Plans for New Reports and Committees Reveal a Coordinated Center

The Administration also plans to spin out three major reports during the first three months of the year: the annual report of the University-wide Benefits Committee; the first report of the University-wide Information Technology Committee; and a three-year planning report from the Central Administration.

These lengthy papers will give faculty a glimpse into the center's interworkings and, this year in particular, its major policy agenda. The Deans plan to discuss these reports at their regular meetings during the next few months and, once released, the nine faculties will discuss them later in the fall.

Three Year Plan

The most important of these reports is a three year plan from the central administration, which will announce its major agenda items through 1999.

Mass. Hall officials have been tightlipped about what the report will contain, though Project ADAPT and finishing the campaign are said to head the administration's list.

While creating this report, the center also began forming three-year budget projections. Before this year, the budget was planned from year to year.

Both the report and the new budget planning process reflect an effort by the center to be more accountable to the schools as well as more clear with itself about its objectives.

"What became absolutely clear was that the central administration can't do anything on its own," said Vice President for Finance Elizabeth C. "Beppie" Huidekoper, who also oversaw the planning process. "This is not-not-a centralization move. We have shared problems in this institution, let's have shared solutions."

Administration officials said they hope to make the plan public by November, though they would not say what form the report will take. Director of Public Affairs Alex Huppe is helping orchestrate the release.

Many of the individual departments in the central administration prepare multiyear plans, but this is the first time officials have shared and compared their plans with each other.

"In the past, the central administration has like the rest of the University had everyone doing his own thing," said Thomas M. Reardon, vice president for development and alumni affairs.

Information Technology

In November, Provost Harvey V. Fineberg '67 plans to release a University-wide Report on Information Technology written by a 19-member committee appointed last year.

The committee considered three major areas: academic information technology, intellectual property and business partnerships.

Sources said the intellectual property component of the report contained a number of extensive recommendations to regulate more tightly the internal use of Harvard's name.

Last year then-provost Albert Carnesale suggested that the academic computing sub-committee may propose a center for multimedia computing similar to the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning.

Benefits

Fineberg is also expected to release a three part benefits report in mid-September. Last year the committee considered part-time workers, health benefits and retirement benefits.

Though a sub-committee spent last year investigating what incentives promote faculty to retire, no major changes are expected in Harvard's retirement policy.

While no one of these reports or committees represents a revolution for the University, jointly they signal vast change. Long the poor step-child of the University's tubs, the central administration has begun to come into its own, thinking, planning and acting as a university, not a school.