Nine Buildings of Education School Are Shabby, Converted Residences

In a CRIMSON interview last year, Francis Keppel, Dean of the Graduate School of Education, pointed to the ceiling of his Lawrence Hall office and said:

"See those cracks? We had to remove 30,000 books from the library upstairs because we were told the second floor would cave in."

The School of Education is scattered across Cambridge in nine run-down, 19th century houses. Most of the buildings were recently declared "structurally unsound" in a University Buildings and Grounds study.

At its founding in 1920, the School moved into Lawrence Hall (1848), sharing the building with the Business School. It is said that William James held his classes in a cramped basement room there.

After World War II, when enrollment jumped and instructional and research projects grew, the School was forced to spread out into private residences of former professors.

In recent years Keppel has tried to attract the University's attention to "our shrieking physical handicaps."

"Our buildings are unfit for anything," he has said. "We practice education by compression."

A Widener staff survey has claimed that the School's size warrants a 12,000 sq. ft. library with 100,000 books. The present library is 4,000 sq. ft. and has room for only 50,000 volumes.

Operation Appian Way

Last year the School launched a $3 million drive to raise money for a new campus. Keppel reports that the $2 million mark has been passed. With another half million the School will be able to cover the expenses of "Operation Appian Way," which includes the buying and remodelling of newly-acquired Longfellow Hall, the purchase of property across the street, and the construction of a new building on that land.