(Early last January, the Committee on the University and the City, chaired by James Q. Wilson, professor of Government, released some of its preliminary conclusions about the effect Harvard inevitably has on the town around it and the role Harvard must play in Cambridge affairs. In April, the Faculty approved the report's principles. Following are excerpts from the Wilson committee's recommendations.)
The University
The university--any university--has a distinctive competence, a special nature. That competence is not to serve as a government, or a consulting firm, or a polity, or a pressure group, or a family, or a kind of secularized church; it is to serve as a center of learning and free inquiry. Because of the devotion to learning, and a belief in the importance of ideas, people come together in universities; and it is an awareness, however dim and however cluttered by departmental and disciplinary boundaries, of that common devotion that makes the members of a university feel they are part of a community and not simply journeymen in some guild....
No institution of this size and with this purpose can be neutral about its environment. It should act vigorously to secure land, erect buildings, and shape events; it will impose, however laudable its intentions, its preferences on others who may not share them. If it should be passive and let events take their course, it will implicitly choose a certain kind of environment--one, perhaps, in which all Cambridge slowly becomes like Harvard and M.I.T. until we find that we are no longer an urban university, but one which has allowed there to grow up around itself a kind of inner-city suburb with a single life style, carried on by professors, students, psychiatrists and the executives of electronics and consulting firms. Perhaps that is the environment we wish to have, but we cannot pretend that we may remain neutral on the issue....
The Community
When we compare the urban environment of Harvard with that of certain other large universities, we find cause neither for smugness nor despair. The precincts of the university, both in Boston and Cambridge, touch on the neighborhoods of the poor, both black and white. The Personnel Office seeks to recruit employees from a labor force that contains many persons who, owing to inadequate education, lack of skills, or a steady exposure to the barriers of racial discrimination, are chronically unemployed or underemployed. Within walking distance of Harvard are public facilities -- schools, hospitals, and recreation areas--that are dilapidated, undermanned, and poorly equipped. Congestion and ugliness are not hard to find--they lie a dozen steps from the entrance to the Yard or to the Medical School.
We are concerned that problems exist, but we take hope from the fact that here, unlike some other cities, they do not seem insurmountable. Compared with universities in many of the largest cities, we find ourselves in an area with a relatively smaller stock of delapidated housing. The poor, black and white, are here in the tens of thousands, but not in the hundreds of thousands. Signs of vitality and change are evident in the centers of Boston and Cambridge, and people from all over the country and the world continue to come here and seek to live, not on the periphery, but in the center. Though blight occasionally and congestion frequently detract from its enjoyment, the visual environment is still among the most pleasing to be found anywhere. We can still say that people come to Harvard not in spite of its environment but partly because of it....
Harvard has responsibilities toward the Harvard and non-Harvard community, but these responsibilities are not best met by drawing up a list of "community problems" and then urging the President and Fellows to "do something." From time to time--as when a great civil rights leader is senselessly murdered--the instinct to act in this manner becomes almost irresistible. But it would be a mistake. Harvard cannot solve most of the problems that face us, nor can it always act collectively to make a contribution toward their solution. It is too easy to arouse false hopes and to stimulate unrealizable expectations. There have been many calls to action; those who issue them are often found, within a short time, returning to their private pursuits.
Further and perhaps most important, deciding what to do cannot be done by Harvard, or some part of Harvard, acting unilaterally. In every area to which this committee has turned its attention, there are already programs underway, organizations formed, spokesmen selected, conflicts apparent. Just as "the" community does not exist. We impinge upon many communities and some of them--perhaps most--are deeply suspicious of Harvard's intentions and capacities. No master plan for community development can or should be devised by Harvard alone, because any action requires first to work out, carefully and over time a subtle and complex set of relationships with existing organizations and existing programs.
University Organization
In almost every area to which our attention has turned, we have repeatedly encountered one fundamental problem: the absence of some central authority within the university that is fully equipped to respond to demands, anticipate problems, formulate policies, and co-ordinate university efforts with respect to matters that implicate the community. There is, in our opinion, no change more important than in improving the organizational capacity of the university to deal with its environment...
Specifically, the university is insufficiently staffed and inadequately organized to respond in a deliberate, timely, and constructive fashion to community demands. Such a response we suggest, is possible only if some central agency within the university is given the responsibility, status, and staff sufficient to speak authoritatively for the university on community matters....
We therefore propose that a new position--that of Vice President for External Affairs--be created, coequal in status and authority with the Administrative Vice President. The Vice President for External Affairs would have line authority over the Real Estate Office, the Planning Office, and the Office of Civic and Governmental Relations. In addition a new agency would be created and made responsible to the new Vice President--a clearing house for university-community affairs.
Real Estate, Housing
In sum, the real estate and housing policy of Harvard in Cambridge can be stated as follows: First, to acquire real estate only for educational purposes and not as an investment; second, to seek to provide housing for its faculty and students with minimum injury to the community; third, to expand vertically (with high-rise construction) rather than laterally (by new property acquisitions) wherever possible; and fourth, to remain within the area bounded by Garfield Street to the north and Putnam Avenue to the southeast. Additionally, the university has since 1928 made voluntary payments in lieu of taxes to that City of Cambridge on properties purchased and removed from the tax rolls. Of course Harvard continues to pay taxes on property not used for educational purposes....
