Besides the over 40 academic departments that offer students many hundreds of classes in dozens of subject areas ranging from art history to chemistry, Harvard also has a multitude of centers that study different regions around the world.

Currently housed in separate buildings throughout the campus, the centers will soon reside, with the Department of Government, in a new complex called the Knafel Center for Government and International Studies.

Over the last 50 years more than 10 centers have been established. The first was the Davis Center for Russian Studies, established in the early 1950s, and the trend continues with the Harvard University Asia Center, founded just three years ago.

The role of these centers may not always be clear to students at the College, and in fact, there has been criticism that they do not actively involve undergraduates as much as they should.

But, as these research institutes have expanded both in number and size over the last half-century, their relationship to undergraduates and graduates has strengthened.

"As any international center director will tell you, I am vigilant and insistent that these scholarly affiliations actually enrich the educational opportunities for undergraduates in the College and graduate students in GSAS," Dean of Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles writes in an e-mail.

In fact, the two centers that opened during Knowles's tenure as dean have created an active connection with undergraduate and graduate students that the older centers have yet to achieve.

A New Direction