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Monday, May 31, 2004 The move to Allston could radically redefine graduate study in education at Harvard. In this month’s Task Force on Professional Schools Report, the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) has revealed the possibility of doubling the coursework for masters students, beginning an internship requirement for Ed.D. candidates, and creating a new interdisciplinary center for school improvement if and when HGSE moves across the Charles River. The recommendations are tentative, officials emphasize. “We focused our efforts on producing a range of plausible scenarios, knowing that there are aspects of these initial plans that we will choose not to adopt, and, that among those that we do pursue, there will need to be much refinement,” wrote HGSE Dean Ellen Lagemann in an e-mail message to students, staff and faculty on May 20. In a scenario described as the “boldest conception of the 21st Century Ed School,” the report suggests that 300 masters students – rather than its current 600-plus -- could enter the school annually and take three core courses, three field placements and 10 electives over two years. The Ed.D. program would prepare a cohort of practitioners to graduate in three years with an internship requirement, possibly instead of a thesis. Ten budding scholars of education would enter a joint-Ph.D. program with the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. This scenario is the most dramatic of three that HGSE faculty will be considering in the coming months. It would require an expanded network of “Harvard Educational Partners,” a constellation of external school districts, non-profit organizations and businesses that would serve as student internship sites, faculty laboratories and sources of case-study material used for a new core curriculum. The plan would also rely on students’ ability to spend two years away from a paycheck, a reality that HGSE has hired management consultants to investigate further. Beyond curriculum, the task force report also highlighted new research priorities for HGSE – the context of education, school reform and student assessment, learning and instruction, and early childhood – areas in which the dean would focus funds and new faculty appointments, according to HGSE consultant Alice Howard. Several of these priorities might find intersections in a new center for school improvement that would “serve as a magnet, attracting new talent to the study of significant educational problems,” the report says. The center could unite 20 to 30 HGSE affiliated faculty and 40 to 50 affiliated faculty from across the University. Many of these changes could not happen in Cambridge given the space crunch on Appian Way, Howard said. The report, which is located in full on the University’s website, estimates that HGSE’s current 206,000 square footage would need to expand to upwards of 350,000 square feet in a move to an undetermined location across the Charles River. “There is nowhere to go but up,” Howard said at an open meeting about the report on Thursday. “People are on top of each other here.” All three of the school’s scenarios include proposals for expanded office space and a larger cafeteria, as well as a set of different classroom configurations, depending on the number and kind of future students. If HGSE were to decrease the size of its masters program and increase the number of large core courses, there would be less of a need for small classrooms, for example. The report also highlights space needs associated with student life, stating that the school is open to the possibility of sharing graduate housing and a library with other Harvard affiliates. “If we don’t have housing over there,” said Ann Bevan Hollos, a masters candidate in Human Development and Psychology and one of the four students who attended this week’s open meeting, “students with disabilities won’t be able to attend Harvard.” Given HGSE’s limited funds, Hollos raised broader questions about the school’s ability to build a top-notch facility in Allston. Director of Student Affairs Nancy Nienhuis said the original HGSE Allston Planning Committee raised a similar concern “from day one.” “We said you should not be able to walk across [Allston]
and know you’d left the Business School and entered the Ed
School” because of a change in quality of the campuses, she
said. “It’s the building of a small city,” Nienhuis added. “There’s no way that this school could do it alone. There’s no way that the School of Public Health could do this alone.” Planning a full-scale center-of-gravity shift from Harvard Square
to the Charles River, the University has released a series of reports
on the move to Allston this month, including a proposal to relocate
several undergraduate houses across the river. The new “Allston
Square” could include a fleet of new retail establishments,
as well as transportation systems that would “make the river
disappear,” Nienhuis said. Alice Howard, a graduate of HGSE and the Harvard Business School, conceded that some reforms may be a case of “the tail wagging the dog,” but that the move to Allston has given individual schools the opportunity to consider ideas previously swept under the rug. Nienhuis explained that an Allston campus may also solve certain perennial student gripes, such as the limited hours of Conroy Commons. Because of the many food options in Harvard Square, the Commons does not do enough business to stay open late. In Allston, where restaurants may be harder to come by, a cafeteria with extended hours would be more vital and more economically viable. While the move to Allston lacks a specific timetable, the HGSE faculty is “in the process of deciding how it is going to decide” between the various options in front of them, Howard said. But Student Government Association (SGA) President Minnie Quach, also present at the Thursday meeting, questioned the lack of any student representation on Allston decision-making bodies. Howard emphasized that surveys, which capture the thoughts of a large group of students, are more useful in driving decision-making than the advice of a single student representative, but Quach countered that a student representative would help with the transparency of the decision-making process and reassure students that their voices are being heard. Ultimately, Nienhuis said the central administration sets policies around committee appointments and that “we…have to respond to the central committees.” She recommended that future student governments should organize lobbying efforts with the University-wide Graduate School Council, which she called “the most powerful vehicle for being able to move the powers that be.” Meanwhile, the school will continue to collect data next year about faculty, student and staff needs and preferences so that University “master planners” can make large-scale decisions about space allocations, Howard and Nienhuis said. “We painted these options with a broad brush,” Nienhuis said. “The point is to elicit responses.”
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