants in many of the buildings in a portfolio of 258 properties that together are worth more than $100 million. Some other notable examples include.

* HRE attorney Erickson's appearance under what tenants called false pretenses at two HTU or ganizing meetings. Erickson was subsequently investigated by the Board of Overseers of the Massachusetts Bar for allegedly using a false name and address at the open meetings, where litigation that he would later participate in was discussed HTU leaders charged Erickson with "improper behavior," but the attorney said he attended the meetings "to speak to tenants and to listen to their concerns." A Harvard spokesman said that Vice President for Community and Government Affairs Robin Schmidt gave "ultimate approval" for the idea of sending Erickson to the meetings;

* Wilkins' about-face on his promise to make a public disclosure of the Overseers' investigation into Harvard's real estate practices. While revealing in April that a written report would not be issued. Wilkins, a Justice on the Supreme Judicial Court, said that such a report "might be warranted, but to rake over the coals and assess blame isn't as important in the long run" as working quietly behind the scenes to resolve differences. Several tenant leaders and elected officials agreed with City Councilor David Sullivan, who explained that "informal discussions are not public, and so there is no accountability on the part of the University and a lack of being able to be pinned down on specifics";

* The disclosure in March that HRE president Sally Zeckhauser's salary had been increased from $48,637 to $65,500; that Treasurer S. Michael Hawe's pay had been increased from $38,480 to $49,940; and that Vice President Robert Silverman's stipend had been hiked from $31,800 in fiscal year 1980 to $49,300 in fiscal year 1981. A spokesman for the University said that the HRE administrators' pay increases stemmed in some cases from expanded job responsibilities, in one case from special bonuses, and in another instance from past payment for current and future services. But HTU leader Turk said that while HRE officials have in the past blamed a lack of attention to apartment repairs on serious fiscal constraints, the salary hikes "reveal how hollow those claims are."

In the minds of tenant activists, however, perhaps HRE's most grievous offense is its staunch refusal to recognize the existence and legitimacy of the Harvard Tenants Union, now about a year-and-a-half old. "They seem to hope we go away," Turk said shortly after the union's first anniversary.

Last February, Turk mailed a letter to Zeckhauser asking her to "sit down with representatives of the union in an effort to reconcile differences." Zeckhauser ignored the return address listed on Turk's letter--the official address of the union--and sent her response to Turk's personal address. She did not directly refuse Turk's request for a meeting but stated that HRE responds only to "specific complaints and suggestions from specific tenants about their individual units and building common areas affecting them." She said in a subsequent interview that HRE would not alter its stance and recognize the union in the future.

HTU members say they interpret HRE's stance as a traditional attempt at union-busting. And they find little comfort in Zeckhauser's suggestion that it tenants become dissatisfied with HRE's treatment, they can be "adequately protected by local and state laws administered by a wide variety of government agencies," including the Cambridge Rent Control Board Turk and other tenants point out that because of HRE's financial resources and its ability to hire attorneys, there is no balance in court or rent board fights between Harvard and tenants.

While some observers interpret HRE's general attitude toward HTU its treatment of tenant activists as a sign that the union may have the long-term potential of swaying Harvard administrators to greater regard for tenant relations, others note that as long as the University refuses to recognize the union there will be isolated incidents such as the Erickson affair and protracted disputes such as the Ware St. episode. The beginning of direct negotiations between Harvard and the union could produce immediate positive results for both parties, the tenants contend.

To many observers on the Cambridge political scene, it seems that Harvard's tenants are only asking for the same cooperation that the University has recently accorded to neighborhood groups in the University Place negotiations and other cases. From the point of view of Harvard administrators, it may have been far easier to perceive the immediate benefits of working out a solution to the University Place dispute (without it the massive project could have been stalled for months) than to understand the advantages of accepting tenant's gripes on a daily basis. But now that they have a chance to look back, HRE officials may see that by talking about the HTU energy survey results, for example, they could have avoided what was for Harvard and tenants an unpleasant confrontation over the Ware St. windows.

HTU leaders say that to resolve what now appears as one of the remaining black marks on Harvard's record of relations with Cambridge residents, HRE must simply put into effect the words of Kenneth W. Erickson '69: "I attempt to speak to tenants and listen to their concerns."

HRE responds only to "specific complaints and suggestions from specific tenants."   Sally Zeckhauser, HRE President

"They seem to hope we go away."   Michael Turk, coordinator of the Harvard Tenants' Union