Extend Byerly Lease

Prospective Harvard applicants might have to skip their tour of Radcliffe Yard if the Office of Admissions and Financial Aid is forced to relocate from its current location in Byerly Hall. Harvard's 25-year lease of the building from Radcliffe expires this summer, and negotiations for renewal seem strained. Radcliffe is prepared to renew the lease for just five years (at a rent significantly higher than the operating expenses currently paid by Harvard), while the Admissions and Financial Office is looking for a long-term deal.

The office should stay put. The Admissions Office has no obvious place to go, especially since it requires 40,000 square feet of room in "an attractive area...in a building that looks good," according to Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68. Harvard would be hard-pressed to find an aesthetically pleasing space so close to the Yard.

The sticking point in the lease-renewal negotiations is not cost. Harvard admits it's had an inexpensive ride for the last 25 years, funding only the building's renovation and yearly operating costs. The issue is time. "We really need a long-term commitment," says Nancy L. Maull, administrative dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. But Radcliffe is hesitant to sign away the building for longer than five years. In the words of Carolyn Chamberlin, Radcliffe's director of communications, the building is "an asset that we have been unable to utilize for 25 years."

Radcliffe owns Byerly Hall and can thus use it as it sees fit. Yet perhaps this debate is not just a question of space allocation but also one of power. Radcliffe has not said how it would use the space; nevertheless, it seems intent on getting it back. The Byerly Hall situation only adds to the tension between the two schools.

This summer, during a semi-public tiff over the extent of Radcliffe's role in Harvard's Celebration of Women events, held last October, Radcliffe President Linda S. Wilson told the Boston Globe, "Harvard and Radcliffe are like a supertanker and a canoe. Harvard is very large, while Radcliffe moves alongside and is a little more maneuverable. But what the supertanker does has more impact on us than what we have on them." With Byerly Hall, that canoe is successfully challenging the tanker.

Radcliffe should reconsider its short-term lease offer and allow the Admissions and Financial Aid Office to remain in Byerly Hall indefinitely. The building provides an appropriate welcome to the Harvard-Radcliffe experience, and it should stay that way.