Every 20 years or so, a new president takes the helm of Harvard University with visionary plans to build or strengthen one of the institution's pillars.
Abbot Lawrence Lowell, the University's 22nd president, sought to restore the "collegiate way of living" by building the College's house system.
Outgoing President Derek Curtis Bok is credited with overseeing the dramatic growth of the Kennedy School of Government.
But the vision of Neil Leon Rudenstine--who will soon become Harvard's 26th president--doesn't involve an individual piece of the University. His self-assigned mission is not to build up any particular part of the institution.
Instead, the president-designate wants to strengthen the entire University by building the linkages and connective tissue between and within the separate faculties.
"It seems to me we have a very, very strong institution in all sorts of ways, but if you step back, the one part where we perhaps are not putting enough of our muscle is in terms of how to integrate the institution as a whole," he says.
Rudenstine says that encouraging this institutional integration on as many levels as possible is one of the most significant challenges he will face during his presidency. Greater integration and communication has become more necessary as Harvard has grown larger and more complex, he says.
"We're getting to the point where we're beginning to replicate in different places some of the same kinds of programs and some of the same sorts of appointments, because we don't have enough capacity to know what each other is doing," he says.
He says that scientific research and education at the University is illustrative of the problem, pointing out that similar scientific work may be in progress at the Medical School, the School of Public Health, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) and the FAS Division of Applied Sciences.
"Right now we just don't have the capacity to think about the intersections across the board," he says.
In addition to saving resources, he says, greater integration will mean more progress. Rudenstine says that a collaborative effort by several schools may yield promising results in areas such as primary and secondary education, health care and the environment.
By utilizing the resources and perspectives of several different faculties, Rudenstine says the University as a whole can have a tremendous impact on these issues.
Opportunities for Linkage
Rudenstine sees opportunities for such linkage existing in many places other than the classroom and the lab. For instance, he suggests that the University might improve relations with the local community this way.
"When it comes to overall physical planning, land usage, et cetera, et cetera, we can't just operate as if we were one school over there doing what it wants to do and another school over there," he says. "More and more, we are being asked, 'What's the University's master plan?'"
