College To Boot DeWolfe Faculty

Students will be taking over another Harvard building next year, and this time, administrators are pushing faculty aside to let them in.

Administrators in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) have decided to turn the apartment complex on 10 DeWolfe St. into overflow dormitories by 2004. That means the three floors currently set aside for faculty will be reduced to one faculty floor by next year.

Harvard Planning and Real Estate (HPRE), which oversees the University’s physical assets, owns the 10 DeWolfe St. building. Student currently live in the second and third floors of the building, while faculty members occupy the top three floors. A daycare center uses the first floor.

Although administrators said yesterday that FAS has leased the space in the past, they were unable to confirm whether FAS still owns a lease to the building.

HPRE officials could not be reached for comment yesterday.

In an overcrowded campus where FAS consistently fights for space, administrators said they see this as an easy way to gain more room for students.

“It’s a no cost move for Harvard,” said Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis ’68.

Lewis and FAS Dean Jeremy R. Knowles were two of the administrators involved in deciding to reclaim the faculty floors for student housing.

David Woodberry, the College’s housing officer, described the decision to remove faculty from the apartment building as a last resort to ease the current problem of overcrowding in undergraduate Houses.

“We needed extra beds and we tried very hard to seek alternatives and not displace the faculty,” Woodberry said.

DeWolfe’s location—a prime spot for overflow housing from Quincy and Leverett Houses—makes it an ideal spot for expanded student housing, Woodberry said.

According to Woodberry, none of the building’s rooms will need significant alteration beyond installing college-issued furniture.

Lewis said he was concerned the decision will inconvenience the faculty members who currently live in the apartment building.

The faculty members whose housing is being given to students will have to move out by Aug. 1, Woodberry said. But FAS and HPRE have been helping 10 DeWolfe St. residents find new housing.

Professor of Economics Edward L. Glaeser, who has lived at 10 DeWolfe St. for five years, said he has not noticed any resentment toward FAS for ordering the faculty members to move since they were notified of the decision earlier this year.

“Ultimately the students are and should be the highest priority,” Glaeser said. “We’re employees, even those of us with tenure.”

Glaeser said FAS and HPRE “couldn’t have been more on the ball” in working with him to find alernate housing.

Glaeser said there is no specific housing allotted to the faculty members who will be displaced at the end of the summer. He said he has been considering both University-owned and private housing.

According to Lewis, the decision to remove faculty from the 10 DeWolfe St. apartment building is part of a larger FAS plan to add about 100 additional beds to College dormitories by next year—an effort that will include renovations to Pforzheimer House’s Wolbach and Jordan buildings.

—Staff Writer William M. Rasmussen can be reached at wrasmuss@fas.harvard.edu.