Renovate Budgets, Not Buildings | Opinion

Harvard is inundated with construction. Every few blocks I’m met with lines of cones, piles of dirt, and (on the off chance) workers. Just walking to class, I pass at least three separate sites, all seemingly stagnant in the construction process. Our campus is beautiful — but it’s hard to appreciate when its buildings are hidden beneath mesh nets and soil stockpiles.

Let’s face it: Harvard is 389 years-old. I accept the need for touch-ups here and there. But when I learned that the construction of Pritzker Hall — the Economics Department building that’s been under construction since June — remains short of its fundraising goal by nearly $40 million, I became more skeptical.

Though the new building is a laudable idea for the growing department, such a funding gap reveals how Harvard can jump the gun on construction projects while forklifting money away from countless projects essential to the mission of a university itself. Construction contaminating every crevice of the University at all points throughout the year paints a sense of growth — but it’s not clear that this progress is actually an urgent need.

The Economics Department markets the new-and-improved building as a space for students and professors to build relationships and create a sense of community, made possible by a $100 million donation from Harvard Corporation Senior Fellow Penny S. Pritzker ’81. Although Pritzker Hall would present advantages the Economics Department cannot attain in their current space, Harvard is not in the position to prioritize the funding of an extensive project its pocketbook can’t handle.

On the surface, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences has taken steps to address its mounting financial concerns: hiring McKinsey & Company, cutting Ph.D. admission slots, slashing spending on non-tenure-track faculty. Why should such financial scrutiny falter at the prospect of a shiny new building? A deficit crisis seems reason enough to halt plans of new construction projects without immediate need in the first place. And yet, the same caution tape and “restricted access” signs migrate from building to building every year, replacing offices and renovating entryways when that money could be put into lifelining core academic functions.

Thus, the everlasting construction projects protruding around campus reflect irresponsible wealth management. Slashing spending across departments and instilling sweeping layoffs all while preserving construction plans still underfunded is, by all means, the incorrect allocation of resources.

A new building may produce the necessary space for research, but what good will that do without funding for Ph.D. students to conduct it? A renovation might open up hallways of new office space, but what purpose will it serve given the impending departure of some non-tenure track faculty?

Growing as a university requires growing space on campus, too, but it must not come at the expense of intellectual continuity. Moreover, growth need not be accomplished all at once.

It’s true that in the case of the Littauer Center, the existing Economics building, the lack of renovation is straining the department. Littauer carries limited space for faculty and students to collaborate or research relevant projects, and as recently as 2015, it even lacked a functioning air conditioning system.

But amid a crisis, allocating University donations towards yet another construction site is not the collective solution to freshen up the department. Impacts closer to the classroom — like cuts to spending and Ph.D. seats — deserve greater attention than our buildings, and University funding should reflect that.

Most proposed projects are not, in themselves, detracting from the University’s advancement and do pose valuable contributions to campus. I don’t doubt the Pritzker Hall renovation might better connect students, itself a noble aim. But if Harvard insists on frugality across nearly every other domain, the same attitude should be applied to construction and renovation.

Just one block away is a concentration of projects — William James Plaza and a tunnel project running from Hoffman Laboratory to the Peabody Museum, to name a few — already afoot into the renovation process. Construction somehow still finds a way to survive despite other priorities slashed across the University.

Maybe these projects will return a payout in the long term: spend now, save later. But given the University’s current financial standing, the perfusion of construction projects is more a money pit than a jumpstart for growth. Donations and funding are more powerful when dispersed across domains in accordance to immediate need, and it is now the time for the University to allocate resources away from another new building.

Next time I walk to class, I hope to see a little less orange around campus.

Olivia R. Nelson ’29, a Crimson Editorial editor, lives in Hurlbut Hall.