Harvard Pushes Local Investment

The planned announcement of the Boston After School for All Partnership represents a major investment into the field of afterschool education, and for Harvard, a continuation of a recent push toward collaboration with its surrounding community.

Harvard administrators and faculty say the move will allow the University to make a significant impact in an area related to its academic mission, while also gaining a real-world laboratory for testing educational theory and research.

And on the city end, officials say the investment of money and resources will provide a much-needed boost to a pressing problem.

Through the partnership between Harvard, the city of Boston and several private and non-profit companies, a total of $23 million will be provided over the next five years toward expanding the scope of city afterschool programs.

Those who have worked to create the partnership say improving afterschool education is critically important to Boston communities. They point to the opportunity of offering alternatives to children at risk of juvenile crime, substance abuse and early sexual activity during the large periods of time they spend outside of the classroom.

"That's the time when a lot of things go wrong. It's usually time not well spent," said Elizabeth Sloane, an outside consultant who helped the University craft its own Harvard After School Initiative--a component of the larger partnership.

Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino has made expanding city afterschool programming a significant part of his agenda. The city created the Boston 2:00-to-6:00 After-School Initiative in 1998 to help reach that goal.

"We know the young people who go to afterschool programs have higher grades, form better peer relationships and have better conduct in school," Menino said.

The partnership also represents the first attempt to coordinate investments in afterschool programming throughout the city.

"One of issues with funding is that money comes from everywhere and goes everywhere," said Kathleen G. Traphagen, director of Boston's 2:00-to-6:00 Initiative. "We called on the private sector to invest more strategically by collaborating and talking to each other about what their investments are. This funding partnership is an answer to that."

Academic Capital

Beyond the financial commitments, many hope that Harvard's involvement will offer untapped University academic resources to the afterschool field.

Under Harvard's afterschool initiative, the University will give monetary grants to programs in the Allston/Brighton, Mission Hill and Fenway neighborhoods.

But it will also work to improve afterschool teacher training, curricula and recruitment through existing Harvard programs like the Graduate School of Education's Program in Afterschool Education and Research (PAER) and the Harvard Children's Initiative (HCI).

Professor Gil G. Noam, who directs PAER, says he believes the University's research can considerably benefit afterschool programming on a national level.

"This is an incredible moment in time when a lot of work across the country is going into make afterschool time go beyond glorified babysitting," Noam said. "This is a moment to really professionalize the field."

Noam also said the University has a lot to gain from its entrance into afterschool programming in Boston.

"[Afterschool programming] is really beginning to be a serious academic field," Noam said. "Up until now, people in the field of education have focused closely just on actual schooling."

Both Noam and HCI director Dr. Judith Palfrey say they hope Harvard's commitment to afterschool programs will allow for practical applications of the University's resources and research.

"We can't just be in the lab, in the library, in the ivory tower," Noam said. "Some of the best opportunities [for learning] are at the margin--in interaction with the community."

And Palfrey said the initiative will let Harvard put its theory into practice.

"If Harvard is about new knowledge, then what the initiatives are about is getting out that knowledge into the field in real time," Palfrey said.

Turning to Students

Many Harvard students have already entered the afterschool field through organizations like Phillips Brooks House Association (PBHA), and Harvard officials say they hope to learn from their experiences.

Over the next several months, administrators plan to convene a number of discussions to bring student ideas and concerns into the project, seeking their opinions on how best to invest Harvard's resources into the partnership.

They also plan to work with Harvard and other afterschool programs to address their specific problems. Current plans include helping improve the recruitment, training and mentoring of student volunteers.

Kendra J. Shumway '02, the personnel director for the PBHA Mission Hill Afterschool Program, said that one of the major challenges student volunteers face is that they simply do not have sufficient educational training.

"We're not professionals," Shumway said. "I don't have a degree in education. I don't know the best way to improve a child's literacy skills. I don't know how to best deal with learning disabilities."

Shumway said she believes programs like MHASP could be helped dramatically through more active training and faculty mentoring--and she said she hopes Harvard's new initiative can address these needs.

"Our staff in general tends to get very frustrated with the lack of professional support," Shumway said. "I would love some sort of structural support that speaks to our lack of experience in education."

Shumway also said her program could benefit from the grants offered.

"We could have better snacks, more books, more supplies," Shumway said. "I could make a list."

And while the Mission Hill program is a volunteer organization, Shumway said she thinks that other afterschool providers will also benefit greatly from the partnership.

"I'm sure there are programs out there who just need to hire one more teacher," Shumway said.

Working the Neighborhood

While Harvard's investment has been praised as a sincere effort to help Boston schoolchildren, the partnership also represents a continuation of the University's efforts to better community relations with areas that figure prominently into the University's expansion plans in the future.

By focusing its initiative on the neighborhoods of Allston/Brighton, Mission Hill and Fenway, the University has placed its emphasis on areas of Boston where it already has a presence and a strong possibility of further development.

"There's an element of altruism, but I don't mind admitting that it's very much in Harvard's institutional self-interest to be doing things like this, because there's a very direct connection between the health of the University and the condition of our cities," said Vice President of Government, Community, and Public Affairs Paul S. Grogan. "Certainly we hope there will be short and long-term benefits to being involved."

The purchase of over a hundred acres of land in Allston over the last decade has raised city awareness of Harvard's presence in Boston, making town-gown relations a continual concern.

Last year, Harvard announced the well-received 20/20/2000 initiative, providing low-interest loans toward affordable housing in Boston and Cambridge. Today's announcement is the second in a planned series of community initiatives.

Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino said he is pleased with Harvard's involvement in the partnership, and that it shows a continuing effort to make lasting investments in Boston.

"Harvard wants to be involved in improving young people's education," Menino said. "Its part of Harvard giving back to the community."

"They're really stepping up to the plate to help improve their neighborhood," Menino added. "It's another step forward."

--Staff writer Imtiyaz H. Delawala can be reached at delawala@fas.harvard.edu.