Kirby Surveys Allston Preferences

In an effort to gather student opinion on Allston, the University will now offer undergraduates the chance to weigh in on the planned campus expansion across the river.

In a College-wide e-mail sent yesterday, Dean of the Faculty William C. Kirby invited students to participate in an anonymous online survey that collects information on students’ behaviors and social habits. The questionnaire also solicited opinions on possible features of the Allston campus.

According to Kirby, the survey is intended to gain a “broader undergraduate perspective” on options for the expansion, which could begin within the next five years.

“We want and need your advice,” Kirby wrote in the e-mail.

In addition, students can sign up for a focus group on Allston planning.

Under a preliminary proposal for Allston, several University schools and potentially undergraduate housing will be moved across the river to Allston, eventually more than doubling the size of Harvard’s campus.

The first half of the survey asks students a broad range of questions about their lives at Harvard. Participants are asked how many times a month they go to the movies, see an on-campus play and work out at the Malkin Athletic Center, among other queries.

The questionnaire’s latter portion lists a number of potential attractions that could be installed with undergraduate housing across the river. It poses specific questions about which amenities students would prefer in a fitness center, student center and new Houses.

Though the survey appears to be presenting concrete options, all parties involved with the undergraduate life task force—one of five Allston planning committees instituted by the University in December 2003—stress that the planning for Allston has not moved past the “idea-generating phase,” according to University spokesperson Lauren Marshall.

Undergraduate Council President Matthew W. Mahan ’05 and Matthew J. Glazer ’06, chair of the council’s Student Affairs Committee, are the student representatives on the task force.

“Matt and I definitely pushed for...as many different venues through which students could communicate with the committee,” Mahan said.

“It’s very valuable for students to be able to, off-the-cuff, say what they think would be the ideal situation over in Allston,” Mahan said. “It’s very important to get a good sense of what people do and don’t like about their current experience here.”

The role of students in the Allston planing process has been a point of contention for several months.

In January, then-council President Rohit Chopra ’04, current council Vice President Michael R. Blickstead ’05, former council Vice President Jessica R. Stannard-Friel ’04 and Mahan filed a resolution requesting a student presence on the task force, which had previously consisted only of faculty.

“It was always a given that we would not only have students on the task force, but would also try to get student ideas about what we ought to consider...for a potential undergraduate presence on the other side of the river,” Dean of Harvard Divinity School William A. Graham, a co-chair of the committee, wrote in an e-mail yesterday.

While Mahan said he has been “really impressed” by how faculty members on the task force have treated him, he wants to ensure that students continue to be involved in the Allston process.

“It’s absolutely crucial that [students] are there for the [next] phase. That’s something we need to push for,” Mahan said. “We are going to have to be vocal about it again.”

—Staff writer Michael M. Grynbaum can be reached at grynbaum@fas.harvard.edu.