At a school that can be nonchalant about a Nobel and relaxed about a Rhodes, University administrators are almost giddy about the "Innovation in Fair Housing Award," it received from the city of Cambridge earlier this year.

"This is a great honor...the University has been around for 350 years, and I don't think we've ever received anything like it," says Susan K. Keller, Harvard vice president of residential real estate.

In the past, Harvard has been widely criticized for its real estate and tax status in Cambridge, particularly from Cantabrigians who feel that the world's richest university does not give enough back to the community.

The award was given to the University after it agreed last summer to sell 100 units of its formerly rent controlled housing to the city at a reduced price. In exchange, the city now allows the University to house exclusively Harvard affiliates in its remaining such apartments.

The prize is a recognition of what administrators and city officials see as a major thawing of town-gown relations.

"Some of our past critics are now our biggest supporters," says James H. Rowe III '73, vice president for government community and public affairs.

Thawing the Ice

Last spring, only a few months before the city council voted to purchase Harvard's housing units, many city officials were upset by the University's decision to eliminate a series of kiosks in the Holyoke Center arcade.

At the time, City Councillor Francis H. Duehay '55 said Harvard's treatment of the arcade was typical of its dealings with the community.

"This is the latest and most serious in a series of events," Deuhay said last year.

But Harvard's recent actions have left Duehay--who feels the city got a major boon from the agreement--noticeably more sanguine.

"The city is getting something that no other landlords have agreed to," he says. "They didn't need to do this for the city and they did."

Duehay is quick to add that Harvard has much to gain from the deal, but he says that on the whole, relations between Cambridge and Harvard have changed.

And beyond Duehay, a broad cross-section of city officials and activists are pleased by the agreement reached with Harvard.

City Councillor Michael Sullivan believes that with Cambridge tax payers getting a $40,000-$50,000 savings per housing unit, the deal's advantages are clear.