"Intellectually," Wilson predicts, "the experience in Venezuela show that national planning and economic development cannot proceed effectively unless urban and regional components are considered." Organizationally, it will demonstrate "the collaboration of officials, planners, and advisors from various disciplines."

But Wilson's idea is not to transform the Joint Center from an intellectual clearing house into an all-purpose consulting firm. His hope is to maintain "a balance between permissive basic research and some organized collaborative efforts."

While maintaining such a balance may prove difficult, there is another aspect to the organizational collage of the Joint Center-the bringing together of faculty and students from two strong universities-that presents trials of its own.

"It's amazing that this two-headed monster works at all," Wilson muses. "As an organization, it goes in the face of every theory of administration I've ever read."

Because the compromise location of the Center tends to cut it off from both universities, and because of the problems of administration, Harvard and M.I.T. have had some reservations about the Joint enterprise.

Center Cuts Competition

At the same time, there are definite advantages in a joint organization. The two universities have different strengths, and working together they tend to complement each other. More important, because of the Joint Center, Harvard and M.I.T. are not directly competing for graduate students and faculty in these areas.

For the future, Wilson's first worry is money. In a year-and-a-half, when the present Ford Foundation grant runs out, "there may be no Joint Center." While the Ford money is only about one-fourth of the budget, it is the Center's only unrestricted money. Without it, Wilson feels, "we would be faced with the necessity of hustling contracts, and we would begin to dance to the piper's tune."

Beyond money problems, Wilson hopes for some concentration on basic research in Boston in the next few years, "though Boston would probably scream-they like intellectuals only in principle." But, Wilson says, "I think it would be good for the two universities, and in the long run it would be good for the region as well."

"Such research would be a major step in our constant battle to seduce faculty and students out of Widener Library into the real world. The real enemy of the Joint Center is not any of its more obvious attackers. The real enemy is Widener."