Harvard is raising $2.1 billion through its new University Campaign, and Joshua L. Distler '97 has a suggestion about where some of it should go.

"If they're raising all this money, why can't they do something about tuition?" asks Distler, who like all undergraduates will see his yearly contribution to Harvard crack $25,000 next year. "That should be their first priority."

Like Distler, most undergraduates have ideas on how to spend the pot of cash their alma mater is amassing. They ought to. Students--though not those at Harvard now--will be affected more than anyone else by the transformations the money will cause.

Everything from where first-years eat, to the topics of Law School Courses, to the pictures in the Fogg Art Museum, to the way undergraduates communicate will be shaped by the five-year campaign.

It will "prepare Harvard for the next century," says campaign co-chair Robert G. Stone Jr. '45 and in the process decide what the University will look like for students of the future.

Administrators' Priorities

The campaign's goals, of course, are not decided by the students.

Administrators--the deans of Harvard's 10 schools and the University vice-presidents--set the priorities.

The first concern, or at least the area that will eat the most money, is the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

Perhaps the most significant longterm change the FAS funds will spark is to bring Harvard into the future technologically.

Hookups in the houses and first year dorms have already put Harvard on-line and given students access to the resources of the Internet, a global data communications network.

Students now communicate with each other, get course assignments, read the newspaper and even meet dating prospects over the Internet.

The new funds could add to the Harvard Arts and Sciences Computer Services' overburdened staff and bring Harvard closer to a par with schools like MIT and Dartmouth.

"I think money put into the student network will really help a lot of students," says Kevin G. Breney '97.

The funds will also be used to add to the FAS faculty, giving much-needed support to technical fields which could have broad impact in a rapidly advancing society.