Franklin D. Roosevelt '04 wanted to put a chicken in every pot, and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) said in October that it wants to put a computer on every desk.

But just as taxpayers would not pick up the tab for Roosevelt's chickens, the prevailing winds of decentralization scattered the responsibility for this and other technology initiatives--making them nearly impossible to implement.

In its September report, the FAS Standing Committee on Information Technology set a goal of providing every member of the faculty and administrative staff a networked computer with World Wide Web (WWW) accessibility.

The report did not say how the initiative would be funded. Committee members later said they expected funds to come from professors' salaries and grant funds, from departmental budgets and from the central FAS budget--the myriad of sources that currently fund faculty and staff computers.

"We're not saying how to pay for it, we're just saying 'Let's get it done,'" said Paul C. Martin '51, chair of the FAS Committee on Information Technology and dean of the Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

Just like funding and purchasing, academic computing is handled at Harvard by a complexity of decentralized units, departments, institutions and people, all of whom have some decision making responsibility.

"Some of the simplest conceptual things turn out to be embedded in process [at Harvard]," said Dean of Administration Nancy Maull. "There's nothing more to say: It's process."

Business School

While the FAS and other Harvard faculties struggle to bring technology to education, Harvard Business School (HBS) has become a worldwide leader, providing individualized Web pages with detailed course outlines, assignments, audio and visual presentation materials and interactive case studies for every class.

HBS professors are trained and required to update the pages for their classes.

"When we say that every faculty member works on their own Web page, people don't believe us, but it's true," said Professor of Business Administration Richard L. Nolan.

Every HBS student also has a personalized Web page with links to their classes, lists of daily assignments and notes from professors.

Members of the Faculty said that even if expense were no object, a highly coordinated system such as HBS's would not work well for the FAS because professors in the Arts and Sciences have more diverse needs and the overall organization is too decentralized.

At the HBS, "the Dean has much more control over funding and programs than is the case in the far more decentralized FAS," said Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68.

"It would be very hard in FAS for anyone to say that certain software shall not be used.... One size clearly does not fit all in our environment," he added.