The University's committee on physical planninghas already begun to investigate the possibilityof relocating the University's Cambridgeprofessional schools--the Law School (HLS), theKennedy School and the School of Education--to the52 acres of undeveloped land Harvard bought inAllston during the 1980s.
"Development in Cambridge has become verydifficult," says Sandra S. Coleman, administrativedean at HLS and a member of the physical planningcommittee. "Allston," she adds, "wants us."
For Jeremy R. Knowles, dean of the Faculty ofArts and Sciences (FAS)--the only Harvard schoolthat would remain in Cambridge if the professionalschools moved--making use of the land evacuated bythe professional schools would not be difficult.
"We must maximize out use of every piece ofland in Cambridge," says Knowles.
Harvard's governing boards are sympathetic toKnowles' desire for more land.
"There's nothing to persuade us that theCollege and its libraries couldn't fan out andtake over that space," says Charlotte H. Armstrong'49, the outgoing president of University's Boardof Overseers.
Plans for such a move are preliminary--thecommittee has been examining several differentpossibilities for how to make use of the Allstonland and any such moves would take place over thenext 25 to 30 years, Coleman says.
The newly reformed Radcliffe Institute coulduse some of the land left by a reshuffling, andsome of the professional schools might staybehind.
Harvard will continue to grow, officials say,and the pursuit of a much larger University hasmade one reality perfectly clear: as Coleman putsit, "We're out of space in Cambridge."