When Jones Professor of American Studies Lizabeth Cohen boarded a bus to tour Allston in late May, she was hardly embarking on the road less travelled.

Cohen, a member of the Physical Resources Committee of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), was following in the footsteps of many at Harvard—including members of the University’s two highest governing boards, the Corporation and the Overseers—all of whom have journeyed into the Allston in the past year.

Cohen and her fellow professors got a good look at Harvard’s huge holdings of land on the other side of the Charles river, the area that the Harvard’s top planners and University President Lawrence H. Summers have identified as the site of Harvard’s next campus.

Currently, the University’s acreage in Allston more closely resembles a patchwork of run-down commercial properties than a college campus—the parcel Harvard is most likely to build on first is currently crossed by railroad lines, dotted with gas stations and dominated by a large trucking facility.

Over the past few years, two main scenarios have emerged for Harvard’s future campus in Allston. One involves moving a a cluster of professional schools, anchored by the Harvard Law School (HLS). The other involves building a science campus with possible tie-ins to biotech.

While Dennis F. Thompson, chair of the University Physical Planning Committee (UPPC)—the Harvard-wide faculty committee charged with investigating scenarios for Allston planning—said at the beginning of the year that Summers and the Corporation were aiming to have some direction by the end of the summer.

But now, administrators say, the decision could take longer.

“It is becoming clear that the president is not going to get pinned down to make a major decision this summer,” says Vice President for Government, Community, and Public Affairs Alan J. Stone.

Meanwhile, the Allston planning process, supposed to be both widely consultative and highly centralized, has had to flex to accommodate schools’ desire to conduct their own studies of Allston.

And the committees meant to encourage University-wide—as opposed to school-by-school thinking—either withered or have uncertain futures.

Top administrators say it is unclear whether the UPPC will meet again next year.

Several provost’s advisory committees spun off of the UPPC to investigate specific options for Allston—such as housing, science, professional schools and cultural activities—have stopped meeting, and only one of the five has written a report.

And several of the schools that will be affected by Allston planning have formed their own committees to examine options on a school-by-school basis.

Where Have All the Committees Gone?

Originally slated for this summer, an Allston decision—which could be a prescription as specific as which schools would be moving, but also could be more of a general direction—was supposed to come on the heels of the release of reports from committees and consultants.