And while the University can count on one of the world’s richest pools of alumni to support its efforts, many obstacles remain.

The University-wide campaign might overlap with—or even overshadow—ongoing campaigns at the Harvard Law School (HLS) and HBS. Rapier says those campaigns, with goals of $400 and $500 million, respectively, might be folded into the larger University campaign.

Rapier says a decision has not been made on whether to conduct a targeted campaign centering on a few major goals like science or Allston or whether to pursue a broader, more general campaign instead. While a general campaign would include individual schools’ goals to a greater extent, Harvard and outside fundraisers say its easier to interest the richest donors in initiatives or buildings that figure into Harvard’s long-term priorities.

And a mere five years after the last campaign, donor burnout is a problem Harvard must strive to avoid.

THE SHOPPING LIST

Rapier says the plan for a multibillion-dollar fundraising drive has been fueled in large part by Summers’ desire to push cross-school objectives like financial aid for graduate students going into public service as well as the bigger priorities like Allston—which will likely move science facilities, two entire graduate schools and undergraduate Houses across the Charles River.

“This is a component of his objective of really trying to be greater than the sum of the parts,” Rapier says. “In order to really interest donors at the very, very high end, they want to participate in something that’s really University-wide as opposed to in discrete chunks.”

Rapier says the curricular review is frequently discussed with alumni and will play a crucial role in shaping the goals of the campaign.

“A lot of [the campaign] is being driven by the curricular review,” she said, identifying financial aid, study abroad, increasing the size of the faculty, and more science education as key talking points for donors.

While the College has begun to loosen the requirements for term-time study abroad, it still lacks the extensive programs featured by its peer universities.

The expansion of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences—a planned increase of 60 faculty over 10 years—will benefit from the fundraising as well.

Expanding cutting-edge science research, another Summers favorite, will also be highlighted as a major objective of the campaign.

“The things that are happening in the science world are going so fast...and they are very, very expensive,” Rapier says. “There’s definitely a tremendous amount of needs in terms of the research and lab spaces and physical spaces and faculty.”

To date, Harvard has already committed to a number of costly and ambitious science initiatives.

The Broad Institute, a joint genomic venture with the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and MIT, will cost the University at least $100 million. The University is planning a stem cell center that The Boston Globe reported will cost another $100 million.