Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) professors seized on a science planning meeting yesterday to voice again their complaints about lack of transparency in the Allston planning process, according to Faculty who attended.

Although the meeting was called to discuss specific proposals for scientific initiatives that could be included in Harvard’s new campus across the river, scientists instead turned the meeting into a forum to criticize their lack of involvement in drafting Allston plans, professors said.

Faculty have expressed their dismay at being kept in the dark about Allston developments throughout the fall. After University President Lawrence H. Summers released a 10-page letter outlining plans to create a science hub in Allston in October, the new campus and the planning process around it dominated the docket of Faculty and Faculty Council meetings.

And many Faculty remain upset that they will have little formal say in a process that could move substantial components of FAS across the river. Summers said at a November Faculty meeting on the subject that it was not the Faculty’s prerogative to vote on Allston plans.

Professor of German Peter J. Burgard said after yesterday’s meeting that Faculty worried a decision on the role of FAS science in Allston had already been made—without sufficient FAS input.

“There was concern that what we perceive as a fait accompli is being presented to us as if there’s a discussion,” he said.

Yesterday’s meeting—to which predominantly scientists were invited—was attended by about 25 professors who did not sit on Allston planning committees, according to Professor of Physics Daniel S. Fisher. He added that many professors may not have gone because of the meeting’s intended “narrow” purpose of getting input on particular proposals.

“I wasn’t going to go,” Fisher said. “I only went because I heard it was going to be chaired by Faculty instead of deans and I knew they were going to put it in a broader context.”

In calling yesterday’s “town meeting,” Dean of the Faculty William C. Kirby wrote to professors that the “bulk of the meeting will be devoted to a discussion of proposals.”

The town meeting, which was closed to reporters, came one month after the faculty solicited proposals for science at the new campus. A long report detailing dozens of potential uses for Allston land—including a 100-professor program on environment, biodiversity and emerging disease involving scientists across FAS and six other schools, a 50-professor systems neuroscience center, and moving the FAS-run 55-professor Center for the Environment—was attached to the letter.

The “town meeting” was supposed to center on these and other faculty proposals, and Cabot Professor of the Natural Sciences Douglas A. Melton said that the meeting was guided by the idea that the best ideas for Allston would come from Faculty, not administrators.

“I would say there were some very general ideas about what kinds of science can and cannot be done given the constraints,” Melton, who is also acting dean for the life sciences, said after the meeting.

But after brief presentations by administrators, Faculty chose to focus on issues of process, professors said.

“There was essentially no discussion about actual possibilities in Allston,” Fisher said.

One of the main complaints voiced by Faculty yesterday concerned the secrecy surrounding a major report on Allston penned last summer by former Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles. Previously, Faculty had only been allowed to read the letter—which argued against moving FAS science and particularly against moving FAS life sciences—in closed University Hall offices.