But Kirby defends his decision to reclaim the funds as necessary “to make sure we use these resources in the most coordinated way for the broader purposes of the faculty.”

Professors say the centralization of financial resources has disenfranchised individual departments, and Todd says the reclaiming of funds had the effect of reducing departments’ ability to conduct scholarly work.

“We were using our administrative creativity for a very specific, and we thought academically responsible, purpose. By confiscating these funds in a sense the administration…was taking that creativity, that responsibility, out of our hands,” Todd says. “I don’t think you can ask people to chair departments and give them no measure of creativity and responsibility.”

THE MONEY AND THE MOVE

While the University’s plans to expand into Allston may not take shape for decades, the way Summers has managed the move has earned him criticism from faculty already.

According to one Faculty Council member who attended an April 25 meeting between six members of the Faculty Council and two members of the Corporation, James R. Houghton ’58, the senior fellow of the Corporation, dubbed the University’s planned expansion into Allston “maybe the biggest thing that’s happened since 1636.”

Given these high stakes, and the radical restructuring of the University that Allston development will produce, faculty have clashed with Summers for influence on the plans for expansion.

At a 2003 Faculty meeting, when Professor of German Peter J. Burgard asked Summers whether the Faculty would vote on Allston plans, Summers answered with a simple “No.”

“I would have thought the Faculty meeting would be a forum for discussion before the move is a fait accompli, but with the planning for the move already on the docket, it seems as if it is a fait accompli,” Burgard told The Crimson after the meeting.

And two Faculty Council members, speaking on the condition of anonymity because their meeting with the Corporation was off the record, say that when they were presented with a report on Allston planning at a May 18 meeting of the Council, the meeting was a “show and tell” session.

In particular, faculty have spoken out against the progress of plans to build a half-million square foot science building in Allston that will be one of the first constructions to be completed there, Summers said last week.

The building has not yet been funded, and some faculty have expressed concern that FAS will lose substantial funding as money is directed toward the project.

Glaeser, a member of the Allston Master Planning Advisory Committee, dismisses accusations that the Faculty has been underrepresented in Allston planning.

“The president has been very aggressive in seeking faculty input on Allston,” he says. “There is a lot of information involved in making decisions for Allston. The average faculty member has put in nowhere near [the requisite] effort, and has a much weaker grasp of the issues and so you can’t expect them to make the central decisions.”

The group of chairs has worked with the Faculty Council to invoke powers granted in the Council’s charter that have long gone unexercised. Both groups refer to a clause that grants the Council advisory power over “allocations of space” as evidence that it should have more of a decision-making role in Allston development.