$2.1 Billion

On the weekend of October 24th, Harvard will welcome nearly 300 members of the University Resources Committee, some of Harvard's biggest donors, and other important capital campaign leadership to campus.

With two years left in Harvard's five-year campaign, Rudenstine, who will deliver the keynote address, hopes to rally his troops, encouraging them to push through to the campaign's completion in the spring of 1999.

Until then, Rudenstine will continue to focus much of his attention on raising the remaining $525 million needed to meet the Campaign goal.

Fundraising for libraries and faculty chairs-two areas that have lagged-will receive particular focus this year. Though the central administration fund-unrestricted moneys for the President and support for the inter-faculty initiatives-also lags, the administration has decided not to spotlight this area for fear it will detract from the individual schools' efforts, said Thomas M. Reardon, vice president for alumni affairs and development.

Officials herald the campaign has as an example of inter-faculty collaboration that works both for the University and the schools. For instance, preparation for the campaign began in the early '90s academic planning process, when deans reviewed their goals and wish lists with Rudenstine, their fellow deans and other senior University leadership.

As it winds down, the administration hopes to find mechanisms to maintain this esprit de corps. In particular, the President and deans will discuss how to continue academic planning-and the cooperation and accountability it fosters-after the campaign has ended.

More Committees

Rudenstine will also make more efforts this year to involve the schools in the running of the center and the center in the running of the schools.

Sources said Rudenstine will form a University-wide Physical Planning Committee to review construction proposals across the University with an eye toward mediating community disputes and appropriating land use among Harvard's nine schools as parcels grow ever more scarce.

Officers from the central administration will also begin meeting regularly with the administrative deans from each school, a committee which compliments the regular meetings between the president, provost and deans.

As Rudenstine's vision has come to fruition and the center has become stronger, a give-and-take relationship has developed between the central administration and the schools.

Harvard's deans, the lords of their domains, have gained from the possibilities of shared accounting resources and procedures, and their endowments have soared with the excitement generated by the first ever University-wide fundraising campaign.

But their gains have come at a price, and that price may be the thing they value most: individual freedom and authority.