<<

John Harvard's Journal The Long Game in financial realities. Construction on one hind Barry’s Corner; “a gateway” office large laboratory complex halted in 2010, building at the northeast corner of that in- when the University felt unable to incur tersection; and a hotel-conference center more debt (at least several hundred mil- on Western Avenue—the only facility tru- Following approval of the Univer- lion dollars) to complete it. Now reenvi- ly separated from the existing campus or sity’s Institutional Master Plan (IMP) by sioned as a home for much of the School current building sites. (The draft environ- the Boston Redevelopment Authority last of Engineering and Applied Sciences mental impact report, published January October, the work of envisioning much (SEAS), the building is a major capital- 6, has comprehensive maps and a schedule larger, longer-term academic and commer- campaign priority; work is under way to for the IMP projects; see evp.harvard.edu/ cial growth on Harvard’s Allston properties redesign the site and proceed to comple- allston%20.) has now begun. President Drew Faust sig- tion soon. Construction has also begun But most of Harvard’s Allston plans re- naled the news in a low-key e-mail, titled on Barry’s Corner: residential and retail main unformed. Schematic “long-term vi- “Allston Update,” just before the December buildings at the northwest corner of the sion” diagrams from recent filings show holiday break. It announced that provost Western Avenue-North Harvard Street new road systems, academic quadrangles and executive vice president intersection. Other projects are under way on the parking lots and playing fields south Katie Lapp would direct three committees (renovation of the hockey arena) or just and west of HBS, new academic and com- charged with advising on “the creation or completed (, the new executive- mercial buildings lining Western Avenue relocation” of academic facilities; planning education residence at Harvard Business to the Charles River, and a large enterprise “a community of commercial and nonprofit” School—HBS). campus behind the Genzyme factory and entities in an “enterprise research campus”; The IMP authorized nine projects, most beside the Turnpike inter- and consolidating these ideas and putting within, or at the periphery, of the exist- change. In time, these developments may them into a University, regulatory, and fi- ing HBS campus and the athletic facilities. approach the scope of the plans from a de- nancing context. They include renovation or replacement of cade ago. (See diagrams, page 23.) Harvard’s aspirations for Allston have executive-education, housing, and confer- The committees “formalize a structure come in waves. Ambitious plans early in ence buildings; construction of new HBS for the next phase of planning for Allston,” the previous decade for a multimillion- offices; and the renova- said Provost Garber during a mid Janu- square-foot research campus, perhaps tion. There are three greenfield projects: ary conversation—beginning the process with new undergraduate Houses, fell to a new basketball arena with housing, be- of “thinking hard about what else will go into Allston” for academic and other facili- ties as the area develops. Allston has been Explore More part of his agenda continuously, he noted. The new committees had begun to take Harvardmagazine.com brings you continuous coverage of shape even before approval of the IMP. University and alumni news. Visit to find these stories and more: Their unveiling, he said, formally starts long-range planning beyond the IMP, and in effect reboots the larger process of The Next Level } Mapping the border thinking about Allston. page 26 | Watch members page 76 | View maps from The academic planning committee, of the Harvard swim Harvard’s collection that helped which he chairs, will revisit research and team practicing techniques establish the Canada- teaching needs identified before the reces- to improve their speed. } United States border. sion in light of current aspirations, Gar- ber said (all three committee rosters are posted at www.provost.harvard.edu/re- ports). Purpose-built facilities in Allston may better suit research synergies emerg- Wynton Marsalis on the Soul of Jazz ing in new fields or across disciplinary The bandleader blends performance and storytelling to paint a picture of jazz in lines than opportunities in Cambridge. nineteenth-century New Orleans. harvardmag.com/marsalis (And SEAS will have a large presence in the vicinity now; the new planning will Rediscovering the Unconscious In a visit to Harvard, Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman discusses decisionmaking and happiness with Walmsley University Professor Cass Sunstein of Harvard Law In this Issue School. harvardmag.com/kahneman

Harvard College’s Honor Code? 20 Yesterday’s News The faculty debates a new, formal approach to undergraduate academic integrity. 21 Brevia harvardmag.com/honorcode14 23 The College’s New Dean 24 The Undergraduate visit harvardmagazine.com 26 Sports

18 March - April 2014 Reprinted from . For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 be influenced by what might locate near those applied scientists, by the non-SEAS harvard portrait users sited there, and by shared facilities incorporated into the structure.) Identifying those fields involves judg- ments about how research will evolve in the next decade to 15 years, he indicated— a process in which the views of the Har- vard community will be solicited. To that end, the committee members are drawn from most Harvard schools—including SEAS, on a growth trajectory, and the Graduate School of Design, which is out of space in Gund Hall. Members will help winnow the focal fields for Allston, con- sider faculty and student space needs, in- vestigate how to pay for the plans, and see where these fit in Allston overall: a major role in shaping Harvard’s future. Asked whether the committees’ cre- ation signals anything about the pace of The enterprise campus site is near “one of the greatest concentrations of research, students, and faculty in the world.” Huntington Lambert the Harvard Campaign and ambitions to accelerate the Allston timetable, Garber In the old farmhouse in Dover, Massachusetts, where “Hunt” Lambert grew up, “ev- observed only that philanthropy and ex- erything was broken.” His chore as an eight-year-old was to wake up early and take ternal economic conditions (such as en- a blowtorch to the pipes, so the water could get past the ice—or, if ice had burst dowment returns) were unpredictable— the pipe, to cut out that section and weld in a new one. “I’m a handyman—all I do is but having plans in place would enable fix things,” he says. “I went from pipes to fixing multinational corporations and now, Harvard to move quickly if the means be- fixing higher education. Toasters are my specialty, but multinational corporations pay come available. better.” As dean of continuing education and University extension since 2013, his am- External conditions, aided by planning bitions run large: “to ensure that high-quality education is available at a fair price to foresight, will also affect the timing for the 20 million Americans who need better education to participate in a knowledge the 36-acre enterprise research campus. economy.” At 10 years old, the “massively dyslexic” Lambert couldn’t read, but could It is intended to accommodate commer- break down and reassemble a car. He became an expert cliff-jumping and mogul skier cial space capitalizing on discoveries from who turned into a “really serious” student at Colorado College, where he majored in Harvard and other universities. The site, psychology and business, met his wife, Kelly, now a lawyer, and graduated in 1980. Next near what he characterized as “one of the he joined a venture-capital company before earning an M.S. in management from MIT’s greatest concentrations of research, stu- Sloan School in 1984. He worked in strategic marketing for US West in Denver, then dents, and faculty in the world,” is one- moved to Colorado State University, where he taught, directed the Center for Entre- fifth larger than Kendall Square, the area preneurship, and, with a team, created a public online university in 11 months. Now, around MIT that has become a magnet for Harvard is offering HarvardX MOOCs, with student services, for credit at low tuition. biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and infor- “Besides the 20 million in America, let’s talk about the two billion outside America,” he mation technology businesses. says. “We all know that the only path to sustainable freedom is education.” That planning committee, co-chaired by

Photograph by Jim Harrison Harvard Magazine 19 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 's Journal

Lapp and Rick McCullough, vice provost Yesterday’s News for research, includes faculty members versed in real estate and economic devel- From the pages of the Harvard Alumni Bulletin and Harvard Magazine opment, and administrators responsible for technology licensing and campus plan- 1924 The is Management Training Program, the “clos- ning and construction. They have been moved from the Delta, west of Memorial est thing to a charged to think “expansively,” Garber Hall, to today’s position at University Hall. education available for women.” said. Given Boston’s process for negotiat- ing taller, denser development than Cam- 1939 Each undergraduate House has 1974 Thanks to $180,000 from the bridge permits, the resulting facilities, gradually acquired a nickname for its resi- National Endowment for the Humanities, in toto, could represent a big investment dents: “Gold Coasters” (Adams); “Pio- the Faculty of Arts and Sciences has set up (presumably led by private investors, on neers” or “Funsters” (Dunster); “Ele- a major program of instruction in oral lit- terms to be discussed). He emphasized phants” (Eliot); “Deacons” (Kirkland); erature, including the study of folklore, that no one envisions a biotech or IT park “Rabbits” (Leverett); “Bellboys” (Lowell); natural magic, balladry, and mythology. per se: the uses will emerge with discov- and “Puritans” (Winthrop). ery and might embrace fields of research, 1984 Roger Brockett, McKay profes- as yet unknown, with commercial po- The (reportedly sacrific- sor of applied mathematics, is assembling tential. Much planning, permitting, and ing more than $2,000 in advertising) inau- Harvard’s first robotics laboratory in an infrastructure investment must precede gurates “a campaign to eliminate [local] effort to improve ways to incorporate the construction, but the torrid pace of build- tutoring schools as an organized vice humanlike capacities for vision, touch, and ing in Kendall Square and on the Boston racket violating University rulings and eth- manipulation into a robot’s repertoire. waterfront makes it attractive to prepare ics”; a front-page editorial denounces “in- the site, should developers’ appetite ex- tellectual brothels [where] cheating and 1989 Plans announced in January to tend westward. illegitimate tutoring [are] elevated to…a assign one-sixth of the freshmen to the The academic and enterprise groups large scale commercial enterprise,” thus upperclass Houses randomly are retracted will exist for a few years at least, Garber enabling some undergraduates to pass (at least for a year) by dean of the College suggested, assisted where necessary by courses without doing any work whatso- L. Fred Jewett under pressure from irate support staff and consultants. They report ever, “making a mockery of a Harvard first-years and worried House masters. to a steering committee. Garber is chair, education, a lie of a Harvard diploma.” joined by Lapp; the deans of law, design, Olympians Lane MacDonald ’89 and Allen SEAS, HBS, and the Faculty of Arts and 1954 After 17 years of partial assis- Bourbeau ’89 help lead the men’s hockey Sciences (FAS); a professor of urban plan- tance, the Business School agrees to be- team to sudden-death overtime victory ning who has completed significant as- come a full partner in Radcliffe’s one-year and the NCAA championship in St. Paul. signments in Boston (including the master plan for the Seaport innovation district); and administrators— significantly including Har- vard’s senior development, gov- ernment relations, and financial officers. They are responsible, he said, for “Allston develop- ment from a holistic perspec- tive”: how pieces fit together, design, financing, and permit- ting. The steering committee will coordinate its work with the detailed planning and cap- ital-budgeting functions man- aged by Katie Lapp, and with the schools, and issue recom- mendations to Faust. The Cor- poration’s finance and capital- planning committees will also weigh in, before the governing board decides to authorize de- velopment projects. The schematic plan for greater Allston laid out in the

Illustration by Mark Steele

Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 John Harvard's Journal

Harvard in Allston, now and in development (above left): The figure shows existing uses, ber 2013 such as the athletic facilities (the Stadium is the blue U) and the business School campus. m Orange and blue blocks are projects authorized by the Institutional Master Plan; yellow ece blocks, previously approved, include the science center (the large quadrilateral, lower center). Allston imagined (above right): the schematic indicating potential building along eport, D eport, Western Avenue and filling the enterprise research campus (lower right). pact R pact IMP and environmental report is exactly ity; and as Boston’s building momentum ental Imental m that, he emphasized: provisional at best. resumes and the University’s fundraising But clearly, as FAS, the design and medi- gains momentum, the sap is running again nviron cal schools, and others plan for future re- for a new season of imagining the Allston, 11th Annual raft E search and teaching space; as the IMP and and Harvard, of the future. Said Garber, Attention Juniors other projects morph from plan to real- “We’re excited to move forward.” ource: D S Class of 2015 Enroll Now... The College’s portant aspect of the College dean’s re- College Application sponsibilities. In inclination and intellect ® New Dean (he studies leadership development, orga- Boot Camp nizational behavior and effectiveness, and Intensive 4-day Camp Summer 2014 Rakesh Khurana, Bower professor of management as a profession), he is known Join us in Cambridge, MA leadership development at Harvard Business for building consensus, listening and cre- Complete your college applications School and professor of sociology in the Fac- ating opportunities for others to be heard, with leading admission pros: ulty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), will become and enthusiastic engagement with the stu- Dr. Michele Hernandez, dean of on July 1. He and his dents in . (For a full report on former Assistant Director of Admissions at Dartmouth College and wife, Stephanie Ralston Khurana, have served Khurana’s background and Harvard com- author of A is for Admission as master and co-master of Cabot House since mitments, see http://harvardmag.com/ and mid 2010, and will retain those posts when khurana-14.) Mimi Doe, Khurana assumes his new duties in University In his statement, Dean Smith said Khura- parenting guru and author of Busy but Balanced Hall. FAS dean Michael D. Smith announced na “brings to the deanship an intimate un- • Last 10 years were sellouts the appointment on January 22. It follows a derstanding of the Harvard College experi- • Call now to reserve your space formal search, and concludes a somewhat ence, a profound commitment to the values difficult decanal transition from Evelynn M. of a liberal-arts education, and a warm and Hammonds, who departed at the end of the compassionate personality that accompa- 2012-2013 academic year, to Donald Pfister, nies his belief in the importance of commu- who serves as interim dean this year. nity and an inclusive approach to decision- ® Application Boot Camp As a House master, Khurana is already making.” The new dean, he continued, “will deeply involved with undergraduates’ advance undergraduate education with ApplicationBootCamp.com daily lives outside the classroom, an im- both a respect for enduring values and the 1-781-530-7088 Email: [email protected]

Harvard Magazine 23 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746