Faculty Complain Allston Planning Proceeding Without Consultation

Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) professors seized on a science planning meeting yesterday to voice again their complaints about lack of transparency in the Allston planning process, according to Faculty who attended.

Although the meeting was called to discuss specific proposals for scientific initiatives that could be included in Harvard’s new campus across the river, scientists instead turned the meeting into a forum to criticize their lack of involvement in drafting Allston plans, professors said.

Faculty have expressed their dismay at being kept in the dark about Allston developments throughout the fall. After University President Lawrence H. Summers released a 10-page letter outlining plans to create a science hub in Allston in October, the new campus and the planning process around it dominated the docket of Faculty and Faculty Council meetings.

And many Faculty remain upset that they will have little formal say in a process that could move substantial components of FAS across the river. Summers said at a November Faculty meeting on the subject that it was not the Faculty’s prerogative to vote on Allston plans.

Professor of German Peter J. Burgard said after yesterday’s meeting that Faculty worried a decision on the role of FAS science in Allston had already been made—without sufficient FAS input.

“There was concern that what we perceive as a fait accompli is being presented to us as if there’s a discussion,” he said.

Yesterday’s meeting—to which predominantly scientists were invited—was attended by about 25 professors who did not sit on Allston planning committees, according to Professor of Physics Daniel S. Fisher. He added that many professors may not have gone because of the meeting’s intended “narrow” purpose of getting input on particular proposals.

“I wasn’t going to go,” Fisher said. “I only went because I heard it was going to be chaired by Faculty instead of deans and I knew they were going to put it in a broader context.”

In calling yesterday’s “town meeting,” Dean of the Faculty William C. Kirby wrote to professors that the “bulk of the meeting will be devoted to a discussion of proposals.”

The town meeting, which was closed to reporters, came one month after the faculty solicited proposals for science at the new campus. A long report detailing dozens of potential uses for Allston land—including a 100-professor program on environment, biodiversity and emerging disease involving scientists across FAS and six other schools, a 50-professor systems neuroscience center, and moving the FAS-run 55-professor Center for the Environment—was attached to the letter.

The “town meeting” was supposed to center on these and other faculty proposals, and Cabot Professor of the Natural Sciences Douglas A. Melton said that the meeting was guided by the idea that the best ideas for Allston would come from Faculty, not administrators.

“I would say there were some very general ideas about what kinds of science can and cannot be done given the constraints,” Melton, who is also acting dean for the life sciences, said after the meeting.

But after brief presentations by administrators, Faculty chose to focus on issues of process, professors said.

“There was essentially no discussion about actual possibilities in Allston,” Fisher said.

One of the main complaints voiced by Faculty yesterday concerned the secrecy surrounding a major report on Allston penned last summer by former Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles. Previously, Faculty had only been allowed to read the letter—which argued against moving FAS science and particularly against moving FAS life sciences—in closed University Hall offices.

Yesterday, Kirby told the assembled Faculty that copies had been sent to department chairs as well. But Professor of Astronomy Alyssa A. Goodman, a member of the Allston science task force who read a copy in her department chair’s office, noted that faculty were still required to read the report behind closed doors.

“I’ve read the letter, and I just don’t understand the need for it to be so confidential,” Goodman said.

Fisher said Faculty were upset that a document so central to the Allston planning currently on the table is still shrouded in secrecy.

“Several people made the comment about it being disgraceful—or words to that effect—that it has not been distributed to the Faculty,” Fisher said. “I think that’s the wide perception.”

He added that the letter epitomized the general dearth of information that he said has characterized Allston planning to date.

“Why aren’t we being told?” Fisher asked. “We’re not even being told what areas of Allston we’re talking about and how much money we’re talking about.”

Burgard said that the issue of whether FAS science should move to Allston at all—not just what science should move—was raised at the meeting.

Fisher said that he was the first Faculty member to speak after the initial presentations, comparing the difference between the University’s Allston planning and how planning should run to the difference between “creation science and real science.”

“[Allston] is the answer, and we’ve been asked to fill in the questions to which that is the answer,” he said. “That is the worst possible way to do planning, and it has been ruining the possibilities of doing all sorts of other things—what we should be doing in the sciences, what we should be doing in Cambridge, what hiring we should be doing.”

Professor of Physics and Allston science task force member Charles M. Marcus said that, largely due to this concern, professors focused their remarks on broader issues of science curriculum and Cambridge planning, so the meeting marked a “shift in focus.”

But Fisher said he worried that administrators would disregard Faculty concern.

“It’s shocking,” he said. “And it’s shocking that not only is it being driven this way by the president and provost, but that the FAS is going along with it.”

—Staff writer Stephen M. Marks can be reached at marks@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Lauren A.E. Schuker can be reached at schuker@fas.harvard.edu.