Actions speak louder than words

Harvard's actions haven't said much about their commitment to Allston, but here is the latest nice words from Cambridge about Harvard's Allston expansion.

Welcome to the new academic year - A letter from Drew Faust

Within months, we hope to break ground on the first science complex in Allston – a milestone in our larger efforts to shape new spaces hospitable to interdisciplinary collaboration, and to extend our campus in ways that will brighten our academic future, benefit the surrounding community, and reinforce our commitment to sustainability.

As we intensify our planning, it seems to me essential that we come to view Allston as a shared opportunity – an investment not merely in one school or another, in this program or that one, but in the common future of an institution whose vitality depends on new intellectual connections, new spaces in which to work and live, new ways of engaging each other and our neighbors. While we are deeply involved in discussions of plans for Harvard’s presence in Allston, we must remember that these plans take root in aspirations for Harvard more generally. They must grow out of the needs and hopes we define for ourselves as schools and programs, faculty and students, teachers and learners – not just in our new precincts, but in our traditional ones. And we must explore as well the opportunities that Harvard’s changing landscape offers to build strengthened relations with our neighbors both in Cambridge and Boston.