And this is "absolutely crucial," according toRyan, the Germanic Languages and Literature chair.

"One of the things about being at Harvard isthat you see your colleagues at [meetings], andthen you only talk about administrative things,"Ryan says. "When do you get the chance to talkabout something substantive? When you run intothem in the corridor, maybe, but how often doesthat happen?"

The quad, including Boylston, will ultimatelybring together more than dozen departments,committees, centers and institutes. (seegraphic, this page).

The departments of Afro-American Studies,Celtic Language and Literature, Classics,Comparative Literature, English and AmericanLanguage and Literature, Linguistics, RomanceLanguages and Literature and Slavic Language andLiterature will all take up residence in the quad.

The department of Sanskrit and Indian Studieswill also be included in the quad. This departmentwas added only after the decision to includeBoylston, Wolff says.

Committees that will also be represented in theHumanities Quad include Folklore and Mythology,History and Literature, Literature, theComparative Study of Religion and Women's Studies,as well as the Expository Writing program.

The exact arrangement of the departments hasnot yet been finalized, Wolff says, and manypossible permutations are being discussed.

Presently, Boylston houses part of the RomanceLanguages Departments, as well as the entireGermanic, Slavic and Classics Departments.

But Wolff says that a proposal to keep all theBoylston departments at their present sites wasquickly rejected thanks to a lack of space.

Since the administration wants to house theentire department of Romance Languages andLiterature, which is currently divided, under oneroof, "it's not possible to really leave them allthere" while still fitting in all the wings ofthat department, Wolff says.

But simply moving one or two of the departmentsout of Boylston isn't an option for the planningcommittee either, says Wolff.

"We really should consider the intellectualmerits of adjacement before moving," Wolff says.

Parson agrees, noting that in deciding theultimate arrangement, the committee takes "a lotof interest in intellectual adjacencies."

The most likely combination of candidates forBoylston is one department and one large specialundergraduate concentration, Wolff says, althoughhe refuses to be more specific.

What the Departments Think