Presidents Tout Schools’ Economic Impact

Over croissants and coffee yesterday morning, University President Lawrence H. Summers and the leaders of four other Boston-area universities met with local politicians and businesspeople to tout their schools’ economic impact on the region.

A celebration of a report released today which found that eight area research universities pump 7.4 billion dollars into the area’s economy, the meeting was a rare convention of the leaders of Harvard, MIT, Tufts University, Boston University (B.U.) and the University of Massachusetts Boston.

Aimed to dispel notions that tax-exempt universities displace neighborhoods and deprive cities of their rightful property tax revenue, the report emphasizes the universities’ steady growth even in times of economic recession.

The report concludes that Boston-area universities employ over 50,750 faculty and staff—and while other industries have been on the downswing, Boston’s eight research universities have hired 2,000 new employees since Oct., 2000.

Sharing laughs over their common problems—such as housing crises and tense relationships with local governments—the university leaders emphasized their institutions’ importance to the region.

Tufts University President Lawrence S. Bacow said that brains are the Boston area’s top natural resource.

“The Midwest may produce cars and steel,” Bacow, an economist, said. “Here in Boston, we produce brains and new ideas. We attract some of the best and brightest minds in the world.”

Bacow also noted the universities’ ability to draw crowds to the region. He estimated that commencement exercises attract crowds “larger than the superbowl.”

Chair of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce Tom Hollister told the early-morning crowd that Boston’s claim to fame should not be its rocky soil, one-way streets, bad drivers, cod fish, or high cost of living.

“The single most important factor in our region is our preponderance of research universities,” he said. “The report released today is unequivocally true.”

B.U. Chancellor John Silber cited the joint application of several area universities for up to $400 million in federal funding under a terrorism research initiative called “Project Bioshield” which President Bush announced during his State of the Union address.

Silber said that the universities hoped to bring to the area a biological containment lab which would test pathogens that could be used in bioterrorism—which, he said, would pump money and jobs into the area economy.

Summers said that because universities are permanent fixtures in the area, they rarely gain attention as economic dynamos.

“What is it that is part of Boston and Cambridge that we will be sure will be here a century from now?” he said. “Research universities. It’s very easy to take them for granted because they’re tied to the region.”

Although much of the meeting was celebratory, several university leaders pointed to the regions’ problems—particularly ailing public schools—and called for improvements.

Silber said that B.U.’s faculty and staff have been reluctant to settle in Boston because of its failing school system.

“If they live in Boston they have to send their children to private schools,” he said. “[Boston] will have to improve its school system vastly beyond what it’s done so far.”

Silber also said the quality of Boston’s public education has affected the university’s ability to fill spots reserved for local students.

“We have had to lower our standards of admission to admit those students,” he said. “There are structural problems in the Boston schools that need to be corrected.”

And while he noted the high number of Harvard undergraduates who already volunteer in area school districts, Summers said that universities and city governments should take more aggressive actions to improve local education.

“I don’t think any of us can rest easy with the state of the schools in Boston or in Cambridge,” he said.

Harvard’s Vice President for Government, Community and Public Affairs Alan J. Stone said he was pleased by the high attendance at yesterday’s breakfast of business leaders.

“This was a good reflection of the importance of this study,” he said. “You could just tell the interest in the subject.”

But one area businessperson said he thinks universities could do more to boost the region’s more overlooked companies.

Bruce C. Bolling, executive director of the Massachusetts Alliance for Small Contractors, Inc., who attended the breakfast, said area universities should focus more on working with minority and women-owned businesses.

“A rising tide does not lift all boats,” he said. “There is an under-utilization of minority and women-owned enterprises that [universities] do business with. They should be more reflective of all the diversity of the region.”

—Staff writer Claire A. Pasternack can be reached at cpastern@fas.harvard.edu.