Harvard's Expansion: Stretched Too Thin

Harvard wasn't built in a day.

Like the world's great empires, the Rome of universities is always expanding its reach. And one of the pitfalls of Harvard's growing international influence is the increased likelihood that the University itself will become unmanageable.

Gaining size can mean losing focus. And fiscally, at least, Harvard is already the biggest university in the world.

Could Harvard actually become too big? From their vantage point in Mass. Hall, University President Neil L. Rudenstine and other top adminstrators say yes.

The voice of faculty could get lost in decision-making. International demand for the Harvard name could pull the University in too many directions at once.

Needs for physical and electronic expansion could create a campus too far-flung--both geographically and virtually--to be a community. Harvard could grow too big for its own good in many ways.

The University is trying to control its growth: Rudenstine says so many new ideas cross his desk every day that he is forced to reject 98 percent of them.

The University has also focused on maximizing use of its current space instead of throwing up new buildings.

But according to Rudenstine, knowing where to draw the line is still hard. And so he says an integrated, University-wide approach is being taken to determine the rate at which Harvard should progress--and where it should stop.

The End of the Physical Road

One immediate danger is posed by a need for physical expansion: new land and new buildings have spread the campus out and run afoul of neighbors on all sides.

This problem has become more pressing as available space in Cambridge gets harder to come by. Harvard's purchase of 52 acres across the River in Allston is part of a contigency plan, should the University eventually need to expand.

"No matter how you slice it, there is only a limited amount of space in Cambridge," Rudenstine says. "The only place to [expand] is across the river. All you need is a map to show you that."

But officials say no large development will take place in Allston for decades. They say purchases like the one in Allston are the University's way of providing for the next 50 or 100 years, without knowing what lies ahead.

"Our approach is to make sure we have enough...that we'll be able to accommodate those needs," says Sally H. Zeckhauser, vice president for administration. "[The Allston purchase is] sufficient property to be able to give the University flexibility."

For the moment, Harvard has focused on reconfiguring and renovating old University buildings to accommodate changing needs.

"We spend a lot of time looking at the uses and functions of the buildings we already have," Zeckhauser says. Examples include the renovations of Memorial Hall, the Barker Center and Boylston Hall.

When Rudenstine arrived at Harvard in the early 1990s, most of the Allston land purchases had already been made.

When they were revealed, the land deal, which Harvard made secretly, created tension with neighbors, including Boston mayor Thomas M. Menino. Many were concerned about how potential Harvard development might encroach on the Allston community.

Although the University purchased the land discreetly, the acquisition wasn't made to circumvent the desires of the community, Rudenstine says.

"I don't think it was thought of as some great scheme," Rudenstine says.

All Roads Lead to Rome

The main danger of decentralization will come through technological rather than geographical expansion, according to Elizabeth C. "Beppie" Huidekoper, vice president for finance.

She says Harvard will have lost its focus when it becomes easier and more effective to access the University through a home computer than a trip to the Yard.

"People learn so much through each other around here," she says.

At the beginning of the Capital Campaign, an 18-month planning process outlined likely destinations for the incoming billions.

Now, while the University tallies up campaign earnings, some money is headed for fields that barely existed at the drive's beginning. Distance learning and on-line initiatives are exciting new possibilities--and they are also raising concerns about learning methods.

But Harvard is working hard to maintain Cambridge's drawing power in the academic world. Full coffers and a strong stock market help support new centers, research and faculty.

The University remains the top draw in American academics.

For a conference or a convention, "you're going to be less likely to go to Cornell," Huidekoper says.

Picking and Choosing

But the problem with all the new initiatives that keep Harvard on the cutting edge of technology is that they can get too numerous and hard to monitor.

"It's about management capacity," Huidekoper says. "It's whether we continue to do really good research and really good teaching."

With new opportunities cropping up every day, Rudenstine says the sheer volume of ideas he gets makes it impossible to do them all.

"You have to say no," he says. "The awareness of limits is very powerful."

So Harvard has to be picky. Global and intellectual trends help shorten the list; so do the University's financial and managerial limits.

Rudenstine says recent initiatives focusing on Latin America illustrate this point. According to Rudenstine, this region is especially academically relevant right now, so Harvard focused its global research efforts there.

"You always have to judge where you are and what you can take on--it's an intuitive art," he says. "We knew we couldn't do three new regions of the world--that would be overreaching."

But Rudenstine, the deans and other senior administrators are careful not to draw the line too conservatively either.

Huidekoper says, for example, that if the University had strictly adhered to its plan of five years ago, much less money would have gone to the now-hot field of information technology.

"You don't want to predict too much," she says. "You don't want to limit your opportunities."

Likewise, Rudenstine remarks that Harvard did not become the educational colossus it is today by playing it safe.

"If President [Charles W.] Eliot [Class of 1853] hadn't decided to turn a small college into a large university, we'd be Oberlin," he says.

The Faculty Voice

One danger in managing such a large University is that the voice of the faculty--traditionally Harvard's governing body--will be drowned out by figureheads and bureaucrats.

"When I came in 1986, 'University-wide' used to mean the vice presidents and the president, and a large number of administrators," says Dennis F. Thompson, associate provost.

Still, decision-making at the highest levels today is accomplished through a monthly deans' council, convened by Rudenstine.

"Neil Rudenstine is using [the deans] increasingly like a cabinet, [rather] than a group of people from different schools," Thompson says.

Such a move is symbolic of one of Rudenstine's favorite approaches: integrating initiatives across schools and faculties. Often, this means committees involve faculty members from across Harvard's schools, giving them a voice where once they had little -if any--say.

According to Thompson, there are University-wide committees on physical planning, information technology, research policy and intellectual property--all started within the past couple of years. Additionally, there is a subcommittee on the use of Harvard's name.

"There is much more of a faculty voice in University-wide decisions," Thompson says. "There's a need for it, since we are making decisions that affect academic priorities."

Administrators are also making a point of keeping new initiatives under Harvard's academic umbrella--running them through the schools instead of setting them up independently.

"You handle growth by making sure that the new activities have a home in an established school," Thompson says. "That's essential--and it's happening,"

HIID: A Case Study

Last week, a University task force recommended the Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID) be dissolved.

The fate of this decades-old consulting operation provides a glimpse into the problems and potential solutions of a burgeoning University.

At its largest, HIID outsized some Harvard graduate schools with a budget of about $40 million. But the task force cited the institute's size and lack of integration into the University's academic mission as reasons it should go.

"Many of those who replied to the Task Force observed that HIID had not effectively linked its activities with other parts of Harvard," the report reads.

"Given the fact that it's big and far-flung, it needs to be closely connected to the schools," Thompson says.

The task force concluded six months of discussion about HIID by suggesting the institute's functions be distributed among University graduate schools.

"It's not that we should be worried about expansion or bigness," he says. "It's how the different parts of the University relate to one another."

Making sure expansion fits in with teaching and research is the key, Thompson says.

"How can we coordinate and manage in ways that benefit the University as a whole?" Thompson asks. "That's both a problem and an opportunity. That's not so much the result of the University expanding...that's a result of the world out there expanding."