"There's got to be a clear place where there's somebody who knows or feels it's his responsibility. That's something that is not clear in this situation," said Parsons.

He said he instructed building superintendents after the accident to "by all means follow procedure, but be alert beyond that."

Repairing the Hazard

The railing gap which caused the entire problem was simply patched up this spring. Workmen installed stiff wire grids on all the railings around the building the week after the accident at a cost of approximately $10,000, according to Parsons.

A committee of Parsons, Carpenter officials, professors, and architects met this month to design a permanent solution for the wide Carpenter railings, Parsons said. The committee commissioned Boston architectural firm Wallace Floyd Associates to design changes, which may include scrapping the current railings and constructing safer ones, or adding permanent covers to the existing railings.

But repairs for the accident stretched beyond the Carpenter Center railing, as Harvard aimed to sort out its bureaucratic jumble and prevent such a mix-up in the future.

Following the accident, Harvard sped up plans to check campus buildings for danger zones. Now superintendents will be encouraged to inspect their own buildings on a regular basis, using a standard checklists of hazards and acting under the FAS coordination. Although Harvard Insurance Office director Annemarie Thomas said she considered last December creating such a program, she and Parsons said the Carpenter accident hastened their efforts.

Harvard's insurance brokers are now compiling safety checklists for five buildings representative of the types of buildings FAS operates--classroom, lab and studio, office, museum and library facilities, Thomas said. Depending on the success of the FAS pilot program, Thomas said, a similar inspection program may be adopted for all Harvard buildings, which number more than 500.