This time last year planning for University land in Allston was advancing at a snail’s pace. Neil L. Rudenstine was the lame-duck president and president-elect Lawrence H. Summers was still a passive listener making his first rounds of introduction.

A committee had recommended that Allston be developed as an academic campus—not simply a dumping ground for overcrowded Cambridge, as originally imagined—but the decision to go forward with planning for this campus waited for the new president.

There was talk of uniting the University’s professional schools on the other side of the river, but the Law School—considered essential to any professional campus—had voted against considering a move.

Save for a spat over a tax on the University’s various schools to raise money for work on infrastructure, physical planning for Allston stayed off of the agenda.

But now the University has stepped up the pace.

Summers pledged to build a campus for the future in Allston during his inauguration speech last October and has been working all year to start the process.

At Summers’ urging the Law School is now considering building plans for both Allston and Cambridge.

On the University-wide level, three scenarios for development have emerged that will dominate the first stage of planning.

And Summers has outlined a process, replete with faculty committees and outside consultants, to start work on plans for expansion to Allston.

The Central Committee

Seventeen faculty and administrators representing Harvard’s schools, museums and central administration head up the University’s planning for Allston.

Ultimately, Summers and the Harvard Corporation will make the crucial decisions on Allston—setting timetables, authorizing building and deciding who will move. But in the meantime, this body—the University Committee on Physical Planning—will produce the visionary thinking and concrete progress that Summers has promised.

Responsible for all physical planning that cuts across the University’s independent schools, this committee made the recommendation two years ago that Allston should be used for an academic campus.

But with Summers’ arrival the committee has taken on greater importance. Summers has stated that all physical planning across the University will have to take into account the future of Allston.

Before the Law School decides to expand further in Cambridge, for example, the University needs to know whether the school will eventually be moving across the river.