Word: knafel
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...need for the Knafel Center, while neither blatant nor highly pressing, is sizable. The Government and Economics departments are currently cramped in Littauer Hall, with some professors' offices located amid cubicles in the basement. The building does not afford space for either concentration's tutorial offices, with economics undergraduates having to trek to 20 Garden St. and government students to 53 Church St. Moreover, the Government Department is particularly ill-served by the current arrangement. Twenty of the department's professors are already located in Coolidge Hall, resulting in a division of resources and a geographical barrier, albeit somewhat minor...
...Knafel Center is built as planned, the entire Government Department, including the University's various centers for international studies, would be united in the Coolidge-Knafel complex, leaving all of Littauer to Economics. Much as the Faculty neatly assembled its humanities departments in the Barker Center, the social sciences would be brought together in the vicinity of Knafel, with the Center for European Studies and William James Hall (housing sociology, psychology and social anthropology) across the street...
...space for Knafel, however, will have the greatest impact on those who live and worship in the area. Residents complain with good reason that the Knafel Center would further diminish what little "buffer zone" they have with hulking structures of the University, and that it would detract from Cambridge's New England character. They worry about the congestion, both pedestrian and vehicular, that could result from such a crowded block. And parishioners at the Swendenborgian Church of New Jerusalem, located at the corner of Quincy and Kirkland streets, fear Knafel would drown them in shadow. Residents...
...credit, the University has not gone about the Knafel project in the dark. A Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) planning committee has held an open meeting for community members to voice concerns about the project, and Nancy L. Maull, administrative dean of the Faculty, says another may be in the works. FAS has assembled a Web site containing transcripts of meetings, maps of the site and detailed diagrams of the various proposals for the center (the site is located at http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~planning/cgis). And administrators say they are willing to work with residents to select the most suitable design...
Although sensible and appealing in theory, in practice, there really isn't an appropriately spacious lot on campus on which Harvard could build the Knafel Center. An expansion of Littauer has been deemed unfeasible, as has a new building on the current site of the Office of Information Technology. Still, if the University truly does work with the community, with a high level of respect for the historic character of the area and an appreciation of the importance of preserving green space, the project could be successful on its proposed site...