Community Input Valued In Knafel Center Planning

To the editors:

I am writing in response to Marian Schlesinger's letter (Feb. 2) concerning the proposed Center for Government and International Studies, and to explain why the Faculty of Arts and Sciences regards this project, and its proposed location, as vital to the education of our students and to the scholarly work of the faculty. Some of these issues were very helpfully addressed in The Crimson's recent editorial on this subject (Feb. 10).

The departments of Government and Economics are housed in quarters too small to accommodate all of their faculty or the undergraduate programs for which they are responsible. The Government Department is fragmented among many locations, with my colleagues scattered in Littauer and Coolidge halls, the Kennedy School, the Center for European Studies and our tutorial office on Church Street. Our neighbors in Littauer, the Economics faculty, suffer from a similar dispersal.

Two faculty committees undertook careful reviews of this problem and explored a number of options for solving it. Both groups determined that the site behind Gund Hall holds the greatest promise for mending the social and intellectual fabric of the Government Department without depriving the research centers housed in Coolidge Hall of the presence and leadership of our political science faculty. If we were able to consolidate the Government Department here, sufficient space would be created in Littauer to house the Economics Department. Any of the other solutions proposed would seriously jeopardize the teaching and research mission of this Faculty and the University.

The site we have been studying is at the edge of campus, on a mixed-use block bordered by the Graduate School of Design in Gund Hall, the international centers in Coolidge Hall, the Swedenborg Chapel, houses on Kirkland Street (one of which houses the Core program) and academic and residential structures on Sumner Road. We understand and share what we take to be the community's central concerns: to conserve and improve the green space behind Gund Hall and to build in keeping with the scale of the site, respecting its proximity to a residential neighborhood. One way to accomplish this is to explore the use of below-grade space. Another will be to improve and make effective use of space possibilities offered by Coolidge Hall.

The planning committee is sensitive to the complex environment of this site, and the University opened a dialogue with the community even before the planning committee was formed last year. Through open meetings and a web site we have shared the educational goals we hope to achieve and have invited input from neighbors and other concerned members of the community.

In this spirit, I welcomed Schlesinger's letter, but regret that the accompanying sketch may have misled readers. The planning committee has not yet recommended an architect for this project, much less chosen a specific site or design, so any representations of it would be purely conjectural. Preliminary studies have all proposed a building of 45,000 to 60,000 square feet, with additional space below grade connecting the new building to Coolidge Hall. The sketch, to my admittedly untrained eye, grossly exceeds the scale of the building represented in these studies, and implies that a location has already been determined.

I want to emphasize that our dialogue with the community in this pre-planning stage reflects a sincere desire to explore the use of this site in cooperation with neighborhood residents. The Crimson's recent editorial challenges the University to continue to involve the community in this important project. We are glad The Crimson will watch us closely, and look forward to continuing an informed discussion in the coming months. KENNETH A. SHEPSLE   Feb. 11, 1998

The writer is chair of the Government Department and chair of the Knafel Center planning committee.