Additionally, the Capital Campaign gave him the leeway to implement change on a physical level. Under Rudenstine’s leadership, Harvard renovated landmarks such as Memorial Hall and the Harvard Union extensively. Five years and $65 million went into overhauling first-year residence halls and other Yard buildings. The University reconditioned Holyoke Center and William James Hall. The business school, the law school, the medical school and the College began countless new construction projects.

The projects played into Rudenstine’s fundamental goal for the University—to knit the faculties together. The remodeling of the Harvard Union paved the way for a new, centralized humanities complex, The Barker Center for the Humanities. Likewise, restoration of the 140-year-old Boylston Hall brought together five other humanities departments.

Changes to Harvard’s campus ranged from renovation to acquisition.

Before Rudenstine’s arrival, the University bid for 52 acres in Allston under a different name. The actual deal went through under his tenure, and when word leaked out that the buyer was Harvard, town-gown relations, already tenuous, spiraled downward. Rudenstine, in retrospect, readily admits his mistake.

“I think that was not something I did well, and it upset a lot of people, made them wary,” Rudenstine told The Crimson last May.

Despite the damage done to Harvard’s image, Associate Provost Dennis F. Thompson points out that the purchase of the Allston land—which some have dubbed the “Rudenstine campus”—exemplifies Rudenstine’s vision for the future.

“In the long view of Harvard’s history, it will be seen as the single most important accomplishment of this presidency—on the order of creating the House system, and adding professional schools,” he explains.