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Imbroglio Reveals Cracks in Harvard's Bridge to Boston

Flap over 91 acres shows the University has work to do to forge firm ties with Boston, Menino

“We’ll get there when we look at [universities] as strategic partners, and not in a parasitic way. The extraction model is really old thinking when there are all these other things to do.”

Like many inside and outside the University, Grogan sees academic institutions as draws for bio-tech and engineering firms—and the talent they attract—to come to Boston and stay or the long term.

“[New companies] will be attracted to an environment where there’s a yeasty, innovative stew, a lot of contact with industry and a lot of opportunity,” Grogan says.

Attracting businesses like drug companies and computer manufacturers is “squarely in the University’s interest, and squarely in the interest of Boston.”

Christopher F. Gabrieli ’81, a biotech entrepreneur and friend of Menino who recently made an unsuccessful run for Mass. Lieutenant Governor, agrees.

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“How does Massachusetts bolster the biotech industry?” Gabrieli asks. “Not by writing checks, but by providing intellectual leadership and partnerships.”

Gabrieli cites a widely-quoted speech by Summers in which he proposed Boston as a Silicon Valley East for biotech research as evidence of Harvard’s influence among academics and businesspeople alike.

“The bully pulpit is one of Harvard’s greatest assets,” Gabrieli says. “That statement was very powerful and was quoted a lot among the industry.”

Acknowledging Harvard’s potential role in Boston’s development, Menino says he has already discarded the “extraction model” in favor of a partnership approach.

“I’m not a person that sits in the mayor’s office and says, ‘well, Harvard has a lot of resources, I want to take their resources.’ I want to work with them. With the brain-power and the resources they have, they’re a very valuable resource to our city.”

Grogan is quite familiar with the tumultuous, fault-ridden relationship between his city and the University.

Still, he says, the needs on both sides of the Charles make the marriage inevitable, and its up to both Boston and Harvard to make it work.

“The idea is to forge very cooperative relationships. That’s not to say there won’t be difficulties, misunderstandings, even outbreaks of conflict in the future over specific plans and projects,” Grogan says. “But it does make a difference to have a mindset that says we want to work it out. Because there’s too much at stake not to.”

—Staff writer Alex L. Pasternack can be reached at apastern@fas.harvard.edu.

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