Several faculty are critical and wary of Summers’ Allston science plan.

At the year’s first Faculty meeting, professors broadly criticized aspects of the plan, ranging from the process behind it to the fear that moving some science across the river would splinter FAS.

Professor of Physics and Applied Physics Daniel S. Fisher—one of Summers’ most outspoken critics—opposed the plan on the grounds that it would divide FAS science departments.

“For many years, biology, chemistry, physics, engineering and applied sciences have been close together in Cambridge, but their interactions have been limited,” Fisher said at the time. “[While] the interactions between them have grown extensively, and the potential for taking advantage of those interactions is now enormous, the energy to do so is in danger of being dissipated.”

Some professor have also said they are worried that Summers and University administrators are taking hasty steps without sufficient consultation.

Fisher said efforts by faculty over the past year to suggest ideas for the short-term future of science in Cambridge had been “denigrated” by Summers and University Provost Steven E. Hyman.

With the establishment of the Broad Institute, some biology faculty complained that they should have been included in planning for a major new center in their area of expertise.

“The overall sense in my department [Molecular and Cellular Biology] is that very little opinion was recruited from the people whose expertise is in this area,” Meister said at the time of Broad’s announcement last June. “It seemed like a lot of secret negotiations were going on before anything scientific was discussed with the Faculty.”

LOOKING FORWARD

The formation of divisional deans at FAS last September meant—at least in theory—new advocates for the life sciences and physical sciences as well as a single administrator tasked with the responsibility of planning for physical growth and appointments.

While Dean of the Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences Venkatesh “Venky” Narayanamurti was named dean of the physical sciences, a nationwide search was announced for the life science dean.

In the interim, a nine-person executive committee—chaired by Cabot Professor of the Natural Sciences Douglas A. Melton—oversaw the life sciences.

During the year, two candidates considered for the post—Randy Schekman from the University of California at Berkeley and Gerald F. Joyce, from the Scripps Institute in La Jolla, California—would neither confirm nor deny that they were offered the position.

But last week, Melton—who in a November interview said he had only agreed to chair the executive committee for one year, as an interim measure—was named chair of the life sciences council, which will function as a life sciences dean by committee.

Melton’s appointment and the committee’s formation resolves the major outstanding issue facing FAS sciences.

And the University’s new focus on science seems likely to continue.

“I am convinced that the choices we make in the life sciences are as essential as any choices we make in the decades ahead,” Summers said in September. “There is a pervasiveness and ubiquity to what is happening in the life sciences that touches every school in this University and almost every department.”

—Staff writer Risheng Xu can be reached at xu4@fas.harvard.edu.