Word: moynihanized
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Center members are prepared for such attacks. "We've always felt," Lloyd Rodwin, Faculty Chairman, said, "that a lively controversy on the right issue is a good thing." But Moynihan points out that not all controversy revolves around the right issues...
...charges that the bureaucrats tend to "dissolve every statement of fact into a declaration of purpose." "You tell them that poor people aren't getting any of their housing," he says, and their tell you that you are against housing for the poor." In spite of these difficulties, Moynihan and most of his staff believe that evaluation or urban programs is a useful activity for the Joint Center to undertake. Moynihan claims that the Center now tries to make sure, before signing any contracts, that their clients sincerely desire objective criticism. With these safeguards, Moynihan looks forward to expanding...
...Moynihan also would like to see the Center involved in more activist programs. Traditionally, Harvard has shied away from this kind of project and has stressed basic research. At M.I.T., he says, "they think that basic research is what you do when' you don't know what you're doing"--they have always been more favorably disposed toward action-oriented programs...
...original Memorandum of Agreement between Harvard and M.I.T. stated that, "The principal responsibility of the Joint Center will be in basic research. An essential, but secondary, objective is to build a bridge between fundamental research and policy application at national and international as well as local levels." Moynihan, however, seems prepared to shift the emphasis and bring the Center closer to the M.I.T. philosophy...
Greater activism by the Joint Center is not only needed but also wanted in the community, Moynihan continued. Boston and Cambridge officials do not always seem eager for such assistance. When a non-profit group of academic planners who call themselves Urban Planning Aid (UPA) recently helped a Roxbury neighborhood facing renewal to win concessions from the Boston Redevelopment Authority, the BRA's director, Edward J. Logue, denounced UPA as a group of "tinker toy boys" using the renewal program as "an academic exercise." UPA, as it happens, includes two members of the Joint Center and has its offices...