Share Space Fairly

The recent gift of $25 million from Charles T. "Ted" Bauer '42 to the University is a very generous gesture. As a result, a new Life Sciences Building will be built in 2002 and the Genomics Research Center, temporarily housed in a biology building, will soon have its own space. This donation serves two important purposes: It will keep Harvard on the cutting edge of genomics research and give prominent scientists a chance to pursue genetic cures for diseases.

Thankfully, undergraduates have not been left out of this windfall. College students will have the opportunity to take classes at the genomics center. This will provide a chance for undergraduates to interact directly with top researchers in the cutting-edge field of genomics.

Nevertheless, this new endowment for a science building should raise humanities students' eyebrows. The Life Sciences Building and the Genomics Research Center are only the newest additions to a growing list of newly-built science and technology facilities. They join the Maxwell-Dworkin lab and the Naito Chemistry Laboratory as recent gifts from philanthropic donors in business. Humanities and social science departments have had only limited success attracting large donations. The renovation of the Barker Center was a much-needed step, but humanities departments are still scattered all across campus. And there is money set aside for the Knafel Center, it alone will not solve the problem.

Unfortunately, alums in the humanities are less likely to have enough cash on hand to endow a major building than alums in business or science. As a result, it is much tougher to find people from whom money can be raised for more liberal-arts type concentrations. Without the huge financial resources of business-oriented or technical departments, these concentrations are at risk of being shortchanged with antiquated equipment and fewer faculty. This unfair scenario is replayed on a larger scale with the University's graduate schools; the Business School, because of its donor base, has far more resources than the School of Education.

One way to combat this inequality would be for the University to match a certain percentage of any donation to science or business departments with a corresponding allocation for the social sciences. This sort of policy might encourage larger donations from alums--they would know that all students would benefit from their generosity rather than merely students in one specific field. Alternatively, the University could require that part of any major donations be set aside for under-funded departments rather than ones that are currently swimming in money.

A more ambitious solution would be to convince donors to give to a central donation fund controlled by the administration, instead of allowing each donor to pick his or her pet project and leave the rest of the University to fend for itself. Then, funds could be directed to the departments or facilities that most urgently need them, not the ones that naturally attract the greatest attention from financial heavyweights.

Gifts from prominent donors are welcome and appreciated, but more fairness in the distribution of these funds across the University would be a welcome change.