Harvard Real Estate also sometimes allows tenured professors to bid on properties for which it has first-purchase options. In addition, there is an in-house real-estate consultant who helps incoming professors find housing in the area.
Space for Igor
Harvard's top scientists remain at the University because they have access to extensive lab facilities. Because most major projects are funded by government and private grants, lab space is often distributed according to the amount of outside money a professor receives for his work.
Associate Professor of Biology James A. Birchler says the labs at Harvard are comparable to those at any research university. Birchler, who came to Harvard three years ago from the University of California, Berkeley, says that the lab space was one of the factors that convinced him to join the Harvard faculty.
"When I was interviewing for positions I looked at five places, and in terms of lab space Harvard had the best to offer," Birchler says. "That was certainly one of the considerations in my coming here."
The allocation of this desirable lab space is one of the decisions every department must make.
"Lab allocation is handled by the lab director, who allocates space on the basis of an assessment of needs, research support and number of students, and tries to make the best decision," says Applied Sciences Dean Paul C. Martin '52.
The amount of funding a professor receives determines both the number of student workers and the amount of research equipment he can afford. Both these factors in turn are weighed in the space allocation process.
"There can't be any department in which the needs are uniform across the board," Martin says. "We feel that it's important to have flexibility in order to allow people to take on extra research and get extra space if it is available."
Martin says that occasionally professors are shifted to a smaller lab to make way for someone could make greater use of the space.
But Martin stresses that the departments try to protect professors from temporary expansion by one member of the department. "We are wary of projects that call for a tremendous amount of activity and large number of research associates over a relatively short period of time," he says. "We try to avoid sudden glitches."
Jay L. Taft, director of administration for the Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and Allied Institutions Department, says that professors notify the department of their needs when they enter the division. He says that no professor has had to move labs since he has been in the department.
"A professor tells us whether he needs mostly computer facilities or a wet lab," Taft says. "We have a varied department, and the professors have very different needs which are expressed when they join the faculty."
The School of Public Health has a faculty space committee, which reviews any requests for major changes in allocation, such as a department needing additional space, says Dean for Administration Kenneth P. Barclay. The committee also reviews space assignments over a period of time to ensure that all needs are adequately addressed, Barclay says. The school is currently considering space needs on a long-term basis as well.
"In addition to distributing space in the three buildings we are now occupying, we are trying to predict any future needs which might require more space," Barclay says. "This way we can try to take care of any expansion we might anticipate."
"The transition is based upon progress in science, and it is a question of looking at realistic needs now versus realistic needs 10 years ago," Barclay says.
Whether it is houses, labs or offices, the nation's oldest and richest university has a multitude of benefits it can shower on those whom it deems worthy of a Harvard chair. For tenured professors who accept Harvard's call, Cambridge can indeed be the setting for a wonderful life.