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`I See Water'

Harvard and the Psychic Connection

Fast-forward 100 years. What will the Harvard of the future look like? Will students fly from class to class in metal space pods? Will the Harvard campus be an abandoned ghost town of ruins after World War Three? Will people flock from galaxies around to pray to William James Hall?

Anyone who worries for Harvard's future can now rest assured. Psychic medium and North Cambridge resident John Holland, who was featured on "Unsolved Mysteries" earlier this year because of the unusual talents he acquired after a car accident seven years ago, says, "The core of Harvard is safe."

After flipping through pages of various Harvard publications, Holland divined images of what Harvard will be and look like in 2100.

Some of the things Holland forecasted seemed to affirm the actions and statements of current administrators, who view their job as more than managing the day-to-day functions of the college, but ensuring its viability and, in the case of this august place, prominence in the years, decades and centuries to come.

WATER WORLD

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A more ominous prediction Holland offers is the increased prominence that water will hold on the Harvard campus.

"Immediately what I was getting, before lookingat a map, [was] something where the water is goingto go through Harvard," he says.

And Holland cautions that he did not mean waterfountains: "The Charles or something is going tobe incorporated through Harvard."

Although he was not sure if the water would bein the middle of the Yard, he said there willdefinitely be a water system flowing through theCambridge campus.

While it is unclear if erosion is slated totake the Charles up JFK Street, alternativeexplanations from Harvard administrators mayvalidate Holland's claim.

Joe Wrinn, director of the Harvard News Office,also sees water figuring prominently in theUniversity's future.

"A hundred years from now I think the campuswill look a lot different, and I think the riverwill basically be the center of it because thereis nowhere else to expand except across theriver," Wrinn says. "I think a snapshot a hundredyears from now will show that the river willdivide the campus the same way that Mass Ave. ormaybe Oxford Street does now."

The University's director of communityrelations for Cambridge, Mary H. Power, has wateryimages as well.

Power sees "the beautifully restored MemorialHall tower ruling over Harvard because WilliamJames has long since been demolished," describingthe tower as an "oasis in the Charles River basin,which is now much, much larger due to the effectsof global warming."

Holland also predicts that Harvard Yard will bepreserved more or less sacrosanct for the nextcentury.

"Harvard will always stick to their traditionalbuildings...I'm seeing the city grow aroundHarvard," he says.

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