Published Monday, March 15, 2004
SGA Asks for Official Voice on Allston
Dean Tells Students to E-mail Their Ideas
By Eric Kinne
APPIAN STAFF WRITER

As the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) continues to plan for its move across the river to Allston, Student Government Association (SGA) members are becoming increasingly concerned that they aren’t involved in the process.

On Monday night, the SGA unanimously passed a resolution to include a HGSE student representative on the Allston Task Force. The very next day, the resolution was sent to University President Lawrence H. Summers via email. As this article goes to press, the SGA has yet to receive a response.

According to Michael J. Novielli, SGA Officer of Student Life and author of the resolution, students have been involved in the Allston planning process “in a very limited way.”

“There were not any students on the initial HGSE-based exploratory committee. [Director of the Office of Student Affairs] Nancy Nienhuis made a presentation to SGA, and I heard that [Director of Gutman Library] John Collins had a few focus groups. But that really has been the extent of things,” stated Novielli in an e-mail message on Friday.

Novielli hopes that the resolution, which states that “student input is critical to the success of the move and should be central to all discussions pertaining to it,” will not be ignored by Summers.

When asked if Novielli expected that the University would eventually include a student representative on the task force, he stated, “It would be in bad taste if they did not.”

Novielli, who served as Columbia College Student Council president as an undergraduate, was asked by Columbia University President Lee Bollinger to serve on a faculty-wide committee when Columbia began planning its own major expansion. In its e-mail to Summers, the SGA appended Bollinger’s personal invitation to Novielli, highlighting how other colleges include student voices in their institutional decision-making.

HGSE Dean Ellen Lagemann told The Appian that she agrees that students should participate in the Allston planning process.

“I support the students’ desire to be involved,” Lagemann stated in an email message.

However, she believes that HGSE has taken steps to include students in the planning process since last fall, when the move was officially announced.

“I do not think students have been ignored,” Lagemann said. “There was a presentation to the SGA and students were asked how we could collect more feedback – and all this was done before the establishment of allston_ideas@gse.harvard.edu, which is a community-wide e-mail site that is checked regularly.”

The e-mail address was set up to ensure that the student involvement was structured, according to Lagemann.

One major concern regarding student involvement in planning for the Allston move is that masters students at HGSE, who are at the school for only nine months, will be unable to remain active members of task forces that will operate for longer than that.

In response to this concern, the SGA hopes to select a delegate who will be at HGSE for longer than nine months. “We would ideally select a doctoral student who will be here for several more years,” Novielli said.

Although it is not necessary that the student representative be an elected member of the SGA, current members believe that the student representative should be chosen by the SGA and not the administration, according to Novielli.

Student who wish to send comments regarding the move to Allston are asked to send them via email, to allston_ideas@gse.harvard.edu.

“There is no doubt we want [students’] ideas and concerns. That is why we established the e-mail,” Lagemann said.

Eric Kinne is an Ed.M. candidate in the Language and Literacy program.