The committee plans on receiving the consultants’ reports—which will represent the most detailed analyses to date of the Allston move—next winter or spring.

Thompson adds that there is the possibility of hiring additional outside advisors as the process gets underway.

Competing for The Chance

Thompson describes the goals of this first round of planning as multifaceted.

Even though a full academic campus is still decades away, the decisions the University makes now will seriously impact future possibilities for Allston.

Thompson says that coming up with a plan for “phased development” is, as a result, crucially important.

The planning for Allston that has occurred in the past focused mostly on the distant future.

“We now need to think about what happens in the meantime—5, 10 and 15 years from now,” Thompson says. “We want to make sure that when we move activities in the short-run, we don’t damage the long-run plans.”

But current planning also aims to generate interest in Allston among schools and departments now skeptical of a move.

Earlier this fall, Summers asked a reluctant Law School to form a committee to study options for Allston. The idea, University and Law School officials have said, was to induce the school to begin thinking about the possibility of a move.

Thompson says that there will be at least two more faculty groups formed as spin-offs from his committee—one on the “culture and community” model, another to discuss the science scenario. A third advisory group, on the professional school campus, could be created after the Law School committee issues its report this spring.

According to Provost Steven E. Hyman, the administration hopes that the process will encourage schools and departments to look constructively at the benefits offered by a move to Allston

“We hope that after the committees have given conceptual reality and some physical plans to the idea, we’d see schools competing to move,” Hyman says.

—Staff writer David H. Gellis can be reached at gellis@fas.harvard.edu.