While it is tempting to view Harvard's outreach on the Knafel project as a response to the sharp criticism it received over Allston, University officials deny that assertion.

Power points out that the Knafel outreach started before the Allston purchases were made public in June 1997.

Spiegelman and Kevin A. McCluskey '76, director of community relations, emphasized that the tactics needed to make a land purchase differ from those needed on construction projects.

"We provide the same kind of notification in Boston that we do in Cambridge," McCluskey said. The decision to develop plans for the Knafel Center were "totally different from the decision that was made to purchase the land that would be necessary to meet Harvard's physical space needs well into the future."

McCluskey termed Harvard's use of a third-party buyer as "a strategic decision."

Yet the recognition that Harvard has more complicated battles ahead in land development in the next few years perhaps has underscored for administrators the importance of community outreach in the next few years.

The theme of community outreach is probably reflected in Harvard's choice for vice president for government, community and public affairs, Paul S. Grogan.

Whereas Grogan's predecessor, James H. Rowe III '73, was a former Washington lobbyist whose strength lay on Harvard's political front, Grogan, who will assume office in January, was once Boston's head of neighborhood development and is known for being a community relations specialist.

Placing a community relations specialist in such a high-profile position in the administration is indicative of the importance Harvard is placing on its community relations in the next few years.

"[Grogan] gives the sense of being an activist," said one Mass. Hall official at the time of his appointment. "His presence will definitely be felt in the community."

Building Boomlet?

The number projects currently afoot from the opening of the Barker Center last year to the building of the Naito Chemistry Laboratory and the Maxwell-Dworkin building would lead some to believe that the University is in the midst of a building boom. However, Harvard officials point to the long view of Harvard development which has shown periods of substantially greater growth.

In the historical context, the University is doing much less new construction underway or in the pipeline than at any point this century.

According to the Town/Gown report given to the Cambridge Planning Board by Harvard Planning and Real Estate, only 250,000 square feet of new construction is currently in Harvard's pipeline. That figure compares with, according to the report, more than 2.5 million square feet completed in the 1960s.

However, Cambridge is more densely populatednow than 30 years ago, and the University mustdeal with a host of new issues that that presents.

City Councilor Kathleen L. Born highlightedthis fact in an early Knafel discussion, pointingout Cambridge is the sixth densest city in thenation, and has less open space than even New YorkCity.

"You can't take more space at the expense ofyour neighbors," Born said.

Harvard seems to have recognized the newenvironment in which it is working, and seems tobe making it path delicately in order not to stepon any toes.

Perhaps no one better exemplified the currentfree-flowing goodwill between University andcommunity than Iten Fales, a senior resident ofCambridge who beamed at the Knafel announcementthat, "I am very happy and relieved to hear thegarden will be preserved. I'm overjoyed. I'mabsolutely dancing in the street.