B&G is now charged with the responsibility of energy at Harvard. Goodwin thinks energy suggestions could be made centrally, but the committee would have to be limited to recommendations, rather than controlling.

"Each faculty would want to look at its own needs," he says.

Goodwin also says energy problems occur in so many different areas that it is better not to put energy matters into a separate committee, but to leave different branches of B&G and the University in charge of their own needs.

"One has to know the operation before you can make a suggestion," he says.

Goodwin says, "We make recommendations to the Faculty; we're a service department."

An example of this service function of B&G is the way it encourages the separate faculties to join the computer system.

"We're trying to make it known what the benefits are. The benefits vary. They may actually want to go on it. It's not the same advantage in every case." Goodwin adds.

The faculty in charge of each building lets B&G know if it is interested in using the services of the Delta. If it is, a survey is made of how much equipment in the building could be regulated, and how much it would cost to automate the equipment. The faculty then decides if it is cost effective for them to use the Delta system.

Buildings and Grounds is also limited in energy conservation because they buy their steam in bulk, one reason why they cannot recycle for combustion purposes. Now pollution laws exacerbate the problem, Goodwin says.

Since architecture at Harvard ranges from that of Massachusetts Hall, the oldest college dorm in the country, to the modern Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, designed by Corbusier, regulating heating in the different types of buildings poses unique problems.

If you turn the heat up in one part of a building, it can become very cold in another, or vice versa, Mark says.

Although Harvard has established programs to diminish energy waste, there are still shortcomings. And, as they do about any bureaucracy, students sometimes feel a bit skeptical about the whole thihg.

"I usually have a window open; some people don't open their windows because they don't want to waste energy," one South House resident says.

"I'm afraid to ask them to turn it down, the student adds, "because if I did that, then they'd just turn the heat down to about 40."